Cabernet by Party of Introverts

Cabernet starts as our protagonist, Liza, awakes from a deep sleep. Fading echoes of past memories reveal she doesn’t remember much about who she is. It turns out that she died and was turned into a vampire. She finds herself inside a powerful vampire’s mansion. What follows is a journey revolving around Liza’s past, her life as a vampire, and many mysteries revolving around a small town occupied by vampires and humans alike.

But vampires must be discrete because many of the humans in this town don’t know they exist.

The game plays similarly to a modern point-and-click adventure game – exploring, talking to NPCs, and completing quests – but a focus on RPG elements and choices makes it feel different.

This choice-driven game will have you making essential decisions that form how the narrative unfolds. Dialogue options can shape characters’ circumstances in interesting ways. I was surprised at how ambitiously open Cabernet is in this regard.

A Fine Vintage

The aforementioned RPG elements play a role in a lot of dialogue situations. Experience gained from progression and completed quests lets you upgrade stats like politics, arts, and medicine, which unlocks different dialogue options and actions.

It’s a neat mechanic that had me tailoring my stats for certain characters. For instance, some NPCs may be into politics or the arts. More dialogue options let you create stronger relationships and the ability to do more things in specific scenarios.

Dialogue decisions affect whether someone will become a friend or foe, and there are many characters, all well-written with proper depth, with whom to develop relationships. Many of them even offer side quests, and since the writing is so strong, these are entertaining and intriguing.

Both the main narrative and the side quest explore a range of themes, from heavier topics to everyday relatable feelings like love, life, trauma, and sadness. Cabernet offers a fun, engaging ride with many big and small choices. It has a lot of heart in its writing, which I appreciate.

Bloody Cool

Being a vampire does come with some cool abilities. Enchant people and persuade their subconscious to do something in the future, turn into a bat to get around town quickly, drink blood to stay alive, and turn invisible to pickpocket people.

These abilities are fun to use within the context of this world, but they don’t necessarily make for an experimental or vastly open experience. For example, in one side quest, I needed to get a book from someone; I couldn’t just turn invisible and steal it. I had to finish the predetermined side quest to get it.

It’s less of a sandbox-style experience. A number of the vampire abilities can only be used outside of quests unless it’s written into the narrative. This can lead to metaphorical invisible walls here and there, but there are still plenty of instances where you can make good or bad choices. There is still enough player agency that things don’t feel too constrained.

To use one example, there was a point when I was running low on blood and needed to feed. I decided to drink blood from a character with a side quest, but I ended up drinking too much and killing her, thus failing her side quest. I got a Nihilism stat point increase, and the game continued to progress.

Moments like these, alongside narrative choices, make Cabernet really engaging.

Full-Bodied

Time management plays a part in each day. Similar to the Persona games, you can only do so much within a day before you have to sleep. It forces you to pick which characters’ stories to focus on. It adds a nice sense of pace to everything, and situations unfold regardless of whether you’re ready.

I did have a couple of gripes while playing. Walking and running speed is way too slow; I’d transform into the faster bat form every chance I could. It’s not a significant issue, but it’s definitely an annoyance.

Another minor issue is that selecting icons can be tricky since walking around tight spaces is challenging; since the game is designed for a controller, it doesn’t let you use the mouse to click on things to move to them, requiring you to move with WASD instead. Coupled with the slow walk and subpar Increase Pace button speed. Movement in this regard can sometimes feel clunky.

That being said, I wouldn’t recommend a controller overall, because while in your journal, which you open often, the UI will use your joystick as a mouse pointer, which doesn’t feel great to use. These are minor issues, but they were noticeable throughout.

Cabernet features a paper cut-out style for its characters and 19th-century Eastern European Setting. The characters are nicely detailed and stand out from one another. I was mesmerized by the background art and atmosphere in some areas; from the dark and unsettling woods to the serene look of the city streets at night, the game does a nice job of creating a cool vampire setting.

I also must spotlight the game’s stellar cast. Vocal performances are strong across the board. Whether side characters or crucial NPCs, there’s so much great acting showcased here! I was particularly fond of the vampire Alisa, a performance that captured the melancholic yet yearning vibe of her character. Performances from this stellar vocal cast shine, supported in no small part by the game’s fantastic writing.

The Verdict

Cabernet is an ambitious RPG-inspired narrative ride with plenty of choices throughout. What shines the most is the game’s fantastic writing, supported by strong voice performances and a fetching art style, which makes for a compelling good vampire adventure.

Cabernet is available via the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, Xbox Live, and Steam.

Check out the official trailer for Cabernet below: