BRAWL: Catfight
BRAWL: Catfight represents a change of direction for the game, at least in terms of presentation. The three decks of Catfight have a strikingly different graphic look, due in part to the artwork of Bryce Nakagawa.
Catfight introduces one new card type, the Double. All three decks are remarkably solid and playable, and because of the smaller size of this set, no attempt was made to distinguish the characters by Skill Level. Basically, they are all in the Moderate range. And they are all just too cute for words. Their names are Nickie, Sonia, and Tamiya.
| Deck | Nickie | Sonia | Tamiya |
| Blue Hit | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| Blue Hit-2 | - | - | 1 |
| Blue Block | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Green Hit | 4 | 3 | 3 |
| Green Hit-2 | - | - | 1 |
| Green Block | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Red Hit | 4 | 4 | 10 |
| Red Hit-2 | - | - | 1 |
| Red Block | 2 | 1 | - |
| Base | 4 | 6 | 3 |
| Clear | 7 | 5 | 5 |
| Press | - | 3 | - |
| Reverse | 1 | - | 1 |
| Double | 3 | 2 | - |
| Freeze | 3 | 3 | 3 |
"Nickie is a tricky fighter who hates to play by the rules. She is never in class and always in trouble, but she never misses fighting practice!"
A Reverse and 3 Doubles are interesting, of course, but the most obvious advantage Nickie has is her 7 Clears. That's more than any other BRAWL deck! She makes up for it with a very small number of Hits (4, 4, 4) and probably a Block more than she needs. But Nickie is still a powerhouse and quite fun to play.
"Sonia's parents lost her on safari and she spent years with a family of wild marmosets. She prefers jungle garb to her school uniform, and she loves a good brawl."
Since this is a world of cat-headed people, it's hard to guess just how primitive the family of marmosets really was, but it was enough of an excuse to let Sonia dress like a jungle girl. Sonia's main weapons are her 2 Doubles and 5 Clears. With more Hits and more Bases than any other Catfight girl, she's well-grounded and easy to play, if you like a fast game. If you fall behind, don't worry; she's got three Presses to save her bacon.
"Tamiya has lots of boyfriends, but her best friend is her giant wooden hammer! The other girls tease her because she's so good in school, but she just knocks them out cold."
How's that for encouraging dating, studying, and beating people up all in one breath? Tamiya is a very hard-hitting deck, with a Hit-2 in every color (the first since Hale) and ten Hits in Red, the most a BRAWL deck has ever had. She pounds pretty hard on most fighters, especially the girls from the basic set who are short in Red, Aside from her pounding power, Tamiya is pretty simple, with just one Reverse to turn around a Base that isn't going her way. Like Hale, she's best played simply and quickly.
Beat People Up, the Button Men and BRAWL Home Page, is (c) 2002 James Ernest and Cheapass Games.
