This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

I’m back. Sure it has only been a week, but I was trying to keep a set cadence of write-ups and that has gone down the drain. Honestly it will probably go even further down the drain as I have been all over the place trying to fill my free time. Did you know that other hobbies can be engrossing too? Crazy, right! However, before I bow out again, lets talk about the last game that I completed. It is possibly one of the harder games to describe, because visually if you don’t see it, then my descriptions sound like nonsense.

Today we are talking about “The Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars,” but Its going to get shortened so many times in this article that we might not say the full name again. This game is the first game of a trilogy based on it’s style. As far as I have looked into, there is no story tie in, character or even location that any of the games share to make it one overarching world. It is tied together through the gameplay and aesthetics of how the game is being presented. That gameplay and aesthetics for Voice of Cards is best described as an RPG that is played through a deck of cards. Every character, every action, every location that you visit is a playing card. Not in the sense of a standard deck of playing cards (Ace, 2, 3, etc.) but rather they all look like they belong to a tabletop game you backed on kickstarter.

In fact if one wanted to, they could turn this into a tabletop game very easily. The game already plays where there is a single dungeon Master that is laying out cards for you, voicing all the characters, and guiding you on a quest. All you would really need is a set of the cards and some dice to roll. If that sounds like I am describing one of many versions of Dungeons and Dragons, then you aren’t wrong. While most RPGs are inspired by D & D in some sense, this game takes it the extra step. You are sitting at a table, there is a mysterious man who is narrating the story, laying out the cards and guiding you through the game. I will say this fairly early on, the draw of the game is the aesthetics and having the feeling that you are sitting down at a table to play solo D&D. We can discuss the RPG elements, story, characters and everything else later, but you are either going to be really intrigued by this setup or be indifferent at best towards it. If you aren’t intrigued or excited by this premise then you might as well move on.

The RPG mechanics are your relatively old fashioned standard. There are random battles as you move on the world map or in dungeons. Fights are turn based (more on that later), with each characters speed stat determining who goes first. When you gain enough experience your characters level up and gain set stat increases and will learn new moves or abilities on specific levels. There is a hard cap at level 30 that you can’t go past (at least that I am aware of), and everyone regardless of being in your party for a battle will gain experience. You equip new weapons and armor that will adjust your stats, but there aren’t boosts or really resistances to consider, so the newest weapon and armor is almost universally the best option to remain equipped. Outside of the look of the game, you could be convinced you are playing an RPG from the SNES generation.

Combat while turn-based is done a bit differently. Each character can equip 4 “moves” that they can then bring into battle. These can be changed out outside of battle and you will learn new abilities as you level up, but these moves can be a mix of support or attacking moves so that on your characters turn they can activate them. This game does not use MP, in order to activate bigger or stronger moves but it does use something similar, in terms of gems. These gems are shared for the whole team and unless you use a specific move that adds gems to the pool, they will generate 1 gem on each characters turn. While that does mean that you will have at least one gem on every turn, some of the moves that you will eventually equip for your team will require 3 or more gems in order to use. That means that most of your combat encounters is about managing this pool of resources so that the right people on your team can use the right skills to win the fight. There are generic attack moves that can be equipped that do not cost a gem to use, but this obviously takes up one of your 4 slots and it is a fairly no-frills move that won’t be doing a lot of damage. You can also have characters pass on their turn, which won’t use up a gem, but obviously won’t impact the battle in any way. It is this push-pull of strategy that can make combat feel a little more exciting then just mashing the attack button, but I would be lying if I said the combat was challenging. Now, part of this I will admit is because my nature of “explore everything”, means that I got in a lot of random encounters to gain levels and potentially be stronger than I needed to be, but this is not some 40 hour RPG with big areas to explore, this is simply moving 10 spaces in the opposite direction here and there to fully uncover a dungeon floor. The other part is probably my general experience with the genre. I know general weaknesses of enemies (blue beats Red, Red beats Green etc.) and I know which statuses are important to inflict and which can be ignored. I rolled with the starting three characters throughout the full game with required exceptions where a character was out of the party and yet, I can still count on one hand the challenging battles I had where I could have truly lost it all, and they were: Optional boss fight and Final stage of final boss fight.

So the combat is “meh.” It’s not necessarily bad, and the gem system could be interesting, but playing on normal didn’t offer much of a challenge where I had to truly focus or strategize on 99% of the fights I encountered. But how about that story does that draw you in? The story has its moments, but I don’t think it is something that I will remember much longer. The story starts off with a request from the queen to slay a dragon that is causing the world grief. Your character and his ally are treasure hunters and dream of hitting it big so you sign-up to try and kill the dragon so you can collect the reward. As you travel you will recruit other characters (3 more) that all want to tackle the dragon for different reasons, and eventually join your party. Of course you aren’t the only people trying to take down the dragon, and twists and turns happen, until eventually you are really going after the real evil of the game and surprise surprise, it’s not the dragon. The best moments of the story are the offshoots of the main story, but I wouldn’t call them side quests as the game really doesn’t have those, so perhaps we call them side-stories. For instance visiting a town where humans and creatures live in harmony is a decent story beat, as well as exploring the alchemist’s town. I’m certainly underselling the story, its fairly common in terms of other RPGs, but the world building and ambiance is fairly good. A lot of that has to do with the music and narration which is pulling a lot of the weight. To state it again, you have to approach this game as if you are playing Dungeon’s and Dragons with a DM sitting across from you. They read out all the cards, they don’t do unique voices for all the characters, but it all still works well together. The narrator isn’t overbearing and cracking jokes, or constantly chatting because the game is afraid to have you play in some silence, but you will still hear his one off battle remarks repeat a few times.

All told this is a small 15-20 hour RPG, and that greatly depends on if you are trying to explore every card, or just moving from scene to scene. While nothing blew me away with this game, the aesthetics and the comfort I get from a, lets say simplified, RPG was enough for me to want to play it and finish it. I should mention that there are multiple different endings and one “mega-Happy-ending” (ala Wayne’s world) that you have to earn by getting 10 unique cards throughout the game before the ending. Those cards are earned by exploring and helping people in need, but I was only able to get 9 during my playthrough so I missed earning the Mega-Happy-Ending. I watched it later, and truth be told, I liked the ending I picked (got) because I think the Mega-Happy-Ending is a little too cheerful for the game. While I won’t spoil the choices at the end, but essentially you are given an item that can help do 1 of 3 different things, I used it on my traveling partner since the beginning of the game.

Ok, got off topic there… I’m biased towards liking this game, because it allowed me to get a nostalgia hit of old-school RPG played on an old table with cards. This game was seemingly tailored made for me, but if I remove myself from the equation, I would say that most people can probably skip this. It’s not that there is anything inherently bad or broken with this game, it is a very competent and well-designed game, but it is also forgettable outside of the aesthetics. I think it would be more interesting if all 3 games in the trilogy were connected in some way and it told a grander story, but seeing as they are all individual instances then at best you can get the one that sounds most interesting to you and forget about the other 2. Even despite enjoying most of my time with the game (again because it is tailor made for me), I don’t feel the need to get the other 2 games in the series. I don’t think I will be as enamored with what it has to offer if I see it for another full game or 2.

Is this the greatest game of all time?: no

Where does it rank: I think this specific Voice of Cards game is a solid RPG of yesteryear with some nice aesthetics to it, but it is by no means essential or even a game I would recommend to people unless I truly knew their likes and dislikes enough to see if they were freaks like me. If you are craving a shorter, streamlined, old feeling RPG, then this is up your alley... if you aren't you can move along. I have it ranked as the 67th Greatest Game of All Time out of 165 games. It sits between "Psychonauts" (66th) and "Elli" (68th). It might be a little inflated because, again, this game is tailor made for me, but even removing myself it's still gotta be above Sonic Adventure.

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion).Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for listening

Future games coming up 1) Abzu 2) 1978 Revolution 3) Hitman: World of Assassination

I found myself surprisingly into this game when it came out. I had the sequel on my Steam wishlist but never picked it up thanks to its price tag and mediocre review score. But this one rubbed my brain in the exact way that I wanted when it came out, and I found it tough to put down.

@allthedinos: thanks for the comment and read. It can certainly be addicting because you really can't get bogged down with side quests or leveling.. if you like the loop and the story, then it can be a quick play.

I played the demo for this and I really liked the narrator's voice. But I think something else was coming out at the same time so I never did buy it. Also, Yoko Taro's name being attached gave me an expectation of weird/funny/subversive things in the story, whereas the opening at least played things mostly straight when it comes to RPG tropes.

@jeremyf: thanks for the read and comment.. yeah the game is surprisingly straightforward. There is obviously some humor and the characters can be weird, but it's not as different as his other work. Really the one very different thing is the card look and I would say that is it's strongest mark.