With each series of Lorcana, I find myself drawn in for two reasons, one is the new characters being added and two is the new art that those new characters will inspire. For the Reign of Jafar, a lot of that was driven by Jafar and his need for power, and also Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. For the new Fabled season, I wasn’t paying attention to any of the new additions, as the focus was placed upon the new Fabled cards. So, did the lack of awareness result in a surprise, or like any good fable, was the moral of the release lost upon me?

One of the major additions to the new series, was not just new cards of which there are plenty, but two new card rarities and all-new card types. Before I go any further, I will freely admit that upon opening up all the cards that were kindly provided to me by the folks at Lorcana, I did not get any of those new card types and I am not the slightest bit upset about that, mostly. The new card types are Epic and Iconic and while they don’t change the game, like the dual-ink cards did previously, they do change your decks. What makes these cards special is that they lower the amount of border on them, so for the Epic cards, there is still some borders to be seen, but far less than on standard cards. The Iconic cards are the real special ones, as they hold no borders and are just full art on the front, along with the gameplay details.

Back to the normal cards, as always, the thing that draws me in is the art, which is why I was excited to see A Goofy Movie featured throughout the series. There are some great individual character cards with Goofy, Max, Roxanne and even Powerline, but there are some special cards as well. While I did not score it in my cards, there is a great card of Goofy, Max and Powerline as they dance together on stage, as seen in the song I2I. A Goofy Movie is the star of the set, because in each booster there is that details card, which upon its back as a piece of a much larger piece of art and this time it is Powerline rocking out.

But it isn’t all just 30-year-old movies, as there are a host of more modern characters in there, with the Disney Princesses being another group to get new cards. What I like about this series is that for every Frozen character there is a Snow White character and for every Raya and the Last Dragon, there is Sleeping Beauty. This is perhaps the first series in a while that I feel really offers a great range of characters from across the Disney brand and I like that. What feels weird though is in the past two series, Dual-Ink cards were a big thing and here, there is not one. This is not a ‘I did not get one’ thing, but even when looking in the official Lorcana app, there are no listings for any Dual-Ink cards. It does not matter to me from a gameplay perspective, as I don’t actively play the game, but I am just wondering why there are no cards with that here.

With each series, there are always going to be cards that grab peoples attention, be it for a character in a new outfit, or a favourite character getting some time in the spotlight. This new series has quite the range of characters and while I always like to pick one or two, there are just so many amazing designs here. One of the cards that I adored is Kuzco on this throne, with the artist Grace Tran doing an amazing job of capturing the attitude of the character. I also love the Goofy Movie cards, with all of them being great additions, but out of the 100+ cards that I got, there is one that stands out as just terrifying. That goes to the Jafar card by artist Marcel Berg, it has such a presence that at first, I did not realise it was Jafar. The closest thing I can think of for visual comparison, are the scene in The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time – the videogame, where the enemies are first converted by the sand. There are countless other pieces of amazing art, but if I tried to list them all, we would be here for weeks.

Fabled is not as game changing as the past seasons, just due to the lack of Dual-Ink cards, but where it excels is with the cards themselves. Since the first reveal of Lorcana, I have been impressed by much of the art created for it and now to see that same art get even more of a chance to shine, that is fantastic. The downside to the new card types is just that there are now two more rare types to have to account for and those who are aiming for a complete collection, may struggle. If you are hoping for a big story reason like Regin of Jafar offered, you might be let down, but even without that there is enough to enjoy with this latest season.

Lorcana Fabled is available now at specialist card game stores, as well as places like Big W and EB Games.