Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest Reviews

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is ranked in the 60th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
9 / 10.0
Jan 4, 2021

This is by far one of the best, if not the best visual novel I have played in my gaming career. Meaningful choices, engaging story, beautiful artwork supported by atmospheric music – it all makes Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest a fantastic game. It is such a shame it is such a short experience, but thanks to its impressive replayability, its shortness does not hurt as much.

Review in Polish | Read full review

8.5 / 10.0
Feb 24, 2021

Snappily paced, beautifully written and a visual treat, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest does apt justice to its sprawling source material and represents a great place for newcomers to the mythos to get started. Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is the best visual novel to come along in a long time.

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85%
Feb 20, 2001

While it isn’t a perfect game, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest is a rather unique and clever take on the visual novel genre that combines it with some truly engaging RPG elements. I found myself feeling immensely satisfied with my first playthrough, even if not every path I took ended up being ideal in the end. I found myself already pondering just what decisions I might make differently on a second (or even third one) given how much evolution the title does. That in and of itself is a sign of an enjoyable game to me!

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8.5 / 10.0
Oct 13, 2020

The legendary tabletop RPG returns in the form of a beautiful visual novel designed to emulate the tabletop experience. Based on real-world environments and activism, players are also offered thousands of story branches resulting in five different endings. Heart of the Forest shows what visual novels should aspire to be.

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8.5 / 10.0
Jan 28, 2021

There are plenty of solutions, some peaceful, some not…but the ways we choose to grapple with our past and our own potential guide the paths we walk. Horror is often used to strike at the heart of human experiences, and Heart of the Forest does that. The question becomes: what do you do with the power you learned you had all along?

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80 / 100
Jan 1, 2021

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is a great visual novel with tons of impactful choices, great visuals, and excellent sound design. While it slowly loses steam after the introductory chapters, it's still well worth multiple playthroughs.

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Oct 13, 2020

Heart of the Forest is an engaging game that has a much-needed new perspective on the World of Darkness, as it steps away from the vampires and offers a different kind of horror. The experience is over a little too soon, but it's worth going through each path and seeing how each run-through plays out. Short runtime aside, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is an interesting exploration of environmental issues tied into a personal story of anger, and it makes the prospect of more World of Darkness titles in the future more exciting.

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RPG Site
Top Critic
8 / 10
Oct 27, 2020

A comfortable, solo TTRPG experience that's accessible and well written.

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8 / 10.0
Oct 13, 2020

Returning to the world of living werewolves from the World of Darkness turns out to be more ambitious than we could have imagined – Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is an interesting text game that will try to prove that reading in Poland is not in the backdoor.

Review in Polish | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Oct 13, 2020

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest is a bold introduction to the eco-friendly side of World of Darkness. Also, there are werewolves.

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8 / 10.0
Jan 29, 2021

All in all, I loved Heart of the Forest. I was frustrated by some of the choice mechanics, but it was never enough to make me stop playing. I wanted to push through to the end every time to see whether or not their stories could be saved. A game that keeps you coming back well after the first playthrough is a precious treat in my eyes, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest had me eating right out of its paws.

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Jan 13, 2021

A well-done and intelligent choose your own text adventure set in the venerable World of Darkness Werewolf RPG universe makes for a satisfying bit of interactive fiction.

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8 / 10.0
Jan 30, 2021

A good visual novel and introduction to the Werewolf: The Apocalypse universe. It may be far too brief, but its replay value goes a long way towards making up for that shortcoming.

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8 / 10.0
Mar 11, 2021

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest may have a run-time shorter than its title, it might fumble some of the characters, but it absolutely nails the landing. As someone who is relatively new to Visual Novels, it has opened my eyes to the potential of the genre, the scope in which the genre can encompass, and kept me engaged cover to cover. If you want less anime tiddies, and more gritty, grimdark monster mashing, then I cannot recommend this title enough.

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7.5 / 10.0
Feb 24, 2021

A sort and sweet visual novel which gives the player plenty of choice and leverages its source material well, only occasionally stumbling in the writing department.

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7.5 / 10.0
Nov 17, 2020

Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest is a good transposition from a RPG board game into a videogame, but which might not represent a good gaming experience precisely for this reason, especially to players unfamilliar with board games. The genre to which it belongs to has rhythms and dynamics that might meet only a handful of players’ requests, meaning those who are looking for beautiful stories to shape and live as they prefer without thinking too much about the gameplay.

Review in Italian | Read full review

7.5 / 10.0
Jan 7, 2021

Heavily text-based games are actually pretty well-represented on Switch, though in general I’ll say I’m not typically a fan...

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72 / 100
Jan 12, 2021

The most important aspect of a visual novel is that it has a compelling story, and in that aspect, Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Heart of the Forest delivers in spades. I just don’t feel like the mechanics in Heart of the Forest justify it being a videogame over a straight up novel. If you’re a fan of the Werewolf: The Apocalypse franchise, then Heart of the Forest should serve as an excellent love letter. Newcomers to the franchise who are visual novel fans will find a driving narrative, but those who like a lot of play in their game best stay away.

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Feb 25, 2021

With a unique art style, effective use of sound and plenty of lore, Heart of the Forest is well worth checking out if you're a fan of visual novels and the werewolf genre itself. It's just a shame there wasn't more of it.

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7 / 10.0
Mar 5, 2021

Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Heart of the Forest wants to immerse you in a thriller, where the decisions and the ending are your sole responsibility.

Review in Greek | Read full review