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"I forbid you to play this!"

Ooh.. my head.. I just got finished playing this game, and I must say it is horrible. Okay, I’ll give it a little credit for being an indie game made by only one person, but still.. A game as horrible as this should never of been released in the first place.

Hmm.. where to begin.. Your task in (DUN DUN DUN)... The Forbidden Forest is to make it through the forest without being eaten by one of the many local monsters. There’s the giant black spider, the bee, the snake, etc. Pretty much your normal baddies. Except for the fact that there is only one type of monster per level! To be brutally honest, it’s actually more fun watching your character be eaten alive than it is to actually play the game, which is pretty sad.

The only thing you have to defend yourself with is your trusty bow, which takes forever to reload. As soon as it’s loaded, you need to turn your character so he is facing the monster to attack it, since the game is a side-scroller. By the time you’re half-way turned around, though, chances are the spider/bee/skeleton has already caught up to you and gnawing at your innards. Two things that The Forbidden Forest desperately needed were: A. more types of monsters, and B. The option for AUTO-AIM!! There were far too many instances where my character missed the spider by what looked like a mere few inches. The monsters are also terribly fast, and will run just slightly slower than you. Too bad you can’t run and shoot at the same time. You have to stop and turn to take down any of them.

There are 4 different difficulties to select when you first start the game. They might matter if the game wasn’t so terrible. You’ll play the game once on the easiest difficulty and forget about it altogether after that. Actually, since none of the monsters can attack you as you’re running, I imagine you could beat the game without ever firing a single arrow. How fun.

Aside from that, the game keeps a score for you. Each monster you kill will net you some points, and as soon as you’re done, your score will go on the hi-scores list. Cool, you’ve completed a level in The Forbidden Forest! Now submit yourself to even more torture by playing another and trying to beat the game!

If that wasn’t enough to deter you away from this game, here are a few more juicy tidbits of info for you.

The graphics were okay for their time, I suppose. When you first start the game you are treated to a very poorly drawn pterodactyl flying across the screen for reasons unknown to me. All I know is that the pterodactyl flies choppily, and that’s all I want to know. Maybe they should of called the game “The Lost Forest” or “Jurassic Forest”?

I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be fall or summer because all of the trees have mostly green leaves but a few different colored ones near the top. There are a few poorly drawn lakes here and there. A few poorly drawn shacks adorn the landscape as well. The only commendable thing about the graphics is the fact that there are different times of day. There’s afternoon, evening, later in the evening, and night. Too bad that it’s near impossible to spot any spider during the nighttime, since the graphics are pretty damn dark. Amazing, during the night, the fall-colored leaves atop the trees, your characters hair and hands mysteriously glow in the dark! I think we may have entered..

THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo

You’ll laugh your ass off when you see your character run. Besides the running animation consisting of maybe 2 frames, it flickers like mad at all times. The moon in the background moves ever so slowly in the.. after-noon sky as you run along. Another glitch occurs during the night. The moon turns dark red! I suppose the creator of the game could simply say something stupid like, “Oh, uhh.. I did that on purpose! There’s a lunar eclipse, foo!”, but I doubt he really meant for the moon to turn red. Yet another reason to be eaten by the monsters is the blood animation and the monsters movement animation, the two animations in the game that are glitch-free!

You’ll want to pour acid down your ears as soon as you hear the music. 2 sets of 4 notes play over and over and over and over again! It’s enough to make a guy go mad! When you get attacked by a monster, a certain well-known song that’s usually associated with terror or horror will play, but in a much lower-quality version that was obviously made for the Commodore 64.

You know, now that I think about it, I don’t think there were any sound effects in this game. Either that, or the music just kind of drowned out any other sound.

I really feel sorry for anyone out there who ever payed actual currency for this game when it was first released. I can imagine that the video-game industry standards were immensely lower than they are today, yet I don’t see how anyone could of ever liked a game like this. Sure, maybe if it was your first video-game ever you might have some respect for it, but for the rest of us, it’s just another piece of crap.

Please, don’t buy this game. It isn’t worth it, trust me. There are so many good Commodore 64 games that you should be playing instead of this.

Foot-notes:

-The Forbidden Forest was an indie game, yet that doesn’t excuse it for being as bad as it is.

-You fight one type of enemy per level.

-Reloading your bow and arrow takes forever.

-Turning around is insanely slow.

-There are 4 different levels of difficulty. None of them add any sort of fun to the game.

-The graphics are REALLY bad, even for the Commodore 64.

-The music makes babies cry all over the world. Okay, maybe not, but it’s still really bad.

-Do NOT buy this game! Please!


Reviewer's Score: 2/10 | Originally Posted: 07/05/03, Updated 07/05/03

"An interactive B-movie- only with better special effects."

In the mid 80's, uhh..... Some company made The Forbidden Forest. I can't do the history on stuff like this because C64 games are quite hard to remember and even harder to gather information on.

The plot and setting of the game is simple; people have been disappearing every time they walked into a certain forest. Because of those incidents, it soon got the name ''The Forbidden Forest''.
So you, an unnamed archer have taken it upon yourself to find out exactly what's going on with the people never returning from there.

The game itself is quite simplistic; the bow and arrow is your only weapon. You fire it by holding down the button (yes, the Commadore joystick only has one button) for about one second- then you can fire in any of eight directions simply by letting go of the button.

The game's view is a semi-3D landscape where you can walk in 8 directions similar to Double Dragon's.

The Forbidden Forest is full of hazards, but our hero's no wuss; as FOREST he's concerned, if he goes out on a LIMB or LEAVES, he'd be a SAP. Instead, he'll STICK to his morals and and PROSEED!

If you're still here after all that !#%$^&*%, here are the evil beings of the forest (NOTE: all of the animal/insect enemies are giant as if they came from a an ant B-movie):

LEVEL 1. THE SPIDER (Black)

The spider simply chases you wherever you go- you just get some distance between you then shoot it.
If it catches you, it will just cling to you and move it's legs up and down. I never really undrestood it.

2. THE BUMBLEBEE (Red & yellow)

It flies up and down over and over then swoops at you. Nothing special happens if it gets you, but if you shoot it, it explodes in red and yellow blotch.

3. FROGS (green/brown)

They have no behavior, they just fall straight down by the hundreds until you shoot a few.
If you shoot one, it turns from green to brown and have this frown that almost makes you feel sorry for them. But If one falls on you, they splatter you into a quite a mess.

4. THE DRAGON (green)

The highlight and center enemy; he's even on the title screen.
He comes out from the background and swoops while blowing fireballs at you.
If a fireball hits you, you- just burn! If you kill it, he burns while slowly falling down. It's very cool.

5. THE SKELETON/GHOST (white/translucent brown)

these spear-wielding bone-warriors just run straight at you while the ghost is the spectator.
If you (re)kill the ghost, the skeletons will disappear. So shooting the skeletons get you absolutely nowhere.
If it gets you, it'll just butcher you with the spear for about 30 seconds. If you win, the ghost slowly fades away while screaming.

6. THE SNAKE (green)

It pops out of the bushes and spits acid at you.
If you hit it, it falls down with blood driping down it's face. If the acid hits you, you're in for a very amusing death scene where the acid eats you away until there is nothing left but your smoking knees and feet!

Want to know what's REALLY causing all the trouble in the Forbidden Forest?..........

7. THE DEVIL!!! (Red)

Actually, it looks more like a bull.
I'm not going to spoil this one. It's a very innovative last boss.
If you get him, you're in for a pretty dramatic climax.
If you lose, you're STILL in for a pretty dramatic climax!

---
OVERVIEW I

GAMEPLAY: 7

I can see why people keep getting wasted in the Forbidden Forest, because of the horrible control! For every first step after a second you take you have to hold the stick down in a direction for about a second!

Arrow shooting can be quite frustrating too; it brings new meaning to the phrase ''ready... Aim... FIRE!''.
First you have to pull an arrow, then you need to aim it, which very often ends up with you having to turn COMPLETELY AROUND since something's almost always on your tail! And finally, you get to fire it.
If you miss a shot on some of the enemies (like the ghost), you're through, period!

But that's some of the appeal of the game! You really have to aim carefully albeit quickly to hit the enemies.
Some of the enemies are quite exciting to fight and avoid like the frogs that fall from all over the screen.

GRAPHICS: 9+ (for the Commadore, I mean!)

The graphics of this game were quite amazing at the time- the dragon was huge and the way it swooped in from the background in 3D was just plain amazing!

This was also one of the first games to have blood. The effects in the winning and losing scenes were both funny and cool. I can't forget my reaction when I first saw the main character get splattered into a mess by the frogs! It was the first time I saw blood on a game.

The characters look quite good too; (I'm sick of this no name nonsense so I'll call him..... Skippy) Skippy isn't anything special- just an archer dressed in (my memory's fading me) red and blue clothes, I think. The fact that I don't remember how he looks tells me that he was nothing special.
All the enemies are finely detailed; especially the two huge bosses- the Dragon and the Demigorden (devil).

But does blood REALLY come out of spiders and bone warriors?

SOUND: 7

The arrows sound more like missle launching than arrow shooting. But they do have it right about HOW it makes the sound; the sound is loud when the arrow is first shot, but it slowly gets softer as the arrow descends. That kind of neutralizes the arrow sound.

The enemies make very few sounds, but when they do, they're pretty good- the dragon's fire blowing sound is cool, as is the lightning on the last bosses stage. But the game's true moment of glory is in the loud, erie scream the ghost makes when you shoot it! It's better than any voices EVER on the SNES or Genesis!

MUSIC: 9

Most Commadore 64 music is VERY hard to explain. This is no exception.
It's very mood setting most of the time and it changes every enemy (level).

The music can be quite dramatic at times too- like when the flowers grow, the devil appears and especially when the snake's acid hits you. The music goes perfectly in sync with the acid eating through Skippy's body!

If I have to compare it to something a lot of people palyed, I'd say it's like Castlevania 2's, only a lot better.

LEVEL DESIGN: 8+

The Forbidden Forest is quite a wonderous and surprisingly detailed place; full of trees and bushes and clouds although they only use a few colors.
It starts out looking drab, but after you beat a round of enemies, flowers begin to pop up and it looks more like Bambi's forest. Then more evil pops up and the cycle starts all over again.
Also, whenever an opponent is beaten and the forest is purified, Skippy does this really stupid victory dance- just TRY to keep a straight face the first time you see it!

After you beat the Dragon, it turns into night time for the rest of the game.

The forest never ends; if you walk forward for but so long the screen will start over. You'll probably be doing that a lot running from the large enemies.
Come to think of it, the game is really just one big boss fight! You fight everything one at a time except for the plethora of frogs.

CHALLENGE: 7-8

I don't really know how many lives Skippy had since I always used the red cartridge (that's called a Game Genie or Game Shark now, kiddies).
I'd guess you had about 5.

As if the baddies themselves aren't enough, the control and those annoying trees all over the screen can really give you a hard time.

There are four modes of difficulty; novice, intermediate, expert and- can't remember the other.
The only true difference between them is how many baddies they make you fight. For example, on easy you fight 3 spiders, on intermediate you fight 4, and on expert you do 5.
However, on the main bosses (the Dragon and the Demigorden) the number always remains the same- 1.

BTW, it's funny that the devil and a Dragon can both destroyed by a SINGLE ARROW SHOT!!!

REPLAY VALUE: 6

The game is VERY short. Once you get used to it you'll probably be able to go through the game in 30 minutes.

If you limit yourself to three to five lives, it should quite a while to finish it. But even if you do, you'll probably want to beat it about ten times before you leave it alone for years.

---
OVERVIEW II

YES!

The timing and aim-based gameplay, the entertaining winning and losing scenes and the cool effects.

NO!

The unresponsive control, the shortness of the game and that stupid dance the hero does whenever he wins.

SAY WHAT?

This was actually one of the best selling Commadore games of all time.
On the re-issue, the company bragged about how the game sold nealy 300,000 copies. Believe it or not, that WAS something to brag about!

OVERALL: 8+

I don't know if you'll enjoy this like I did in these times, seeing all these things like Donky Kong Country and Tekken. But with me, the precise gameplay, cool scenes and astounding effects kept me coming back for more.

Give this game a try. Good luck on finding the original C64 version, but finding it altogether isn't hopeless. There are lots of non-pirating computer programs that carry Commadore games like this.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10 | Originally Posted: 10/08/00, Updated 10/08/00