Is Lorcana a good game?

Ah, the sweet smell of nostalgia—or is it just the musty aroma of old trading cards? Picture this: young me, flipping through an issue of Casus Belli, my favorite magazine, on a train chugging from my birthplace in Burgundy to Aix-en-Provence for my studies. The year was 1993, flannel shirts were in, and grunge was the soundtrack of the day. That’s when I stumbled upon Magic the Gathering.

Magic has been a phenomenal success in the gaming industry. With its rich metagame, relatively simple rules, tactical depth, and exceptional longevity, it has managed to attract both casual and competitive players. It offered the general public a new gaming experience: the strategic pleasure of building a deck, which involves statistical thinking based on the collective knowledge of all possible combinations, constantly evolving. It also capitalized on people's collecting impulses by introducing varying degrees of card rarity. Magic has continued to release new concepts and game mechanics season after season. The number of starter decks and boosters sold over the last 30 years is staggering, but it never had the same impact on young children than it had on adults and teenagers.

Pokémon (1996) and Yu-Gi-Oh (1999), two other trading card games (TCGs), attempted to reach a younger audience by offering simpler game design and leveraging existing licensed universes across various platforms like video games, toys, and animated series. However, they have never matched nor even come close to the commercial success of Magic.

This Friday, Lorcana from Disney and Ravensburger will hit mainstream retail. Big smash ahead, certainly. The game won't just be sold in specialty game shops, but also in some bookstores, as well as in Cultura, Best Buy stores, etc. The high level of pre-sales in August, the almost doubling of prices in certain brick-and-mortar stores and online compared to the publisher's suggested retail price, the already skyrocketing resale prices for certain cards, stock depletion by scalpers, and the increasing number of metagame analyses by YouTubers all suggest that this game is likely to be a huge hit.

Lorcana is explicitly targeting a family audience and children starting at age 8. Leveraging the Disney license should help it reach a broader audience. The game design aims to find a balance between the rich gaming experience and metagame of Magic and the simplicity of Yu-Gi-Oh. The rules are elegant, relying on classic TCG mechanisms of phases and keywords. There's also a feminine touch to the gameplay. They've ditched the aggressive "attack" and "kill" lingo that you usually find in this kind of game for cozier terms like "challenge" and "banish." Even the interlocking effects have a Marie Kondo-ish minimalism. Additionally, the artwork, sourced from the Disney animated universe, is artistically revised to maintain a consistent look across different areas.

Now, let's address the dragons in the room:

• Will Lorcana attract competitive players? Uncertain. The game's missing those instant "Gotcha!" moments and tricky interruption effects that let you play during your opponent’s turn, which might leave the pros wanting. Not to worry, they could be patched in later. But with only 2 colours max per deck among 6, the metagame will remain limited. Unless they find something else, and they possibly will...
• Family and couples' game night? Almost certain. Lorcana directly targets this demographic.
• Will the under-12 crowd get it? Well, let's just say that literacy rates in the West have been dropping much faster than any foreign or home economy that Bruno Lemaire could ever target. Adults already struggle with interpreting the game's keyword nuances, so 8-year-olds might need a co-pilot who's actually read a book or two. If you think that we are getting smarter in the West, come on guys... In another planet's West, maybe.
• Will kids play it among themselves? Unlikely. The game has a longer run-time than their attention spans, thanks to the smartphone apocalypse.
• Compulsive buying? Of course! The trading cards will infiltrate schoolyards faster than a viral TikTok dance.

And the million-dollar question: will Disney sprinkle in some cringe-worthy wokeness? Oh, would they miss an opportunity like that? Thanks to the game's "shift" mechanic, prepare to see in the next seasons dwarves who identify as tall people and colors that defy the rainbow itself. Because who needs logic when you play content-fluid? Come as you are, be yourself, you're welcome. As long as I can sell something to you. Do not force me to teach you a lesson in democracy by bombing your country!

As for Disney's future, I couldn't care less. No company has canned childhood dreams into consumable impulses since the 1970s or infused skewed values into young and old minds more than the House of Mouse. If Disney vanished tomorrow, taking Obi-Wan Kenobi and Indiana Jones into the digital abyss, I wouldn’t give a shit. But l must admit that Lorcana is a bloody good game. Gorgeous graphics and all, but the credit for the game design rightfully goes to Ravensburger*.

*: Ravensburger is being sued by its competitor by the way, Upper Deck, on the following grounds: breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, intentional interference with prospective economic relations, copyright infringement, and unfair business practices. Can anyone actually win a legal battle against the holy matrimony of Ravensburger and Disney? Good luck with that! But the lawsuit is another blinking neon sign that screams, "There's gold in them thar cards!"