A tale of two games. The artwork and homage to Street Fighter II is lovely. They have everything down to the continue screen, the trash talk after battles, the stage select screen -- yet done with their own characters and artwork, plus a good sense of humor. Really nice job. The gameplay itself, unfortunately, is lacking. To win a match you either need to finish with more money than your opponent after 10 rounds, or one of you wins if the other goes bankrupt before that. Problem is, you don't really need to win these matches, you just have to try not to lose them. Bet a minimum of $50 every time and watch as your opponent makes all sorts of wild bets, doesn't follow basic Blackjack logic, and bets themselves into a hole they can't come back from, if not busts out before the 10 rounds are up.

It's on the verge of being a solid, fun little game, but until the AI is improved, it's difficult to recommend. If they ever smarten up the AI to provide more of a challenge, I'll happily change my recommendation to positive.

I must admit that this game caught my attention the first time I stumbled upon it. The combination of Street Fighter 2 and Blackjack is rare enough and promising.

The artstyle is on point, the different nods and references are well done and detailed and anyone who played Street Fighter back in the days will get that fuzzy feeling of nostalgia in their tummies just a couple of seconds into the game. The characters, the cutscenes, the cheesy dialogues...everything's there.

At heart, it is a Blackjack card game, each round you bet money and try to get a combinated card value of 21 (or near). But here comes the twist: Not only do you play against the house in classic Blackjack tradition but also against an opponent from some corner of the world. You win by either your opponent going bankrupt or you having more money than him by the end of round 10. Here, some strategy is thrown into the mix: Betting high right from the beginning so you win big and your opponent won't the able to catch up? Playing safely by only betting as much as your opponent or hoping he gets unlucky? Many ways to play. Of course the game shines the brightes in online multiplayer as human opponents are way more interesting to play against. I think more and more players will show up over time and I was also being able to play a couple of rounds against others with a little patience.

It will take you some time so see all the endings and get all achievements and after that you will have a nice and cool looking time waster for inbetween.

The aesthetic charm of this title is wasted due to poor game design that makes for an easily exploitable and boring experience for anyone knowledgeable of basic blackjack strategy.

+ Artwork and visual design is nicely done
+ Interesting concept for mixing game genres
+ Charming emulation of nostalgic SF2 style

- Poor game design choices make for a very boring experience
- It's just 10 hands of blackjack then resetting your stack
- No emphasis on card-counting or skilled play advantages
- Opponent A.I. is too easily exploitable

The concept of using blackjack as the core gameplay mechanic of a fighting game is quite interesting, but it needs to be implemented better than just basically playing 10 hands of blackjack then resetting your chip stack if you win or go bust. There is absolutely no consequence to going bust since you can just restart against the same opponent with a new stack of chips each time. For this reason, it behooves you to just go all-in on the first one or two hands and then bet the minimum from then on, just letting your opponent make betting mistakes and beating themselves.

The game would work a lot better if there were was more consequence and skill built into the gameplay. Perhaps if your winnings carried over to the next match, and if "harder" opponents had more money and betting styles to match their personalities. Or perhaps a stronger emphasis on card-counting, where shoe size and shuffling is explicitly mentioned and card-counting gives an actual advantage the further you get into a match. Or perhaps even getting rid of the dealer's hand and making a zero-sum game of heads-up blackjack where you are directly competing against your opponents hand, and not simply just waiting for them to make betting mistakes.

As it currently stands, the game is basically like a SF2-skinned free flash implementation of blackjack limited to 10 hands per round before resetting. The pure blackjack mode is also uninteresting as there is no skill involved -- it is just betting big early, hopefully winning a few all-in hands early, then playing basic strategy and hoping for a hot streak until you bust. The winnings do not carry over, and you are given no indication when a shuffle takes place so can not gain a skill advantage by card-counting.

While I highly respect the core concept and the work involved in the way the game is presented, the gameplay design itself is very lazy and seems to waste the hard work that went into the other parts of the game.

Super Blackjack Battle II: Turbo Edition is a card game based on the game of blackjack. Players must choose one of 12 unique characters who all strive to become the greatest blackjack players of all time.
Each character has been invited by the owner of the biggest casino in Las Vegas, as well as the godfather of one of the most powerful mafia clans in the city. At the card table, players will face off in real-life battles. The winner of each round will advance to the finals, where they will face the godfather himself.
However, it soon becomes clear that the entire tournament is actually a part of a plot to eliminate the leader of an opposing clan. No one knows who is behind this, but they must work together to uncover the truth and save themselves from certain defeat.


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Okay... Blackjack players... do NOT waste your cash on this title, no matter how cheap. I mean, even 2 cents is TOO MUCH to pay for such a terrible, terrible title.

I got AAK and it busted me as 22.... I mean.... Really? And this was after a computer player split a non-pair but no split option is available. I posted these things to the developer to crickets....

So, no splits, no logic for aces, no actual strategy, no developer support... this is clearly a bad cash-grab with no redeeming features. Even the art style is completely stolen. It's bad across the board.

This game is pretty bad. The idea is good, the execution is terrible. First of all, the controls/interface are bad. For some reason, it switches which button is the "hit" button in different situations, which leads to unintentionally hitting on something you didn't want to. Why not just keep it the same button? Also, after doubling down on a hand, your next hand's starting bet will be the double downed amount. Nobody does that.. The AI bets like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ drunk madman at the table. There is no rhyme or reason and it's typically very easy to win. However, sometimes they'll get lucky and because they're betting like a madman, you're almost guarenteed to lose because they went full ♥♥♥♥♥♥ on a bet and you're trying to catch up to them for the rest of the game.

But, all those things could be overlooked (to an extent, assuming they'd patch those problems) if the multiplayer even WORKED. It doesn't. There is no multiplayer. I had a friend buy this game with me and I couldn't even invite him to a match. As ridiculous as that is, we figured we could possibly work around it if we both searched for an unranked game at the same time. After 10 minutes of us both searching for a match at the same time, the game had yet to find an opponent for either of us. Same goes for the other multiplayer mode.

This game is a pile of ♥♥♥♥ and there was absolutely no care put into it. Avoid it.

I may tolerate sexist & nationalist jokes as trash-talk after fights, but the regular unskippable *next round - fight!* & chips exchange animations kill it for me, just seconds.. but all-in-all TOO LONG! Also the AI is so stupid - it uses the same *median* strategy, only the bet sizes differ from character to character, depicting the difference in their risk management approach. It's a small card game, you might have some fun with, nothing special though.

https://youtu.be/kLCItbvteb8

One on one blackjack doesn't offer enough strategy or decision making to generate compelling gameplay. An early lead results in almost a guaranteed victory.

I bet anyone who heard of a crossover between blackjack and SF would be genuinely interested, so lets see how this game holds up.

Design, graphics and music
-----------------------------

No doubt, Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition - The Card Warriors borrows alot from a certain game, even its title is straight from Street Fighter. It adds, in my opinion, to the charm of a classic game and also makes it stand out from a sea of blackjack games online. Characters look like they belong into a 90s arcade and the music fits every stage. All in all the overall design is well executed.

Gameplay
-----------------------------

It's blackjack. Plain and simple. There is a single player campaign, where you travel around the world, beat the other characters and get rewarded with a silly quote after each battle and an individual ending after the campaign. Also there are multiplayer modes, with a 4 player mode and ranked and unranked matches. Haven't checked them out yet, as I was playing the campaign only but nevertheless I liked it. The first couple opponents play overly aggressive and beat themselves most of the time, the later ones act more cleverly. But since it is blackjack, it happens that sometimes either you, your opponent or the dealer get lucky. My guess would be that I would like playing against human opponents as much or even more as playing against the AI, so no major complaint regarding the gameplay either.

Verdict
------------------------------

An entertaining little game with an special appeal, it delivers what it promised: A blend of SF and blackjack.

I unfortunately can't recommend this to most people due to limited gameplay and online play being broken - I can only recommend it to some hardcore fans of the Street Fighter series that want nostalga feels and don't mind weak gameplay. The game is centered around trying to win the most money on Blackjack in "fights" against one other player in 10 rounds or until someone runs out of $. They could've gone a bit deeper on gameplay, like maybe a tag team mode or something.
Here is what you need to know:
+Nails the 1990s Street Fighter look & feel.
-Single player can be beaten in 1 hour per character.
-AI is dumb in how they bet big early, then can't bounce back. They only beat me once out of ~10 fights.
?This version of Blackjack has standard house rules, has Insurance, allows splits, and allows a Double Down at anytime.
?Each player has their own brief ending.
-Talking points between matches are confusing or dumb, perhaps meant to be humor but I personally don't get whatever the jokes are.
-No spin the wheel feature exists as shown in the store screenshots.
-Online matches are broken with no updates from devs on other platforms for cross platform play.