PARALLEL REVIEW: more than a TCG?

GAME REVIEWS 01

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Card Games In Space

Trading card games have been around for 30 glorious years, giving us lasting memories in the world of Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, and plenty of others. They've grown into a formidable genre and branched into the digital realm of video games. Hearthstone and Yu-Gi-Oh captured massive swaths of the gaming population at their height, and for a good reason. TCGs translate well to the virtual world of video games.

Web3 gaming is no stranger to TCGs. Gods Unchained, Splinterlands, and SkyWeaver have all grown respectable communities around their games, while Cross the Ages is downright dominating. But I believe there's room for one more TCG in Web3 gaming.

Parallel, created by the mysterious folks at Echelon, may only be in beta, but they've already captured the attention of Web3 gaming at large. With gorgeous art, intricate strategy, and thousands of cards to build decks with, Parallel is already a formidable TCG. As they incorporate AI Avatars, mining colonies, and new features, Parallel is set to establish itself as a dominant force in the TCG world.

Let's jump in.

Cinematic Even In Its Dullest Moments

Parallel features gorgeous art throughout all five of their themed decks. We're talking intricate, detailed, attention-grabbing art. Just look at some of these cards. They tell a story with a single image; they evoke emotions when you play them.

Boot up Parallel for the first time, and you'll be treated to a cinematic cutscene showcasing a fiery Marcolian general. We get a small taste of the lore in Parallel through this cinematic as we see the Marcolian confront a space pirate and navigate a confrontational situation. Then we're immediately dumped into our tutorial mission.

The impressive visuals of Parallel reach beyond the art on the cards. The UI of each menu and gameboard, the animations for cards played, and the Paragons that lead each deck stand out on their own. Play Parallel for any length of time, and you'll realize just how much attention to detail the developers put into their creation.

Trust In Your Cards

Five different decks for you to choose from. Which will you choose?

Marcolian? The aggressive Martians who seek to subjugate their neighbors and rule with an iron fist? They charge their opponents with relentless military might regardless of the fight.

What about the Kathari? They've perfected the art of genetic engineering to the point that some question what humanity they have left. On the battlefield, they unleash their armies of clones and quickly overwhelm their enemies.

But then there's always the Earthen clan. Stuck on Earth for eons, they've become one with mycelium down to the cellular level. Manipulating plants, controlling organisms, and healing their wounds are second nature to them now.

The Augencore isn't to be forgotten. Driven by the need to cybernetically enhance themselves, the Augencore deck is all about upgrades. Their soldiers may be weak at first, but after a few upgrades, they're invincible.

Last but not least are the Shroud. Hybrids who've become one with the void of space. The Shroud is mysterious, confusing, and deadly. But if you can master its void space, you will catch your enemies off guard and obliterate them.

Pick the best deck that fits your play style, and you'll never have a bad match in Parallel. Pick a deck you don't quite understand, and you'll find that you damage yourself more than your opponent. There aren't too many fail safes in Parallel, so you can kill your own units and attack your own health in stupidity, which I am guilty of more than once. Maybe the game won't let you be that stupid down the road, but for now, you will suffer the consequences of ignorance if you're not careful.

Winning in Parallel, at least for me, was all about controlling the board and having a larger attack economy than your opponent. Once you gain control of the board and establish a foothold, it's crazy hard for your opponent to recover and bounce back. Control early usually means control throughout.

When I first started getting into the gameplay of Parallel, I thought completing the missions and climbing the ranks of the battle pass would take forever. But once I figured out reliable strategies with my decks, games didn't take so long. And when games stopped taking 30 minutes to complete, I powered through my missions easily enough.

Web3 Integrations

While you begin with a simple starter deck in rookie mode, the game encourages you to explore their marketplace and purchase a few cards outside rookie mode. Each card is an NFT; you can buy and sell them on OpenSea. The more NFT cards you have in your deck when playing, the more PRIME you can earn from matches.

PRIME is the native currency of Parallel. It sits at $3.09 at the time of writing and is available on several exchanges. But it's also possible to earn PRIME through playing Parallel. While most players will earn a small percentage of PRIME during ranked wins, they'll earn more for each part of the Parallel universe they own. If they own a Core Unit (priced around $2,500), they'll earn more PRIME. If they purchase a Catalyst Drive (priced around $45,000), they'll earn even more PRIME. And if they own a Prime Key, a Catalyst Drive, a Core Unit, and they fill their deck with NFT cards, they'll earn the maximum amount of PRIME per game.

Aside from Keys and Drives, Parallel also features Avatars. While the full implementation of Avatars is set to arrive with Colony, an entirely separate game from the TCG aspect of Parallel, players can scoop up any Avatar they like right now.

Survey Says…

Playing through the tutorial and the first few missions gave me strong Starcraft 2 vibes, and I loved it. The way a larger story could be seen through each individual match, the dialogue between the Paragons, and the lore attached to each parallel faction made it all feel like a universe I could spend a significant amount of time exploring.

It made me want more.

And I'd say that's a damn good start to any game. Do not underestimate the power of a good hook. And I believe Parallel has done an excellent job of hooking playing with their beta. While their current build is already fun and engaging, it's their plans for the future and how it all integrates that will separate Parallel from other TCGs. Their Avatars, the ability to earn PRIME while gaming, and the implementation of Colony are sure to catapult Parallel to resounding success both inside the niche of blockchain gaming and the gaming industry at large.

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