I think I'll play Yu Gi Oh! instead...
The preliminary statements are pretty interesting and the turn based battle system really work pretty well. It's a Shame that every other aspect of the game is simply awful.
Story
Poor and full of stereotypes. Characters are pretty in the design but ridiculous in their attitudes and the various dialogs between them absolutely flat.
Graphic
Awful. Indeed I've always tought that beautiful graphic is not essential in a videogame, but here we are really too much far. Sprites are horrible, bad colored and animated. I've seen better on the SNES. Graphically the game is on 8-bit level. Unjustifiable!
Only the illustations on some cards are worthy of mention.
Sound
Musics and sound effects useless; but the worst is the voice acting: poor and uninspired.
Battle System
Here is the only good point of the game. The two duelists fight in a grid arena, collecting mana by conquering the squares on it.
Mana allows to activate the cards every characters have in his hands. Cards allows to call various unit to fight; every with particiular statistic and abilities. Other cards allow to raise fortification for give bonus to the army; attack one o more units; equip special feature; increase stats; ecc.
When you summon an unit you'll must consider not only the summon mana cost, but even a keep cost removed from your mana at the beginning of your turn.
There are a lot of cards and create a strong deck is pretty satisfacting altough a bit difficult.
However, even the strongest deck will lose if luck don't help you drawing good cards. Just like a good TCG should be. Plus, the enemie's AI is merciless. On both side draw a powerful card at the right moment can change radically the outcome of the battle.
The game presents an absurd movement system. Unlike the 99% of similar game where you select the spot where move your characters, in Neverland you can move only on a rect line. So, if you desire to move on a square over your diagonal you must effect two step: down first, left or right after. If one o more of friendly units will be on your route you'll probably cannot perform the movement even the game marks it possible.
Final Comment
Idea Factory really developed an interesting battle system… and forgot to program the game around it. The flaw are too much and too evident to close an eyes. However this game should be like to fans of turn strategy and TCG together… maybe.
Good
Interesting cross between two genres; Solid battle system working pretty smoothly; AI really fierce with only some minor flaws.
Bad
Graphic seems imported from a NES; Awful musics, sound effect and voice acting; Plot and characters flat and unappealing.
Final Votation: 5,5