Forgotten Forest, Commodore 64, Retrospective Review

Forbidden Forest for the Commodore 64 brings back many wonderful memories to long time gamers who often cite the its atmosphere, graphical look and action as a perfect blend to provide a spine chilling and engrossing experience. The game saw you play as an archer, armed with a bow and limited number of arrows, moving through a dangerous forest battling giant spiders, bees, mutated frogs, dragons, wizards and snakes.

Forgotten Forest for the Commodore 64 is a side scrolling shooter that pays homage to Forbidden Forest by provide a more modern remake of the classic game. Designed and produced by Alf Yngve back in 2011, Forgotten Forest sees you take on the role of a Hunter who is looking to explore the deep realms of the haunted forest in the hope of finding the treasure that lies within.

Spiders to the left of me, spiders to the right, stuck in the middle again

As the sun sets, the Hunter stands by the edge of the forest as he is about to set off in his journey when he hears something rustling in the growing shadows, beckoning you to enter. With his trusty flame thrower by his side, the Hunter enters the forest and is immediately set upon by mutated spiders.

Once the spiders have been dispensed with, the Hunter will then need to deal with various other creatures such as killer bees, bats, ugly brown toads, and snakes. At times, these creatures will attack in swarms and given that they require more than one hit from your flame thrower, it is advised that you slowly inch your way through the forest in order to avoid invoking too many enemies on screen at the same time if you wish to make good progress.

Swarm of killer bees look to stop the Hunter from finding the treasure

Forgotten Forest features some great graphical touches. As you get deeper into the forest, the environment starts to get darker and spookier. The background horizon transitions from sunset into pitch darkness the deeper you get into the forest.  The hunter character is well defined and moves well across the screen with no noticeably jerkiness and the enemy characters look quite good and move around in a somewhat fluid motion.

Sound wise, the game features a great spooky music soundtrack on the title screen, while  the in-game sound effects are good but fall shorts from providing that eerie horror ambience that Forbidden Forest is so well known for.

The initial stages of Forgotten Forest suffer from a lack of variety when it comes to enemies as the first 4 or 5 stages of gameplay will only feature the same type of enemy This slow start to the game can turn gamers off and dismiss it from providing much of a challenge.

What is a C64 game without bats? Here is the boss battle for the bat enemy stage.

It is only when you have gone through each of the enemy types does the game start to throw different enemy mixes in your direction and this is when Forgotten Forest starts to excel. Not only does the action become more challenging but the game’s production values greatly ramp up as towards the end of the game a mysterious and frightening shadow can be seen in the dark horizon, invoking super-natural enemies that need to be dealt with swiftly.

Forgotten Forest works up to gradual increase in game play as you look to avoid lightning bolts and eliminate ghastly ghosts before ultimately ending up facing the mysterious dark creature that has been following you throughout the journey.

Holy moses, what the…?

Forgotten Forest is a very respectful effort in honouring the Forbidden Forest legacy. The clear stand out within the game is the background environment transition from light to dark as you progress. Game play is somewhat repetitive to begin with, but those that stick with it long enough are rewarded with an intriguing and engaging challenging play towards the later stages that builds up to a crescendo with a great finish.

A video review of Forgotten Forest is available below.

Digital Download:

Louie Dimovski


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2 Responses

  1. Tim says:

    Why does the digital download link go through YouTube? I don’t need Google to know what I’m doing online.

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