Sometimes, you see a game that just feels like it was meant for you, and Card-en-Ciel is that for me. A card-based roguelite with an anime art style meant I needed to review this one. However, that kind of anticipation leads to high expectations, which meant I wondered if it would meet those or fall flat.
Card-en-Ciel is a card-based dungeon crawler developed by Inti Creates, the developers behind a wide variety of series like Azure Striker Gunvolt, Gal Gun, Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, and Blaster Master Zero, to name a few. Card-en-Ciel is built as a love letter to these series, incorporating previous games throughout the Inti Creates lineup and turning them into cards and worlds. I personally don’t have much experience with other Inti Creates properties, so this wasn’t for me, but it might be neat if you enjoy one of the games featured.
Card-en-Ciel is set in a future world with full dive VR games, where the games are highly realistic but under-regulated. You play as Neon, a gaming detective, who gets called in to investigate error data in the game world of an unreleased VR MMO, which is overlapping with other game worlds, and this is where the crossovers come from. Each stage is a different game world, with different cards that are featured; some of these game worlds are from existing games and others are games created entirely for Card-en-Ciel. These fictional games are really fun, too, with clear inspiration coming from existing genres that I found to be surprisingly thought out, to the point that I wish there was more of a story focus, if only so that I could find out more about games like Love Above the Rooftops, a romance visual novel about giant robot girls, and President Ex Machina, an action game about the president getting put into a cyborg body. It got to the point where so much detail was put into describing these, that I kept Googling games and character names, only to find out they weren’t actual games. Inti Creates, I think this means you need to actually develop Scholars of Elfilia or Kizuna Connect!
Gameplay is, in many ways, a spiritual successor to Mega Man Battle Network, with each encounter taking place on a grid, 3×3 for you and 3×3 for any enemies. You use cards to either attack or target an enemy’s attack, which can eventually break an enemy, leaving them unable to attack or move. You can also use cards to move, so you can avoid attacks and position yourself better. All of this is bolstered by muse cards, which come into play when certain conditions are met and improve your deck for that particular encounter.
The cards in your deck reset for (almost) every level, which means that a big part of the game is deckbuilding on the fly and learning new card combinations, and I think Card-en-Ciel does this very well. Almost every level introduced cards that I had previously avoided or not put in my deck and forced me to learn new ways of playing them. During each turn you usually have three energy to use on cards, so, for the most part, cards that cost three energy aren’t going to be used for battles with multiple enemies. However, in one level you can get a muse that, once conditions are met, lowers the cost of three energy cards. This leads to some really fun strategy, where a deck that worked in one level is almost impossible to run in another level.
My biggest gripe with Card-en-Ciel is that, while the side stories are fun and well thought out, the main characters don’t do much for me. The initial setup of a virtual detective is neat, but Neon and Ancie (your main companion throughout) don’t have much in the way of personalities, which makes overarching story beats fall flat. Ancie in particular seems to exist just to fawn over Neon, without any real personality to make it endearing. Also, while a lot of the card art and music looks great, the environment you play in always looks the same. There’s a lot of effort put into making interesting settings and cards, I just wish that we’d actually get to see it more. Much thought was put into making these systems match their fictional settings, but we don’t get any chance to see those settings, beyond Neon saying that it’s that particular world.
Card-en-Ciel’s gameplay is incredibly fun, which makes it an easy recommendation for anyone who has liked games like Slay the Spire or Monster Train but wants an anime twist to it. However, if you’re looking for a more developed story or characters that go beyond just providing window dressing for the core of the gameplay, I’d advise caution. I really enjoyed my time with Card-en-Ciel, especially for someone who loves that kind of card-based roguelite, but I just wish Inti Creates would give us more from the story and presentation.