Yeah, the Spell Cards are the only reason Story Mode is so horrible. I stuck through it in IaMP, but had a harder time with it in SWR. With UNL (12.3) After a few stages, I just said "ah fuck it." Anytime I play them now, I just play VS CPU. I do need to play UNL's story mode and finish it at least once though so I can unlock Utsuho.