Square Enix has been in an experimental development phase for some time now, and no series quite lives up to that ideal like developer Alim’s Voice of Cards. The first title, The Isle Dragon Roars, was released last year to decent reviews, and I enjoyed my time with it enough to play all the way through to the end and even clean up some of the post-game content.

This makes it such a shame that I can’t say the same for its sequel, Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden. Where The Isle Dragon Roars offered a fun, simple RPG experience suitable for all ages, The Forsaken Maiden iterates on that formula by reducing the role-playing systems to little more than set dressing and stretching a bare-bones story so thing it almost ceases to exist.  

Story

The basic plot set up for The Forsaken Maiden is pretty straightforward: a young man with no direction teams up with Laty, a mute girl who failed to become the island’s maiden savior, and the two of them set out to fulfill her destiny and save their island. It’s an easy-to-understand, palatable, adventure story that has clear direction and purpose. At least, it does in theory.

In execution, however, the story falls apart pretty quickly. Whatever cataclysm that’s threatening the main character’s home island is quickly swept aside in favor of a string of vignettes focusing on the different maidens of each island in the archipelago. These characters range from mildly interesting archetypes to surprisingly dated stereotypes, but they’re never in the game long enough to make much of an impression.

These vignettes distract from the main story in such a profound way that I often forgot the ultimate goal, even with the brief interludes between each maiden’s tale. It doesn’t help that the core party are some of the blandest characters I’ve ever encountered in a JRPG, and I’ve played Final Fantasy XV.  

The main character is barely more than a bumbling husk, a true vehicle for the player without many of the control systems that make such a protagonist work. Because of Laty’s inability to speak, she’s reduced to simple gestures and facial expressions as described by the game’s narrator, who’s the lone voice in all of The Forsaken Maiden.   

The intention behind this was, I believe, to recreate the experience of playing a true tabletop game where a game master fills in for all the non-player characters the party encounters. The problem here is that, because there’s no real engagement with the game master, this one man is forced to provide a voice for every character in the game. It worked to a certain extent with The Isle Dragon Roars, but the characters in that game were far more interesting and better written than those in The Forsaken Maiden.

While each maiden’s tale does have some element that connects it back to the game’s main story, they pull focus away from it for too long, and the overall game suffers as a result. Between the lackluster characters and meandering story, I never found myself truly invested in this world.

Gameplay

On its face, this game might seem like it sports a card-battling combat system like Slay The Spire or Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, but this would be a false assumption. Instead, Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden is a traditional, turn-based RPG that just happens to be built entirely out of tarot-style cards.

The characters, the weapons, even the landscape is made up of these cards, and it helps make The Forsaken Maiden a simple, easy-to-pick-up role-playing game. Everything is clearly delineated, so exploration is boiled down to simply moving from one card to the next, uncovering the world as you go. In this way, it might make for a good starter RPG for kids just getting into video games.

I’d like to say that, but, in reality, there are many better RPGs on which new gamers could cut their teeth. Most of The Forsaken Maiden’s gameplay systems offer some degree of frustration, from the random encounters to the slow pace of movement while in the overworld. The very methods necessary for navigating the world feel like they were designed to pad the overall experience.

The worst offense, though, is customization. A role-playing game is just that: a game that allows you to role-play. Whether that’s as a powerful magician or a brave knight, RPGs allow players to customize and grow their characters in meaningful ways. It’s a cornerstone of what makes role-playing games so great.

But The Forsaken Maiden does away with almost every aspect of party customization possible, which left me with only one character I had even passable control over. I could swap out my main character’s weapons, armor, and accessories, but the options available to me were extremely limited. Laty is the only other character I could customize, and even then I could only change certain pieces of her equipment.

Every other party member’s gear is locked, and the majority of them are guest characters who don’t level up. The protagonist and Laty learn new skills and abilities automatically once they’ve reached a certain level, so there’s no way to specialize their move sets to complement one another. More than a few times I found myself facing enemies whose weaknesses I could never exploit; my characters just simply never learn that type of elemental attack.

It felt bad after about an hour and continued to feel bad well into the later portions of the game. It’s a baffling design choice that throws out many of the good ideas introduced in the first game. Without meaningful character progression and an interesting world to explore, this game barely feels like an RPG at all.

Audio and Visual

If The Forsaken Maiden gets anything right, it’s the art direction. While it doesn’t always run great on the Nintendo Switch, the game is very aesthetically pleasing, especially in the character and monster designs. Each card is lovingly drawn with a crisp, anime style that makes me wonder what these games might look like in cell-shaded 3D.

The sound design is also fantastic, and each locale feels auditorily distinct from every other. Forests are filled with the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind and birds chirping overhead, while seaside environments feature the sound of crashing waves and the gentle lapping of the tide against the sand. The music composition is solid, especially when exploring the world to a jazz-infused adventure score.

What Could Be Better

A more focused story would be a good place to start, and I think one of the easiest ways Alim could pull this off would be by springing for full voice acting in the next entry. Giving each character a distinct voice would have made immersing myself in the world of The Forsaken Maiden much easier.

I also would like to see an evolution of the role-playing systems instead of a simplification. The lack of investment in my party robbed this game of any appeal and made it feel like it’s aping at being an RPG rather than truly meeting the criteria. Should there be a sequel, I’m hopeful that Alim will return to a full party of customizable characters and expand on their progression systems in meaningful ways.

Verdict

A strong artistic vision isn’t enough to save this game from its own mediocrity. With its dull story and restrictive progression and combat mechanics, Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden might be a good time for genre newcomers, but they’d be far better off choosing something else.