Thank you Square Enix Collective for sending us this game to review!

Forgotton Anne is a beautifully animated adventure puzzle game that tells the story of a girl named Anne who lives in a realm of forgotlings. When items are abandoned in the Ether, they get whisked away and given a purpose in this other world which is led by a man named Bonku. Even though Anne refers to Bonku as master, he is more of a father figure to her. To the citizens of this realm, Anne is known as the enforcer because she has the ability to distill or remove their life force from them if they get out of line. Aside from Anne keeping order, there are mirrors placed around town that allow Bonku to keep tabs on things as he’s building a bridge to the Ether so everyone can be reunited with those who discarded the forgotlings.

Not everyone is a fan of Bonku and his methods. A group of rebels have sabotaged the watchtower and one member even manages to break into Anne’s house and this is where the story begins. Anne will have to interrogate this intruder and decide to let them live or distill them on the spot. The choices made in this game impact the ending so make sure you’re happy with your decisions. There are lots of checkpoints, but no way to reverse a decision once it’s made and the game usually saves right away after making a difficult choice.

I like that this game lets you decide Anne’s temperament and offers the ability to forgive those who have wronged her. Ultimately, there are two possible endings, but many of the decisions Anne makes are thrown back at her so she’ll have to account for every distilling, necessary or not. Death does come naturally for forgotlings who have been around for a while. Eventually, everyone crystalizes and it’s a peaceful process.

Thanks to Bonku, Anne has some abilities that most forgotlings lack. With some synthetic wings, Anne can perform higher and longer jumps. The Arca that’s on her hand allows her to absorb anima (energy) from forgotlings or devices that run off of anima. By using the Arca, Anne can re-route power to enable some devices and disable others. Completing many of this game’s puzzles will require anima re-routing skills.

There are some jumping puzzles and unfortunately they’re a little inconsistent at times. In some cases, Anne can make a jump that’s otherwise not possible in the rest of the game. That’s pretty much my only complaint with this game.

The anime style visuals are superb and nicely animated. The cutscenes look and sound great and the voice acting is well done. Though it’s not worth owning (in my opinion) the background music is fitting and nice too.

Unlike other adventure style games, you do not have to interact with and combine inventory items. You can, however, collect mementos which tell the back stories of some of the resident forgotlings. There is also a diary, which is automatically updated with the story’s progress and Anne’s current goals.

For the most part, Forgotton Anne is pretty family friendly. There is an area where drinking and gambling takes place. One of the forgotlings is a peeing water fountain cherub who is shown doing his thing, but nothing is shown.

The main story can be completed in roughly eight hours and its got a good story with plenty of spoilers which I’ll keep to myself. I highly recommend checking out this game if you enjoy anime, good stories, and adventure games with some jumping puzzles.