“Athazagoraphobia: the fear of being
forgotten or ignored and fear of forgetting.”
Beautiful environments
Forgotton Anne is a 2D indie-adventure game that is heavily
story-driven. Created by ThroughLine Games and published by the Square Enix Collective,
Forgotton Anne follows the tale of Anne, the Enforcer of the forgotton world.
When the game started, I was reminded of a movie I watched called OblivionIsland: Haruka and the Magic Mirror. In the movie, Haruka loses a mirror that
was a precious possession to her and finds her way to a world of lost and
forgotten things. Forgotton Anne is very different from the movie, but the
world made me think of that movie.
Anne is the Enforcer of the world, which means it’s her job
to keep the forgotlings from getting out of hand and dealing with the rebels
(forgotlings that want to stop the construction of the Ether Bridge). Anne seems
to have a bit of a ruthless reputation to the forgotlings, which I suppose is
well warranted since Anne could distill them without thinking twice about it.
The color schemes are beautiful as well
The story is well told, nicely paced, and deeply emotional.
The characters all have their own motives and personalities, and I enjoyed
meeting all of the different forgotlings in the world. There are many decisions
to make, mostly related to whether you’ll distill certain forgotlings, or try
to reason your way out of it. Given my own personality, I tried my best to talk
my way out of everything.
The game is overwhelmingly beautiful, with a style similar
to a Miyazaki film. Anne herself reminded me a little bit of Sophie from Howl’s
Moving Castle. The animations are pretty smooth, and I loved the variety of
movements, and the thoughtfulness put into how she moves—like stepping on every
step when taking the stairs or having a specific turning animation while
crawling.
There were a few things that ruffled mt feathers, but some
of it is really nitpicking. For example, in the plant, when Anne descended a
set of stairs, I noticed that the stairs appeared in front of her feet, instead
of behind. A small issue, but I still noticed. Once when I was trying to drop
down from a ledge, instead of falling, Anne changed to her animation pose when
she hits the floor and fell down in that pose. I also was moved around the
screen once as if I was on a moving platform, but I wasn’t. The other issue I had was with the
platforming. Sometimes I would be holding the run or wings buttons, but when I
tried to jump it wouldn’t work—and sometimes it didn’t register my jumping at
all and I would just fall.
This game gave me plenty of reasons to be sad.
Despite these little issues, I still found the game amazing.
The music was beautiful, the sound design was thoughtful and created an
immersive atmosphere. I often felt like I was strolling though a Miyazaki film.
The environments are so detailed and well put together. I appreciate the time
and effort that was put into it. I *highly* recommend you pick the game up for
yourself and give it a play through. You can pick it up on Steam *here* for
$19.99. The game took about 7.5 hours for me to complete, and it was a joy the
entire time, so I feel it’s worth it.
Be sure to let me know down below what you thought about it!
Did you stay with the forgotlings, or return to the Ether?
Thank you, as always. Until next time!
Bellannmae
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