Voice of Card: The Isle of Dragon Roars – Review
“Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars” is a short but enjoyable RPG given a tabletop aesthetic. The game’s plot follows Ash, or whatever the player chooses to name him, and his partner Mar as they venture out to claim the bounty on a dragon terrorizing the kingdom. Along the way, they add a couple of extra party members to their group in a plot and style that feels like it was pulled right from the realm of a 1980s/1990s Japanese RPG.
While the plot itself is rather basic, the writing within it is superb. Square’s writers and localizers have a knack for creating whimsical and defined worlds, and “Voice of Cards” is no different. The game shifts between a somewhat serious fantasy plot and slapstick levels of comedy on a dime. It sounds like a recipe for tonal whiplash, but there’s a consistent sense of “playfulness” in the writing and narration that allows the story to get away with its sometimes-extreme plot points and episodes. There’s a gullible elf character who is trying to get herself out of debt, and a muscle-bound medic who is so swole that he can break down most doors or barriers for you. Alongside them are a generic carefree main character with a dark past, a cute monster mascot, and an over serious black mage.
There were times where I felt like I was playing a “Dungeons and Dragons” style campaign with friends instead of a just a video game. There’s even a DM-like character that reads most of the text for the player. He goes over establishing prose for each new area, describes the actions and movements of characters in cutscenes, and even does the dialogue between characters when they speak; albeit, he doesn’t really act the roles out so much as just narrate the lines. This titular voice is such a huge part of the experience that the game even advises playing with the sound on to hear the narration if possible.
However, what really highlights the narration and helps the “table top” vibe of the game stick is its aesthetics. The dev team decided to make everything look like cards, and they drive this style to an incredible extreme. Characters look like trading cards, and the map the player moves on is a bunch of picture cards laid out on an old table. Unexplored parts of the map are obscured as the backside of a card until the player approaches them, where upon they flip over, complete with a little card-turning sound effect.
There’s a high amount of love given to making the sound design in the game memorable to the point it seems tactile. In combat, the player uses “crystals” as a resource to cast their spells, which are represented by a collection of stones handed out at the start of each turn. These crystals fall into a velvet-laced box with a satisfying little “tink” sound when given to the player, and will stack or bounce off each other. Even the little marker used to represent the player’s party moves with a satisfying “thump” as it hops from card to card on the overworld or in a dungeon.
Cards gain physical differences when hit with status ailments that line up more with their status as “cards” than they do as characters. A poisoned character will have a sticky green liquid spilt on them. Cards hit with defense-weakening spells will gain creases and flakes in their foiling. The seal status effect literally puts a bound wax seal on top of the card, these are just a few of my favorite examples, there’re all kinds of other little touches that I’d probably have to spend another 4 or 5 paragraphs to actively describe. Just know that everything in this game’s presentation is absolutely charming, and pretty much carries the entire thing. If you’ve ever been curious on what a game with great visual and auditory execution looks like, this is definitely one to check out.
I’m glad that the game’s visuals, audio, and writing are so strong, because the gameplay just barely gets by without starting to feel redundant. I said earlier that parts of it feel like an 8 or 16-bit era JRPG, and that was including both the good and bad points of that time period. Battles are random encounters, and the encounter rate is insanely high. It’s hard to move more than 4 or 5 steps without getting thrown into a battle, and the menu navigation is so slow that even easy encounters can drag out to a few minutes. I’m sure that sounds like a pretty nitpicky gripe, but the time and mundanity adds up after you’ve fought the same ents and goblins 6 times in the past 30 minutes. I really wish there was some kind of item that lowered the encounter rate on weaker enemies just so the game could speed along back to the parts that make it entertaining.
I never really had to grind for levels because the natural encounter rate always ensured I was over-leveled by the time I reached the boss of whatever chapter I was on. The only thing I ever really needed to grind for was gold to buy equipment, which is all pretty damn expensive compared to the normal battle items. You absolutely need to buy equipment too. Combat is simplified to the point that the player really just wants to have the biggest number possible attached to their party’s attack and defense values at all times. Leveling up will give characters access to new skills, but the bulk of their offensive and defensive stats come from gear.
I already talked a bit about the game’s magic system in its aesthetics, but mechanically it’s also interesting too. Having all the party members share a resource to cast their more powerful abilities leads to a lot of forward thinking and interesting strategies. I mostly stuck with a single party that filled every role, but it’s very possible to build around other play-styles and characters. A favorite of mine that I ended up not sticking with was turning the elf into a 1-shot glass cannon. She comes with a ridiculous attack boost skill that, and when combined with the buff-up ability from the muscle medic and the resource acceleration of the black mage, lets her deal almost triple digit damage to any one card on the field. It feels like you could complete “Voice of Cards” with just about any kind of party once you build a workable strategy with them, and everyone’s role is so well defined in what they can do that it’s easy to mix and match. There’s no job systems or skill trees, just level ups, stats, and a handful of skills.
The only other sort of mini-gripe I have with the game is its inventory system. When visiting a shop, the player can buy multiple items at a time, but selling items requires them to go 1-by-1, even if they want to sell a stack of the exact same thing. Wasting time is the biggest hindrance in this game, and being reminded of the mundanity of how these kinds of RPGs play is typically where I would end up putting the game down for the day before picking it up later.
“Voice of Cards” is pretty short for an RPG. I clocked in maybe 15-ish or so hours on it over the course of about 4 days. In some ways, I felt that the game was actually too long, mostly due to my encounter gripes, but I enjoyed just about every aspect of it. I don’t think a game, specifically an RPG, needs to be hours upon hours long to be enjoyable, and “Voice of Cards” is a perfect example of why. The annoying random encounters eat up so much of the time that I was constantly rushing through them. I stopped exploring because combat became a chore on top of the few other tedious things I mentioned. I don’t think I’d have finished this game if it were any longer than it already was. So, in a sense, I guess “Voice of Cards” is almost the perfect length for what it wants to accomplish.
If you have the patience for old-school RPGs, want a game that’s relatively simple but fun, or just want to see a very aesthetically beautiful video game, then I think it’s worth your time to check out “Voice of Cards.”
4/5
“Voice of Card: The Isle of Dragon Roar”
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Alim
Release Date: 2021/10/28
Available on: Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows
Played on: Switch