Will This Game Exceed Your Expectations?

Are you ready for battle? Choose your fighter wisely and play your moves right or you’ll wind up pounded into the dirt! The best attacks and combos are at your fingertips, you just need to figure out how to use them properly. Exceed at just the perfect moment to gain new abilities and strength to overpower your opponent and arise the victor! Ready? Engage!


What Is It?

The Exceed Fighting System, in general, is a card-driven battle game designed for 2 players. Players each choose a fighter from an extensive roster (there are different franchises/themes available to choose from, such as Street Fighter and Red Horizon), and each character has a repertoire of basic moves coupled with unique special and ultra abilities in their decks.

Players have a limited amount of life points and can only reshuffle their deck once during a game, so they need to choose actions that propel them ahead and keep their options in hand open, while not getting taken down by their opponents at the same time.


Who Is It For?

I think that any big fans of 2-player, head-to-head battling games will like this one, because it generally has that very back and forth, tug-of-war feeling to it while fighting.

Fans of the different themes may also enjoy this. Some themes are Level 99’s own IPs, but there are some based on video game properties like Penny Arcade, which will be familiar to gamers. For instance, while I’m not big on the Street Fighter game, my husband, who is a fan, found that to be his favorite set. It’s helpful in getting more people to try it out and getting to play as a favorite character can really take a game up a notch.

I think that ages 12+ would be a good recommendation as well. The system isn’t too tough overall, but some abilities or combos can be a bit tricky. Plus, there is a bunch of strategy and reacting to what’s happening based on what action cards you have available to you in hand, so younger audiences may not pick up on that as quickly.


Contents + Quality

Cards – The cards in all the sets I looked at were pretty standard, not bad at all. The art is attractive and varied for differently named cards as well which is great. Some of the Seventh Cross  cards are also foiled, which was super neat.

The text on the cards is also well done for the most part – everything is easy to understand. The Street Fighter cards had a bit of an edge here as the Boosts at the bottom of the cards were the easiest to denote on this set since they had a bright yellow background.

Rules – The Street Fighter rules were much better formatted and easier to navigate than the Seventh Cross rule book. The former was a normal rule book to flip through while the latter was a giant fold out rule sheet that was hard to make quick reference of if you had a rule question while playing. Both, though, had useful examples and illustrations to help with learning the system. Though I know you can’t play the solo fighters alone, I was surprised Carl Swangee did not come with a rules card of any kind with just a quick reference or detail on some of his cards. I didn’t have any real questions arise playing him, but it was still surprising to me.

Storage/Boxes – The deck boxes are nice and fit the character decks with a bit of extra space. I’m not sure if it’s enough space to sleeve them all, however. Those then fit in the game boxes alongside the rules with plenty of room to spare, so the deck boxes do slide around a little. There is no container for the arena cards given, so you can either put them in one of the character boxes or, what we did was, bag them separately.

Playmat – This is sold separately from the games themselves, but I really liked this as an alternative to the arena cards because it made it much easier to see where everything should be and helped me keep track of my life points and gauge (cards used to pay for Ultra attacks) easily.


Variants/Expansions

I got to take a look at 2 sets and 1 solo fighter which were all really neat and had a lot of unique things.

Seventh Cross – Church vs. Empire Box – This is from Season 2 and has some very unique characters with different forms of magically abilities. I thought this was the most “thinky” of the stuff I looked at because the characters and abilities seemed complex and some even had extra components like a spell circle or the ability to heal.

This set uses Transformations as an element, which give players bonus abilities in addition to boosts, and allow them to exceed at a cheaper cost to upgrade themselves sooner. I thought this was the coolest piece of this set and had a lot of potential for variation game to game.

Street Fighter – Ryu Box –
This one is Season 3 and I found it to be a lot more straightforward than the Seventh Cross set. The character abilities varied greatly from the other set, as well as each other, which is great, but other than that the game didn’t have it’s own unique “thing,” like the Transformations. It was still a cool set, don’t get me wrong, but I felt like this one would have seen a greater connection to players who were fans of the video game.

Carl Swangee Solo Fighter – This solo fighter has a lot of his own unique abilities as well as a killer color scheme. He was also relatively straightforward, but with his cards having little armor overall (unless his ability takes affect), it felt like you had to try and plan more with him at times so as to not take damage.


PROS

  • Turn to turn moves quickly
  • Variable player powers, plus lots of characters to choose from if you have multiple sets – any character can play against any character, so there’s tons of combinations
  • The more you play the easier it gets; really pick up on the strategy and the actions, as well as what boosts might be best for your fighter
  • Playmats available which make the layout of the game easier to manage, especially for newbies
  • Transformations in Seventh Cross are super cool
  • Player decks come with handy reference cards

CONS

  • Nothing is given to track life points, which seemed weird since it’s a main component of the game. The playmat has a nice track, but you still need something to slide along it. Just keep that in mind in case a health tracker isn’t something you have on hand, you can always just write it on paper.
  • While the rules aren’t crazy difficult, there’s a fair amount of front-loading with mechanics and keywords, so it can seem daunting at first
  • Luck of the draw can have a big impact if you’re just not getting cards you need together/at the right times, so there’s strategy in how you react to what’s available, more than trying to prepare since you don’t know what’s coming next

Final Thoughts

To be quite honest, I didn’t think I was going to like this game very much, but it really grew on me! There’s just something super satisfying about setting yourself up with just the right boosts and then striking to pull off a great combo.

I thought that the characters and abilities were super neat and, while I’m partial to the magical fighters myself, there’s really something for everyone here. Plus, there’s even more characters coming out! Overall, if you like a good head-to-head battle, this might be for you!

System Rating: 6.5/10
Seventh Cross rating: 7/10
Street Fighter Rating: 6/10
Carl Swangee Rating: 7/10
Difficulty: 4 – 5/10
(depends on set/character)
Aesthetics: 6 – 8/10 (depends on set)

Additional Information:
Designer – D. Brad Talton, Jr.
Artists – Various (See BGG for details)
Publisher – Level 99 Games
BGG
All Exceed BGG
BGA
Website
Box MSRP – $29.95
Solo MSRP – $11.95
Playmat MSRP – $29.95

*I was provided copies of these sets and this playmat to do this review*

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2 Comments

  1. Hankakee

    Thanks, this review really gave me a sense of this game and one woman’s perspective on it so I could think about whether my partner and I will like it.

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