This is a unique game that could have been really cool, sadly there are many things that make it less enjoyable:
- story: the story is weird, which is not necessarily bad, but there is just not enough of it? you can chat with some NPCs but after a few chats it just repeats and you never really get a lot out of it. the "main" (?) story about legendary cards is also really lacking? i've played for 5 hours and only gotten like 2 or 3 cutscenes
- the main character: is very unlikable. there are many voicelines where he is just an a** and you have no options to make him nicer. This is not a huge deal but it really bugged me
- reputation: this is a system that is not explained enough imo and can eally screw you over. I have no idea what i did in the beginning but i managed to completely tank my reputation and working to better is took ages. especially that customer interactions (asking what a card's name is or which deck is better) feel unfair -especially in the beginning- because you just don't have the knowledge yet to answer them correctly.
- "which deck is better" is also one of the things that are increadibly annoying: there are different things that make a deck better but you basically have to learn by trial and error. The balancing is also not 100% clear, you have an "ability", the power and the decks' card colors to take in mind and I still have no idea which of them is more important.
- card island: managing the shop is fine, gambing about card values is fun but the card game itself made me want to pull my hair out. you have to look for the rules instead of being given a tutorial of some kind and even after playing some duels, i have absolutely no idea how to put a stragedy together. The duels also take way too much time, you have to repeat your first game until you win and if you fail one game you are out and have to spend more money to try again (50-200 bucks).
- shop goals: a nice idea but very frustrating. it feels like get get harder to complete much too quickly, i failed the first few, then had a moment where i tought i finally had it figured out, only for them to increase difficulty in an extreme way ("get 300 bucks in 7 days" vs "get 600 bucks in 7 days").
I'm kinda angry i cannot recommend Kardboard kings because there are moments where i really enjoy it, sadly at the point i am at now, there are more and more things i dread than look forward to.