Bagalagalaga: Defunct Collectible Card Games Review

I had plenty of friends who played collectible card games, and most of them also liked the X-men and Spiderman and superheroes in general, but for some reason I was the only one that liked both of them enough to get some Overpower cards. The Marvel version of Overpower came out first, and I was a little dissappointed that when I opened a starter, about 2/3 of the cards were similar to this:

I mean, it's got Spiderman punching the crap out of some VCR thief (this was the 90's), but other than that it doesn't have any more info on it than a 2 of clubs. This is a "Power Card", the most basic way to do damage in the game. Fortunetly there are some cooler cards as well. I have never used the few mechanics that were introduced after the first DC Overpower expansion, such as location cards, or Image Overpower (with Spawn, WitchBlade, etc.), so they aren't in here.

THE GAME: You've got 4 hero/villain characters, the other guy has 4 hero/villain characters. Beat them all into submission.
EASE OF PLAY: It is remarkably simple compared to other CCGs I've played - if you have a character with a certain energy/fighting/strength/intellect stat, they can play a power card with a value up to that level and try to damage the opponent's characters. To defend, you do the same thing, play a card equal or higher in number to your opponent's to block it. If any character takes 20 damage or at least one hit from 3 different categories (En/F/Str/Int) they are knocked out and your one reserve character takes their place.
A LITTLE MORE COMPLEXITY: Well, if you had all characters with an "8" stat in some category and the other player didn't, you could just play "8" attacks all the time and win, right? The only catch is when you draw your hand, you must discard any duplicate power cards (regardless of type), so you can only have one "8" in your hand on any given turn. There's also "Training" and "Teamwork" cards, which add value to your power cards if certain conditions are met. Universe cards, which represent chucking a tree or hot dog cart or using a death ray, also add to card's power. Finally there are character specific Special Cards that are the best part of the game and usually influence it the most.
The most unique part of the game is you have a seperate stack of 7 cards called the missions; they have cool art but they might as well be tokens since there is nothing different about any of them. Each turn, you bet a number of cards depending on how strong your hand is, and if you do more damage than your opponent, you "complete missions" and they lose missions. You can also win the game by completing all 7 missions, but if you bet over two missions, your opponent gets to draw extra cards to help balance it out.
CONS: The Special Cards are cool because they represent specific characters powers, like Superman's heat vision, Wolverine's regeneration, or The Penguins penguins. The problem of course is if you open a booster pack and you find that half the cards are totally worthless at the time because you don't have the characters to go with them. From a booster box of DC Overpower I got after the game was dead, I got 13 characters with at least 4 Specials to go with them, 3 characters with only 2-3 Specials which wouldn't be worth using, and 40-50 Specials with no character to use them.
WHAT THE HELL? Superman isn't Strength level 8, and his energy level of 7 is the same as the Metropolis special crimes unit.

WHY IT'S FUN: Betting on hands usually makes games more interesting. Every card is full of our beloved comic superheroes, and it is really easy to play. Deck making is pretty simple, but you can't rely too much on one character's Specials because once he's knocked out, they're worthless; also too many copies of anything will lead to lots of duplicate discarding. If you don't mind (or cover up) the different card backs, DC and Marvel Overpower are completely compatible.