Rise to the top.note
TEPPEN is a free to play mobile Collectible Card Game developed by both Gung-Ho Entertainment and Capcom and also published by the former. Initially teased as "Project Battle" after having early alphas sent to prominent members of the Fighting Game Community, the game is a Crisis Crossover between multiple Capcom properties that span its decorated history over the past several decades.
The story (or whatever exists of one) is set within the Land of Illusion, a world that offers the "truth", according to an individual's own wishes. Several heroes from all walks of life venture forth into it to seek what this "truth" could be, coming into conflict with one another.
Gameplay takes some cues from other popular card games such as Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft and Magic: The Gathering. Heroes in TEPPEN each belong to four different color classes, which represent different playstyles and archetypes: Red and Green each focus on straightforward offense and defense builds, Purple is a trickier archetype aiming to restrict enemy movement, and Black is a high-risk, high-reward class that allows for the use of tougher units which often comes at the cost of losing others or even life from the Hero that controls them.
Cards are divided into two: units that can be deployed into one of three empty slots on each player's side of the board, and actions that can result in a variety of effects like buffs or debuffs. Each use of an action card triggers a temporary stop of the game's timer called an Active Response, which gives the opponent a chance to play an action of their own and continues until the timer runs out or a player chooses to resolve it. Every card comes with a MP cost that must be met before they can be played. MP by itself can normally be gained automatically over time, but the overall pool is impacted by how many colors are in a player's deck; more colors restricts it whereas a single color leaves it intact.
Finally, each of the Heroes comes equipped with three Hero Arts, one of which must be assigned to the deck before battle and can certainly help turn the tide. Hero Arts are triggered by meeting an AP count, which is built up by the cards that the Hero plays in proportion to their MP cost (for example, a card with a 6 MP cost would make the AP count rise up by 6).
Since launch, the game recieved a new expansion with new cards every 2 months, but changed to a new expansion every 3 months as of late 2023/2024.
Not to be confused with one of Namco's iconic Fighting Games, Tekken, nor with the 2021 comedy manga of the same name.
Playable Heroes
- From Street Fighter: Ryu (Red)*, Chun-Li (Green), Akuma (Black), Cammy (Green)*
- From Darkstalkers: Morrigan Aensland (Purple), Felicia (Black)*
- From Resident Evil: Albert Wesker (Black), Jill Valentine (Red), Ada Wong (Purple)
- From Monster Hunter: Rathalos (Red), Nergigante (Black), Felyne (Green)
- From Mega Man X: X (Green), Zero (Purple)
- From Devil May Cry: Dante (Purple), Nero (Green), Vergil (Purple)*
- From Ōkami: Amaterasu (Red)
- From Sengoku Basara: Oichi (Black)*
- From Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright (Green)*
- From Breath of Fire: Nina (Red) *
- From Strider: Hiryu (Red) *
Expansions
2019 & 2020 Expansions
- Day of Nightmares: Released in September 2019 alongside Jill Valentine.
- The Devils Awaken: Released in October 2019 alongside Nero.
- The Force Seekers: Released in January 2020 alongside Akuma and the Evil Ryu EX skin.
- Haunted by Memories: Released in March 2020 alongside Zero.
- Adventures of a Tiny Hero: Released in July 2020 alongside Felyne.
- The Tale of Amatsu no Kuni: Released in October 2020 alongside Amaterasu. Added the Ōkami and Sengoku Basara series to the game.
2021 Expansions
- The Battle of Amatsu no Kuni: Released on January 2021 alongside Oichi.
- A Dark Agenda: Released in March 2021 alongside Ada Wong. Added the Strider series to the game.
- Ace vs The People: Released in May 2021 alongside the Phoenix Wright EX skin. Added the Ace Attorney and Dead Rising series to the game.
- Dragons of War: Released in July 2021 alongside the Nina EX skin. Added the Breath of Fire series to the game.
- Island of Fear: Released in September 2021.
- Mission of Ruin: Released in November 2021.
2022 Expansions
- Breath of Resistance: Released in January 2022 alongside the Sengoku Machine Armor EX skin for Oichi. Added the Red Earth series to the game.
- Defying the Light: Released in March 2022.
- Genma Onslaught: Released in April 2022. Added the Onimusha series to the game.
- Super Spooky Village: Released in July 2022 alongside the Cammy EX skin. Added the Ghosts 'n Goblins series to the game.
- Jurassic Rampage: Released in September 2022. Added the Dino Crisis series to the game.
- Operation Cannon Spike: Released in November 2022. Added the Cannon Spike and Bionic Commando series to the game.
2023 Expansions
- Sigma's Invasion: Released in January 2023 alongside the Vergil EX skin. Added the CROSS×BEATS series to the game.
- Turnabout Festival: Released in March 2023. Added the Haunting Ground and Otoranger series to the game.
- Demon Dogfight: Released in April 2023.
- 30_MINUTES.EXE: Released in July 2023 alongside the Ruiner Felicia EX skin. Added the Mega Man Battle Network series to the game.
- The Daymare Diary: Released in September 2023.
- THE BEAUTIFUL 8: Released in November 2023. Added the Cyberbots and Megami Meguri series to the game.
- Absolute Zero: Released in late December 2023, with the Strider Hiryu EX skin released in January 2024. Added the Mega Man Zero and Lost Planet series to the game.
2024 Expansions
- Schoolyard Royale: Released April 2024. Adds the Rival Schools series to the game.
Tropes associated with TEPPEN include the following:
- Adaptational Heroism: The Tale of Amatsu no Kuni trailer depicts that the only Sengoku Basara faction that teamed up with Orochi/Yami were just the Oda clan under Oda Nobunaga, whereas Akechi Mitsuhide and the Toyotomi clan led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi were under Amaterasu's employment. In the original game, Mitsuhide and Hideyoshi were different flavors of evil compared to Nobunaga.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- Once again, Morrigan is portrayed as nothing like she is in the canon of her home series, absorbing the souls of mortals for sustenance and not even slightly caring about humanity, viewing them as disposable food at best. This is in contrast to her portrayal in Darkstalkers, where she is friendly, lives on adrenaline, and has never once taken a life (unless you consider her first ending giving Big Bad Pyron the Kiss of Death canon).
- Ada Wong also gets this to a severe degree. In Resident Evil canon Ada sits comfortably in the morally grey, she’s certainly no saint and has worked for the villains, but she has a fair amount of nicer moments especially with Leon and is mainly presented as a flawed Catwoman-esque anti-hero. Here however, Ada is far more malevolent and cruel, corrupting and manipulating several Capcom characters like a puppet master and is overall portrayed as being just as evil as Wesker himself.
- Advertised Extra: The Haunted By Memories trailer really teases that Cammy, Leon, Sigma, and Zero are all going to be playable heroes due to said trailer focusing on the four of them, but instead, Zero is the only one to be confirmed as a new Hero, while the rest were just there as usable cards.
- Cammy was eventually Promoted to Playable in the Super Spooky Village update, as an EX Skin for Nero. Time will tell if Leon and Sigma will follow in her footsteps.
- Anti-Air: To counter flying creatures that certain play styles struggled against, an ability sharing this tropes name was introduced in The Devils Awaken that does exactly what you think.
- Ascended Meme: The Haunted By Memories trailer featured only one non-narrator voiceline, belonging to Zero at the saddest part of his life: the death of Iris, and it was exactly the same memetic line of "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOR!?!?"
, delivered by his current English voice actor in his first time. - Beach Episode: Downplayed with Turnabout Festival. The expansion takes place at a hotel/resort, and gives us Alia, Karin, and Ibuki in their swimsuits, though they're only shown wearing them at the hotel's pool and not the actual beach.
- Big Bad:
- The first trilogy of expansions, "War of the Goddess", revealed that Goddess Myria, the final boss of Breath of Fire III, was the mysterious figure that Ada Wong had been working for all along.
- The second trilogy of expansions, the "Echoes of a Lost Civilization", focuses on Sigma and his attempts to end all organic life on earth with his army of Robot Masters and Mirage Soldiers.
- Brainwashing: Certain cards allow for a player to steal units from their opponents. While most of these have limitations, the legendary "Brainwash" can steal any unit, though as a legendary there can only be one copy of it in a deck.
- Brought Down to Normal: The "Seal" mechanic strips the target unit of all their abilities, leaving them with only their attack and defence before being sealed.
- Came Back Strong: Units with the ability "Revenge" return to their players deck with a buff and reduced MP cost, though this only works once. The legendary unit Nemesis has an ability similar to this, returning to the EX pocket indefinitely while gaining small boosts to it's attack and health, though without reducing it's MP cost.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Every card and each hero is divided into one of four colors, or "elements", that dictate how they fight:
- Red cards and heroes specialize in overpowering opponents by inflicting damage on opposing units and players, opening up defenses to break opponents down.
- Green cards and heroes specialize in recovery and survival, bolstering units' defenses and restoring their health to survive the opponent's assault.
- Purple cards and heroes specialize in interfering with the opponent's ability to play their cards, limiting their options and leaving them vulnerable.
- Black cards and heroes specialize in sacrificing units and burning the player's own health to unleash powerful attacks, making for a high-risk high-reward playstyle.
- Dark Is Evil: While not exclusively evil, the Black Element is the main representation for Resident Evil, and all of the heroes with the element except for Oichi can be considered either pure evil (Wesker) or violent (Nergigante and Akuma).
- Dark Is Not Evil: There are a small handful of heroic characters respresenting the black element, such as Kenji from Red Earth and Nathan Spencer from Bionic Commando.
- Fire Is Red: The Red Element, focusing on more destructing gameplay, naturally incorporates various cards around fire, and the heroes for the element, consisting of Rathalos, the fire breathing wyvern; Ryu, who's fire is more mystical; Jill, who's more known for using explosives; and Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess.
- Lost Technology: The Mega Man X games are treated as having happened thousands of years in the past in relation to the game's story.
- Magikarp Power: Growth, the main ability introduced in The Devils Awaken, functions like this, with the unit gaining Growth Points equal to the cost of additional units put on the battlefield after the unit with growth.* Once the amount of growth points is equal to the specified number, the unit levels up, resulting in a variety of effects from gaining abilities, giving other units HP, or even destroying all enemy units, with the growth cost being larger in accordance with the effect of leveling up.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: The "Nullify Damage" ability cannot allow either the hero or unit to take damage, though if their HP is reduced to zero by other means, the hero will lose or the unit will still be destroyed. Due to the overpowered nature of this ability, it is usually only temporary or, in the cases of Monstrous Virus and Familiar: Nightmare, the former forces you to lose the battle after 30 seconds and the latter is removed from the game after attacking.
- No-Sell:
- The Indestructible ability makes a unit immune to Destroy effects such as several Black cards, though they still take damage. So far, only Familiar: Nightmare and the legendary unit Amaterasu have this.
- The Veil ability makes a unit immune to being targeted by specific action cards and hero arts. However, the ability does not protect them from arts of actions that target all units or have random selection.
- Orchestral Bombing: The game's soundtrack consist of epic orchestral arrangements of each playable character's theme.
- The Paralyzer: The Halt status temporarily stops a unit from attacking or countering for a certain amount of time, resetting their attack progress once the effect expires.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: The "Ascended" mechanic introduced in The Force Seekers expansion involves placing a unit on top of another unit already on the field, sacrificing the other unit in order to activate another effect, usually powering up the Ascended unit, though other effects include dealing damage or destroying an opponents unit.
- Robot Me: The Mirage Soldiers introduced in Sigma's Invasion are replicas of many characters and creatures that Sigma's using to conquer the world.
- Sidelined Protagonist Crossover: Usable cards and cameos notwithstanding, Sengoku Basara is (so far) the only franchise to not have any protagonists nor main characters as heroes with it's only hero being that of Oichi, who is rather a supporting character in the series.
- Status Buff: The Resonate ability acts like this. Whenever the player uses an action card, it triggers Resonate. This usually boosts health or attack, though it can also cause damage or, in cases such as Devil Hunter Dante and Forlorn Protector Lucia, transform the unit, with the former becoming Devil Trigger Dante and the latter Devil Form Lucia.
- Super Mode: Some units, when specific conditions are met, transform into more powerful units, such as Dante, Nero, Vergil and Lucia transforming into their Devil forms, and Akuma transforming into Oni.
- Technicolor Magic: The purple element mainly revolves around more supernatural abilities, with the two founding heroes for the element, Dante and Morrigan, being demons of significant power. Zero, introduced later, is not a demon in the traditional sense, but is the progenitor of the Maverick Virus in his home series.
- Title Scream: Every time you touch the screen to start the game, the last character you played as in Chronicles, Practice, and/or any of the modes on the Battle screen will shout the title. And yes, this even includes the characters who only speak through animal noises!*
- Wutai: "Amatsu no Kuni" is a location within Teppen's setting, and is meant to be the game's setting for Japan, as its where the Okami, Sengoku BASARA, Onimusha, and Monster Hunter: Rise themed expansions primarily take place in.
