Foretales – User Articles | GamersGlobal.de

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An interactive story with decisions meets a hero party, quests, exploration and round battles. That can only be a… card game? I really wanted to take a closer look.

I should start by saying that in the big world of card games I haven’t seen much apart from Skat, Rummy, Mau-Mau and Autoquartett. Even the digital versions only touched me Hearthstone and Gwent a little. Both were fun for me, but didn’t want to leave any real long-term motivation. In this respect I had in the first few minutes of the game foretales due respect, or rather fear, of finding a quick end to the game in a world that is overwhelmed. But I can reassure you: everything is not so wild.

Middle Ages, animals and intrigues

What is it about? You embody Volepain, a small-time crook in the medieval fantasy world of the Republic of Harde. As in a fable, all the inhabitants of the kingdom are animals. The hero you play is a bird, more precisely a shoebill, and his talents are very much based on the cliché of the thieving magpie. Speaking of talents, each of the playable characters has specific abilities in this regard, much like you would expect in a traditional RPG. Your party can consist of up to three members and is put together individually by you before each mission. If a combination is not successful, the talents of another character may help in the next attempt.

Ability cards give you various ways to advance.

But back to the story. Volepain is given a lucrative job by the mysterious Timothy to steal a musical instrument from the influential Lady Katell. So, accompanied by his buddy Leo, he makes his way to the estate to carry out the robbery. With the help of a gardener bribed with money and a map stolen from the garden shed, the thieves find their way through the labyrinth in front of the mansion and, after minor arguments with the local guards, are able to get hold of the coveted lyre. But at the very moment Volepain touches the instrument, lightning strikes him and he suddenly has visions of the future, the death of his friends and relatives and the fall of the empire. When fleeing the estate, Leo is also captured, the tutorial is over and the actual adventure about friendship, catastrophes, supernatural events, sea monsters and a mysterious plague begins.

Volepain is plagued by dark visions.

Now it’s mixed

As already revealed in the introduction, the latest work by the French Alkemi team is not a classic role-playing game. As a consequence, everything I have described to you so far is completely represented by cards. This applies to the characters, their skills and the actions you perform, the places you can reach and of course the resources. Before each mission, the decks are redistributed and cards cannot be taken with you. Up to four location cards on the table in front of you give the heroes the opportunity to interact using the maximum of six available skill cards. For Volepain, as already mentioned, these are more thieving actions like “Nimble Fingers” and “Bag Cutter”, for Leo, on the other hand, survival-ensuring actions like “Aimed Shot”, which can eliminate opponents without an alarm, or “On the Trail”, with its help find additional food.

Active skill cards can be swapped out of battle with cards from the reserve deck if a particular talent is required. Rest cards provide you with up to three additional ability cards and life points per mission, but also have the potential to give you additional enemies or cost you resources. The latter can also be combined with the location cards. On the one hand, that would be money, food and found or captured objects. Depending on how you act in the game world, you will also receive cards for “Glory” and “Horror”. For example, if you extort the last food reserve from poor, begging children, the fear of Volepain increases, while a small financial donation makes him more famous. Both aspects also give you options for the further course of the mission, since you can either impress or intimidate the opponents and NPCs with these cards.

So the elements really allow for many possibilities for interaction, which can have both positive effects, such as the capture of resources and information, and, sometimes at the same time, unpleasant consequences, such as additional guards looking for you or the enlargement of the graveyard deck. The game shows you exactly what result you can expect by “dragging” the respective skill or resource over the corresponding location card with the mouse. In general, the control is very intuitive, is supplemented by many explanation windows and leaves no questions unanswered.

After each action, the corresponding location card is exchanged. Sometimes this happens randomly and sometimes purposefully through the respective action. This is how you move through the game world step by step. You often have to visit the same place several times in one mission. For this reason, location cards are not limited, but simply go back into the appropriate deck. You should therefore remember well how you get to certain places in order to avoid running in circles for longer. That caused some frustration, at least for me, because there are sometimes only vague hints as to how you should actually get to your goal, especially later on.

The results of combining two cards are always revealed to you in advance.

Round fights with a difference

However, the number of enemies that follow you and are then randomly placed on the location maps is limited at the beginning of each level. However, the search party can also be increased by your actions, for example obvious theft, which makes your progress more difficult. In addition, bandits and monsters lurk in some predefined areas, which pose another danger. If there is a dispute, the fight is not the necessary consequence. Again, skills and resources can be used to bribe, ambush, steal, stun, and so on. Should it nevertheless come to unpleasant fisticuffs, your heroes and an enemy squad will face each other. Which hero has to compete with which opponent is up to you and can be changed at any time.

The cards themselves show you life points, damage and special abilities. That should influence your decision on this. Killed enemies drop points for “Horrors” in addition to resources. If one of your heroes has no more life points, the game is over and you have to start the respective mission from the beginning. Another tactical aspect of combat is morale. Each opponent has a certain number of points. If the overall morale drops to zero, which is possible since this is calculated from 50 percent of the sum of the individual participants, the remaining opponents flee and give you points for “fame”. Due to this multitude of possible actions, each argument is a little different, anything but monotonous and gives a lot of scope for experiments.

Before the actual fight, skills and resources can be used.

A twisting story of your choice

Choices also play a role in another aspect of the title, namely mission selection. There are almost always multiple ways to progress, but all have consequences because they correlate to the Calamity Event cards, which are the calamities that Volepain sees in his visions. Some of these can be prevented, while others cannot. In any case, you only have a certain number of laps to avert an accident. If you manage to do this, it may mean that you do not meet other characters, for example, or that they die.

On the one hand, this changes the details of the plot and makes the solution of some missions more complicated. If the existing advantages and disadvantages for the course of the game are ignored, the freedom to make these decisions increases the replay value immensely. In the missions themselves, in addition to the main quest, you will always come across optional tasks that you can fulfill in order to open up further options for action or to procure resources.

Imminent disasters will affect your mission choices.

Loving presentation

In presentation, the opportunity for a card game to visually impress the player is of course relatively small. However, the comic characters and animations of the cards in battle are so lovingly designed that you will quickly fall in love with the look. The soundscape is on the same level, because you are always accompanied by pleasantly calm and cheerful music in the background, which perfectly captures the mood of the game thematically.

An English speaker comments on your actions and cards drawn in a humorous way. Of course, the phrases are repetitive at times, but they add a lot to the atmosphere of the game. The conversations between characters take place in very well translated text windows and are unfortunately not set to music. The plot is told at crucial points between the missions partly in a fairly animated cartoon look, but more often as a drawing.

Cutscenes are mostly presented in drawings without animation.

My conclusion

Foretales really surprised me with its gameplay, often made me smile, challenged my brain with tactical considerations and admittedly also annoyed me briefly when I just couldn’t find a specific mission objective. But first and foremost it really entertained me and I just have love for this amazingly well cut and polished indie diamond in every aspect. Of course you can’t expect a classic to last forever. But I’m sure I’ll make a trip back to Harde from time to time to listen to the great music and to explore the many other paths of action, possible actions and side quests.

Ideally, I would then wish for a tablet version, because both the game and the interface would be made for it. If you only enjoy playing card games to a limited extent, then by all means give this work a chance and you won’t regret it.

With such a clear balance of power in our favor, there is no need for lengthy negotiations.