We have now reached the third title of the particular anthology of Square Enix totally created with cards, Voice of Cards. It is a series of RPG video games created by the eccentric - in a good way - Yoko Taro who sees the player experience a different story from time to time, and with some features that change or are added game after game. With the first title, Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars, we started from a very basic structure, almost an experiment that focused on some strong points of fantasy and turn-based role-playing games, while with the second title, Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden some interesting changes have been made, such as paired attacks and 4-member party stages instead of 3. So we come to the game we are analyzing today in review, Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden, which compared to the basic structure turns out to be a little more random and inserts a monster capture mechanics per use them in battle.
Discover the light
The story of this new adventure starts in a village hidden in the darkness of the subsoil, where no more than a handful of people live in poverty, but supporting each other. The protagonist is a skilled fighter, and has the task of protecting the village - along with the other inhabitants and the traps placed in the tunnels - from the attacks of monsters that periodically threaten their tranquility. However one day, a furious attack by monsters, who seem much more organized than usual, manages to break through the village, with all the inhabitants who lose their lives, if not our protagonist, saved at the last minute by a mysterious boy. Escaped together from the collapse of the cave, the girl is found for the first time in his life face to face with the outside worldin an immense desert area, and shortly after she realizes the feeling that from now on will push her to go on: revenge. But what will happen once she reaches her? Clearly we will avoid continuing in the story, to let you discover it for yourself.
Tame them all!
Beyond the narrative question, which as we know differs in each chapter of Voice of Cards, the peculiarity of The Beasts of Burden lies in the possibility (not to say that we will be forced to do so) of trap the monsters we meet into a deck of cards, and then use them as a combat skill. We explain better: sometimes after the clash with some monsters, we will be able to find the usual object to be chosen among three hole cards, and among these can be hidden the card of one of the monsters we defeated.
These cards also have a level of effectiveness in stars, and the higher it is, the more the captured monster will see its effect improve. In the deck of cards of the protagonist we can have only one monster of each type, then duplicates and less powerful ones will be automatically discarded. The power to trap them belongs to us, but we will be able to equip these cards also to our companions party, allowing them to use their power. This mechanic itself is very interesting, because beyond the basic statistics of the characters, we can in a sense decide what role to make our companions take.
The monster cards they won't just deal damage, some for example will give us protection, others will temporarily increase our statistics, in short, it is as if they were universal abilities that we can pass from character to character. In addition to this mechanic, everything remains the same, from gems to carry out the strongest skills, to various equipment to find or buy and so on. The only difference can be found in the various cities, where a special has been added shop where to be able buy monster cards to use.
Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden however, although it may seem that this mechanic inserts a bit of panache into the game, it turns out to be the most dull chapter of the three released so far, with a narrative that manages to lose much of the interest in the first few bars, and with a higher randomity than the other titles: i Dadi they have always had their own value within fights, but in The Beasts of Burden become almost dominant.
Nothing to say aboutappearance artistic colonna sonora, always at the highest levels in full style of the series. As usual, some monsters have been replaced with other more particular creatures and / or suitable for the specific game world, which certainly helps to vary the experience compared to the predecessors.
For this specific review, contrary to what we did with the two previous titles, we tested the game on Nintendo Switch to test its portability: beyond a rather slow initial loading, we can define ourselves more than satisfied with how the game runs on the Japanese hybrid, with a particular appreciation citation towards the adaptation, which includes the sacrosanct tactile controls with the touch screen. Not the very first choice on a technical level, but for sure the most comfortable.
Summing up in any case we are faced with a more than pleasant game, which seeks to bring something even different to Yoko Taro's world of cards, but which given the potential of the mechanics created could have had its say in a much more marked way.
Review- Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden (Provato su Switch)7.5Voto Finale
Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden is so far the least convincing chapter of the series, but which nevertheless manages to entertain us in an even different way than its predecessors. The change in the mechanics has brought the player a new challenge, with different balances and a more marked randomness, accompanied by an interesting narrative, but unfortunately not memorable. Certainly a title that we can recommend to fans of the series (because you will have fun), but that for no reason should be played first.
