Forgotton Anne: an experience not to be forgotten, our review

Sometimes a moment is enough to forget a life, but sometimes a life is not enough to forget a moment.

Today we talk about Forgotton Anne, a standalone 2.5D platform-adventure released on May 15th, developed by the Danish studio ThroughLine Games and published by the platform Square Enix Collective.

Welcome to the "Forgotten Lands"

As you may have noticed in the trailer, all forgotten objects magically disappear and find themselves in a new world, passing from simple inanimate objects to real sentient beings.

The first approach with the title is deeply impacting, you will feel catapulted into an atmosphere that seems to have come out of the Japanese Studio Ghibli, where unlikely characters will be able to touch you deeply.

Small note for us Italian users, the game as often happens in these cases is not localized in our language, you can choose between: English (fully supported), French or German (only subtitles).

The objects that are brought into this dimension will face a small selection, which after a quick check on the health of the object (in-game will be called Forgotling) will assign them to the "job" that suits them best.

It seemed like a normal day ...

Everything flowed normally in the Forgotten Lands, until a loud roar resulting from an explosion and the consequent black-out put all the inhabitants on alert, here we get to know Master Bonku, creator and "master" of this world and its protégé, Anne precisely. Waking up from sleep, she gets up and begins an adventure hitherto unimaginable.

The game immediately puts us in the girl's shoes and introduces us to the mechanics with a small tutorial, above all it presents us with theArk, a special glove with the power to distill the main energy source of this world: theAnima, as the term suggests, it is an element that gives the Forgotlings the ability to be alive.

With the power of this glove we can enterSoul-Vision, a sort of "eye of the eagle" that will allow you to manage the release or acquisition of Anima, in fact the puzzle sections of the game will all be around the "magic glove" and its use.

After having the first full of Soul, Anne is preparing to turn on the light, once this mini-mission is completed, Master Bonku will contact her from a mirror and ask her to check what is happening in the city, in fact our protagonist is a guardian of the order (Enforcer, as it will often be called).

As soon as we get ready to go out, a scarf bursts into the apartment, who asks not to undergo the distillation of his Soul. In fact, in some situations the game will subject us to decisions, not always simple to make, but which will have repercussions on the entire game., we are not talking about a radical change of the plot, but of the behaviors that the characters will have towards us.

There is a rebellion going on.

The explosion is in fact the work of a group of Rebel forgotlings, whose reasons are not yet clear, but continuing the adventure we will find out what they want and why.

Graphic compartment.

As previously mentioned, the graphic style is very reminiscent of the adventures that the Japanese film studio has offered us over the years. The world at first glance is very dark and reminds us of heavily industrialized environments, in which the excess of construction makes everything a little gray.

The group of Danish artists, however, has made these environments somehow rich in life and "colors", every aspect of the landscape is extremely well cared for. The very fact that everything we see on the screen is hand drawn it is somewhat fascinating and admirable.

Audio compartment

The music interpreted byCopenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra they will accompany you in this adventure bordering on dreams. The extraordinary care in choosing the pieces to insert, allows the soundtrack to completely envelop you and accompany you in the adventures of our Anne in the Forgotten Lands.

The game is good when it lasts a short time, perhaps a little too short ...

Generally this saying in the world of video games is not entirely correct, as we look for adventures that can offer us many hours of fun. Logically, we can't ask an indie title created by a studio of 15 developers to prepare a title that lasts 100 hours.

This adventure, however, could somehow be experienced more, the plot that points to the point from the first moment, partly takes away from the player the pleasure and the ability to explore and fully enjoy the environments.

The presence of the collectible system could somehow increase its duration, but do not be under any illusions.