Voice of Cards - The Isle Dragon Roars

There is a lot that can be said about this game, but what really stands out to me — and what I appreciate the most — is its commitment to its premise. That isn’t all positive; by the time I was halfway through the game I found myself wishing from time to time that individual characters had been voice acted, so that at least their spoken lines would be a break from the narrator. Looking back in hindsight, I respect the iron-clad adherence to the premise of a table-top game. I don’t think the game would have been meaningfully improved by having individual voice actors for each character as opposed to having the narrator do it. It’s also interesting to see any media presented from a second-person viewpoint; I can’t deny I found it novel.

This persistent premise is a double edged sword, however, and it means I don’t really know if I’d recommend this game to anyone. I mentioned that the narrator providing the voice acting for the entirety of the game started to feel banal partway through, but more egregiously the gameplay became more and more monotonous, especially at the end of the game. With the exception of the final boss, The Isle Dragon Roars is pitifully easy: the only game-over I had before to the final sequence was an event encounter that forced me to fight using only a new party member. This is fine! It is okay for games to be easy, but a sudden, massive difficulty swing is all but guaranteed to be frustrating. I won’t hold just being difficult against a game, but when the final boss of the game is several orders of magnitudes harder than the rest of the game, and requires mashing through a bunch of dialogue, and requires doing two tedious phases/encounters before the actual final boss fight, it’s just really annoying and killed the enthusiasm I had to see the game through. Add in that the fights play out slowly and are absolutely loaded with animations, and you receive a final boss that is not only a massive spike in difficulty, but both the actions of re-trying the boss, and even getting to the boss, are tedious. Seeing the other endings also requires beating the boss, again, for each one.

I did learn, after completing the game, that there is a setting to speed up the combat. One of my largest criticisms of the combat system was its speed. I cannot hold it against the game, given there’s an option to address it which I didn’t think to check for, however the default combat speed is quite slow. I don’t think there’s inherently any issue with the combat system being simple; The Isle Dragon Roars is a short game and only took me about 11 hours to beat. (2 and a half of those were spent on the ~4 tries it took me to beat the final boss.) I’d be remiss to not confirm that the final boss fight burned away a lot of the good will I had for this game. As a player it didn’t quite feel worth overcoming a massive roadblock for the sake of this story and these characters. This game has no difficulty curve, instead it boasts a flat line with a large spike at the end. Any sense of grandeur or excitement withered at the realization that I was going to have to mash through the same set of dialogue, watch all the same animations, and repeat all three phases.

The story is simple and predictable — but its derivative nature did not stop it from having strong moments. What’s frustrating is that those moments were few and far between, and the lion’s share were relegated to the final third of the story. I would have liked to see so many more character interactions, I would have liked all of the characters to exist more than ten percent of the time, or to keep existing once their tiny section of the game was done. I found myself desperately wanting to care so much more than I actually did during the climax of the story. There’s a world in which this game spent less time on mediocre random encounters and more time on exploring its characters, and as a result was able to truly deliver the wonderful and emotional climax the story wanted. Despite trying to be an idealization of a table top role playing game, there is little role playing being done.

I’ve spent a lot of time on things that I didn’t like — mostly because the final boss is still fresh in my mind — but there are a lot of things to like about the game. Its commitment to its presentation, with everything being made of cards, means that the cards have to be used in imaginative ways to communicate actions and scale. It was, genuinely, cool to see the story worked through the limitations imposed by the card system. The reveal of the final phase of the final boss was incredible (the first time I saw it). The flip-side glossary-like mechanic, where you unlock short vignettes about people and monsters, does a lot to add depth to the world and directly rewards you for engaging with the game by giving you information. While the combat became monotonous over the course of my play through, there is the basis for a mechanically interesting and engaging combat system, even if it’s not realized in this game. (I am holding out hope for the sequels.) The entire map being made of cards, with a fog-of-war where the cards are flipped up as you approach them, is a fantastic way to present a game’s over-world. Gripes about story and character aside, the game did well enough that I wanted to see it through; bits and pieces of the story — even if predictable — resonated because there is a solid foundation here.

It’s a charming game with an admirable commitment to its premise, with nice music, and it works within its constraints well — but it’s held back by the simplicity of its game play, a host of minor abrasive annoyances, and not spending enough time on its story or characters. And an obnoxious final boss. That’s all to say: the game is fine and overall I did enjoy it; I hope that the sequels are able to expound upon the premise in the way that it deserves.