Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Review - Tabletop Subversion Magic
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is a project developed by Alim and published by Square Enix that successfully blends elements of Dungeons & Dragons, tabletop deck-building, traditional JRPG exploration, and subversive fantasy writing. Not all of the pieces fit perfectly together, but the latest game with NieR creator Yoko Taro involved delivers the same twists, turns, and meta design that has come to be expected from projects with his name associated to them.
Voice of Cards follows a group of adventurers in pursuit of the titular Dragon, rumored to be the source of the world's ills and a threat that the ruling Ivory Order deems necessary to kill. The protagonist is a self-centered mercenary who is purely in it for the gold, but as the journey progresses so too does his character, often with input from the player as they choose options and alter outcomes in specific situations. As the party expands, it becomes much more compelling to follow, with each additional character injecting some personality into a story that begins fairly dry before picking up a few hours in. This feat is especially impressive given that the story is told almost entirely through cards, with brief cutscenes - still featuring card art - the only interruptions during the tabletop experience. Somehow, despite cards barely shifting in art and not changing expression, each character's passions and plights comes through clear thanks to some stellar writing and scenario building.
All of the action of Voice of Cards occurs on a tabletop with a pseudo-gameboard consisting of tiles that shifts and changes based on where the player has arrived. The game consists of a singular narrator who tells the tale as a game master would, complete with the occasional mid-combat or mid-encounter interjection to either shed some light on choices or make an off-hand remark about the circumstances. The aesthetic of the game's cards and tabletop presentation is masterfully put together, and as an experience, Voice of Cards replicates the feeling of a night of tabletop gaming in a way that few other titles have managed.
Voice of Cards is ultimately a card-battler, though more in the vein of Gwent than something like Magic: The Gathering. Players build decks for each character consisting of skills and equipment, managing a growing roster of both with the limited space provided to each character's repertoire. Characters have stats that determine their attack power, the order in which each turn-based round progresses, their defenses against incoming attacks, and their overall pool of health. These stats level up in traditional JRPG fashion, with the entire party earning experience for successful battles.
The battles themselves have some excellent card designs alongside some subtly complex battle mechanics, though the game rarely feels challenging in a way that would force players to wrack their brains too hard for an answer to the questions a given boss fight is posing. The interactions between cards are intuitive, with higher-cost cards more powerful or situationally game-breaking as a result, while cheaper variants offer useful bridges between power turns. Status effects like poison, freezing, and paralysis all make appearances in Voice of Cards, and parties can be built to exploit these in battle quite successfully, though often, bosses will have high resistance to these debuffs and new strategies will need to be made on the fly for them.
Traversing the world in search of loot and battles is done on the tile-based maps that correspond to each story area. Players move a game piece to reveal multiple other tiles adjacent to the one they've just arrived at, and they can then jump their game piece from one revealed tile to any other currently revealed one, with exceptions depending on area lighting or mechanics of certain story sections. Overall, the environments feel very Dragon Quest-like, with a lot of traditional JRPG trappings that begin to unravel the harder a player examines them through exploration or story beats.
If there's an issue with Voice of Cards, it's that it often feels unproductively grindy in its combat. Frequent battles are a staple of exploring dungeon areas especially, and while they can be challenging in spots, often it's a simple matter of taking one or two turns to sweep through enemy lines without much difficulty. The game's characters, story, and world-building is its most interesting elements, and combat sometimes feels like it's getting in the way of the more enticing bits on offer. Mechanical simplicity will also mean that experienced tabletop gamers will find little too challenging, at least in the early-going, which is also where the narrative is at its weakest; this means that Voice of Cards does require a commitment to get through its early world-building and combat development to really enjoy what's on offer later.
While Voice of Cards does stumble in spots, it shines as a brilliantly told story that successfully replicates the feeling of the best tabletop gaming sessions, with a game master whose engaging voice carries much of the emotion and tension required to make the setup work. While it certainly won't be for everyone, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is a beautiful title well worth a look from any roleplaying fan, and an example of how excellent design can breathe life into any game with enough to say about its world and its heroes.
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars releases on October 28, 2021 for Nintendo Switch, PC, and PlayStation 4. Screen Rant was provided with a digital PS4 code for the purpose of this review.