The Forgotten City is a cleverly constructed narrative adventure that explores serious issues of morality without ever being preachy. It also rewards clever thinking, rather than brute force.
After waking up on a riverbank, you’re catapulted back 2,000 years to a secluded Roman community. Everybody is encased in gold, and the city’s leader asks you to prevent them from breaking the “Golden Rule” that turns everyone into gold at the moment of sin.
Gameplay
The Forgotten City focuses on an evocative narrative and a gameplay loop that revolves around trial and error. It asks you to explore the city’s many characters while discovering their motivations and patterns of behavior. This leads to new revelations that can lead to finding hidden objects or keys, which in turn can help you solve the game’s mystery and unravel its story.
It’s a well-crafted story and I loved the way each character had their own unique backstory and motivations that was reflected in their interactions with you. I felt like I had to carefully consider each conversation, as it was so important that I didn’t say anything that might anger someone.
There are around 20 different characters that you can interact with, some of which are recurring while others aren’t. Each one of them has their own history, their own inner life, conflicts and motives.
They also have their own unique set of quests that you can choose to undertake. This lets you take an active role in solving the mystery that has plagued this ancient city for thousands of years, while making it feel personal and meaningful.
The story of The Forgotten City is a cleverly-constructed puzzle that asks you to make difficult moral choices. It’s a compelling adventure that rewards your efforts with both the knowledge you gain from your experiences and the hints and clues provided by villagers.
As you explore this mysterious city, you’ll uncover clues about the history of the city and how it came to be a precarious utopia. You’ll relive the final day of 26 citizens, and with each decision you make, you’ll change their destiny in an endless loop.
You’ll have to navigate the city’s numerous buildings, talk to villagers, and decipher their motivations. You’ll learn about the city’s secrets, uncover buried treasure, and complete puzzles in an effort to uncover the mystery of how this cursed town came to be.
The Forgotten City is a compelling and engrossing narrative adventure that will draw you in for hours on end. It’s a complex and enjoyable story that I would recommend for any gamer looking to delve into a new world.
Characters
Traveling 2,000 years into the past, you find yourself stuck in an ancient Roman city inhabited by a strange cast of characters. The problem is that every time one person sins, everyone dies. By using a bizarre ritual, you loop back into pre-sin versions of the settlement and must prevent everyone’s doom.
The Forgotten City is a full video game adaptation of the highly popular fan mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that’s been remixed and reworked into a more historical version of the world. As a result, it feels very different from the original, even if the same elements were used (like the time loop and the time travel itself).
In The Forgotten City, there are many ways to interact with the world. These involve speaking to NPCs, and each dialogue tree – featuring the same mid-shot framing that’s present in Skyrim – will give you a variety of options.
These dialogue trees will also give you a chance to appeal to certain characters for items or information you might need. This will help you in finding clues and solving mysteries.
While this isn’t an extremely challenging game, it does require a good deal of thinking and deductive reasoning, as well as the ability to make difficult moral choices. As such, it’s a great fit for fans of the genre.
The Forgotten City has a lot of incredibly interesting, philosophical questions to ask, mainly due to its time looping structure. Its cyclical set up makes it intriguing, and the story’s themes are relevant to our time and age.
Most of the characters in The Forgotten City aren’t bad, but there are some that seem to lack a moral compass or are flat-out rude. For example, price-gouging slaveholder Desius is a good example of this. He doesn’t care about his actions, and is a bit rude in that he doesn’t apologize when he hurts someone.
Malleolus is another character who seems to have little regard for his own actions. He owes money to two people, but doesn’t seem to care about paying them back.
Themes
The Forgotten City is a fascinating and captivating tale of morality, mystery, and the power of choice. Its narrative is driven by an incredibly simple concept – the Golden Rule. This means that everyone living in the city is bound by this principle, and that if they break it, their souls will be destroyed forever.
The game never really gets in the way of delivering this premise, with objective markers and hints whispered to you from a mysterious voice all helping to keep things moving forward at a pace that doesn’t feel stagnant or repetitive. This pacing also ensures that no single run feels like it is a waste of time, as you are constantly prodded towards the next big revelation.
These themes are woven together through the gameplay, with a number of enlightening puzzles that challenge you to make sense of these ideas. Among them is an interesting take on a Socratic debate with a hermit philosopher.
Another theme is the idea that sin has no universal definition, but instead varies by culture and time. This leads to a great deal of interesting dialogue interactions with characters from various cultures and religions, with questions like what constitutes a sin being explored in depth.
This is all backed up by a solid story that’s rich with intriguing plot elements and a nifty climax that makes you think. Its characters are well-written and their stories have a lot to tell, so you’ll be constantly looking for new ways to relate to them and their predicaments.
Overall, The Forgotten City is a game that will have you thinking long after you’ve finished it. It’s an engaging story that tackles some of the most important and pertinent themes in interactive fiction. It’s a fantastic experience for gamers who enjoy narrative-driven games that offer a balance of horror and mystery, but it might not be the best fit for younger players or those that aren’t interested in critical thinking skills.
The Forgotten City is a beautiful and contemplative game that combines the storytelling elements of a classic mystery with a deep understanding of classical antiquity. While some reservations about the game’s design keep it from reaching Legion-dary status, its exceptional narrative will have you coming back for more each and every time you play.
Story
The Forgotten City is a unique videogame, one that intelligently invites you into its high-concept mythological premise in a way that makes you think and feel in equal measures. It’s a game made by the Melbourne indie studio Modern Storyteller, and it may have started off as a creative mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim but it was completely revamped by its core team of three creators into a standalone title that’s all about interesting story twists, exploration and well-voiced character dialogue.
Throughout your time in the city, you’ll be asked to solve a mystery that is more than just an unsolved murder. In fact, you’ll also be given the opportunity to think about some of the moral quandaries humanity has pondered for millennia, including whether or not it’s fair to punish others if they break a sacred rule.
For starters, you’ll be tasked with finding out what happened to the ruins of this Roman city that was buried in the depths of a mountain two thousand years ago. As you explore, you’ll discover the city is populated by life-sized golden statues of humans. The people in the city claim that they’re ruled by an unbreakable “Golden Rule” which states that if any person commits a sin, the entire populace will be turned into gold and wiped out.
Once you’ve gathered the information necessary to unravel this mystery, you’ll be tasked with saving the city’s inhabitants and exposing Malleolus, a ruthless warlord who is intent on breaking the Rule and reclaiming his power. You can achieve this through some interesting puzzles, including sneaking into a locked villa and climbing a cliff to get inside, or bribing the guard for a key.
These puzzles will keep you on your toes and constantly pushing you to find clues. Leads are automatically recorded for you to review at any time and eerie golden statues will whisper cryptic clues along the way, but it’s up to you to concoct the best solution.
Like any mystery-based videogame, The Forgotten City has its share of pitfalls and technical hiccups. There are some janky moments and characters don’t always look the way they should, but the game’s pacing is solid and its dialogue is top-notch. As a result, it’s a genuinely fun experience and one that will draw you in from the start.
