Game: Spirit Stones

Generally speaking, match-three gamers don't run with role-playing gamers or trading card gamers, but Gamevil, one of South Korea's largest mobile game publishers, plans to alter that. Aiming to make these mismates mingle, Gamevil brings us Spirit Stones, a new three-genre mash-up that bravely blends bits of match-three, bobs of RPG, and driblets of TCG. Although occasionally brought down by repetition and missing sound and interface elements, Spirit Stones basically blows the doors off, thanks to dynamic deck-building and habit-forming combat.In terms of narrative, Spirit Stones falls on the match-three end of the spectrum—meaning, there's not much of one. The context is a fairly predictable good-versus-evil kind of thing, with you being tasked with using the power of the Ancient Gods (the Spirit Stones) to save the kingdom of Dulaz (a place that really should be re-named "The Kingdom of Busty Women," by the look of its subjects). To attain these powerful stones, you must first fight your way through various lands, past all manner of hostile undesirables. Fortunately, you don't have to do it alone: you get to take a party of your bustiest—I mean trustiest, friends with you."All joking aside, it's hard not to notice the 'amplitude' of your warriors since Spirit Stones has enthusiastically embraced an aesthetic that's highly stripperific. Even so, each card displays a great-looking character that's beautifully rendered, and there are an amazing number of them. (Incidentally, characters, 90% of whom are female, are also rendered in battle as weird—and slightly disturbing—baby-faced-but-boobsy bobble-heads.) Credit should definitely be given since a lot of work was put into creating the gorgeous character art, not only for the base cards, but for their enhanced variants.(The game's sound on the other hand, could use some work. Battle result screens seem to be completely lacking music and sound, and the music loop during battle is nothing short of maddening.)