What is life without making decisions, big or small? Well, it would be nonexistent. It’s impossible to traverse through the world, traverse through the day, or the hour, or sometimes even the minute without making a decision. What should you have for breakfast? Should you forgive your supposed friend for their snarky comments yesterday? What college should you go to, if any at all? What do you want to do with your life?
Windy Meadow – A Roadwarden Tale, developed by Moral Anxiety Studio and published by Assemble Entertainment, is a visual novel remake of the original: Tales From Windy Meadow. And throughout Windy Meadow, you follow the stories of three characters and the decisions they make, each with their own chapter, followed by an overall conclusion.
There’s Vera, the huntress who was offered a job in the city. But right now, there’s a Goblin problem in her village she needs to deal with first. But, really, is leaving everything that she knows and loves behind something she actually wants to do? There’s Fabel, the aspiring bard with a traumatizing past, learning to read and write. He’s certain that this is what he wants for his future, however, is it a dream he can actually follow? Then there’s Iudicia, the herbalist with complicated feelings about love, relationships, and what it means to have a connection, all thanks to the abandonment of her parents. She still harbors uncertainty about her feelings for them, but is it time to let go?
Windy Meadows starts off on an interactive title screen. It’s a map, and moving your cursor over certain parts of it gives you a little description of that area. It was a cute feature, though I didn’t find myself checking it out much. The game urges you to go through the tutorial taking you through the mechanics, and while I do think you could get by without it, it was still nice to have. Short, sweet, and simple, as all tutorials should be. Whether or not you choose to do it, you’re dropped right into the world of Vera, whose story is the first of our three main characters.
The beginning of Windy Meadows throws a lot at you. Looking at it from a story perspective, there are a lot of characters to keep up with right from the get-go. Still, when characters come up again and again, they’ll always pop up as yellow, so that when your cursor slides over it, you can get a reminder of who’s who. Actually, one of my favorite parts about this game is getting to how these different perspectives change the descriptions of these characters.
To Vera, for example, a man called Vates is just a noble priest with a religion she has no interest in. Her father follows it, but that’s about it. He doesn’t mean much to her at all. To Fabel, however, Vates is his foster father. The man who saved him from certain death years ago. A man he looks up to and respects. Admires and loves. To Iudicia he’s just a priest like he is to Vera, except Iudicia admires him a lot more. She even envies him at times for his good-natured ways. This is such an important feature to the characterization of our three main heroes.
While playing through Windy Meadows, one of the most prominent things you might notice is the gorgeous backgrounds. The pixelated art style is beautiful, and the constant animations and movements on the screen help the story feel more alive. There is always something to look at, especially if there’s a slight pause in the dialogue. So pay close attention to them—there are little details that may surprise you. The music and sounds accompany the art style and story very well. It enhances it, even. There’s nothing like hearing the bird and the crickets softly chirping while hunting in the forest.
Each character has their own important stories to tell. Vera, a story of uncertainty and fear. What will come of change? Fabel, a story of yearning and passion. He wants to go now. He’s ready to see the world. But can he? And Iudicia, a story of hesitancy and the unknown. How does she know she’s ready to commit? Does she really have feelings for the man she’s about to marry? These character’s stories somewhat intertwine, seeing as down the line you realize, “Hey! Fabel was in this scene when I was controlling Vera!” Though they don’t interact nearly as much as I thought they would have.
There are also some very immersive moments that I appreciated. There’s one moment where Vena drifts away into thought. She has the option to think about other things and the more you allow her to think, characters pop up onto the screen until you realize they’re looking at you. It’s nothing huge, but it’s a fun little addition for sure.
One of the biggest parts of Windy Meadow’s description is the choices you get to make for these characters, and the consequences of these choices vary. A lot of them don’t matter in the slightest—you can go through every option on screen sometimes to get more information. Sometimes pushing through every option can lead to someone getting annoyed with you. But in the end, the storyline is extremely linear, so things don’t really change much except in the conclusion. And even then, when you’re making your final life-changing decisions in the last chapter, the results are a lot less dramatic than I thought they’d be. It’s not that they don’t matter, per se, but either choice you make is justified. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but again, it felt like choices mattered a bit less because of this.
Windy Meadow – A Roadwarden Tale is short, but it’s a story about love, loss, and following your dreams. It’s about forgiveness, or maybe the lack thereof. It’s about what it means for you, and others, to move on or stay behind. It’s about a lot of important life lessons told through the eyes of three people whose stories deserve to be heard.
Inanna reviewed Windy Meadow – A Roadwarden Tale on PC with a review code.
