in the intro a character gets poisoned and the poison is colored purple

in game the poison is green

literally unplayable

While I absolutely adore this game, it is not easy to recommend it to others. This game's core design is extremely beginner unfriendly, despite the devs best attempts to help new players. As this game, whether intentional or not, is structured so the rich get richer.

When you first start playing this game the first couple hours will be a hazing period of constant sensory overload, getting your ass handed to you by things you don't understand, and only being given a basic description of what you experienced at the end of the match. The only way to get the full explanation and stats of a card is to unlock it, and since, as of writing this review, there are roughly 74 unlockable cards in the game. So unlocking all of them will take quite a long time for someone starting fresh due to the Card Pecks being complete RNG with few ways to mitigate it.

To add onto the confusion is the Perk System. A well intentioned idea to help give new players, who are usually a low rank, an edge when they get matched against higher ranked players in the form of Perk Cards. Perk Cards are buff cards with a light green border that are automatically used right before a round starts and only applies the to low ranked player, not their teammates.

I feel the need to explain this because there is no explanation for this system in-game, which confuses new and returning players alike. There is also no way to opt out of receiving Perk Cards, so someone like me who plays the game casually (and is usually a mid to low rank) will still be given Perk Cards despite having 200+ hours in the game. Winning with the help of Perk Cards tends to cheapen most victories.

You will lose over and over again.
But eventually your options will expand.
You'll unlock new characters, you'll unlock new cards, and the cards you own will level up and get stronger. And eventually, you'll start winning more and more consistently. However, due to card progression being entirely RNG some players will get ahead faster than others, so it's best to focus on what you find fun rather than trying to optimize winning. Everyone has fun in different ways, so this aspect of the game won't appeal to everyone.

That's what got me hooked on this game. It's very similar to Team Fortress 2 for me, which is the only other PvP game I've ever found consistently enjoyable. It's a game where I can improve my mechanical skills, knowledge of all the systems, and feel like I've earned my wins. But it's also a silly game with a lot of random elements to it, and by proxy a lot of dumb strategies to experiment with, so it's best to not take things too seriously and just focus on the little things that you find enjoyable.

Granted there will always be those matches where your opponent gets all the best card synergies and you draw all the crappy ones, but hey, that's just how card games can be at times. It doesn't help that the current meta of this game is to make it impossible for your opponent to play the game, usually by spamming all the disabling cards, stacking card effects with Card Profaner, and using Mindblowing and/or Akimbo + Snipers/Shotguns to one shot most characters from across the map.

There will be times where you finally get a weapon card you've been looking forward to using and as soon as you try to use it your opponent will delete it or steal it or both. Or sometimes they'll place down a bunch of turrets and camp in a corner waiting for you to attack them cause they have nothing better to do with their time on this mortal plane. But from my experience the people who play like that aren't the majority.

Even after all my hours in this game there are still some basic card combos that just completely shut me down, so don't feel bad if some cards still stunlock you after a dozen hours of playtime.

This game is a brutal stream of sensory overload and confusion for new players (and sometimes veteran players), but if you're a masochist like me and enjoy overcoming that kind of adversity through dumb luck and embracing this game's chaos, then you'll enjoy Friends vs Friends.

I don't have friends