In August 1993, Wizards of the Coast would set the gaming world on its ear with the debut of Magic: The Gathering, ushering in a totally knew form of gaming: the collectible card game.

Many designers and companies have attempted to profit on the frontier of CCGs. A few have managed to endure and become major names. Some have settled into niche followings... while others have failed with amusing and disastrous results. Elephant Graveyard gives tribute to the lesser known card games that have populated your hobby stores shelves over the years...

Ani-Mayhem (1996)

In the early days of anime fandom, Pioneer launched a CCG otaku were itching for: A crossover adventure featuring a multitude of characters from the most popular shows of the time.

The core set was composed of Bubblegum Crisis, Ranma 1/2, Tenchi Muyo and El Hazard, and would be later joined by Armitage III, Project A-Ko, Dominion Tank Police, and Phantom Quest. Even Dragonball Z would make its first foray into the CCG World as an Ani-Mayhem expansion.

THE GOOD

If you wanted a game where you could crossover your favorite anime but couldn't get in on a roleplaying game. This is it! Want Washu wearing a hardsuit from Bubblegum Crisis, you can do it here. Want to see Ranma vs Kagato. You can see it happen here! Oh, and in the meantime you can also search for artifacts to win the game. Beyond the rabid fanboy appeal, though, problems begin to arise...

The game ran off a "scavenger hunt" kind of mechanic similiar to the Star Trek CCG, where you group of characters had to search locations with the right skills and overcome Disasters in order to get a set number of artifacts & win the game.

THE BAD

There's just not that much interactivity in Ani-Mayhem at all. You go through your turn, move your people around, and face disasters. If you *want* you can venture into your opponent's locations or fight his characters, but there's no in-game motivation to do so. It's like a pair of solitaire games that happen to be happening side by side. The major interactivity comes from Charm Combat between various characters.

...Except that its never fully detailed how Charm Combat's resolved or the effects it has. It might knock people out of combat. Or it might steal artifacts. Or it could do neither. Or both. Charm Combat was the most useless or most broken aspect of the game, depending on which set of house rules you were playing under.

THE UGLY

Ani-Mayhem's rules would ultimately be revised and refined to the point of being complete and playable, just in time for the major launch of the games first "stand-alone" expansion: Dragonball Z

An expansion that broke the game wide, wide open.

Now the characters from the classic sets had to deal with large and nasty disasters like Freeza and Vegeta that no character was equipped to fight against... except, of course, the new Saiyan heroes introduced in the set, whose base stats and abilities trumped any other characters have had before. Even the non-combative DBZ characters had the edge: Why use a party of Nabiki, Washu, and Nene when Bulma has all the skills of all of them combined.

And this was before anyone went Super Saiyan...

CAN IT BE SAVED!?...

Quite easily, I think. The anime market is still around, and has grown tremendously since the long lost days of the mid-90s :P. The big trick, however, is the various licenses. Shuffle the properties around to something to map to current otaku tastes... but no Dragonball, please. Granted, an official revival is out of the question, due to the varying levels of copyright issues. Still... there's more than enough room for improvement for some goofy crossover fun.

Ani-Mayhem's just one of the many CCG casualties you can find collecting dust at your local comic shop, or wandering on eBay looking for a home. So consider parting with a few dollars and try something new, they're usually pretty cheap, and you might be surprised and enjoy it!

SUPER FUJISAWA JUMP!