Voice of Belldona Review Summary

Beautiful art and character design along with engaging roguelike deckbuilding combat, but frequent bugs, crashes, freezes, and a missing early access story mode hinder it.

Beautiful Art and Character Design: Reviewers consistently highlight the gorgeous artwork, including hand-drawn portraits, anime-style designs, and high-quality CG. Clusters praise both the overall art style and specific character models. This is a major strong point.

Engaging Card Combat and Roguelike: The card-based combat with roguelike deckbuilding elements is well-received, offering a mix of strategy and innovation. Players enjoy the dual deck system, combo mechanics, and turn-based tactical depth. It's compared favorably to Slay the Spire.

Unique Dual Protagonists and Mechanics: The two playable characters, Gresa and Lina, each have distinct classes, decks, and playstyles. Special mechanics like Lina's combo system and sanity management add depth and variety. This design choice enhances replayability.

Great Music and Sound Design: The soundtrack, including BGM and boss themes, is praised for fitting the scenes and enhancing the atmosphere. Players find the music memorable and well-matched to the gameplay.

High Potential and Solid Foundation: Reviewers see the game as having a strong foundation with room for growth. The developer's attitude is sincere, and there is great potential for future development.

Bugs and crashes hinder gameplay: Many reviews report various bugs, freezing, and crashing issues that affect normal game progress. Specific instances include freezes during boss fights and when playing cards.

Missing story mode frustrates players: Many reviews mention the absence of a fully playable story mode, leaving players confused and unsatisfied. The story is minimal, only present in the tutorial, and the mode is currently unplayable.

Cluttered and unreadable UI elements: The map and card effect descriptions are cluttered and hard to distinguish, with issues like poor color contrast. Card descriptions are often too verbose, feeling like reading essays.

Lack of voice acting disappoints: Numerous players note the absence of voice acting for any characters, which reduces immersion, especially given the anime art style. This is a common complaint that detracts from the overall experience.

Steep difficulty for card game newcomers: The initial deck is weak and the difficulty curve is steep, making it tough for players without card game experience. Elite enemies can instantly kill new players without warning.

Roguelike deckbuilding core: Most reviewers identify the game as a roguelike deckbuilding card game with turn-based combat, often comparing it to Slay the Spire. The core loop revolves around building a deck and climbing through roguelike runs.

Two playable protagonists: Players can choose between two protagonists: Gresa (Summoner) and Lina (Warrior), each with distinct playstyles and card mechanics.

Card-based combat system: Combat is card-based, with players drawing and playing cards to attack, defend, and trigger effects. Many describe it as a card game with adventure and story elements.

Early access, story mode missing: The game is in Early Access and currently only Classic Mode is available; Story Mode is not yet released. Some reviewers mention a challenge mode with limited story content.

Combo system with card order: Playing cards in a specific order triggers powerful combos and finishers. The system often involves color-coded or icon-based sequences, especially for the female character.

Frequent crashes and freezes: Players report crashes occurring frequently, with some unable to play reliably. Freezes often require force-closing the game, and crashes happen during battles, dialogue, and even on the final boss.

Performance and optimization issues: The game suffers from poor optimization, causing lag, stuttering, and high fan usage. Players report frame rate drops and unresponsive UI.

Boss fight freezes: The game frequently freezes during boss encounters, especially on later phases. Players note issues on the fourth level boss second phase, final boss third phase, and after transforming in the fourth phase.

Long loading times: Loading screens are excessively long, especially on first launch or when entering battles. Some players also experience loading errors and stutters.

Freezes during card play: The game freezes when playing cards, especially when many cards are played in a single turn or during card animations. Cards may stall on screen.

Wait for updates before playing: Many reviewers advise waiting for bug fixes and content updates before playing. They suggest the current version is not stable enough for a full experience.

Target audience card roguelike fans: The game is recommended for players who enjoy card roguelike gameplay and anime style. Those not interested in card roguelikes are advised to avoid it.

Wait for story mode release: Reviewers recommend adding to wishlist and waiting for story mode and optimization patches. Some will wait for the story mode before reviewing further.

Worth playing despite bugs: Despite bugs and early access status, many find the game worth playing and a hidden gem. They recommend overlooking the flaws.

Suitable for casual card players: The game is suitable for casual players and card veterans seeking an easy experience. Fans of card games can give it a try.

Game completion: 4.0h.

Session length: 4.0h.

Early friction from a confusing tutorial, unclear UI, and needing to understand the mode delays enjoyment for some players; once the mode clicks and a deck is formed, the game becomes addictive, especially in challenge mode.

Friction: Confusing tutorial at the beginning; Some UI parts feel off; Need to figure out the mode before it becomes addictive; Early runs can be slow to complete; Male protagonist playstyle unclear for some.

Unlock drivers: Figuring out the game mode; Forming a deck; Clear guidance and per-card explanations; Enjoyable difficulty progression.

Anime-Art Casual Newcomer: Plays casually for the art and pick-up-and-play fun, leaning on the easier character and not chasing optimal builds. Motivation: Attraction to the anime art and character designs, plus a low-pressure way to try a deckbuilder for the first time. Stance: buy.

Roguelike Deckbuilder Veteran: Min-maxing decks (favoring small, fast, high-synergy decks), analyzing card text and numbers, and critiquing balance and UI. Motivation: Evaluating strategic depth, card balance, and build optimization against established genre benchmarks. Stance: sale.

Combo & Build-Variety Tinkerer: Experiments with different characters and archetypes, sequencing cards for combo burst damage and building summon armies to absorb or deal damage. Motivation: Discovering synergies, combo chains, and summon-based engines that make each run feel different. Stance: buy.

Both Windows VRAM cohorts report significant technical problems, including long loading, stuttering, freezes, crashes, and progression bugs. The 12-15GB VRAM cohort is especially negative, while the <8GB VRAM cohort also reports substantial instability despite some recommendations.

Windows <8GB VRAM: negative. Reports long loading, map-event and animation stalls, final-level bugs, and crashes on end-turn checks, with one review also citing poor optimization.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. Reports severe stuttering, crashes, and dialogue freezes on Windows 11, and the reviewer does not recommend the game.

Steam Deck: The Steam Deck experience is undermined by readability and stability problems. One reviewer who played entirely on the Deck reports that text and menu scaling is very small, forcing squinting at the UI. More seriously, multiple reviewers independently describe frequent crashes, freezes, loading errors, and dialogue lock-ups, with one identifying a deterministic crash trigger in combat when too many cards are played in a single turn. The core card gameplay, deck-building, and sustain mechanics are praised when the game runs, but the repeated hard crashes and lock-ups dominate the experience and place the title in the Broken tier.

Story mode unavailable in early access: Many reviewers note that the story mode is not yet available in the current early access version. It is either planned for future updates or full release, leaving only classic or challenge modes playable.

Game is in early access: Reviewers frequently mention that the game is still in early access, indicating incomplete content and ongoing development. Some note it is a half-finished product or not yet fully released.

Comparisons to Slay the Spire: Reviewers often compare this game to Slay the Spire, a benchmark for roguelike deckbuilders. Some find it hard to surpass that game, while others note similarities in card effects and complexity.

Lack of voice acting: Several reviews point out that the game lacks voice acting for characters and story. This absence is noted as a noticeable shortcoming.

Costume and character DLC: The game offers DLC including character costumes such as bunny girl outfits and additional characters. Some reviews mention paid DLC for skins.