Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars (2021)

I finally checked out the demo for this and I really enjoyed it! I feel like I have a lot of thoughts but my brain can't word them too good because it's like 2am, but I could go for some bullet points right now just to empty my head. So here's that if you're interested!

Good things that were funky and cool and I liked a lot:

• The art style and general aesthetic of the game is very nice; the characters all look amazing and having the whole game be made up of cards is really interesting!
• The narration threw me off at first, going into the game I kind of expected all the characters to be voiced so I wasn't loving having everything narrated by one dude, but I got over it real quick because as it turns out this one dude absolutely killed it and the whole experience was very immersive and fun.
• The music. Oh my god the music is so good.
• The gameplay itself has a lot of potential, I was starting to get into it towards the end of the demo when levelling the party started unlocking some neat abilities. You get a little glimpse of how strategy might come into play later in the game with managing gems for more powerful moves and whatnot.
• There's a minigame you can play both in the story mode and separately from the main menu that is so ridiculously fun for no good reason. I spent half my time with the game playing that lol

Some things I hope are improved on before the game releases:

• The difficulty. I don't mind a more laid back experience but the demo felt as though you really couldn't put a foot wrong as you greatly overpowered every enemy and could easily stack up healing and stat boosting items that you'll absolutely never need. I do have faith the main game will be more difficult/have difficulty options and that this demo was mainly to show off the concept I think, but it's still worth mentioning.
• I think some aspects of the battles could be made a little clearer. Sometimes the amount of damage being dealt by my squad made no sense to me and didn't add up the way the card would describe, but that could just be my own misunderstanding.
• The game has an elemental strength/weakness type system and I'm not sure if you're just supposed to work out and then remember all the enemies individual weaknesses since there's no indication of what type they are, but that seems like a pain if so lol
• This doesn't seem like a super fair thing to criticise since it's just a little side story that I think was mainly trying to introduce the games mechanics and world and tease the main story more than anything else, but I thought the characters, setting and what little we have of the story so far... were all pretty flat and generic. THAT BEING SAID, I wasn't bored at any point in the demo and I still had a very good time with it overall, but I just hope the full game can deliver an engaging plot and some likeable characters, because I really wasn't vibing with this bunch too much unfortunately.

In conclusion: it was good! I liked it. I might wait for reviews before I pick it up just in case for some wild reason they don't adjust the difficulty or if the story completely sucks then I might hold off for a sale, but all my other gripes are really minor so I'm optimistic honestly!

Ah...How I wish for more!! I can't wait! A comfy, cheeky game with a relaxed darkness creeping within. I played the extra card game for way too long. A mini-game that's actually fun? I haven't experienced that in a long time.

The narrator is a real treat. His voice makes everything so much more immersive, although sometimes I question if he's really proud of me for winning those battles.... He seems a bit unimpressed. I'll just have to show him.