Cabernet is a dark, narrative-driven RPG from Akupara Games that pulls you into the world of bloodthirsty vampires. Playing as Liza, a newly sired vampire, you navigate a 19th-century town filled with morally complex choices and plenty of denizens to sink your teeth into.
There are two ways you can take on Cabernet: try to hold onto your humanity or give in to nihilism and your new found power.
As with any good vampire story, there’s plenty of intrigue, drama, and mysteries to unravel — all while coming to terms with your new lease on unlife.
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Visuals In The Right Vein
Cabernet adopts a hand-drawn art style that’s deceptively simple yet effective in creating the dark, gothic mood of the game. Despite taking place entirely at night, the game’s painterly environments still manage to be bright and vibrant, even when cloaked by mist.
The game’s backgrounds possess enough detail to immerse you into its 19th-century setting without being distracting during conversations.
Enchanting Conversations
Cabernet is, at its core, a visual novel experience, with conversations taking up the majority of the gameplay loop. Fortunately, they are deep and diverse and allow you to really embrace the night.
Characters are all well developed with unique backstories to uncover and relationships to form, with fully voice-acted dialogue bringing more depth to the townsfolk.
Hussar, the countess’s vampire whipping boy, was a standout. With his sarcastic, dry humour, each interaction had me chuckling and seeking out the next.
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The game features a relationships screen which allows you to track your interactions with each character and keep tabs on your past choices. In some instances however, the choices listed didn’t match what I had chosen. At one point I encouraged a simple coachman to steal, yet the relationship map said I had encouraged him to drink more. This didn’t cause any noticeable gameplay discrepancies, so it’s likely just an incorrect listing in the map.
Capillaries Of Choice
Liza’s story is all about her coming to terms with her new vampiric existence. Newly arisen and apprenticing to the local vampire doctor, she has many questions and even more choices to make — like how to decorate her new room!
The decisions you make during conversation have a real effect on the world around you. Branching choices are indicated by a little fork symbol that appears in the top right of the screen — I saw this symbol A LOT.
Cabernet presents you with many avenues of choice, and this is where the RPG mechanics kick in. At the beginning of the game, during Liza’s eulogy (Vampires are dead don’t forget) you select how to distribute skill points across Art, Literature, Science and History.
You do so by chosing how your uncle describes your life.
Depending what skills you choose, further dialogue options and different actions will be available to Liza. For example, the art skill might allow her to analyse a painting further, or the literature skill might permit her to recite a quote from a book to further a bond. The options are diverse and varied.
Further to these skills, Liza can choose to hold onto her humanity, or give in to nihilistic tendencies — these options are Cabernet’s moral alignments. Depending on how far leaning you are, more dialogue options open up.
Blood Clots
With all these capillaries of choice, some blood was bound to spill and congeal. Sometimes the decisions I made didn’t align, or seemed to revert. One choice I made caused me to fail another quest, however later on I found a trigger and was able to continue the failed quest like nothing happened.
While not always on this scale, small cohesion issues relating to choice did occur throughout my playthrough. None of them were ever game breaking though and all of them could certainly be stitched up.
Twice during my playthrough the story seemed to just disperse like mist, leaving the plot point unresolved. The second time this occurred, I saved straight after and closed the game. Upon loading the save the next day, the missing story segment played out, filling in what was missing the night before. It made me wonder if this glitch had occurred before, and if I’d missed out on other story resolutions.
Vampiric Power
Being a vampire, Liza has access to some unique gifts. Outside of conversations, she can turn into a bat and navigate obstacles or get around the map swiftly. She is also able to turn invisible, allowing her to snoop through draws, eavesdrop on conversations, or steal from unsuspecting NPCs.
Liza can enchant NPCs when she has formed a strong enough bond with them, allowing her to influence their subconscious or drain them of their sweet crimson life force. When draining NPCs of their blood, you can choose to suck them dry or just take your fill.
I’m proud to say I never fully drained anyone… I did stab a man though, but I digress.
A Full Bodied Cabernet
Cabernet offers a captivating, dark, and immersive journey into the world of vampires. The two endings I’ve seen so far were vastly different from each other, making me want to go and hunt for others.
Its hand-drawn visuals, beautiful environments and engaging characters create the perfect atmosphere for the myriad of choices that define the gameplay.
The deep, branching conversations and the moral dilemmas Liza faces as she navigates her new vampiric existence allow for a truly personalised experience. While minor issues with choice consistency may arise, they don’t detract from the overall enjoyment of the game. For fans of dark tales and meaningful decisions, Cabernet delivers a compelling, blood-soaked adventure that’s worth sinking your teeth into.
Quest Daily Scores Cabernet:
8/10
Cabernet releases on the 21st of February and will be available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series X|S.
A review copy of Cabernet was provided to Quest Daily for the purpose of this review.
