I wish I could just tell you that Forgotton Anne is brilliant and wrap things up there. I want to leave you to go enjoy it without saying anything else, because that’s the way this story should be encountered. It’s a game about a lack of knowledge – yours, and Anne’s – and how this can be both a curse and a blessing. It’s a game about forgetting things and about loss, about remembering what you had and the cost of doing so. Best of all, it’s a game which will win you over with its huge amount of heart.
Forgotton AnneDeveloper: ThroughLine GamesPublisher: Square Enix CollectiveFormat: Tested on PS4Availability: Released 15th May on PS4, Xbox One and PC
Fine, then. Let’s talk about the scarf. Within the first few minutes of playing you’ll meet a living scarf. His name is Dilly, and he’s a Forgotling – the name for the living objects in Anne’s world. Comparing Forgotton Anne’s style to Studio Ghibli seems a lazy comparison – it’s anime, right? – but there’s a definite inspiration from the whimsy of that studio’s ideas. Anne’s world is a place where the forgotten items from our reality end up and there, somehow, they find consciousness. And so you meet the scarf, Dilly, who has broken into your house.
There’s been an explosion outside and Anne thinks it’s rebels – and then you see Dilly snooping around, unable to explain why he’s there. He’s clearly a threat. You’re the Enforcer, it turns out, one of just two humans in this world and who, together, have taken charge of it. He is just a scarf wearing a pair of glasses, but it is the natural reaction to stop him, of course – so you do. You have the power to distill a Forgotling, remove its life-force, and without any second warning the game lets you. Sapping out his energy using the Arca device on your wrist, the little scarf crumples motionless to the floor.
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I can appreciate when a game tells me I’m approaching a big decision or a point of no return. It’s got to the point where it now feels a discourtesy not to do so, particularly in monolithic RPGs. But while Telltale does it and Life is Strange does it, Forgotton Anne does not. There are times when you are told an interaction’s outcome “could have played out differently”, but only after the fact. Without spoiling too much, it feels like the right decision. The method to simply scare Dilly the scarf is present – I’ve gone back and played it through again after finishing – but there’s no reason you would use it at this point. Later, another Forgotling whose fate you decide can be scared off by just starting the distillation process but not continuing with it – something I discovered almost by accident while trying to work out how to avoid actually killing them. I wouldn’t have even thought to do so at the game’s beginning.