4/5 ★ – Tye_Boy's review of Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars.

Quaint yet charming, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars distinctively sticks out from the RPGs of today. Absent are the tens of hours of gameplay, instead lasting about ten to fifteen hours long; making for a nicely-paced game that never overstays its welcome. Frustrating fights and tedious grinding are nowhere to be found, for the game balances itself fairly well between certain chance factors in-game, and areas that allow for levelling up while making good progress. With Yoko Taro’s involvement as creative director, the game houses his strange, quirky, yet highly memorable elements that infused themselves immensely well in his prior games. The different towns, intriguing cast of characters, morals contained within the grander scheme of things in-game, and more show themselves fairly often here. Narratively, the game goes for a fairly straightforward yet strongly memorable fantasy story. The seemingly simple tale of an adventure to defeat a dragon. Its cast of characters each stand out from one another, as the story takes interesting turns here-and-there to derive it from the typical narrative one may think its headed in. All the while, it contains the aforementioned intrigue and even thought-provoking nature that Taro has incorporated elsewhere. I believe the same composer as the Nier games created the soundtrack here, and it’s very reminiscent of those games. On top of that, these tracks are stunningly well-made. Containing rich orchestral and melancholy vocal performance, it may not have a ton of variety (especially in how tracks are reused a lot throughout), but they’re terrific nonetheless. The artwork on all of the cards, particularly with character designs, are outstanding. They all look beautiful, and never become stale to look at, since they’re the only image of the characters you see all-game. After all, this is a game made-up entirely of cards. For such a unique idea, any doubts of possible staleness fade away, due to a few key factors that give the game a ton of charm and character. Most notably of these is the narrator, reading out every line of text shown throughout. This gamemaster’s voice acting outstandingly captures a calm, storybook-reading-type aura. It’s a more than appropriate voice to accompany the player during their time in this world. The aesthetics for the cards themselves, the game piece you use to move around, and the tabletop RPG battles are incredible. In terms of visuals and sound design, I was reminded a lot of Nintendo’s Clubhouse Games for the Switch, which I also played this game on. The shuffling of cards and rolling of dice are nicely utilized, while some sound effects can be fairly generic and even stock-sounding. If I had one issue with the game, it’s that it can sometimes feel slow when navigating the game through the use of a board-game piece. That, and moving through the menus, have this strange, slight delay in using them. The amount in which both their speeds bothered me stayed minimal, yet lasted during my entire playthrough. Believe it or not, during my playthrough of this game, a second one in this series was both quietly announced and released. It’s NOT a sequel, for it boasts a different world, characters, and story. But from what I can tell, the narrator, general gameplay structure, and RPG mechanics are pretty much the same. It’s fun, fairly easygoing, and charming as can be. Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars is a worthy RPG coming from Yoko Taro and the various minds at Square Enix.