The third edition of Voice of Cards in a year brings us the most refined and fun gameplay yet but the least interesting narrative.
Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden It is available for PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
The Beast of Burden introduces us to Al’e, a young woman who dreams of seeing the stars, and who lives in an underground village. As they explain to us, the surface of the world is invaded by monsters, for which what remains of humanity is forced to live in places like this. Predictably, her village is invaded by monsters and Al’e is the only survivor *, saved at the last moment by a mysterious young man who tells her that she has a special power, and that there are people on the surface who need that power. can. With a new purpose, and wanting nothing more than revenge on all the monsters, Al’e and the young man embark on a new adventure together.
*I was about to get mad at Yoko Taro for falling for this cliché when I realized that this is the first game in her entire career to use the feature. Crisis averted, I still love you.
YVAEL THIRD
At this point in the game if you’ve played a game in the series (or read my reviews of previous installments: Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars Y Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden) you know what to expect, and Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden It doesn’t do much to separate itself on a gameplay or presentation level from its predecessors. Once again we are facing an RPG with turn-based combat in which we are going to explore a world made entirely of cards while the voiceover of our GM tells us the story. This time we have for the first time a female narrator giving the adventure a little more flavor of its own.
Like the second installment, The Forsaken Maiden, The Beasts of Burden introduces a twist to the gameplay to give it a bit of its own identity. In this case, it is thanks to the power of Al’e mentioned above: the ability to capture the monsters we fight, turning them into cards with different skills that we can equip to our characters, and with different degrees of rarity that determine how strong it will be. said skill. Cards can then be randomly acquired after combat (although not *every* combat) when the card of one of the creatures we just defeated, or sometimes up to two cards of different ranks, can drop as treasure. If the card is repeated, it is discarded, and if it is a higher rank version of one that we already had, it is automatically replaced. Each character can be equipped with up to five different cards without any type of restriction, giving us many options to build our party as we please.
the world in The Beasts of Burden is put together much more linearly than in the previous two games, especially The Forsaken Maiden with its huge maps and alternative routes. Here, each chapter of the story takes us from one region to the next and not only are they smaller but there is generally less need to explore. However, this didn’t feel like a negative point, as the pace of the game remains constant and the urgency of the narrative is truly felt. The developers seem to have also taken into account that those who want specific cards will have to grind to get them, something that was not necessary in any of the other games, and with that, their duration would be greatly extended.
Where The Beasts of Burden It falters for me is in its story, which doesn’t do anything new or interesting. The best by far are the dialogues and interactions between party members, while the story moves quickly and unsurprisingly. The tone throughout the adventure is quite gloomy in general, with a few punctual moments of humor, which barely prevent the vibe of everything be a garrón all the time.
The previous two games weren’t narrative wonders either, of course, but they made up for it with the black and bizarre humor so particular to Taro’s games, or by subverting expectations of traditional JRPG stories. There is none of that here, and the closest thing there is to a twist in the story is seen coming practically from the beginning, and from there we are just waiting for the game to reveal it to us. For a brief moment he threatened to get more interesting only to end up saying nope, that’s exactly what you expected fifteen hours ago. Luckily, the game isn’t very long – in fact it’s the shortest of the three – and it’s over before the concept burns out completely.
GRAPHICS, MUSIC AND ALL THAT
There is nothing new to say about the technical section either, the game looks and runs exactly as you would expect if you played any of the previous ones. The presentation is impeccable, the music is still great as always -with Keiichi Okabe the rod will always be excellent-, nothing to criticize on that side. I noticed this time that the GM’s voice varied a lot in volume between different lines, something that I don’t remember happening in the previous ones.
Without surprising or disappointing, Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden is another good addition to the series. If you liked the previous two, this one will too, and the gameplay changes are more than enough to distinguish it from its older brothers. Perhaps on this occasion it is his narrative that leaves a little to be desired, but it does not subtract either: it is simply correct. But I’m not going to lie: with three games in less than a year, I’m starting to feel the fatigue. Maybe it’s time to put this project to rest for a bit and come back with a more drastic change.