review after 3 hours:
This will be one of the hardest games to review for me, forgotton anne is my all-time favo game and i hope this game will live up to it. the intro of the game is very cool storywise and im very curious where the story of fig will go. HOWEVER, im only a few hours in and i already had a few bugs where i needed to reset to the last save. This game needs a bit more polishing and i hope it will get patched soon. I will keep playing because i love fig and the forgotton world.

this review will probably be updated later.
also, physical release when and i hope it will include a physical edition of INA in the collectors edition, would 300% buy it

Update: I am changing the negative review to positive, my playthrough was a glitchy ride with over 100 bugs including various softlocks, so I had to make it very clear. To be fair to the devs, they have been on top of it, and I even got a fast fix for a personal issue with a specific softlock. Is the game fixed? Probably not, but it's not as bad as it was. It's potentially a 14 hour game, so there is a lot that can happen. That said, I was treated well by the devs, and on a personal level, I feel they earned a positive review from me, even if the game still needs more work. Forgolings is a pretty ambitious game that has its ups and downs, sometimes compelling and sometimes a little too hand holdy for my taste. It wasn't all bad, but overall the quality and the pacing were a bit sporadic in my opinion.

...(original review, slightly edited to reflect some story beats/fit some new thoughts)

In my experience some parts of the game are kinda broken (well not kinda, I am being nice, I had 3 softlocks in one room for example), evidence below. I am running into various progression bugs every 15 to 60 minutes, so far I had to reload a checkpoint about 20 times. Generally you can work around it by loading your last checkpoint and usually it will fix the issue, so you lose between 1 and 10 minutes of progress cuz some of the checkpoints are too far apart, assuming your save file isn't loading you into unresponsive state, which is rare, but has happened to me before (that happens to you, you are %%%%, character won't move on the only loading point). I am not saying the game is broken, I am saying some parts of the game are more broken than others, it depends on the location and potentially if you doing something that devs didn't think about. You will notice more bugs in complicated puzzle areas, I actually had 3 softlocks in a single mine section once. So....

Here are some documented images just so you know I am not hating on the game for no reason:

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668501249

(you see that platform on the bottom left, it goes left to right between that black line, I don't think it was meant to fall off)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668487634

(the interaction between 2 platform made them stick together, also locking the character when I was moving by, I stand there but can't move)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668353062

(I am not 100% sure what happened here, but I think the area didn't load properly, not only messing with the camera for the rest of the level, but making it impossible to complete cuz it would teleport me around the background and foreground, I reloaded again and it fixed it)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668342258

(If you not careful moving boxes, you can't actually climb where you need to go, so more save loading every time you mess up the ordering)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668473731

(I didn't get a good image of this bug, but when exiting the mine, going behind the rocks will transfer the sprite of the character into a different plain, so sometimes he will go invisible, and I had that happen in a couple of places)

Again, these are just a few of the examples, I had about 20 of these, and I am not even counting similar bugs or design issues with ordering, even falling out of the map a few times. I also had random freezing that came and went at random.

Then there are just many small issues, a ton of foreground problems like these:

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668468654

(Like what is that black box? a placeholder? someone played this game right?)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668759298

(characters standing on air)

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668459446

(small foreground issues, not a big deal, still should be fixed)


I can't say that Forgotlings made a good first impression, mainly because the first 3 hours or so feels a bit too scripted, the introduction part of the game felt way too long and could have been more streamlined, the whole tutorial section is mostly tedious in my opinion. The game really starts around like hour 4, once you get to choose where you move the world-building feels more organic. On average I think Forgotton Anne had better writing, and we also don't have that human catalyst to ground this fantasy world into something more compelling (at least not in a direct way) than goofy forgotlings, doing goofy forgotling things. To be fair, Forgotlings will get very philosophical at certain points, often touching on themes of fate and doing things for others, or for your own benefit. You will find some narrative depth in this game that often comes in small packages scattered around the world, although sometimes it comes across as a bit heavy handed.

While not a bad game, it feels a little lost sometimes, which I think is just having too many ideas that not always complement the pacing of the narrative. They forced the combat to be a part of the experience, and yet most areas just recycle enemies.



- It's very pretty, most of the time, some backgrounds here are some of the best art I have seen in any game. The game eventually will allow you to choose the locations to travel to, giving some agency, and I think the design of the world is probably the most compelling part here.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3668461213 (look at that, looks amazing)

- while I think the writing is hit and miss, FIG is great, even when you force him to say the wrong things, he always comes across as selfless and pure, which maybe isn’t complex, but on some level I appreciate playing the game as a genuinely nice guy

- almost everything is voice acted, although honestly not that well, at least compared to Forgotton Anne

- it's a very large game with many locations, a lazy run can take 14 some hours (I didn't play much of the board game, it probably would add another 5 hours lol)


Moving Blocks/Platforms - if you move those blocks on the wrong side where you need to jump, he can't climb. Sometimes touching 2 wheel platforms together locks them, and even breaks the location or puzzle.

Many unfriendly checkpoints - when you die a few times it will load the auto save instead of a checkpoint, which sometimes could be 10 or more minutes away, especially if you did some mini games or objectives.

Sometimes Obtuse navigation - the game often gives hints in the dialogue but won’t repeat them, so it might be a good idea to make sure those key clues can be obtained again.

Combat adjustments - maybe remove stagger from mid-air hits, make the slam area wider, add immunity between grabs (from those cube things)

Bugs/Softlocks/Freezes/foreground issues/wall clipping - I documented many of them in the forum, too many to count.


Overall Thoughts: 7/10

Forgotlings was perhaps too ambitious of a game and I don't doubt the dedication it took to make it, but maybe it had too many ideas that didn't work together, at least not in every part of the game. I didn't like the first 3 hours because it felt very slow and had too much hand holding, but I thought the middle of the game was the best part, about 10 hours of interesting exploration, and honestly somewhat conflicted about the ending, it's not bad, but I personally find it a little strange. I like that it expanded on Anne's story which I didn't expect, and for me the visuals were honestly the most interesting part of the game, I think the level design added a lot of depth to the lore. The writing was interesting in some parts of the game, but it was far from perfect.

Forgotlings hit me in the feels much harder than I expected when I started it, I was already primed for a bittersweet story after Forgotton Anne and it did not dissapoint, how it uses the vivid world we already got teased with in the first game, the beautiful hand-drawn characters, the uniqueness of each forgotling and how it dangles us in front of us the hope, faint at it was of setting right what went wrong in the first game.

ENDGAME SPOILERS

And I got from it all I hoped for, I couldn't avoid feeling happy and teary-eyed as the end credits of the True Ending rolled as the first game, and the tragedies inside it were erased, no dictatorship, no mass deaths, and what I hoped the most, Anne finally having the normal life that was denied from her.


END OF SPOILERS

All set up and portrayed beautifully during this adventure that hides more mature themes that one would not expect at first sight.

I loved this duology and don't regret playing it for a second.