Nintendo have within their armoury the consoles of the moment. With innovative control methods that work sublimely in practice, it is no wonder the internet is constantly alive with ideas, rumours, requests and concepts for remaking and restyling games for the Wii and DS. Frequently we have been pleasantly surprised with the results, which is why it was a moment of supreme joy when we realised SNK Playmore were to bring out their awesome Neo Geo Pocket killer app for the wonderful DS. A simple, yet crystal-meth-addictive card-battling game featuring characters from both Capcom and SNK universes. How could they possible fail?

On the surface, the Card Fighters formula is simple. A card-battling game, that is probably the ultimate evolution of Top Trumps, mixed with a seasoning of Far-Eastern RPG madness. You start out with a deck of 50 cards. These are split into three distinct groups: characters, action cards, and counter cards. You slap down your character cards at a cost of however many Force Icons. The number of Force Icons you have is dependent on how many cards are in play at any particular time. Each card has Battle Points and Hit Points; and when it is your turn, you can choose to attack your opponents’ cards with your characters. If your opponent doesn't defend against your onslaught, you'll damage their character. The whole thing ends when one of the participants runs out of hit points or cards in their deck.

The Card Fighters franchise is set apart in that it uses characters from the plethora of SNK and Capcom games on the cards. The selection of characters is enormous, encompassing just about everyone you would expect from both sides of the fence. The DS version even adds some newer faces from titles like Phoenix Wright and some of the lesser known SNK fighters such as Ninja Masters. All of the cards look great. Some of them have special abilities that can be used in battles in exchange for Force Icons.

What ensues when you play Card Fighters DS is no different depending on whether you are a longtime fan of the game, or a newcomer. Either way you are entering a world of pain that only the blinkered or the foolhardy will wish to exist in for more than a cursory amount of time.

The first thing you notice is the sparse presentation. There is only one available option from the get-go (“START”), and this is served up with some caterwaulingly poor music that sounds like something from the worst kiddified anime trash you can think of, filtered through the Cartoon Network. Delve into the game and it is soon apparent that something is very, very wrong. The story, which is abysmal whichever way you want to look at it, is presented in the worst possible way. Generic characters (pink-haired girl with big puppy dog eyes, spiky-haired lad with equally large eyes, enigmatic “Is he or isn’t he a baddie?” type with spiky hair and oversized, yet mean-looking eyes blah blah blah, ad nauseam), and the ridiculous notion that a computer has brainwashed and taken control of a tower block full of card-fighting types. The hero of the day must defeat this computer (itself un-scarily named “Max”) by defeating each of these zombified deck shufflers in card-battling one-on-one action on all 21 floors of the building.

Not content with the fact that the plot itself is utter tripe, the developers have dealt a crippling double blow by ensuring that the English localisation is horrifyingly bad. We have always known SNK are capable of a bit of the old Engrish from time to time (“VIOLENT FIGHTING TO COME AGAIN!”), but never thought that they would be as daft as to port anything with a bit of complexity to its text in such a cowboy fashion. At certain points entire conversations between characters are completely indecipherable, and the in-game tutorial that supposedly teaches you how to play the game is like solving some kind of cruel riddle. And you can forget about learning what special attributes are available to you when you obtain a new card. Because the description will not make an ounce of sense!

Even if you persevere with the soul-destroying language on display, the gameplay manages to steer considerably wide of the near-perfection on offer to NGPC owners. For starters it is numbingly easy to beat most CPU opponents. The tactical side of things has been seemingly thrown out of the window, because most of the time you will not have to pre-empt battles by selecting cards with any sort of logic. The standard deck you get from the start usually serves you just fine, so any customisation will merely prolong your agony. Wi-fi play is available, and is perhaps the only saving grace on offer, as you can trade cards and battle with human opponents rather than the ignorant waves of empty-headed computer drones you face when playing on your own. But let’s face it, finding another person who owns the cart and then actually colluding with them to play it together is a bit sick.

As you grind your way through each drab, uninspiring level, speaking to NPCs, fighting with uninteresting anime clichés and visiting shops to obtain cards that bosses have annoyingly demanded you bring to the table in order to progress, it soon becomes apparent that the controls and implementation of the actual battle system are just as clunky as the sub-All Your Base travesty of the text. The DS has the marvellous advantage of stylus control, for chrissakes – yet it is used only minimally. Despite the fact that the game was programmed for a console that uniquely has two screens, the action is packed in inappropriately, particularly on the bottom of the clamshell, and when the cards are actually in play they are reduced to tiny indecipherable squares.

It is difficult to continue writing about such an abortion of a game experience, particularly one which so many longtime fans were looking forward to. But it remains to be said that apart from the dismal presentation, game engine, story, controls, sonics and gameplay, SNK Playmore had one further surprise in store, as all of the first batch of game cards come with a splendid bug, which means once you have completed the game the first time, it is guaranteed to crash once you reach the 9th floor of the tower the second time around.

Now despite what some of the more rabid Neo Geo fans of old might have you believe, SNK Playmore are not the Devil incarnate, nor are they a company who ignore their fans. Recent compilation releases have been first class across the board, and some super arcade titles have been surfacing, even in Western territories. Unfortunately, in-house updates of old favourites do not seem to be their forte, as this and Metal Slug (3D version) have demonstrated so conclusively. In the case of Card Fighters, not only have they pulverised a once-revered franchise to kingdom come, but they have also shown a massive hole in their testing procedures in shipping a game that doesn’t work properly. Promises have been made by company big cheeses to rectify this error, but unless they hire someone to completely re-program the game, it is unlikely that anyone who has purchased the game will be inclined to play it through a second time even if they do perform the fix. A shocking effort, then, and one of the more memorable disasters in recent games history.