Little Fighters 2 - The Card Battle

Little Fighters 2 was a hit digital indie game released in Hong Kong in 2000. It was remastered and re-released in 2025, its 25th anniversary. Together with the re-release, a novel was published, and the deluxe version of the novel comes with a small box card game. This is that small box card game. 

This is a game for 2 to 4 players. You play one of four characters in the digital game and you will have a hand of 13 cards, corresponding to one suit in a typical poker deck. That means the numbers go from 2 to Ace. The card values represent strength, and depending on the character you play, some cards have special abilities, e.g. taking back a discarded card. 

Every round, everyone simultaneously plays a card from his hand. The highest number wins, but if there are ties, all tied players automatically lose. The winner of a round gets to place the winning card into a 3 x 3 grid. You play tic-tac-toe on this grid. Whoever makes three in a row in the grid wins the game. If the grid is filled without anyone managing to make three in a row, you can use your winning card to displace a weaker card in the grid.

After reading the rules, I thought the game was rather simplistic. There was nothing particularly new or interesting. Only when I played the game I found that it worked better than I expected. It is indeed pretty simple, but there are some meaningful tactical considerations. I did a three player game, and I think 3 or 4 players will be more interesting than 2, because it is possible to clash numbers. When Han was leading and Xiu Yi (or was it Xiang Yang) and I wanted to stop him, we played the same high number and lost that round to Han. With three or four players, you can actually discuss what numbers to play if you want to gang up on the leading player. It is important to count cards. If you know your opponents' Aces have all been played, you can be confident yours will certainly win. The four characters are similar but not exactly the same. When you understand their personalities, you can adjust your play style accordingly. 

Overall this is still a simple game. Fans of the original computer game will find this enjoyable. Some IP boardgames and card games are made by non-gamers, and these are painfully obvious to us gamers. Little Fighters 2 is made by gamers, so you get a package which not only honours the original IP but is also a properly decent game.