[REVIEW] Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars
The Voice of Cards series started off with The Isle Dragon Roars and quickly expanded to what is currently a trilogy but may end up getting more games later on down the road, and for good reason. Though at the moment, everything I see suggests that everyone's currently content for it to be a trilogy. But today, I want to cover the first game in the series, which will give people an idea as to whether it's worth diving into the series as a whole. Because the game is good, but there are a few caveats to that statement.
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars was developed by Alim (who don't seem to have an online presence to link to) and published by Square Enix on October 28, 2021 for Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Steam. It's a single-player turn-based RPG with a rather unique visual gimmick that becomes immediately apparent upon playing.
EVERYTHING IS CARDS
The Isle Dragon Roars (indeed, the whole Voice of Cards series) takes place on a simulated tabletop, as if everything were a TTRPG with cards as the stand-ins for characters, items, monsters, map tiles, and even attack choices. Absolutely everything is a card. They lean heavily into the aesthetic, as even if there are plenty of visual effects that don't appear in card form, dead characters, for instance, have their cards ripped in half, symbolic destruction to echo the real destruction. This could get old quickly, but surprisingly, it doesn't, as it quickly just becomes part of the background in a similar way to most RPGs. You don't spend an entire game going constantly recognizing, say, pixel graphics, and it's the same with The Isle Dragon Roars. The aesthetic is strong, but not obtrusive, so I think they struck a nice balance with it.
Plus it made everything feel very cozy, like I was actually sitting down at my kitchen table to play a tabletop RPG with friends. The game even has a narrator, just like a GM for a TTRPG, directing the story and voicing the characters. I really love this, if I'm honest, since even if the story packs an absolute emotional gut-punch near the end, it always felt very personal, the game speaking directly to the player just as a GM might, and it reminded me of my younger days playing tabletop games with friends. I think that a lot of TTRPG fans might get the same experience when playing the Voice of Cards series.
AN EMOTIONAL GUT-PUNCH OF A STORY
The Isle Dragon Roars starts in a fairly typical fantasy story, with a party of inexperienced adventurers setting off on a quest to destroy a newly-freed dragon on the orders of Queen Nilla. She offers a hearty reward to whoever slays the beast. Ash, Mar, Melanie, Ridis, and Bruno face off against the Ivory Order, a much-beloved group of people who provide amazing medicines the world over, and who have their own reasons for wanting to be the ones to bring the dragon down.
But it does without saying that the Ivory Order is not entirely benevolent, and there are secrets at the heart of their Order that could devastate the world if all was revealed. All of the characters have their own journeys of self-discovery to experience along the way, and it's honestly impressive to see how much emotion the narrator can convey while telling the story as the player experiences it.
I don't really consider any of that to be spoilers, also, since "things aren't as they first appear" and "characters learn, grow, and change" are to be expected in RPGs. But believe me when I say that even though the game has a pretty irreverent tone at times, and there's a lot of humour to be found in the story and events, the latter half of the game gets dark, and in some unexpected ways that really hit home with me. The writing team for The Isle Dragon Roars really knocked it out of the park here.
It's worth keeping in mind that The Isle Dragon Roars has a New Game + option which features a bonus dungeon and some extra story, so depending on how much you enjoyed playing it the first time, it might be worth a second playthrough to unlock everything that the game has to offer.
I'm not sure it's worth going into much length about the battle system, because really, it's a very standard turn-based system where the only real gimmick is the aesthetic. You can attack, you have skills, some characters have magic, you can use items. Enemies attack you too. There's nothing innovative or even slightly creative about The Isle Dragon Roars's battle system.
Well, I suppose that's not entirely true. Each turn you take in battle gives you a small gem, as shown in the top-left of the above screenshot. Many of your abilities cost a gem or two to use, but basic attacks don't cost anything, so you can attack normally for a few turns in order to build up the resources needed for a character to, say, cast a strong spell. That does add a small element of strategy to the game, as you can't infinitely stockpile gems (there's a limit), and occasionally you have to make a judgment call as to whether to cast a damaging spell or a curative one depending on the gem cost and your stockpile, but for most random battles, you can get through them with basic button-mashing, no real need for strategy or consideration. That element mostly comes into play during longer fights, like boss battles.
While I'm not 100% sure that's innovative, per se, since it definitely echoes any one of a dozen tabletop RPGs, it's something seen a little less often in video games. Limiting resources while simultaneously pooling them for use by anyone in the party isn't something I've seen done a lot.
YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY
What I'm about to say here isn't something that directly affects gameplay, but it might affect the experience of playing the game. And that is that there's some... problematic content in The Isle Dragon Roars. Nothing explicitly racist or sexist or anything like that, but more along the lines of using certain types of people as the butt of jokes. But it's done in a way that is a wink-and-nod to the player, evoking the fact that the player knows very well what they stereotypes are and how they're being played for laughs.
There are lines about how larger people can't resist food, that men should definitely be bros and that it's just icky if a friendship turns out to be queer attraction, or that women who have defined muscles can't be beautiful and won't be loved. The game never outright says these things, but it does allude to them in a way that's easy for the player to ignore if they don't want to admit that yeah, the game just made a subtle joke about a group of people who already face cruel stereotypes and jokes in real life.
Using the "women with muscles" bit as an example, when Melanie gets all muscled up, you don't have the narrator saying, "Melanie hated how she looked, because women with muscles are inherently ugly." But Melanie does lament that she'll "never be a beautiful bride" if she looks that way. When Melanie hasn't shown any inclination or desire to become a beautiful bride, this line comes out of left field and does nothing but signal to the player that they know exactly what kind of joke isn't being said outright, but is being hinted at.
And this bothered me. A lot. The game came out in 2021, not 1995, and we really ought to be beyond video games making jokes like this, at the expense of entire groups. Many players are gay, or trans, or women, or have larger bodies, and to see themselves being made fun of in such a sly way is a slap in the face. And it could have been entirely avoided, if anyone working on the game's dialogue had actually given a damn about not insulting people who didn't deserve to be insulted.
I said what I said, and I won't retract that. The game's dry humour was great in many ways, but when it dipped toes into that sort of territory, it was inappropriate and cruel, and entirely unnecessary.
So if you want a fun and emotional RPG you can beat in a chill weekend, give The Isle Dragon Roars a try. Just be warned that the humour can be a bit hit-or-miss at times, and that you won't find anything that will revolutionize the genre, but by and large, it's a pretty good game.
If you want a slightly more in-depth video review, that's also available on the Potato Witch Youtube channel.
(Game provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
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