Although I love the world of video games, I am very used to playing titles that innovate little or that only improve some aspects to give us a slightly different experience. It’s hard for a game to surprise me, and when it happens, the taste in my mouth is unbeatable. That’s exactly what happened to me with Card Shark and I’ll tell you about it in this review.
When we are little we are taught that cheating is very wrong and that it is dishonest. I totally agreed with this way of thinking until now that I have played Card Shark, the new video game from Nerial and Devolver Digital. this title, absolutely uniqueis one of those games that amazes you and makes you understand that not everything is invented in this world.
Located in France in the 18th century, the video game introduces us to a story of roguery, betrayals and many lies that puts our attention, speed and skill. And yes, something that must be conveyed well is that Card Shark It is not a card gamebut it is a skill game, in which we play with cards to fool the rich, criminals and other curious characters that we meet on our journey. In Card Shark we control a poor and dumb kid who makes a living as best he can in a local business in Pau. One night, a character of dubious morality named Comte asks us for help to cheat a game cards, in order to get extra money. To do this, we must indicate, while serving wine “innocently”, which are the rival’s cards by making specific movements when cleaning the table on which they play. So far, beyond the lack of morality, everything may seem harmless. Things go awry when the opponent realizes that Comte and our protagonist are cheating on him. His anger ends with the head of the business killed by an accident, and with the perpetrator seeking revenge for getting him into such a mess. The protagonist, not knowing where to go, follows Comte on his adventures.
The art of cheating
This is the beginning of Card Shark, which takes us through a story that has the occasional plot twist, perhaps more or less expected, but that maintains the tension until the end. Comte welcomes our protagonist to the bosom of the cascarots, the French gypsies who live on the fringes of society. In return, we help you keep cheating in card games.
Even so, Comte’s intentions are different and the protagonist of the story keeps a powerful secret which, obviously, I will not reveal to you. The story is well resolved and it is interesting to see the goings-on of the time, with King Louis XV of France as the guiding thread of a plot that seeks to solve the mystery of the Forgotten Queen. In fact, the historical touch of the title, with the appearance of characters like VoltaireIt is something that I liked a lot.
But beyond the story, which serves as an excuse to advance in the game at a narrative level, the most important thing about Card Shark is its gameplay. In the title we are Comte’s assistant, the person who tricks the cards, who makes false cuts or who prepares the best hands for our dear friend. Come on, we are the main architect of deception coming to fruition: we are the cheater.
For this reason, it is important to emphasize that we are not facing a card video game; this is not a Slay the Spire or a SteamWorld Quest. Card Shark is a title that would fit in hability games, because it forces us to be fast and precise to be able to execute the correct movements that allow us to win each round. We are a “tool” of Comte so that he is the one who wins the card games.
Obviously, we play with cards, but we do it to scam; we mark them to know which ones have a higher value, we mix fraudulently to deal the best hand to Comte, we fold the cards so that the innocent rivals cut the deck where we want, we use mirrors to spy on our opponents… And I have only quoted some of the things we do in the game.
surgeon’s precision
Nowadays, playing a game of cards is the usual form of entertainment, but also the way to resolve certain issues without falling into violence (well, if you don’t get caught cheating, of course…). This is the excuse the game uses to make sense of the plot. On many occasions, Comte negotiates with our rivals: if we win the game, we not only get money (which we can donate to the cascarots, by the way), but also we get information.
the opponents are not stupid and they can realize that we are deceiving themBut the opponents are not stupid and they can see that we are deceiving them. Card Shark forces the player to be terribly precise and remember all the steps that Comte (or other characters) has been teaching us to execute each of the traps with great accuracy. There are up to 28 different tricks, ranging from playing dumb by serving wine to spy, to making moves worthy of a magician to prepare the deck in our favor.
The gameplay, a priori, is simple: we simply have to follow what we have been taught to execute the actions, with a very specific use of the controller, pressing the buttons in a very rhythmic way so as not to be discovered, as if from a game of rhythm in question. At the end of the day, pulling off those tricks and traps is all about that, being skillful quickly and discreetly. But that “simplicity” does not mean that it is easy and any mistake makes you fail miserably.
To begin with, a bad move will mean, in most cases, that we lose a round of the game. This can be fatal, because we can end up running out of money to continue betting on the game, but the worst is not that. If the rival realizes, due to our mistake, that we are cheating, the least important thing is that the game ends… Because it can also end with our dead protagonist (and with a visit to Death, which we can bribe or trick into reviving us).
And although we are not mistaken in the execution, the speed is equally key in CardShark. The rivals have a level of patience and if they see us “fooling around” they begin to suspect that we are not playing fair, something that can also end our game. At first, the game doesn’t seem too complicated, but as it progresses, there are tricks that take a long time and fail is very easy.
Because when we have spent several hours we will not only have to make a few simple movements to cheat; we will have to do several, because we will combine different tricks that we have been learning, in addition to adding new ones. In fact, I have died much more than I thought I was going to die and I have even been frustrated on some level because I couldn’t execute the tricks correctly.
I don’t think Card Shark is for everyone, even though it was a great surprise.I’m curious to see how this is tolerated by a large part of the players. I don’t think Card Shark is for everyone, even though it was a great surprise. The game is difficult, it has a very stiff gameplay and it gets pretty complicated. When I tell you that you have to be careful while playing, I mean it completely. Having 1 or 2 seconds to see what the opponent’s hand is or to decide whether or not to deal a card becomes a stressful experience and can get pissed off if we get stuck.
Even so, if you manage to overcome that frustration that may appear at some point, what you will feel is satisfaction and you will clearly appreciate the work that Nerial has done in making such a game. I assure you that I had to rehearse several times some of the strategies of the last part of the game because they ended up catching me, especially because I couldn’t go as fast as the game demanded of me.
And precisely because of this issue it is difficult to tell you how long the video game lasts. It took me about 8-9 hours to pass it on, but it could have been less if I hadn’t gotten stuck on occasion. Can it last you 15 hours? Yes, it is possible, because I insist that it will depend a lot of the ability of the player. It’s a game that does not forgive youwhich punishes you and who doesn’t care if you have to repeat a game ad nauseam (although there are some additional checkpoints on some occasions).
I do strongly believe that the duration of the video game is very adequate, but I want to make it clear to you that, as happened with Inscryption, this is also a linear video game with your story. He is not a roguelike. By the way, there is a perfect permanent death mode to give replayability to the title, because whoever spends it that way can feel very fulfilled. I do not recommend you try your first game like this at all; I doubt it will end well.
A game that enters through the eyes
The good thing is that the video game introduces, at times, some variety in the gameplay that is appreciated, but I don’t want to spoil this for you… I’m just telling you that even the cards are left aside and the situation becomes more… tense. This happens rarely and the game is mainly everything that I have told you, but there are situations that take you out of the monotony it’s good.
All the cocktail of sensations that is Card Shark is seasoned with a exquisite artistic section, with a beautiful drawing, which looks fantastic at 4K on PC (platform in which I have played it). The audio also accompanies, with melodies that place you directly in 1743, the year in which the game begins, and with correct sound effects that help to better follow the action. Also, except for a silly bug I ran into once, the game has worked flawlessly for me.
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