is a 2022 role-playing video game developed by Alim and published by Square Enix for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Windows. It was released for Android and iOS in 2023. Using the aesthetic of a tabletop role-playing game, the player controls a young man who escorts a magical maiden on her quest to collect relics and protect their home from destruction. Gameplay involves travelling between towns, completing story quests and fighting in turn-based battles.
Following the release of Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars in 2021, Alim began development on a second game, with creator Yosuke Saito intending it as the next entry in a longer series. The first game's staff returned including creative director Yoko Taro, artist Kimihiko Fujisaka and music team Monaca. Production lasted four months. While using the same gameplay and world, it told a different story, which writer Yuki Wada made more melancholy. Reception was generally positive, with critics noting improvements to the story over the first Voice of Cards in addition to the artwork and narrative, but noting a lack of innovation in its gameplay. A follow-up, Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden, was released in September 2022.
Gameplay
Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden is a role-playing video game which presents its world, characters and battles in the style of a tabletop role-playing game; everything is represented using cards, with the player navigating environments as a game piece. The game is split into four acts, each having a self-contained narrative tying into the main plot. The player explores different islands using a boat, with areas blocked off until certain story events are completed. Much of the game uses a linear structure, with only the last two island narratives able to be tackled in any order.
The environments are split between towns, the overworld, and dungeons. During navigation, the player uncovers the map through flipping adjacent cards, sometimes triggering random events and finding treasure chests. In towns, players can engage in a card-based minigame, with the aim being to match card types and scores while working with or around random card effects, with the winner having the highest score. The card minigame supports four-person local multiplayer.
Battles play out through both scripted and random encounters with a party of four controlled by the player; protagonists Barren and Laty, and two other characters dictated by the storyline. During combat, the player can perform standard attacks, use items, and perform skills using gems generated once per turn and added to a pool. Some skill effects are dictated by rolling a dice. Alongside single-character skills, characters with strong bonds can perform high-cost Link Skills. During some battles, happenstance cards are triggered, granting an effect to both the player and the enemy party. Damage from attacks is calculated using the attack and defense values on each card, while each character can only have one positive and one negative status effect at a time. Upon winning, the party is awarded with gold and experience points, with leveling up raising a character's health and attributes.
Synopsis
On Omega Isle, which is destined to be destroyed since it has no Maiden to safeguard its guardian spirit, protagonist Barren builds a boat to sail the ocean and looks after Laty, a mute girl who was found by him on the shore. After fighting monsters for a payment of food, he learns from a diary of Laty's that she is a Maiden. Going to Omega Isle's shrine with her, they are met by the spirit Lac, who reveals Laty was meant to be Omega Isle's Maiden but failed and must now find four other Maidens and acquire relics from them to prevent Omega Isle's destruction. Barren leaves with Laty, though Omega Isle's mayor Greith believes destruction is their destiny. With each Maiden and attendant encountered, Barren and Laty work to heal scars on Laty's heart in the Heart's Domain, source of human emotion.