Forgotton Anne Review: Be Anne’s Guest

Enter a beautiful animated world filled with forgotten items come to life, and decide how to handle your role as Enforcer in the midst of a rebellion.

Forgotton Anne
ThroughLine Games
Price: $19.99
Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One
MonsterVine was provided with a free PC code for review.

The first thing I noticed about Forgotton Anne was its art style. Forgotton Anne is a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer with hand-drawn art that makes it look like an animated movie. Its style doesn’t work quite as well for human faces, but it’s perfect for the rest of its magical world. Together with a lovely musical score, the art helps create an immersive setting where talking objects quickly feel like the norm.

That’s right, talking objects. Forgotton Anne takes place in a realm parallel to ours, where forgotten objects gain a new life as “forgotlings.” Anne, one of two humans living in this world, is the Enforcer who keeps peace among the forgotlings while the realm’s leader constructs an Ether Bridge that will let them return to Earth. However, a rebel group is trying to disrupt their plans, and Anne sets out to stop them.

Although it is a platformer, Forgotton Anne focuses more on storytelling and puzzle-solving than on tricky platforming. It has a handful of challenging jumps, but most of the gameplay is spent figuring out how to divert power to overcome obstacles. In the world of the forgotlings, everything is powered by an energy called anima, which Anne can control through use of a special glove called the Arca. These puzzles start out simple but grow more complex later on, although they never become overly difficult. Deciding how to use your Arca is key, both for gameplay and for the story, because anima also keeps forgotlings alive.

As the Enforcer, Anne can “distill” forgotlings to make them inanimate again. You’ll have many choices to make as you try to track down the rebellion, such as deciding how to question a prisoner or whether or not to distill an enemy. Choices are largely cosmetic, causing minor effects instead of altering the course of the story, which can be a little disappointing. However, there are a few moments where your decisions play a bigger role, although the most important one seems slightly forced and counterintuitive.

The story itself is predictable at times, but charming and exciting nevertheless. You might see some of the twists coming, but they’ll still have a dramatic impact when they arrive. The charming cast of characters helps. The forgotlings might be objects, but they’re amusing and endearing. One of the biggest themes at the core of Forgotton Anne is the question of what makes something a living being. If a shoe gains a sense of self, is it still a shoe? Are forgotlings people, even though they aren’t human?

Forgotton Anne is a bit heavy-handed with its themes at times, and its plot beats are sometimes abrupt, but those are easy flaws to overlook in such a charming story. In both its presentation and its storytelling, it really does feel like an animated film in video game form.

The Final Word
With a style that evokes classic animated films, Forgotton Anne creates a beautiful and memorable world full of charming characters. It won’t be a good choice if you want challenging gameplay or mind-breaking puzzles, but fans of story-driven games shouldn’t overlook this one.

– MonsterVine Review Score: 4.5 out of 5 – Great