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An adventurous table-top inspired RPG card game | Review - Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden

2K View2023-03-26

Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden is a table-top RPG game in video game format. It has recently been ported to the Android and iOS Mobile platforms, after first releasing back in 2022 for Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

🟩Pros

+Open exploration and an adventurous tone

+Table-top RPG based aesthetic and gameplay

+Engaging turn-based combat system

+premium game with no ads, or pay-to-win mechanics, but there are purchasable cosmetics

🟥Cons

-non-table-top RPG players might find the game slow

-feels like the same game mechanically, with no improvements, for those who played the previous game

Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden is the second released game in the Voice of Cards trilogy, While still set in the same world as the other games, it features an all new standalone story that makes it completely playable without needing to have played any of the other games in the trilogy.

It follows the Voice of Cards gameplay and storytelling format, which is basically aiming for a table-top RPG card game aesthetic with anime-inspired characters and features a fully voiced narrator that serves as the game master of the game. Comparing this game to the first, the narrator has been much improved with a more lively voice, matching the more lighthearted but still melancholic tone of this game.

The story follows our player named character and his main companion — the frustrated “Forsaken” Maiden named Laty. The main premise is that each of these islands have a designated Maiden to keep their islands safe via ritual, but for some reason, Laty, the maiden for our hometown of Omega Island, cannot perform said ritual. This sets the characterts to embark on a journey across various islands and towns in order to save Omega Island.

The overall feel of the game feels very adventurous, and the world is more of an open world and focuses more on exploration — which will make players feel like they’re in some kind of odyssey or a grand epic adventure. This is different to the first game which was very linear in nature. The presentation felt immersive and the descriptive language of the storytelling and the narrator’s rendition of it was really captivating.

As for the gameplay, it mainly revolves around traveling to different destinations, completing quests for NPCs, and battling monsters in a turn-based card game. Players are given a single game piece, and move it around the world represented by cards for each plot of area, and place it on specific plots to interact with them, such as entering towns, speaking to NPCs, or opening chests for loot. The overall pacing is a bit slow, with various card animation and drawn-out narrated descriptions and dialogues, but there is a high speed option to slightly speed the gameplay up.

In the battles, each participant takes turns in performing moves taken from their available deck of cards, such as various elemental attacks, heals, and special abilities. Some abilities may need a consumable called gem to use, and some will require dice rolls in order to determine its effectivity. For the whole RPG experience, including the progressions, character gears, nothing really is groundbreaking here, just being a passable engaging experience overall, to complement the storytelling.

Note that while Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden is a sequel to Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars, they are almost the same game mechanically, and offer little to no improvement gameplay wise. Even some of the character artwork and monsters, are directly copy-pasted from the first game. It would be more appropriate to think of this as an expansion or a new story content, rather than a full-pledged successor. Especially that it came out just mere months after the first game.

Ultimately, the main focus of Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden is the narrative and the presentation, and it certainly delivers, with a likable cast of characters, a buoyant adventurous tone that players can immerse themselves into, the game just connects with you on a personal level. For $12, a game with no ads or pay-to-win mechanics and are just straight up story-driven from start to end, is a game that I would highly recommend, especially, for those already fascinated by table-top games.

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