The Forgotten City Reviews
An elegant mystery with curiosity at its heart.
An intriguing mystery adventure with outstanding writing and performances.
The Forgotten City does a fabulous job exploring interesting moral quandaries through excellently written dialogue and characters.
A cleverly constructed narrative adventure that explores serious issues of morality without ever being preachy, and still allowing for an intricately designed, non-linear gaming experience.
One of the better choice-driven games in recent memory that makes you feel like you have ownership over your actions and the narrative flow
This is all bolstered by strong art direction and technical design. Although the soundtrack and some instances of stiff character animation remind me that this was once a Skyrim mod, environments are nicely detailed, strikingly lit, and filled with era-appropriate pieces of clutter. If you want, you can even discuss the intricacies of Roman architecture with one of the NPCs and then observe those same intricacies throughout the city. The attention to historical accuracy is enthralling. I learned several things about real-life history during my playthrough, and not all were Roman-centric.
The Forgotten City is a deeply satisfying puzzle adventure that will have you questioning what it means to sin.
The Forgotten City may not be an entirely new game, being an adaptation of one of the most renowned Skyrim mods, but it's still a very intriguing narrative adventure that can entice players with its writing and original story premise.
Review in Italian | Read full review
A masterclass in narrative driven storytelling. Every character is important and every choice could lead to your doom. Play it and see if you can solve the mystery for yourself!
A time-loop murder mystery set in ancient Rome is enlivened by excellent acting, dialogue, and good old-fashioned skulduggery
Ultimately, though, The Forgotten City is one of those games that will inspire other games for years to come. It’s absurd to think it was mostly developed by a three-person team, and yet the clear, unanimous focus a team this small permits is evident throughout the entire game. It is clever not just in terms of its story or themes, but in how it packages and delivers those themes through one of the most inspired and tight gameplay loops I’ve seen in a long time.
The Forgotten City is a fantastic entry in the oft-forgotten mystery-adventure genre, but a handful of flaws slightly detract from the experience.
For fans of storytelling, The Forgotten City is a solid recommendation. Freed from the shackles of Skyrim, the full game tells a captivating story elevated by clever and humorous writing. With the interesting time loop mechanic creating further situations full of comedy and intrigue, settling down across a few evenings with The Forgotten City will delight. We just wish the combat was either improved or not there at all, and the technical setbacks weren't quite so rampant.
The Forgotten City is a modern classic, an utterly compelling video game that reinvents the adventure genre through intriguing writing and exploration. With stellar voice acting, sparkling conversation, and story twists to spare, The Forgotten City is one of the best games I've played this year, and one of the best video game narratives I've ever encountered. Utterly original, completely entrancing.
I really can’t recommend this game enough, even with the lackluster facial animations this is an experience that shouldn’t be missed if you value narrative; in particular mysteries.
The Forgotten City is a project that came to be from the fan mod for Skyrim. It's a game with an interesting concept and narrative, that suffers from weak visuals, pacing issues, and shoehorned action sections.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Choices matter, both in life and in The Forgotten City, which uses ancient Roman beliefs about morality, ethics, and law to subtly comment on our present-day conflicts. But it’s never heavy-handed and what you’ll mostly pay attention to are the characters and their needs, your own objectives, the mysterious city, and the clever way time loops and puzzle-solving work together. Whether you play it once or try for the multiple alternative endings, The Forgotten City is a unique adventure.
Deftly written, smart, and consistently clever, The Forgotten City makes for a rousing, spirited adventure that is well worth taking part in. I wish it were longer, but that doesn't do much to knock what has been accomplished here.
Utterly absorbing and rarely anything less than completely fascinating, The Forgotten City is an intoxicating microcosm of Ancient Roman society embedded in a dialogue heavy adventure and wrapped around one of the most smartly designed mysteries and sleuthing yarns to come along in a good long while. Occasional technical creakiness and issues aside, it's a deeply pleasant irony that The Forgotten City will remain long in your memory after the credits have completed their roll the first, second, third and fourth time.
In the genre, it has been years since such a "confidential" puzzle/adventure game (4 people) had not been so blown away by its script and its mastery of the narrative. Even if the branches are not infinite and the lifespan is ultimately quite limited, the game questions as much as it fascinates.
Review in French | Read full review