This is one of my FAVORITE games ever (or it would be if the second didn't so thoroughly replace it in my eyes) so I'm so glad you're getting into it some more
Ack wrote:First, do opponents get better if I replay them? I did a battle against Yuri in the Resident Evil mansion and stomped her, then immediately fought her again and found myself in a grueling slugfest that went blow for blow until I finished her off. Is this something I should expect, or is it merely that I got lucky the first time?
I never noticed NPC decks changing. It's very possible you just got lucky the first time. It is a TCG RPG, so it's certainly possible she got bad draw and you got good draw.
Ack wrote:Second, did my character choice at the beginning matter in terms of gameplay or starting cards?
Gameplay is exactly the same sans for the character you don't pick being your rival. Other than that, I'm fairly sure dialogue and such is still exactly the same or very very similar (Capcom's version has Cap and Comet, while SNK version has Shin and Kei). I also don't believe it affects your starting deck either. Your starting deck is determined by game version, not by your gender choice (iirc).
Ack wrote:Third, I have a bunch of low power cards, and my strategies are still lackluster. I have managed some great combos with Ryu, Ken, Sean, and Sakura, but there are many folks with ? listed as their backup, and many cards which feel like I'm using as throwaways or purely for SP for big moves much later in the game. How do I find out what the '?' means? And should I stick to my SF characters are try to Branch out?
And finally, is there any reason I should look at SNK cards at all? Or should I stick to Capcom?
It's easier to just answer both of these questions at once.
First of all, Card Fighters has some really serious power creep. There are a lot of cards that are just flat out bad and not worth having because other cards are better. They try to balance this out by lower power cards usually giving more SP, but there are plenty of higher value cards that have both great BP and give 5 SP. That said, most cards with very good abilities often have little to no SP (like Akuma), but even Akuma still has 800 BP to back up an incredibly overpowered ability. Keeping lower power cards is alright if you want to play around their abilities, but I rarely found it worth it. A winning strategy with the AI can easily just revolve around smashing them into the dirt hard enough with little focus on abilities. They work on that a lot in the sequel as far as changing around how some better abilities work and making some less good ones better, but power creep is a really serious issue in the first game.
Power creep aside, the other thing you have to consider, as you rightfully point out, is back-ups. Lower-power cards make for great back-ups, and can also be good for a big burst of SP if you have Actions cards you want to play and weaker cards in hand. Keeping Capcom guys with Capcom guys and SNK with SNK can be a good way to build a deck for back ups. However, the '???' back-ups challenge that assumption. ??? back-ups are back-ups from the opposite company's cards. There is no way to find them out in-game. You either need to just use trial and error, look them up online, or try and associate similar roles between the respective company's corresponding series to make educated guesses. For example, Terry and Ryu (although I think only the 1000 BP Ryu, not the SFA 500BP one) can back up one another. Back-ups are something I totally ignored in my first playthrough and did fine, but it's certainly something to take into account in the early game to try and take some of the RNG away from winning the "gym leader" fights.
Ahhhh, just talking about this is making me wanna play through CFC2 again! That game is SOOO good and the plot is SOOOO stupid (standard Yu-Gi-Oh-esque "use card battles to save the world" type thing, but that just makes it so much more funny). You even go to a card battling high school
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me