The Forbidden Arts is a title that manages to be both extremely infuriating and exquisite all at the same time. It’s a game with a lot of ups and downs that feel really inconsistent. This, with a few surprises thrown in to fill the spirits of the player.

The Forbidden Arts combines 3d overworld exploration with 2d side-scrolling themed levels for a fairly unique and beautiful-looking experience. It’s just too bad it totally drops the ball on occasion and, on occasion, made me feel like the game actually wants me to die. Maybe things labeled as “forbidden” should stay forever hidden?

Developer: Stingbot Games

Publisher: Stingbot Games

6 Hours Played // Review Copy Provided // $14.99

Once upon a time, the Evil Necromancer Voltaire swore to do evil things, just as any self-respecting Necromancer would do. Instead, he was driven out and forgotten, so we are forced to play through the story that is The Forbidden Arts. It all starts with a young, inspiring adventurer that has the not-so-surprising ability to channel magic. Ok, so the story isn’t that unique. It doesn’t venture very far from your typical fantasy romp. But, all good games have to start somewhere right!?

A Beautiful Journey

The Forbidden Arts takes us on a journey across five different dungeons and overworld areas. This includes everything from frozen wastelands, honeybee hives, and into sticky swamps. The graphics in most of these areas are top-notch, but is not always the case. It feels like a roller coaster that was created out of a quality assurance engineer’s nightmare.

The game is split between a 3D overworld and elementally-themed 2D dungeon levels. I really like this mix and it’s a joy to navigate from one to the other. I feel like this also helps change things up and keep them fresh as you progress from level to level. As you progress from level to level the scenery change is both drastic and quite nice. Some of the levels tend to have a little too much of a Mario Maker feel to them due to the coloring and rounded edges. Despite this, overall, the scenes in The Forbidden Arts are a pleasure to look at. They really nailed the depth and decal complexity graphical elements throughout the majority of the levels. Again, hit or miss depending on the level that you are playing.

2D Platforming Action

When playing through the dungeon levels your player has the ability to cast spells, attack enemies with a sword, roll, and double jump. As expected, you will have to combine all of these abilities with your quick wit and platforming skills to complete the levels. The Forbidden Arts feels a little too floaty but the controls are good enough to get through the levels.

Occasionally I could swear that I pushed the jump but it didn’t register but this is a really hard thing to test since it feels so random. I also felt like the hitbox for the sword was a little too precise. This meant I had to do many repeated tries at jumping and attacking smaller targets in the air, oftentimes missing. In the same vein, it felt like some of the enemy projectiles hitboxes were taller than they looked, causing me to take damage. This feels like it makes The Forbidden Arts harder for all the wrong reasons.

The Forbidden Collectors

The Forbidden Arts offers up a little extra than just platforming action. Scattered throughout the dungeon levels, you will find gold pieces. These are often found at dead ends or off-the-beaten-path sections where a not-yet-unlocked ability is required. You can then spend these gold pieces to unlock challenges which are essentially mini levels or tests of skill. These are signified by gazebo buildings that are placed within the overworld. I’ve only completed one of these challenges so far and it rewarded me with more health points. This is a pretty nice upgrade and helped keep me from dying so often within the dungeons. Seeking out the gold pieces are definitely worth the effort and add a little extra something to the game.

What Should Stay Forbidden

The fun stops here so you better take a seat. Certain aspects of The Forbidden Arts start to feel like they were created to purposely harass the player. I found this particularly troublesome all throughout the beehive and swamp levels. These levels contained many blind jumps with enemies on or near the landing point which usually resulted in death and restarting. Some of the more precision jumps are only complicated with the floatiness of jumping.

Blind jumps shouldn’t exist. This is just wholly bad and evil level design. I felt like these elements artificially inflated the difficulty of The Forbidden Arts gameplay. The most bothersome point is that it didn’t feel like this was ubiquitous. I found the ice and desert levels fairly enjoyable and lacking some of these more troublesome feeling elements.

Part of the game is also learning and reacting to the different enemy attack patterns. After having played and completed Odallus (read my review), I’m no stranger to pattern recognition and memorization. That game was extremely tough and remains my top mentioned game when talking about platformer puzzles or enemy patterns.

Enemies Dave Chapelle Would Find Appalling

A lot of the enemies in The Forbidden Arts really feel like they are full of gotcha, bullsh** patterns, leaving the player with little to no opportunities to defend themselves. As player knowledge and skill increases, this becomes less and less of a problem. However, I’m not sure how many new players will remain persistent enough to struggle through these parts. This feels especially bad throughout the beehive and swamp-themed levels.

Once again, hit or miss with The Forbidden Arts as not all enemies are like this. Some of them can be easily cheesed if you maintain aggressive and swift attacks or have them up against a wall. If neither of those work you can always just run past them. I won’t lie, I did this a lot out of frustration. This is only complicated by the way the levels are designed with blind spots and evilly placed enemies. Both of these elements are not fun. I would rather these things stay forbidden than experience them again.

A Little Too Basic

Three-quarters of the platforming sections in The Forbidden Arts feel really basic. There’s not a whole lot to some of the sections other than double jumping gaps or finding the right timing so as not to get decimated by a floating buzzsaw. This gets quite a bit better after acquiring new spells during the later stages of the game. As typical of The Forbidden Arts, this is seen on and off again throughout the entire game.

This is not the worst aspect of the game for me. The audio is also a huge letdown. Oftentimes, the soundtrack does not match the setting and you’ll get the same acoustic guitar twangs throughout the majority of the game. There’s nothing like a light, floaty-feeling tune playing as you adventure deep into a cave looking for a malicious wolf. The audio get’s a large thumbs down from me.

Hate to Love The Forbidden Arts

Overall, The Forbidden Arts has the potential to be a really great game. And, in some aspects, it is. I feel most of its problems stem from it trying to change things up, to not overdo certain game elements and keep them interesting. I can appreciate this to an extent and the work put into this game was not overlooked.

Sadly, I felt like most of the game elements are just not executed well, or consistently, enough to make for great player experience. For instance, the ice level feels like it is leaps and bounds ahead of the beehive level. Why do I feel like there’s such a disparity here? It’s almost like each level was designed in a vacuum by different designers from the same team. It seems to me that The Forbidden Arts has an issue with being consistent. If it can’t decide whether it wants to be good or bad then what is it?!

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