Review Insights · App Store
Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond
Cygames, Inc. · 1,102 ratings · ★ 3.7
3.7
★★★★★
1,102 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 43 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"game"
31 negative reviews mention this · 72% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst. Worst game ever opponents decks are so over powered they basically have one shots most of your units and refill their side by one card combo? This card app is pay to win. To be honest it’s like the AI is cheating so hard in this game." - penlock holmes
2
"card"
16 negative reviews mention this · 37% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst. Worst game ever opponents decks are so over powered they basically have one shots most of your units and refill their side by one card combo? This card app is pay to win. To be honest it’s like the AI is cheating so hard in this game." - penlock holmes
3
"play"
14 negative reviews mention this · 33% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
4
"cards"
12 negative reviews mention this · 28% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
5
"deck"
11 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Worst. Worst game ever opponents decks are so over powered they basically have one shots most of your units and refill their side by one card combo? This card app is pay to win. To be honest it’s like the AI is cheating so hard in this game." - penlock holmes
6
"games"
11 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Trash game, horrible devs, not balanced, rng mess. Shadowverse used to be a competitive card game that would strive to keep a level of balance. Worlds beyond started out that way as well, but someone at cygames decided that they wanted to get fired so they added an entire expansion based on…" - HidingSniper
7
"every"
10 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
8
"shadowverse"
10 negative reviews mention this · 23% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
9
"card game"
9 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
10
"playing"
7 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
11
"making"
7 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Imagine your fighting same deck forever. Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exac…" - delakb
12
"other"
7 negative reviews mention this · 16% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Lack of Playtesting. At this point, 6 sets have been released, the game was fun in the beginning despite some of the flaws: Atleast for set 1. Each set past the first has gradually made the game worse. Powercreep and aggressive monetization aside, the game ha…" - Hopeful Winter
📋 All 43 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Worst
Worst game ever opponents decks are so over powered they basically have one shots most of your units and refill their side by one card combo? This card app is pay to win. To be honest it’s like the AI is cheating so hard in this game.
Imagine your fighting same deck forever
Card game is supposed to be creative. Every person try different strategies, different combinations of cards, and different types of winning. These are what should be ideal card game. But Shadowverse… it’s not. Every people are playing exact same decks. Same legendary, same deck, and same types of players. At first you try your best to beat them. But then in order to win, you have to copy the deck that you read from online, and conform to the norms. If this is the type of game you wanna play, go ahead. It costs your soul
Also, what is the point of making new card pack when deck that you don’t use it is much better? Class has some issues.
Also, what is the point of making new card pack when deck that you don’t use it is much better? Class has some issues.
Yeah… No.
The game blatantly cheats on harder solo modes. They will never be handless and you’ll always have an empty field. Just net deck
Lack of Playtesting
At this point, 6 sets have been released, the game was fun in the beginning despite some of the flaws: Atleast for set 1. Each set past the first has gradually made the game worse.
Powercreep and aggressive monetization aside, the game has become less and less interactive. No one has informed the devs that the max HP is 20 and this has contributed to the issue of multiple cards ending the game out of (essentially) nowhere.
There’s been moments where absurdly powerful healing effects defined the meta but overall, the game continues to progress to pseudo solitaire with most classes capable of playing wins completely from hand and all meaningful game design effects homogenizing across classes.
Recently they’ve had to do an emergency patch due to their lack of playtesting resulting in a deck that could consistently turn 6-7 OTK.
I’ve seen other players and friends slowly leave over each release. At this point it’s kinda sad and depressing because of how the need to print chase cards has led to the game spiraling.
Powercreep and aggressive monetization aside, the game has become less and less interactive. No one has informed the devs that the max HP is 20 and this has contributed to the issue of multiple cards ending the game out of (essentially) nowhere.
There’s been moments where absurdly powerful healing effects defined the meta but overall, the game continues to progress to pseudo solitaire with most classes capable of playing wins completely from hand and all meaningful game design effects homogenizing across classes.
Recently they’ve had to do an emergency patch due to their lack of playtesting resulting in a deck that could consistently turn 6-7 OTK.
I’ve seen other players and friends slowly leave over each release. At this point it’s kinda sad and depressing because of how the need to print chase cards has led to the game spiraling.
Does it matter how good the game is?
It’s glitching and it got hackers that get perfect hands but hey, at least he’s going to get an update right
Trash game, horrible devs, not balanced, rng mess
Shadowverse used to be a competitive card game that would strive to keep a level of balance. Worlds beyond started out that way as well, but someone at cygames decided that they wanted to get fired so they added an entire expansion based on PURE RNG. Every meta deck relies on so much rng that it is currently the “most balance” set they have released. However, i still only face 1 deck ever. 20 times in a row. Don’t bother playing this garbage since the devs never listen, and force rng based gameplay down your throat when the rng was minimal but one set ago.
Worst Trading card game ever
This is the worst online card game that has ever existed. Do not ever download or play this game!!! It’s an absolute disgrace to card games and this company does not care about its player base. They will just take all of your money and never actually fix their game. They would rather have cheaters ruin their game than actually admit they have a problem. Not to mention their trash packs, trash liquify system, and trash cards. Every deck has 12+ legendary cards and god forbid you miss a set or two then you might as well quit the game because you’re never coming back from it. Again, NEVER EVER EVER EVER PLAY THIS GAME!!!
Not actual rng
On card draws and mulligans they have something going on behind the scenes where it’s not truly random. Play a couple hundred games and you’ll see what I mean.
Cygames Money Grab
I have been playing since the first shadowverse app, I love this game but I’m disheartened by Cygames pricing and lack of generosity, I can’t compete my forestcraft collection without having cards I don’t want and will never use. In the original shadowverse app I could liquify those cards to complete my collection. In this app version I must obtain 3 of every card before I can liquify the card. Resulting in more sales for Cygames to get players to complete their collection in a specific class. I never would have expected this type of greed from Cygames.
I’ve played up to this point
I have even played the physical TCG. The game is fun but its absurdly expensive to do just about anything including the battle pass. Everything is priced high enough to force you to pay much more expensive packages to afford whatever it is you’re seeking, and like clockwork you’re always left with a random quantity of gems left that’s not quite enough for anything. As much as I love the gameplay, the cards, and the artwork I can’t stand for this monetization
Worse than the original
Would give worse if i could. The connection issues the game has on phone is not great but on top of that the game wants you to really spend money. If you want a functional game that isn’t trying to ring out your wallet then stay away
Awful
Don't
Not even P2W, it's P2L against people that also paid
Game doesn't even have the courtesy to let you buy power. You'll just lose against other P2W. Garbage experience.
It’s bad
Shadowverse original game app and the shadowverse switch games are better.
太喜欢人偶仇了
非常平衡
Balance
Loved playing this game when it first launched, but the lack of balance passes in a digital card game is not something I’m willing to continue putting up with.
Beautifully horrible
I hate how a game that puts this much work into the visuals and sounds can’t make a proper game. The cards are horribly unbalanced for most classes and need a massive overhaul. The amount of cards there are doesn’t help cause of the small pool makes it feel like I don’t even have a choice but to play the most sweaty and boring decks that still lost or don’t play at all.
Game Does Not Work
The game app does not work right. It continuously exits itself while I play in single player or Shadowverse Park, going back to my iPhone’s home screen. It seems to do this endless times. Yet, when it malfunctions like this, the tab for the game app itself is open; I discovered this by accident. The tab for it does not close fully, even when it closes the game.
Further, the suggestions given by Support of the game did not solve this problem: turning off and on the phone, adjusting graphics in the game app, and more suggestions, did not work. The game app needs to be fixed.
Ironically, the single player tutorial works, but not the single player missions after. I do not know why this is.
Further, the suggestions given by Support of the game did not solve this problem: turning off and on the phone, adjusting graphics in the game app, and more suggestions, did not work. The game app needs to be fixed.
Ironically, the single player tutorial works, but not the single player missions after. I do not know why this is.
The game is miserable
As a long time fan of shadowverse since the OG app. This version is absolutely miserable. Getting a leader has worst luck then the original shadowverse which is absolutely a rancid grind this time. The balancing is still runecraft breaking literally everything and heaven being the most braindead class too still. Its so heartbreaking to see how greedy this gamd has gotten compared to og shadowverse
Horrible
One of the greediest, Pay to PLAY (forget winning, you’d be lucky to make a single solid deck season after season). The cost to craft a single good deck is ridiculous, the rate you get currency is so slow unless you can devote time to play every single day. If you want casual card game, go play ANY other card game. Buy a physical card game, its probably cheaper than trying to make a deck in here.
Garbage 垃圾遊戲
平衡性 做超爛
Glad I quit awhile ago.
Please just make more quality anime and physical switch games. Cygames is just not cut out for the gacha market in this era.
Game is fun but
Rigged event! Minority 17% won event making the other 83% spend money for cosmetics they wanted.
Devs have the balls to charge $20+ for a bundle of the losers items from a community event.
1 star for greed.
Devs have the balls to charge $20+ for a bundle of the losers items from a community event.
1 star for greed.
Awful event
Battlefest was horrible. Don’t waste your time with this game.
BATTLE FES WAS RIGGED
I don't know what kind of agenda cygames or kmr is making here but runecrafy should have not won.
They want your money so bad
I love trading card games but Cygames has ruined shadowverse with their greed. This game is not free to play, if you want that go elsewhere.
Not Working
I’ve been trying to play and some kind of error pop out every time
Terrible design
I wanted to give this game every chance possible. I liked a lot of aspects of the first Shadowverse game, but it also had massive design flaws. Most notably that it was very minimally interactive, and that a bad meta was often allowed to linger instead of being corrected.
This has the same design flaws. The designers have apparently learned nothing. This is not tolerable in 2025. Please bring in designers who can introduce some fresh ideas into the game.
Having a ton of cards that all do very powerful things but ultimately cancel each other out is just no fun. First and foremost, it becomes a test of whether you have enough of the latest legendaries to build strong decks, and secondly, a test of luck. Skill expression seems entirely absent.
40 card decks with up to 3 copies of a card may be the most defining flaw of this game. It’s just as easy to get a great hand as a terrible one, even after mulligan. Your 3 game-ending legendaries may be clustered on top of the deck, making your hand unplayable, or on the bottom, where you simply can’t get to them in time. Or you might just draw them at convenient times. Draw RNG completely and utterly overshadows skill expression.
If you can’t solve this problem, make another kind of game.
This has the same design flaws. The designers have apparently learned nothing. This is not tolerable in 2025. Please bring in designers who can introduce some fresh ideas into the game.
Having a ton of cards that all do very powerful things but ultimately cancel each other out is just no fun. First and foremost, it becomes a test of whether you have enough of the latest legendaries to build strong decks, and secondly, a test of luck. Skill expression seems entirely absent.
40 card decks with up to 3 copies of a card may be the most defining flaw of this game. It’s just as easy to get a great hand as a terrible one, even after mulligan. Your 3 game-ending legendaries may be clustered on top of the deck, making your hand unplayable, or on the bottom, where you simply can’t get to them in time. Or you might just draw them at convenient times. Draw RNG completely and utterly overshadows skill expression.
If you can’t solve this problem, make another kind of game.
Loved it but pay to win
I love the game idea but it is so pay to win it is enraging. And there are some decks that are just broken. You can technically win with any deck and build but some are just way superior it makes the game no fun. Why can I loose with a ward haven deck after dominating the board and making great moves after a rune deck board wipes me 5 times in a row? And in my last matches I have gone 1st literally 80% of games. Let me go second!!!. I hate this game. The art is so good, I love the idea it pisses me off so much because I wanted to love it and play it all the time.
Pay 2 win
Free-to-play players are just part of the paid players' gaming experience - it's truly disgusting.
Shadowverse
The game gets boring after a while. I tried playing it after a week or so but I prefer the Switch game. Monetizing is bad and I'm using f2p. Won't spend a dime on this. Seems like all games are turning into this. Its probably a battle pass on every game now. It ruins the fun
Crash, bad optimization, 0 resource
Crash during game. iPhone 15 pro heat up so bad, they barely made any optimization. Bad balance. Limited resource to even build one full deck. 5 times more expensive to draw cards compared to V1. A game needs to be PLAYABLE prior to the discussion of if it’s fun.
Awful card game
This game is an absolute mess, it already has insane power creep somehow day 1 where its only in line to get worse. Every match is just a no skill slap fight repeatedly wiping each others boards until someone pulls enough copies of their way overtuned legendary. Also going second is overly broken and monetization is so bad that it will kill the game if unchanged
Random cards effects doesn’t make any sense
It’s a decent game but have issues. Random cards effects is a 50-50 when it works. Like one them if you were to fuse 2 cards together the amulet deals 2 damage to a random enemy follower. Well I fuse 2 cars and nothing happens. Also some effects don’t seem to activate even when you follow the needed steps.
Game is complete incompatible with older Gen iPhones7
I’m on iPhone7, just barely reached the to acceptable amount of storage space after deleting my apps. I was positive that everything would go smoothly after turning all display settings to low, but instead of being greeted to unique gameplay mechanics and promising character designs: I was met with underwhelming and frustrating crashes from just trying to load the tutorial. I can’t even pass tutorial to get the game started.
No balance and meta only
Played for about a month and don’t see how it was f2p friendly. The match making is cheeks, in the beginner bracket I was consistently paired up against people with ELO thousands above me. It’s a constant grind against meta decks just to get one more card you might be able to use in you deck.
The general playstyle is my creature, you blow up mine and play yours, back and forth until someone drops an over powered win-con. There’s no balance to be seen as plenty of cards don’t care about the prior turns and just win/effectively win on play.
Experimenting is impossible, meta is required, and you can’t even play the random deck tourney until you’ve played like 50 ranked games. Big pass on this one boss.
The general playstyle is my creature, you blow up mine and play yours, back and forth until someone drops an over powered win-con. There’s no balance to be seen as plenty of cards don’t care about the prior turns and just win/effectively win on play.
Experimenting is impossible, meta is required, and you can’t even play the random deck tourney until you’ve played like 50 ranked games. Big pass on this one boss.
Game is terrible f2p with terrible gacha system.
It’s one thing to make the cards gacha mechanic and not let you de craft. But why make cosmetics gacha as well? The only way to have fun is to spend money it takes far to long to build a decent deck. Than when you do new cards already dropped and a new deck in a different class is far better.
Disappointing Waste of Potential
One would assume that a major benefit of creating a sequel and abandoning support for the original title is the ability to circumvent power creep and start off more slowly. One would also assume that in a niche market with several competitors, a digital card game would receive careful balance patches.
Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond seeks to defy player expectations by making sure that prices greatly exceed their actual value, cards will never be toned down, and servers will be down frequently.
It’s a shame, because this aims to be a card game with shorter games than its competitors, sacrificing depth for simplicity and speed. With a small amount of attentiveness this could easily be an incredible game.
Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond seeks to defy player expectations by making sure that prices greatly exceed their actual value, cards will never be toned down, and servers will be down frequently.
It’s a shame, because this aims to be a card game with shorter games than its competitors, sacrificing depth for simplicity and speed. With a small amount of attentiveness this could easily be an incredible game.
I want to love the game
I really do. I want to love it since its a well crafted, surprisingly balanced class based card game that rewards smart plays and predicting your opponent. But man does this game have issues.
TLDR: Don't play this game (unless you love it) due to bad events, poor management, overpriced gachas, and manipulative practices.
I’ll preface this by saying a lot of other card games are actually worse in some ways in terms of f2p viability. Pocket TCG for example is garbage but gets a pass by players for its IP. That being said SV:WB isn’t a “winner” in this regard. Dailies are not generous generally giving about 1/2 a pack a day, with 1 free one every day that doesnt go towards the pity system. The regular events are grindy beyond belief, such as the chest event where you have a chance at mediocre rewards when you win to the point of not even being worth doing. It also has monthly battlepasses like any greedy game thats “worth it” but only because everything else is absurdly priced.
Speaking of absurd prices, the premium currency costs an arm and a leg for the regular player, not to mention greedy practices where a 20 dollar pack just barely doesnt reach the minimum amount spent for extra rewards. These kind of manipulative practices are everywhere but it doesnt make it okay. I am blown away how the coveted unique leaders are behind an insanely low drop rate where each pack costs an arm and a leg. Even the pity system is locked behind 300 some pulls on the gacha.
Speaking of manipulative, the special events have all been massive flops. The most popular one, a 3-way popularity contest between 2 characters and a incredibly unpopular character had, you guessed it, the unpopular guy win. It may or may not have been a conspiracy, but everyone got free rewards based on the person who won. The two losers? their stuff is put in the cash shop and absurd prices to bait the passionate fans to shelling out 20 bucks for virtual card sleeves. Predatory, vile tactics that play on FOMO and the desire of the masses.
This review is already too long but I’ll leave it on this: Imagine a game whose predecessor was praised as being generous, then riding that into the ground by doing the opposite of everything the previous game did. Even as new updates come out, the greed only gets worse as they reframe free rewards they gave out in the first month of the game as “3 million download rewards” for the 3rd set, like why even pretend at that point, don’t act like this is an act of generosity when you set the precedent yourselves. Don’t play this game unless you love the series, it is predatory, manipulative, and grindy. A fun game that will most likely die in the global servers due to corporate greed.
TLDR: Don't play this game (unless you love it) due to bad events, poor management, overpriced gachas, and manipulative practices.
I’ll preface this by saying a lot of other card games are actually worse in some ways in terms of f2p viability. Pocket TCG for example is garbage but gets a pass by players for its IP. That being said SV:WB isn’t a “winner” in this regard. Dailies are not generous generally giving about 1/2 a pack a day, with 1 free one every day that doesnt go towards the pity system. The regular events are grindy beyond belief, such as the chest event where you have a chance at mediocre rewards when you win to the point of not even being worth doing. It also has monthly battlepasses like any greedy game thats “worth it” but only because everything else is absurdly priced.
Speaking of absurd prices, the premium currency costs an arm and a leg for the regular player, not to mention greedy practices where a 20 dollar pack just barely doesnt reach the minimum amount spent for extra rewards. These kind of manipulative practices are everywhere but it doesnt make it okay. I am blown away how the coveted unique leaders are behind an insanely low drop rate where each pack costs an arm and a leg. Even the pity system is locked behind 300 some pulls on the gacha.
Speaking of manipulative, the special events have all been massive flops. The most popular one, a 3-way popularity contest between 2 characters and a incredibly unpopular character had, you guessed it, the unpopular guy win. It may or may not have been a conspiracy, but everyone got free rewards based on the person who won. The two losers? their stuff is put in the cash shop and absurd prices to bait the passionate fans to shelling out 20 bucks for virtual card sleeves. Predatory, vile tactics that play on FOMO and the desire of the masses.
This review is already too long but I’ll leave it on this: Imagine a game whose predecessor was praised as being generous, then riding that into the ground by doing the opposite of everything the previous game did. Even as new updates come out, the greed only gets worse as they reframe free rewards they gave out in the first month of the game as “3 million download rewards” for the 3rd set, like why even pretend at that point, don’t act like this is an act of generosity when you set the precedent yourselves. Don’t play this game unless you love the series, it is predatory, manipulative, and grindy. A fun game that will most likely die in the global servers due to corporate greed.
Game is so laggy
I play on an iPhone 12. It is embarrassing how laggy the gameplay is for a card game. 2 fps feels common and playing out turns is horrendous because the turn timer goes even while you’re lagging and frozen. Fix your game. it’s NOT hard to optimize. a child could do it.
快跑
简直是吃相最难看的游戏，开服至今各种扣资源，一点点奖励需要耗费大量时间获取，可以说非常恶心
Inconsiderate Scheduling
Games pretty fun and the economy is tolerable if you play somewhat frequently,but the devs show indifference to how their event schedules with rewards are unfair to anybody outside of Japan time.This hasn’t been an issue in other Japanese card games like Master Duel.
Lacks of Apple Pencil support
Still doesn’t have Pencil support, which makes it unplayable for me at the moment.
Sentiment summary
66%
Positive (4-5★)
3%
Neutral (3★)
31%
Negative (1-2★)