Card-en-Ciel (カルドアンシェル) is a crossover roguelite card-battling RPG developed by Inti Creates featuring numerous characters and songs from both game worlds designed for Card-en-Ciel and existing Inti Creates properties, including all games in the main Azure Striker Gunvolt series and Luminous Avenger iX series. All these settings exist as in-universe video games whose characters have begun appearing with their own wills in an unrelated "full-dive" virtual reality game named Rust Tactics during its development by a company Helios Interactive, leading to the protagonist Neon being hired to investigate by the heroine Ancie. Each character featured appears as at least one card and in some cases an enemy or random event in dungeons.
Certain featured games have story dungeons named after them and include commentary about the game by Neon and Ancie, and conclude with the game's hero and heroine being fought as the final boss in the dungeon.[2] Among Gunvolt / iX titles, only GV1 and iX1 appear as story dungeons.
Similar to the Gunvolt and iX series, certain (mostly) female characters from the majority of game worlds are designated as "Muses" (ディーヴァキャラクター, Diva Character) who each have a card that summons them to sing a song and activate special effects when conditions are met.
Not all characters from the featured games appear. Excluding alternate forms, Gunvolt / iX character rosters vary between 9 or 10 characters per game. Each game's version of a character is considered separate from their other appearances.
A recurring gimmick of many characters' cards is the [Convert] mechanic, which when activated transforms all copies of that card in the player's deck from the character's human form to Armed Phenomenon form with enhanced effects, and back again when [Convert] is activated a second time. Not every applicable character has both forms represented as cards.
Within the game, cards are organized according to real game and in-universe game release dates, so the order is GV1, GV2, iX1, iX2, and GV3.
Adult dating sim visual novel with giant spacefaring robot girls. Received an all-ages console port with some scenes cut and others censored by mysterious beams of light.
Drawn by Azure Striker Gunvolt character designer Munehiro Araki.[4]
President Ex Machina 2
High-speed robot action game.
Fictional game.
Planet Garden IV
4x strategy game in which you give instructions to flower people and compete with other countries for dominance on an uncivilized planet.
Fictional game.
Its Muse, Flos, is for "certain reasons" the only character excluded from the CeC limited edition artbook.
Possible reference to Pikmin. The concept of alien flower girls also brings to mind the character Kanna who made her first debut in Blaster Master Zero 2.
Deset Rings
High fantasy open world RPG, with the titular rings being a central plot point.
Fictional game.
Likely a homage to FromSoftware's action RPG games.
Title and genre reference Elden Ring, but its in-universe release date places it closer to the releases of Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.
Drawn by background graphics artist Yukako Kato.[4]
Shirochidori
Horror adventure set in a mansion inhabited by demons (鬼 oni).
Fictional game.
Concept appears to be a mix of the Clock Tower series, Umineko, and murder mysteries set in mansions in general. The card "The Aloof Prodigy" with the hat in particular appears to be a homage to fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi.
Possibly a reference to Digimon Universe Appli Monsters specifically, which was developed by Inti Creates with Yoshioka as director and released in 2016.
Final day to release countdown artwork. Despite being GV3 GV and iX1 Copen, the tweet stated they're both from the Azure Striker Gunvolt series.
Game Introduction Trailers[]
Azure Striker Gunvolt
Azure Striker Gunvolt 2
Azure Striker Gunvolt 3
Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX
Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX 2
Trivia[]
This game marks the first time that characters limited to iX1 have received English voice actors, as well as the first time Demerzel has received a site and press release profile (albeit with his name still kept a "secret") with character quote and official art published online.
Certain Card-en-Ciel character profiles and the GV1 Story Dungeon reveal story details never given before:
The Falcon holograms in iX1 are Demerzel's Image Pulses, and he actually did merge with a Sumeragi supercomputer instead of the "supervisory AI" role purely being a ruse.
Zonda's Reverie Mirror may have transcended from Septima to Octima, and during her boss battle she hadn't yet realized the full extent of her newfound power.
Hyper Guard is a standard feature of machines in the iX2 world, the Razor Wheel cancels it by intermittently changing the energy wavelength of the beam blade, Mother's barrier counters the Razor Wheel because her advanced computing power can match the wavelength changes.
Ypsilon's name is derived from the German alphabet specifically (this info is omitted from the English profile). This is similar to certain other things like Copen's White Tiger armor (Weiss Tiger) and Bullits (Blitz) having German names in the Japanese version, which were also changed in the English versions.
Some cards have changed compared to what was shown in the trailers and early demos. For example, the cards of Gunvolt (GV1) and Copen (iX2) were originally called "Lightning Sphere" and "Colossal Maelstrom" respectively.
Lightning Sphere is a direct translation of the Japanese name of Astrasphere, so it seems the original plan was for their cards to be named after their Special Skills like the boss cards are. Presumably Gunvolt and Copen's GV2 cards would have been named after Luxcalibur and Shred Storm to complete the set, but those cards weren't shown until the names "Dart Leader" and "Bullit Dash" were already settled.
Unlike the GV3 story summary on its own site (which is relatively vague about it, presumably due to the game's intense no-spoilers policy before its release), the story summary for GV3 on the Card-en-Ciel site states up front that it takes place in a distant future past the previous two titles, and also discusses the existence of Primal Dragons.
Since the GV2 character roster favors GV's route, most lines are from it, although some lines from Copen's route are present.
The song cut-ins for GV2 Joule and Lola start in 3D cityscapes before switching to background art from the game, which is unlike the other Gunvolt/iX Muse cut-ins which only use background art.
Comparison of sprite eyes
Curiously enough, the Muse sprites for GV2 Joule and Lola depict them with a lack of glint in their eyes, which is unlike how they appear in the Azure Striker Gunvolt series itself, or the Muse sprites for the GV1 and iX2 versions of them.
When GV2 Copen's card was first shown in Inti Creates Information Bureau No.8, co-host IKKAN questioned if there would be no newly recorded lines, but co-host Kenta Tanaka, who is close friends with Copen's retired VA Kosuke Masuo, stated "I think you'd better see for yourself...?" However, there aren't any new lines for him in the game.
True Zonda has a possibly new line and voice recording, "draw card" (「ドローカード」), which is not present in GV2 or its files.
Although iX Lola in her Idol Mode is depicted with Ancie in a store bonus image, that form of her isn't featured in the game (instead, GV2 Lola takes the position of "default form Muse" Lola).
While Luminous Avenger iX 2 is tied with iX1 in having only nine characters represented, when taking into account Convert cards iX2 has the fewest cards overall. It is also the only game of the five to have only one Muse/song representing it.
Helios Interactive is most likely a reference to Inti Creates, since Inti's full name is Interactive Image Creates, and while Helios is the Greek sun god, Inti also happens to be the name of the Incan sun god.
The in-universe game Code: Escape song "Embrace the Sky" is written and sung by Desna's VA Jenya.
The in-universe game Kizuna Connect song "Change the World" is sung by Kaoru Akiyama (alias: Hakofactory), the lyrics writer for almost every Gunvolt and iX song.
The in-universe game Yggdrasil Records IX song "Viridian Virtue" is sung by Akiho Suzumoto, the voice actress of Olga, who is briefly mistaken as a wielder of The Muse in the drama CD Eden's Party due to her Septima mimicking Lumen.
In the story dungeons, Ancie appears to be more familiar with Azure Striker Gunvolt due to her interest in Joule's relationship with GV, while Neon appears to be more familiar with Luminous Avenger iX.
This game is technically the first time any male characters have officially been referred to as "Muses", with some caveats. Edgar Barron from the fictional game President Ex Machina has the body and voice of a high school girl, but he is actually a man in his 70s who was mistakenly given that type of cyborg body during a full body transplant by a mad scientist. Connecle from the fictional game Kizuna Connect is male, but is an androgynous digimon-like creature whose gender wasn't disclosed until the voice actress (Kaoru Akiyama) commented on the role.
Code: Escape, one of the featured fictional games, has numerous allusions to Gunvolt:
The character illustrations were done by Munehiro Araki, the character designer for Azure Striker Gunvolt.[4]
The primary protagonist, Letty, is a mercenary who receive missions from the city government to fight against a rebel movement composed of enhanced humans, both with psychic powers and those with cybernetic implants, in a dystopian cyberpunk world.
Ancie notes that it's unusual for the protagonist to be on the government's side in such settings, and asks if the rebel forces have good intentions. Neon claims it's ambiguous.
Letty taking in the setting's Muse, Milla, alludes to GV taking in Joule after rescuing her.
The city in Milla's song image also references the Kamizono (神園 "god garden") Family with a building sign that is pronounced Kamizono, with different kanji (紙園 "paper garden").
The Code: Escape story dungeon comes immediately after the one for Gunvolt.
