The Forgotten Land Review ( Nintendo Switch )

Review code used, with many thank’s to Rokaplay.

The Forgotten Land is a turn-based combat and puzzle match three, with streamlined RPG and management elements in a dark fantasy setting.

Alfred Found A Note

You take the on the role of Alfred in The Forgotten Land, Alfred has found his grandfather’s note to the location of the Forgotten Lands. Alfred and his three friends, Charlie, Oscar and Ethan set off in a carriage to find the location. Along the way they are attacked in the dark forest and ambushed by a bunch of odious monsters. Thrown from their carriage and finding that the coach man has fled with all the horses, the foursome discover the remains of an old camp and decide to settle there to rebuild the camp for shelter and a refugee from the monsters. They split up and Ethan and Alfred explore the surroundings, Charlie takes care of the broken carriage and Oscar will rebuild the camp. As stories go, it’s not too bad and has managed to keep my interest while I’ve been playing the game.

A Mix of Genres

The Forgotten Lands is a quiet mix of gameplay styles. It’s not all match 3 play, it takes elements from an old favourite of mine, Puzzle Quest, and mixes in some RPG elements. Elements such as Skills to upgrade each of the characters special moves, it also has mini Card games, where you match the cards by finding the identical card on the board. Then when no cards are left the game is won. Later card games increase the cards to be found to three at one time. And a mini game similar to Mahjong where you remove two matching tiles from a board of jumbled, scattered tiles

If anyone had asked me if all theses elements put together would work in a game, my first response would have be No, but after playing The Forgotten Land I can tell you that they do work. It’s a great idea to introduce the mini games to the player as it certainly keeps the game fresh as you’re never quite sure what the next level is going to be, will it be a match 3 game where you matching gems to try and make an attack on the enemy or is it going to be the mini card game you play next.

Match More Than Three Gems

The match 3 aspect of The Forgotten Land is your usual standard match 3 gameplay of matching coloured gems together. And matching four identical gems together gets you an extra move. Matching 3 sword symbol’s together will result in one of your characters attacking the opponent at the other side of the screen, with the overall main task to battle your opponent and clear the field from threats

Each of your team members have a special attack, their own HP and a shield value, and when they are attacked they lose a potion of their shield value. Once the shield value drops to zero any attacks after that will reduce their HP until it drops to zero and they are taken out of the battle board.

Of course you opponents also have HP, a shield and special attacks too, just to make it a fair playing field. Unlike other games in the genre the AI actually seems pretty fair during battles and sometimes even misses the best combo on the board.

Every so often you’re given a match 3 board to clear but without enemies on it, instead you might have to find an item to progress. Or light four touches by connecting burning gems together to from a path of fire to the touch to light it. During these games, unlike in the match 3 game where all four characters are in battle with the enemies, here you only have one character. You have a limited set of moves you can make and once you use the moves up, it’s game over..

Matching gems on this board gives you different results than when you match gems on a board with enemies. For example, match four gems to earn a bomb on the board, or matching five gems creates a three pack of dynamite which in turn will take out lots of gems when they explode and matching six gems together will make throwing knives appear to take out a few more gems.

During these games you have access to a few special items to use such as a Blacksmith hammer which removes one gem of the players choice from the board, or a bomb which will remove numerous gems at one time. These special items can only be used on these levels after you have charged them by matching their respective coloured gems and using any power-up doesn’t count as a move.

Upgrade The Buildings In Camp

After each game your have the choice to return to camp. The camp tents and buildings can be upgraded and these offer you different bonuses during play. A Scholar’s tent is where you can increase the attack power of the gems. And a Blacksmith tent is used to upgrade your character skills using skills points acquired during play. Each of your characters have a unique skill or special attack, for example, Alfred’s skill is a Heavy Attack and matching red gems will build up his attack meter, Ethan’s skill is Healing and you need to match green gems to fill the meter up before he can heal another character or himself.

Oil lamps which supply light for the camp give, when upgraded, a +1 extra round before the torch gem fire trail goes out during play. Or one of the bonuses of upgrading the Forge is unlocking a new skill for one of the characters.

Being able to upgrade the buildings in the camp is a added bonus when playing, as it gives the player something other than matching gems to defeat the enemy to work towards achieving.

In all there are 98 puzzles to complete and none of the puzzles are to hard or frustrating, it’s just a nice level of difficulty throughout the game.

Visuals And Controls

I quite like the visuals in The Forgotten Land, they give off that spooky dark fantasy, oldie world feel that suits the storyline in the game to a tee.

Surprisingly there is no music soundtrack to accompany the game. Only the sound of cricket‘s chirping in the background as you play the game. As some one who owns a few reptiles in real life the sounds of crickets chirping is something I’m used to hearing. I do feel it could have been broken up a bit with the introduction of some music as it may be a little bit irritating after a while for some players.

The Forgotten Land can be controlled by the Joycons or the touchscreen and both ways work fine. The touchscreen controls are intuitive and responsive.

Conclusion

The Forgotten Land is an enjoyable game, though there isn’t anything new as such in the gameplay that we haven’t seen before. However, that does not make it a bad game by any means, sometimes staying with a tried and tested formula is a good way to go.

I liked the variety of different games, such as the card game that I wasn’t expecting to play in a match 3/strategy game, and I think it was a great idea to include them to break up the play a little and stop the dreaded repetitive feeling setting in that can happen in other games of this genre.

Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot