Forgotten Fables in the test: what can the DSA adventure do?

Oh, beautiful Aventuria, who doesn’t know it? Well, probably most people who have never played The Dark Eye. That’s where the popular pen & paper role-playing game is primarily located. And so, unsurprisingly, the visual novel Forgotten Fables: Wolves on the Westwind, based on the popular template. The adventure will be released on May 25th, we’ll tell you in the test whether it’s worth taking a trip to Aventuria.

The story of the game starts in an exciting way: Our character and his friends are confronted with the unpleasant fact of being cursed by a demon. That’s generally rude and doesn’t get any better because he now wants to drive us crazy with all sorts of visions from our past. Because nobody else will do it again, we set out to put an end to the curse. Requires: a saber tooth. Can’t it be that hard to find something like that? Well, the teether once belonged to said demon who cursed us before it was beaten out of its mouth by a legendary heroine and turned into a holy weapon by a deity in ancient times.

Choices are everything in this game, even if unfortunately their implications are often more apparent than real.

Source: PC Games

Where is it now? I don’t know, but you have to have some goal you’re working towards, so we set out to find it. And where? On the high seas, of course, because a good adventure can always be found somewhere far away. We are not alone, we sail around the world with real Vikings!

Unlike the demon, these are much nicer fellows who stand by our side instead of wanting to turn our heads. It pays to be nice to these helpers, because our decisions can sometimes mean the difference between life and death!

But who are “we” anyway? Well, that’s where the options start. Alrik Durenwald is an aging mercenary who no longer regularly wants to risk his life for others. Nedime saba Jadir is a young magician who cannot develop her magic skills to the full because she was rejected at the magic academy for reasons we won’t reveal here.

The choice of characters also has an impact on the story. But first things start out one way or the other, with bandits attacking you on your journey through the lands. Battle? Hide? run away? How you want to deal with this situation is up to you.

But: Don’t expect big gameplay moments. Visual novel remains visual novel, and so your far-reaching choices are limited to dialogue options.

At least there are some creative ideas within the framework of this proven system. In many situations, for example, we not only have the choice between “fighting” or “not fighting”, but can actually dispute the dispute verbosely.

How we act or react there has an impact on whether we emerge from the battles unscathed – and of course our comrades-in-arms with us. And whether they live or die and can continue to support us also affects our dialogue options as they gradually learn new “attacks”, spells and other abilities.