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The Forgotten City - time loop adventure set in a cursed Roman city

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-forgotten-city-review/

THE FORGOTTEN CITY REVIEW
A deep and enjoyable time-loop mystery awaits you in an ancient Roman city.

Most games, technically, are in the time-loop genre. You can reload saves to try again, you can kill and die without consequence, and you can press reset on the world, starting over armed with the knowledge of events that haven't happened yet. Every day can be Groundhog Day.

The Forgotten City is literally a time-loop game, and it makes excellent use of that magical reset button. You begin the adventure in the present day, stumbling into some ancient Roman ruins filled with golden human statues before being whisked back in time through a portal. You arrive in the same Roman city, but now it's pristine and all those statues are living people. What happened to them? Why were they turned into gold? Is the city truly a paradise outside of time, or is it more like a prison? How can you return to your own time? And why is an ancient Roman city filled with ziplines?

The answers to those questions (except the zipline one, that's just a convenience so you can travel around quickly) require lots of conversations with the citizens, who are almost without fail well-crafted characters, many with troubling secrets and interesting stories to tell. And the time-loop is your best weapon, eventually transforming you from a confused newcomer to a nearly omniscient detective in a city full of suspects. It's a satisfying way to investigate, rewinding the clock each day to meet the same people and witness the same events, only with new eyes and new information.

As with all utopias, there's a dark catch to the reason the city feels so pleasant and peaceful. If anyone in the city (including you) commits a sin like stealing or killing, the ground rumbles and people begin turning into gold statues. You must race back to the portal, which resets the day, giving you a chance to do things differently or maybe try out a completely new avenue of investigation.

The Forgotten City began as a mod for Skyrim before being recreated in the Unreal Engine. But its Skyrim roots are still heavily apparent in the looks and animation of the characters and a similar dialogue system. Where it outdoes Skyrim is in those conversations, which are well-written and wonderfully performed. The dialogue feels natural and genuine despite the fantastical setting of an ancient city trapped in time.

In Skyrim (and quite honestly, most games) I tend to get impatient and skip through conversations, but here I'm happy to listen to everyone, and not just because uncovering the city's dark secrets depends on it. Maybe the act of not clicking the mouse button to skip to the next line doesn't sound like the biggest compliment I can give, but it sorta is.

Sin City
The smaller mysteries and sidequests are especially fun to solve. A woman has been poisoned to death, but how could that be possible when murder is a sin that should bring on the end of the city? Trust me, I know: the first thing I did when I got my hands on a bow was shoot an arrow directly into someone's head, and the world immediately began to end.

So how did someone manage a murder without statue-geddon happening? It took a few time loops to save her from dying, and one or two more to figure out how to save her every single day without having to do it myself. The Forgotten City is about repeating things over and over, but it does a lot to make sure those things don't become irritating chores.

It's also enjoyable to slowly discover the connections between the people of the city, even if you don't personally witness their interactions. Another side quest involved tracking down someone who was harassing a local shopkeeper with nasty notes and graffiti (apparently, treating people like utter shit isn't a world-ending sin). I got a lead on someone, which led me to another lead, which led me to—whoops, that third lead just got buried under a pile of rubble. I reset the day, make sure the person I need to talk to doesn't get crushed into pulp by rocks, and eventually track down the harasser. He freely admits leaving the notes simply because I'd helped him out in an earlier side quest. Helping someone with a problem often leads to a breakthrough when trying to help someone else with a problem.

You not only possess your memories of the day, you also keep the physical items you collect between restarts. Find a key to a locked door and you'll never have to go back and retrieve it again. Collect some gold, and it'll still be in your pockets when you come back through the portal. Like the ziplines, these are shortcuts to make repeating the same day over and over a bit more convenient so you can quickly dive back into whatever it was you were doing when the ground began to shake.

Discovering your own loopholes in the sin system is equally enjoyable. Maybe I can't kill someone without all hell breaking loose, but there are ways to trick people into dying that slowly become apparent when you've spent a little time in the city—particularly if you've become aware of an extremely dangerous place to stand because you saw someone else get crushed to a pulp a few resets ago.

And stealing isn't permitted, but if someone else commits a sin and triggers the apocalypse, is there really any harm in me looting a few chests of gold while I'm scampering back to the portal? Probably not! It's a free sin! It certainly doesn't hurt that I spent the money I stole to buy an overly-expensive item from the same guy I stole the money from. And he was none the wiser, thanks to the ever useful time-loop.

Trial and terror
The Forgotten City isn't all walking, talking, and listening. There is a bit of combat—you can even bring a gun with you from the future. And that's actually kind of a shame. A sequence where I had to skulk through a ruined palace filled with creepy animated statues, dispatching them with a magic bow, went on much, much longer than necessary. It was chilling at first, but those weird statues running towards me over and over quickly got repetitive.

Climbing and jumping aren't especially smooth in The Forgotten City, something I didn't really notice during hours of peaceful exploration but that became apparent during my action-packed palace crawl. That entire section of the game felt like it was keeping me from what I wanted to be doing: walking, talking, and listening to the stories of interesting people.

Thankfully, most of the 10-12 hours it takes to reach the ending of The Forgotten City (and there are four endings, so you can take even more time if you wish) can be spent doing just that: soaking up the finer details of a beautiful and mysterious city, and slowly getting to know a collection of interesting, well-acted characters. If you have to relive a single day over and over again, Groundhog Day-like, this is a good one.

THE VERDICT
84

THE FORGOTTEN CITY
An intriguing mystery adventure with outstanding writing and performances.
 

Jack Of Owls

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May 23, 2014
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People who expect something like rpg/combact/heavy puzzles have obviously a bad experience.

I went into this expecting more of a challenge to put things together and figure out where to go next just too easy even without the whispers. Story got a little better but its kinda eh?

I'm hoping for something more as I get closer to the end. I don't hate the time I've spent with the game but thats mostly because it's nearly over for me in six hours even without rushing things.

Is the skyrim mod actually good or was it just hype? Never did play it.

I never played the mod version either but it supposedly was much less linear than this Steam version which of course can give the illusion of more freedom/deeper gameplay and make for a more enjoyable time.
 
Repressed Homosexual
Joined
Mar 29, 2010
Messages
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Ottawa, Can.
Don't play this. I wish I could have my last 7 hours back.

I'll try not to spoil anything substantial, but let's say this game is the wet dream of a typical Millennial Liberal from Reddit and how they perceive the world.

I counted like 4-5 different subplots about homosexuality all involving different people, and I'm not even joking. In a game that has 30 NPCs tops. It's like Queer as Folk, Roman fantasy edition.

I saw a joke about the pandemic. A joke about mortgages. It's like a Redditor wrote all the meta references. I found it very distracting.

Just don't, it will only disappoint you more and more as you play.
 
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Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Strap Yourselves In
It's true that the game starts with a Karen meme reference about 30 seconds in... It does seem like a bad sign, but I'm still quite curious to see how the time-travel/morality aspects are explored.
 
Repressed Homosexual
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Mar 29, 2010
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Ottawa, Can.
Something that really disgusted me, do not watch if you don't want minor parts of the ending spoiled:

At the end, three different characters say that they are "glad their tormenter is suffering for eternity" and the main character has to reply by joking about it.

That really disturbed me. And liberals pretend to have the moral high ground. These people with their secular humanist cult.

One character says she is "so glad to now live a life free of religion". How lame.

These people are idiots and their only goal is to attack religion and promote their secular humanist cult.
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
Finished it in six hours got ending 4 of 4 which I assume is the best ending since the achievement calls it "the canon ending."

Just skip the game its not worth the time investment even at $20 bucks.
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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I counted like 4-5 different subplots about homosexuality all involving different people, and I'm not even joking.

You must be deeply traumatized.

And you must feel fucking ashamed that Humanity, of all people, is a better and more honest poster than you.

pretentiouswhore.png

pretentiouswhore2.png
 
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Lord_Potato

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
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Free City of Warsaw
I counted like 4-5 different subplots about homosexuality all involving different people, and I'm not even joking.

You must be deeply traumatized.

And you must feel fucking ashamed that Humanity, of all people, is a better and more honest poster than you.

pretentiouswhore.png

pretentiouswhore2.png

I fail to see lack of honesty. In my DAI post I criticized quality of animations and the moronic reason for their terrible state, not sexual orientation of NPCs.
 
Repressed Homosexual
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Messages
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Ottawa, Can.
counted like 4-5 different subplots about homosexuality all involving different people, and I'm not even joking. In a game that has 30 NPCs tops. It's like Queer as Folk, Roman fantasy edition.
This is near the nominal 10% of the population.

There are at least 8 NPCs who are gay or express homosexual feelings one way or another out of 30 or so.

Homosexuals are 1 or 2% of the population tops. The 10% myth was a lie originating from Kinsey.
 

thesecret1

Arcane
Joined
Jun 30, 2019
Messages
5,676
Another "historical" game suffering from the retarded writers making NPCs hold the same values and beliefs as that of a 21st century dipshit urbanite... The visuals are nice enough and do lend the game that air of antiquity, but the NPCs just disappoint you at every step – the only ones that seemed to behave at least somewhat era-approprite ended up being the game's villains, and your own character was cosistently offered dialogue options that could be summed up as "Ugh, I'm from, like, the 21st century, and you're all horrible bigots".

As for the meat of the game, it's enjoyable enough, though rather simple – don't expect to get stuck on anything, all of the game's puzzles are simple and their solutions obvious. Still, overall the game's a good enough way to spend an afternoon if you manage to ignore the writing and have nothing better to play. Also, the ending (the "true" ending) is attrocious as the game suddenly dumps a boatload of faggotry on you – better to skip it, really. You won't really miss out on anything anyway.

:2/5:
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Seems like the consensus then is that this game is a woke piece of bovine excrement?

Another "historical" game suffering from the retarded writers making NPCs hold the same values and beliefs as that of a 21st century dipshit urbanite... The visuals are nice enough and do lend the game that air of antiquity, but the NPCs just disappoint you at every step – the only ones that seemed to behave at least somewhat era-approprite ended up being the game's villains, and your own character was cosistently offered dialogue options that could be summed up as "Ugh, I'm from, like, the 21st century, and you're all horrible bigots".

As for the meat of the game, it's enjoyable enough, though rather simple – don't expect to get stuck on anything, all of the game's puzzles are simple and their solutions obvious. Still, overall the game's a good enough way to spend an afternoon if you manage to ignore the writing and have nothing better to play. Also, the ending (the "true" ending) is attrocious as the game suddenly dumps a boatload of faggotry on you – better to skip it, really. You won't really miss out on anything anyway.

:2/5:

Thanks for the honest review. I have uninstalled this garbage.
 

Konjad

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Tried to play it, didn't get to the "true" ending, but abandoned because writing is quite bad (and the game focuses on writing). I'm not annoyed at "woke" stuff much as other codexers, but there are simply no choices, all dialogs are railroaded and you get "multiple" options Bioware style (where all are the same). Characters are overall very simple and with not much character, and nobody does anything except the player, even the guy who knows their time is coming. It's a glorified walking simulator, but I enjoy walking simulators - if they have decent story to tell. TFC doesn't though, it's generic, without C&C (except what ending you get), and minor plots are completely uninteresting. You can guess everything before it happens, all plots are as if written by the "must be the most obvious and generic" rule or something.
 

kangaxx

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Another "historical" game suffering from the retarded writers making NPCs hold the same values and beliefs as that of a 21st century dipshit urbanite... The visuals are nice enough and do lend the game that air of antiquity, but the NPCs just disappoint you at every step – the only ones that seemed to behave at least somewhat era-approprite ended up being the game's villains, and your own character was cosistently offered dialogue options that could be summed up as "Ugh, I'm from, like, the 21st century, and you're all horrible bigots".

As for the meat of the game, it's enjoyable enough, though rather simple – don't expect to get stuck on anything, all of the game's puzzles are simple and their solutions obvious. Still, overall the game's a good enough way to spend an afternoon if you manage to ignore the writing and have nothing better to play. Also, the ending (the "true" ending) is attrocious as the game suddenly dumps a boatload of faggotry on you – better to skip it, really. You won't really miss out on anything anyway.

:2/5:

Decent review, except IMO the visuals look very tired. Even so the game (a mere walking simulator) runs like dogshit on a top end machine. Agree with everything else (although I don't think the meat of the game is enjoyable enough for the full price). Agree about the "true ending", which as you say is as gay as the day is long.

This game is worth maybe a fiver, being generous. For £20 I feel like I've been bent over and served a portion by the devs. Never in a million years is this game worth that kind of money.

The woke writing provokes aggressive eye-rolling in many places. There is a lot of cringeworthy millennial humour and borderline fourth wall breaking etc. The writers aren't funny, and they shouldn't have tried to include so many jokes.

Even a couple of decent puzzles would help the player feel less short-changed, but there really is thin gruel in that department. The combat is utter dogshit and should never have even been included.

Just don't bother with this game. And yes, I'm openly butthurt.
 
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Salvo

Arcane
Joined
Mar 6, 2017
Messages
1,395
What a disappointment this game was. Well, at least I didn't buy it.

You notice it when you see that one of the first few lines of dialogue in the game is a reference to the "Karen" meme. Truly 10/10 writing.
 

Nifft Batuff

Prophet
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Nov 14, 2018
Messages
3,169
I think it is a nice game if you are a storyfag and are tired of the n-th indie roguelike/soulslike/metroidvania. Then again there is some cringe writing here and there that you need to mentally skip.

I didn't have performance issues and I have a decent computer but not the top tier. But maybe it is that i really don't care about fps in a walking simulator/slow paced game.
 

Belegarsson

Think about hairy dwarfs all the time ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finished the game at 9 hours mark. I generally don't mind the writing quality much, but something about it feels pretty... inauthentic. All the works put into historical lore and ties between the main plot and mythology showed that the developers did their homework very well, but when it comes to individual NPC writing, they struck me as modern people forced to roleplay Roman civilians. Their speech pattern, the words they use, the way they talk feel very contemporary and they're very quick to agree with the protagonist's modern sensibilities. I wonder if Roman people back then openly acknowledged that different cultures copied each other deities?

Speaking of which, I really hate how the protagonist is free to apply their ideology to everyone they talk to with little push back, almost like they're automatically right. As someone who's eager to learn what it has to say about free will, I left disappointed because the game just leaned too much to one side.

The gameplay is fun, figuring out how to make that character the magistrate is much elaborate than I thought. It's not as creatively mind-blowing as Outer Wilds or doesn't burst in personality like Paradise Killer, and it can be way more hand-holding than necessary, but it does have some clever tricks with how the time loops work, like failing one loop can actually let you progress.

It's okay, a general fun time that could have hit harder in its message and conflict.
 

turkishronin

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Sep 21, 2018
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where the best is like the worst
Just back and forward around the timestamp to see the final dialogues... Jesus Christo this is the most reddit game I've ever seen. I'm so glad Western companies allow streaming for their games unlike Japan otherwise I was being temped into buying it
...
 

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
Apparently a lawyer gave up his lawyering to make this. You only have to look at his haircut to tell you what the game will be like :)

 

Strig

Learned
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Between the pages of Potato's "Republic"
I really wanted to play this game after all the initial hype. Seems like I dodged a bullet there. Even from the most favorable opinions it sounds just awful.

Apparently a lawyer gave up his lawyering to make this. You only have to look at his haircut to tell you what the game will be like :)



Even if he's bit too old for a Zoomer the resemblance is quite uncanny.

CrazyBackKF_9.256.12226.jpg
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
completed it. really had a good time, turn off all markers and quests tracker whatsoever, the game actually really is paced quite well and the story is unfolding naturally. i think paradise killer without all the anime fluff and annoying collect-a-thon is pretty accurate.
 

Rincewind

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completed it. really had a good time, turn off all markers and quests tracker whatsoever, the game actually really is paced quite well and the story is unfolding naturally. i think paradise killer without all the anime fluff and annoying collect-a-thon is pretty accurate.
So the complaints about the "woke" nature of the game in this thread were basically overblown. Why am I not surprised...
 

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