The latest promotional crossover event Shadowverse is putting on has to be one of the most disappointing yet. Now sure, events in the game aren’t always exciting. Some of the smallest crossovers just give sleeves and card packs for a few days. The Love Live event far exceeds that minimum, offering a new stage, leaders for all classes, promotional animated cards, and more. However, it’s that exact glut of content that makes the event so disappointing.
What could have been
It’s no secret players love cards as leaders. The annual poll for which cards get to be elevated to leader status always gets immense results. Players get super competitive about which cards make it, and the polls are almost always very close. Many would do anything to get iconic cards like Deus Ex Machina in.
The Love Live event takes this wish and twists it like a Monkey’s Paw. We got a bunch of classic cards as leaders in the event, but they’re just costumes on the Love Live idols, not the actual card characters. In addition, the Love Live idols do not take on the personality of the cards whatsoever. They instead stay true to the anime, as if to rub in the fact.
On top of this, we got an entirely new stage for the Arena event. Normally this would be exciting – it’s always great to see new stages. When the Isunia story mode stages were added for multiplayer a few updates ago, players were ecstatic. But instead of a cool story stage or a fantasy setting, here we got an underwater stage with a Love Live song playing in the background on loop. This stage is locked in for the entire Arena event, so I hope you’re ready to have it stuck in your head for days.
Essentially, the event is disappointing because of what it could have been. Instead of card character leaders, we got Love Live idols wearing their costumes. Instead of an exciting new stage, we got something out of The Little Mermaid. I sincerely hope Cygames improves their events in the future to better play on the ideas in the game, rather than having crossover event #1000.
