The Forbidden Arts is an indie fantasy-platformer done right. Explore with Phoenix, the voiceless protagonist, across enchanted landscapes in search for powerful magical items and people. Help set chaos to order through grueling trial and error in producer and developer, Stingbot Games’, firey new take on a world of ancient magic.
Endless Rebirth
At its heart, The Forbidden Arts is a 2D platformer that encourages its players to try and try again. Armed only with a short sword, some pyromantic abilities, and a fragile health pool in a world rife with death harboring just beyond the edges of the screen makes for an engaging experience. Games that require untold trial-and-error with no difficulty setting to ease that pain are rare to come by and I treasure them. From start to end, The Forbidden Arts challenged, surprised, and enchanted me with its seeming defiance to be conquered.
Even within the world’s first explorable biome, The Abandoned Mines, I found myself yanking and pushing my joysticks extra hard as if I could squeeze bonus jumping power from my determination; I was white-knuckling my Nintendo Switch like I was holding onto the distant ledges myself. All throughout The Forbidden Arts, my heart was pounding, my brain was whirling with new ideas, and the overall immediacy of the experience kept me wanting to explore past just one more hurdle.
The Forbidden Arts’ difficulty curve drives its appeal by introducing, developing, twisting, and then concluding each of its mechanics. Through this method, every new hazardous area becomes a learning experience to master and add to your overall abilities. Similar to other platformer greats like any game of the Super Mario franchise, the key moments in The Forbidden Arts are reorienting moments, when a new perspective is attained and the gameworld then opens up in ways previously unthought.
As a result, the game is broken down into small explorable chunks which operate as frontiers bounded only by lack of mastery. Similar to Dark Souls, the moments when I finally found that new bonfire, or checkpoint in The Forbidden Arts, was a reward I had certainly earned.
Refined Intimidation
Games with steep difficulty curves can be hard to wrangle with, but The Forbidden Arts uses its difficulty in tandem with its goals to the fullest extent. Over and over I had to reforge my methods of exploration–sometimes I ran past all the monsters with speed and agility, sometimes I would plod through each combat to clear an environment, and sometimes I would just deduce what was ahead of me depending on what came before. This constant recalibration kept the variety of gameplay fresh while building a sense of ownership over the narrative.
At points, I was compelled to memorize entire progressions of platforms and monsters to perfect the timing of my movements. Each section of a biome thus became memorably ingrained into my experience, and reaching new frontiers then promised that same satisfaction.
Just like Link is the perfect vessel for the Zelda games–a heroic frame with no voice, allowing the player to forge their own identity through him–Phoenix does the same in The Forbidden Arts. While I couldn’t make too many narrative choices, the ways I accomplished the narrative tasks was up to me and I couldn’t help but form a speedrunning style for my playthrough.
Classic Fantasy Charm
And finally, the frame through which The Forbidden Arts is played comes right off the pages of classic high fantasy fairytales. I’ve recently forayed into running Dungeons and Dragons with my friend group, and the resemblance of the quest styles, NPC design, and big, bad, evil guy plot between DnD and The Forbidden Arts is unmistakable.
Some people may find it cliche to include quests like, “Restore the Honeybee Hive” or “Find the Wizard at the top of the Icy Mountain,” but I was bought in from the first mention of awakened ancient magic. The artwork, music, and special effects all work cohesively to present the dichotomous relationship between idyllic medieval towns and spooky monster lairs. And the cutscenes at the end of each story checkpoint are well worth working towards.
Verdict
All in all, the platforming variety of The Forbidden Arts is impressive, the structured progression from biome to biome with power upgrades along the way begs to be completed, and the framing devices of high fantasy works wonders with the whimsical but challenging tone. The Forbidden Arts is an equally demanding and rewarding platformer.
Score: 9/10
Check Out The Forbidden Arts Trailer:
For more information, please visit here: https://www.stingbotgames.com/forbiddenarts
Nintendo Switch Review
Recent Michigan State University grad and current Game Studies researcher who plays fantasy RPG's to escape, Smash to compete, and Stardew to chill. Also have a +1 to rage/toxicity resistance due to the many hours sunk into WoW, R6, and LoL.
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