Cabernet

Genre: Graphic Adventure / Turn-Based RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Cabernet is a Graphic Adventure with RPG elements released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. In this game, players take the role of Liza, a young medical assistant who finds herself awakening one day in a strange basement, confused and unsure of her surroundings.

Soon she finds there’s more going on here than she first realized – she has been turned into a vampire, and must learn the ins and outs of how to get by in her new unlife while also navigating both vampire society and human society. In the meantime, she has multiple mysteries to unravel – what happened that led to her becoming turned? Who is the mysterious person who released her from the basement and whom she now owes a nebulous debt? What motivates the various people and vampires of the town? And what’s the best way for a girl to get a drink in this town?

The presentation makes use of some decent 2D visuals with some nice character designs, though some of these visuals are a bit blurry on Nintendo Switch. This is backed by a piano-centric soundtrack that works for the game, but doesn’t usually stand out.

Then there’s the writing and characters, which are mostly quite excellent, with Liza herself being a highlight here, though of course her character will depend on your choices. All of this game’s characters are fully-voiced, and here I think the quality varies – some of the voice actors here are quite good, while others are somewhat less successful. Thankfully, Liza’s voice actress is one of the better ones here.

As you progress through the game, you’ll make numerous choices that will influence your character’s growth, enabling them to improve their knowledge in four key areas, affect their humanity and nihilism, and their relationship ties to the various characters. You’ll also have a blood meter that gradually reduces each in-game day, can be spent faster to achieve certain goals, and can change due to story events. And to measure the in-game days (or rather, nights), you have a clock of sorts that can be spent in quarter-night segments, with players warned that they must return to their room and their coffin by daybreak or… well, it’s a vampire story, you get the idea.

At its best, this game presents players with interesting ethical and character-based dilemmas. Do you take the task given to you by the local vampire Countess even though it involves befriending and betraying someone in order to steal from them? Or do you refuse, and risk her ire? Do you risk damage to your state of mind feeding on rabbits in the wood, or do you prey on some poor soul, risking that you might drink too heavily and kill them? When the game gives you a clear choice and each option comes with nasty consequences is when it becomes sharpest.

However, the game isn’t always at its best, and this is often due to inconsistencies, arbitrary restrictions, and lacking information. Sometimes the game will arbitrarily keep you out of an area you need to enter to accomplish a goal, or refuse to tell you where to find a character or item you need to progress. Sometimes you’ll be allowed to use your vampiric powers while other times you inexplicably won’t. Sometimes the use of those abilities will cost you some of your blood, while other times they won’t.

At one particular point in the story, I was frustrated when a story event suddenly caused all my blood supply to drain, forcing me to prey on a human even though I had been avoiding it. I thought I would be clever by using a vial of blood I had saved as a last-minute resort, but the game didn’t like this and arbitrarily drained that out too. In a game where your choices are supposed to matter, that I suddenly found my choices negated was not only mildly infuriating, but seemed to run counter to the point of the game.

Despite its flaws, Cabernet is still well-written with interesting characters and some good ethical dilemmas, and I think players who enjoy a good narrative or Graphic Adventure will find a lot to like here. It’s just a shame this game couldn’t consistently play by its own rules, because I think it would have been much better.

tl;dr – Cabernet is a Graphic Adventure with RPG elements about a young medical assistant who finds herself turned into a vampire, and who must navigate both town society and vampire society. The writing and characters here are excellent, and the overall premise is very good, but the game is inconsistent in the way its mechanics work, and often doesn’t provide important information to the player. It’s still enjoyable, but it definitely feels like it could have been better.

Grade: B+

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