Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest Reviews

Given my previous experience with the WOD in general, I expected the same attention to detail and world-bulding, with the characteristic dark vibe the WOD setting is known for - I expected a visual novel akin to the VtM series, like CONY or SONY, only focused on the werewolves. However, this is not what this game was. I will not go into detail to avoid potential spoilers for anyone interested, but my negative review reflects several issues I had with the game: - Characters are underdeveloped, and flat, with no room to explore their history or motivations. - The story does not feel interconnected and continuous, but one rather gets a feeling of being allowed to occasionally merely sneak a peak at loosely connected, separated episodes. This results in a lack of deeper atmosphere to pull the reader truly in. The story moreover feels cut extremely short, with the reader feeling that the choices made within the span of the game did not matter at all, because one cannot be around long enough to see the consequences. Even in the case of choices that seem of uttermost importance for the future of the character. - Setting the game in Europe may appear exotic to readers from elsewhere, but this alone does not create a sufficient mystery and mysticism that the game tries to push. Without any further support of properly built mythology and lore, it is a rather cheap attempt at artistic alienation, and does not float. - I should also note that I do not endorse the outcome of the artstyle selected in this game. The impression is cheap and rushed. When done right, this artstyle can even help deliver emotions more readily than some realistic pieces, but in this instance - it, sadly, did not work out. There are two or three scenes that are great from the artistic perspective, but it does not outweigh the underperformance in the rest of the game. - The different included behaviour choices of the main character in the story reflected the trait-building transparently and well, supported by the other WOD mechanics at the background running smoothly, but the werewolf mechanics had no real part in the story, with their resulting impression being that of an included random fun-fact on the side, rather than being incorporated into the core of the game. In light of all this, I cannot recommend. Maybe some high-quality WOD: Werewolf pieces will come our way one day, but this one does not, unfortunately, feel like coming close at all.

[h1] Great game, but it has an important caveat. [/h1] [b] If you're only in it for the promise of being a werewolf in the general sense, the game may be disappointing. [/b] It heavily focuses on lore and themes from the tabletop setting and not so much on the actual character drama. It feels more like a fable where characters aren't as developed, and act more as archetypes. That was fine with me, but if you're a junkie for character studies and dynamic characters, this ain't it, chief. If you're at all interested in the Werewolf setting or the larger World of Darkness, though, give this game a play, it's a lot of fun. It reminds me of a choose-your-own-adventure included in the starter box of a tabletop RPG, and I loved it as a recent buyer of the Werewolf: The Apocalypse core book.