Forgotton Anne follow-up Forgotlings is a gorgeous jaunt into a mountain full of adorable weirdos - and it has a demo

rockpapershotgun.com:

Alice Bee (RPS in peace) covered the announcement for Forgotlings back in 2003. It's a metroidvania by ThroughLine Games, them behind Forgotton Anne - one of my favourites from 2018. Forgotlings, however, managed to completely slip by me until I recently noticed it had a Steam demo. This is such good news I've basically forgiven them for doubling down on the funky spelling.

You play as Fig, a mannequin with a face on his torso, which could be deeply off-putting in basically any other art style but ThroughLine's Ghibliness. It's still a little off-putting, honestly. The premise behind the setting is that forgotten objects - Forgotlings - wake up here as sentient creatures. Hopping wardrobes, talking TVs, and the like. As Fig, you start the demo searching for your friend Silvia in a mountain. This is obviously a tricky place to search. Lots of elevation. Could be anywhere.

While Forgotton Anne was basically a puzzle game with some platform elements, this one is far more of an action platformer. You'll scramble up ledges, wall jump, and slowly drag yourself up steep hills. There are still navigation puzzle elements - block pushing and the like - so I'm interested to see if ThroughLine keep up their previous's level of complexity in tandem with the combat. Forgotten Anne wasn't too much of a head-scratcher, mind - much more about getting to know the world than hitting it with things.

As for combat, it seems fine so far. You've got a nifty backstep and a block, as well as options to sneak around a bit before diving in. Still, the main draw for me here is another chance to dip into the world ThroughLine have built. I can find such overt Ghibli influence cloying sometimes, but there's enough character and charm elsewhere that the setting really does come alive as its own thing. No release date on this one yet, but I'll try to remember to keep you updated. The name's Reuben.