I, the Forgotten One

This game has excellent writing, and it's nice to see some PTSD representation even if it didn't sit right with me. The lore was interesting but so many times I felt like being the player character felt like it was written for someone who has a hero-saviour complex. I didn't feel the PTSD representation was very accurate and seemed to be written for people who want to imagine what it's like but extremely dramatized to almost a funny degree. I could imagine the player character being someone who ends every sentence with "..." if that makes sense.

[h1] 男作者写女主角故事也逃不出性别桎梏 [/h1] 首先点明本作是男作者写得，可以结合这点看以下的评论。本作是类似冰与火之歌类的王室夺权剧，主角比较苦大仇深。先说缺点👇 [h2] 读起来非常累人的PTSD描写 [/h2] 主角虽然是王室成员，但年纪过小就被超雄爹赶上战场，看到了一些血腥场面留下心理阴影。我可以理解这是角色构成的一部分，然而可能这么说有点何不食肉糜，毕竟我没上过从战场，但是我作为一个读者觉得，如果作者以此为借口，三番五次地插入大片的整页都是负面情绪发泄无意义呻吟，[b] 我真的会怀疑是不是找借口在水字数 [/b]。包括但不只有多次过分自责，黑暗记忆闪回，失眠，觉得自己毫无价值，甚至[spoiler] 自残行为[/spoiler]。[h3] 有类似心理状态的读者一定要阅读商店页面下方的MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION，不然容易被trigger一些负面情绪，不利于自己的心理健康 [/h3] [h2] 主角和可选ro里只存在女男，男女和男男，不存在女主可攻略的女性角色[/h2] 虽然我也不是很在乎RO，但端水总要做到的吧，有了gay ro没有lesbian ro，这完全失去此类游戏的最大优点端水了。 听说第二部会加lesbian ro，但是女主天天被男的包围，女性角色太少了，导致我很害怕会把女主后妈当成lesbian ro来写，这俩角色属实死仇，要真是ro那就纯扭曲关系red flag磕血糖了。 [h2] 经典男性and爱男角色魅力时刻 [/h2] -超雄爹因为母亲的问题迁怒于主角，放任后妈折磨主角然后美美隐身推卸责任，身为把主角过早赶上战场导致留下身心创伤的罪魁祸首，觉得自己可能会死了居然还有脸皮写遗书求主角保卫国家😅，he——tui！ -异母双胞胎兄弟，一个稍微正常点[spoiler]但也是个短命蠢货[/spoiler]，一个完全是若只超雄[spoiler]甚至还背叛主角投敌，打算把自己亲妹妹当投诚工具送给比她大几十岁的敌军首领老男人[/spoiler]我无话可说，讨厌主角就算了，做出这种事真的纯出生😅 -一个男Ro一开始我以为是经典自信男“I can fix her”，但后来发现此人可能就是好精神疾病这一口，有比较变态的性癖，之后甚至会在他本人视角里做出一些类似窥视的行为（我记得没错的话他的pov是必看的，还不能跳过） -军队里也有抽象男，如果主角是女的，因为大背景是“现实派”，士兵时不时会说一些大胆发言意淫主角来展现自己的阳刚之气，不是被娘们骑在头上的那种软脚虾😅 -主角被绑定了一个老登，战友，把主角当亲生孩子看待，满嘴英国街溜子大茬子口音经常说话连读be like“lass ，hey mate what yor....”，增加了我的阅读难度。其次如果心态不够坚定的读者，可能真的会因为一群抽象男包围而对此老登的共情而感动，不要和我一样陷入情绪操控的陷阱。 -妹妹的亲妈男宝妈，明明主角救了还扶持她女儿上位，却因为[spoiler]我选择把她的若只男儿宰了[/spoiler]对主角恨之入骨，和主角有断指之仇。结果引得一些性压抑的男读者引发“做恨”的遐想，be like[spoiler] 如果她为她男儿似了难过，我可以再送她一个新的🤮 [/spoiler] [h2] 为数不多的优点 [/h2] +异母妹妹是超雄爹指定的法定王位继承人（因为男儿实在是太蠢了），可以选择忠于她并扶持她，Long live the Queen +妹妹和主角的一些互动还是蛮wholesome的 +男作者可能打算写大长篇，本篇里几乎没有感情戏描写（不过可能和我的选择有关），虽然被creepy stalker男骚扰不爽，但好在可以早早选择让他滚，没把各种拉扯尬感情戏怼我脸上 +比较复杂的军队决策系统，可以看攻略了解各个兵种的优缺点，看得出来确实是想认真刻画主角身为军队元帅的身份的 [h2] 总得来说是缺点远大于优点[/h2] 抛开我本人对男作者有意见，从事实角度来说也是如此，不建议购入。喜欢Sibling Rivalry夺权这一套的建议去看hosted game里的《Sword of Rhivenia》，简单好读纯爽文，还是女作者写的。

以后我买游一定不盲信好评了。 作者写得实在是太烂了，故事一上来我就产生了一股强烈的恶寒，看似是主角ptsd实则情节充满作者浓浓的自嬷味，不要再自怜自伤了好吗好的。大段大段的第二人称心理活动完全是在给玩家强加情绪，写得很矫情很浅薄，对于战争主题来说，用侧面描写或者写得举重若轻一点会更好。“你想哭但你不能哭”之类的描写出现的频率特别特别高，读起来很可笑。慕残癖写东西还是学下乔·阿克罗比（joe abercrombie）吧！ 剧情碎碎的，没什么连贯性，全靠“x日之后”这种方式过渡，显得作者写作水平不怎么样。关于继承法这方面也不怎么讲逻辑的样子。选项设置非常差，很多选项是两个极端二选一，让我很难选。 虽然主角是可选男女，但女性主角在这部显得很别扭很奇怪，女角色和女性社会地位也写得很刻板，感觉就是构建世界观的时候没动脑子没花心思。男角色读起来都臭臭的，我尤其不喜欢一些带口音的描写。

“I, the Forgotten one” is a bold game asking an even bolder question: what if, in a game about family, you actually [i][b]couldn’t[/b][/i] sleep with your sister? “The Forgotten one” is interactive fiction. If you’ve never tried interactive fiction games, it’s a slightly more gameplay heavy visual novel, but without pictures, voice acting or music. And if you’ve never tried a visual novel, then it’s like a more interactive book. And if you’ve never tried books, it’s like a soft brick, but there are stories living inside. The gameplay part, I feel, ain’t exactly the highlight. You control an army in a medieval civil war, and make decisions around the army, both in battle and outside of it. I have no idea how the formulas work, but the game really likes to describe your troops completely wrecking the other guy, only for the game to then go “m’lord, we lost 100, and managed to kill 87!”. The usual interactive fiction issues are here too, like occasional lack of even the basic information for the choices, or time-sensitive decisions that really shouldn’t be time-sensitive, or the plot railroading going “choo, choo!”. To be fair, “I, the Forgotten one” isn’t the worst here, but it isn’t the best I played either. I do like the story, though. The pacing’s great, escalating from one crisis to the next to the next, and only giving some respite near the finale. It killed my day dead and ruined my sleeping schedule; it’s nice. The writing’s also solid - it’s not “Black Company”, but it does try, and usually works well enough. The book’s style is gritty, realistic-ish, a bit edgy, a bit nihilistic, all that contrasting well with the protagonist constantly being on the edge of a complete breakdown. And the protagonist is the main thing to read it for. The book really captures that wonderful feeling of unwanted adulthood, where you want to kill yourself every day, but the shift starts in three hours and there are people depending on you, so, you know. Step away from the balcony, “Not today, old friend” Simpsons meme. While the protagonist is their own person, you’re given several ways of dealing with the mental condition; none are magically helpful. Most of the game, when you’re not fighting, you’re trying to balance deteriorating mental health of a former child soldier, and figure out what to do and [i]why[/i] do it. There are several potential why’s - from finally getting revenge, to getting what’s owed to you, to doing it all for the only member of your family that is actually family. Support cast is relatively small. Protagonist’s family (though you might end up killing most of them), the old war buddy who’s something of an adoptive father, a couple of military guys, an antagonist with a history, and a few romantic interests, only one of whom is plot relevant. The romance… well, it’s not great. Straight love interests felt a bit out of left field; only the gay guy is someone I could actually see the protagonist at least talking to. So, I guess, if you want romance, go gay (and I don’t just mean IRL). But I also don’t think the romance handling detracts from the story much. Real talk, for the entire book I had a nagging suspicion that the main character, given their past, doesn’t know how the birds and bees work (and why those two distinct species would be doing it). Overall, “I, the Forgotten one” is a decent book, a more than decent IF on Steam, and you really should not promise you’ll write a review, because then you’ll have to do it, for realsies. P.S. Do it for Ellie.

I made it less than 10 minutes before tapping out. The writing is just infuriating to me for some reason. Between the odd Polish-inspired naming conventions which strike me as being incongruent with the WILDLY annoying choice to force everybody to affect a cockney accent and call people "gov'ner" or "gov'ness" (which I genuinely hate with every fiber of my being), I simply can't imagine playing this for even a minute longer. I'm sure the story is fine, but the writing annoyed me so much that I'll never know. And the cringey emo kid tone was just too much for me to handle. "I won't dress as one of those *spits on ground* EVIL, DISGUSTING nobles >:( Instead I'll just lurk around the edges of the party, dressed as a soldier who is broodingly brooding (in as brooding a way as I can manage) and thinking about darkness. Please recognize the unfathomable depth of my emotions." Ugh. Nope. It's REALLY not for me.

(Played on the HG app on mobile so hours here are just for me to explore the code and write this review) [b]Recommended but with reservations.[/b] It's a nice novel but maybe not the best CYOA option out there. It is a well-written story but it is not interactive. It focuses mainly on the introspective storytelling of the Marshal's time back in The War and how they're navigating the ongoing civil war. It's definitely one of the best written HG games I've seen. BUT there's not much in terms of choices (see negative point below). + Great story. Lots of tense and emotional moments, with a few making me genuinely upset or devastated. This is an exploration of a child soldier in what is basically the Vietnam War, with that child soldier being thrown back into war again. It does a great job of portraying the characters and their motives and I'm looking forward to the sequel. + I like the little narrative touches of the brief perspective switches to other people involved in the war. It adds to how brutal war can be and how much compassion people can feel for someone even if they don't realise it. + There are some nice QoL options baked into the game, especially in the big war sequence that allows you to restart from a checkpoint. = There are times when the narration feels exhausting. It repeats the same talking points that it has repeated so many times earlier (often with the exact same wording). It drives home the point, yes, but it also feels hamfisted sometimes and that feels a bit off with a sensitive topic like this. Hoping for more tact and narrative variety in the sequel. - There's not really a lot of choices available. There are a lot of fake choices but the ones that are actually impactful are few and far between. It also has that typical pitfall of having a clear default or 'true' path that the author just added options to. And many of the options you make that are not of the expected path are less impactful or are just extra cosmetics (e.g., the author going to lengths to make the ethnicity system and changing information in the stats screen during the short, typically one page break, flashback moments when it seemingly has no impact and could easily be overlooked by the average reader). - There is no F/F romance. I know this is not a romance-focused story but it's just a very odd choice to have M/F and M/M options but no F/F option here (and possibly in the sequel too). It's so weird too how you get the option to say you're a lesbian but the game is very very very insistent that maaaaybe you want to have feelings for this man that's constantly approaching you uwu. Sometimes feels like the author is about to call me a slur and send me to conversion therapy. 😂 - Bit buggy after the big fight. [spoiler]Encountered the game saying I lost Velinor but then a few page breaks later, Velinor talks about going back to his wife.[/spoiler]

[h1]GOOD STORY, BAD INTERACTIVE FICTION[/h1] I, the Forgotten One is an interactive text-based novel (or interactive fiction, if you prefer) set in a fictional world heavily inspired by real-life medieval times. The game doesn’t spend much time on worldbuilding, quickly throwing you into war preparations and then the war itself. If you enjoy this kind of setting, you’ll likely have a good time with I, the Forgotten One. As you can probably tell from the title of this review, there’s one big BUT: unfortunately, there’s a limited number of choices that actually matter. Most of the time, it feels like you’re just reading a book rather than playing an interactive game. Sure, it’s a good book - but many people play games in this genre specifically for the meaningful choices that shape the story and their character. Here, there simply aren’t many choices, and when they do appear, they often don’t have much impact. Overall, this is a very reluctant thumbs up from me. [b]Ideally, I’d give it a mixed review. I, the Forgotten One tells a solid story, but there’s simply not enough game in this game.[/b] [b]Story[/b] The premise of this game is very simple. You play as the late king’s eldest child, a royal bastard who returns home after years of fighting on the distant frontier of the kingdom. Unfortunately, the king has been assassinated, and it’s now your responsibility to defeat the rebels and stabilize the crown. I really like the story of I, the Forgotten One. At its core, it’s a straightforward piece of military fiction, focused on battles, the preparations leading up to them, and the aftermath that follows. The game doesn’t try to portray war as something grand or honorable. Instead, it presents it as senseless and unnecessary without becoming overly preachy. The main character’s inner turmoil also plays a significant role, though I’ll expand on that later. Overall, I enjoyed the writing style. Despite the darker tone and heavy use of military vocabulary, it remains easy to read. It’s not without flaws, of course - there are moments, especially in the later chapters, where the pacing feels rushed - but that’s the only major issue I have with the writing. [b]Choices[/b] If you enjoy having lots of meaningful choices in your interactive fiction, you may be disappointed with I, the Forgotten One. A lot of the choices here are "cosmetic" and rarely matter in the end (and the game somehow still offers four different endings). The author does try to add some "tactical" depth by letting you recruit people into your army. However, it’s hard to really mess things up unless you deliberately make consistently poor decisions. [b]Characters[/b] The main character is one of the strongest aspects of this game, but also one of the reasons it struggles as an interactive fiction. The narration surrounding the protagonist’s post-war PTSD is compelling and makes you want them to recover and succeed in life. It also stands out as relatively unique - there are few games that portray PTSD in a believable way. At times, the depiction is heavily exaggerated, but in my opinion, it still fits the overall narrative, so I was willing to overlook it. Unfortunately, this leads to one major flaw in the design. In most games in this genre, you expect to be able to shape your character. Here, the protagonist is largely pre-defined. You can still choose their sex, sexual preferences, and appearance, but you have very limited options to make them truly "yours". As for the other characters, I probably only genuinely cared about Elya and Darin. It’s not that the others are poorly written, they’re just not particularly engaging or memorable enough to leave a strong impression. If you’re interested in romance, you may also be disappointed. There are three options available - Milon for female characters, Lada for male characters, and Obren for gay male characters (nothing for lesbians). However, all of them feel rather underdeveloped, and you rarely interact with them in meaningful ways. Ironically, if Elya weren’t your sister, she would be the most compelling romance route. [b]Audio & Visuals[/b] This game is purely text-based, so there’s not much to comment on in terms of audio or visuals. Still, I’ll leave my usual note for interactive fiction: even basic visuals and audio could make these games more accessible and appealing to a wider audience, similar to what Roadwarden or Wayfarer have done. [b]Technicalities[/b] The lack of a save system - or at least a "back to the previous page" button - is just incredibly frustrating. I can’t stress enough how much I dislike it when interactive fiction games do this. It’s all too easy to misclick on a choice you didn’t intend, especially in longer games, so give players a way to fix it. I only noticed one typo, one mismatched pronoun, and one unfortunate "PLACEHOLDER" that the author seems to have forgotten about. Aside from that, the game is pretty much bug-free.

I didn't know it was physically possible to misunderstand combat ptsd this bad and turn it into something this absolutely edgy. This writer clearly was doing some self insert and has some stuff going on and I'm quite annoyed they made me suffer through it too. I spent the whole entire game trying to figure out when and how I would possibly get the choice to have my character act remotely normal for two seconds but it never came, and everyone around me played tumblr support group instead of doing what would have happened in any reasonable setting and immediately removing the entirely unstable person from command or at the very least not trusting a single thing I said. It also repeatedly has to shove the same ham fisted edgyness down your throat in the exact same ways over and over again. There's not too many choices that actually matter and it feels pretty linear in regards to the story, which may or may not be a huge con and I didn't care too much about honestly. What did irk me is it seems what few choices you can make for your personality tend to be entirely ignored. I will give it the positive benefit that anything that doesn't involve personal interactions or introspection was well done and enjoyable, it's just unfortunate that 90% of the game involves one of the two.

I didn't find it fun to play. Far too much text for few options and even fewer important choices. No real agency over the character.

两个月断断续续的终于打完了，老是被心理创伤部分trigger+一直不满意选的选项一直在重开所以浪费了好多时间，不过后来找了攻略和存读档的插件就有好很多，感觉看完这部不仅是MC的心灵旅程也是我的了。 从刚开始看的：你谁啊，到后面面对角色的心情复杂，我觉得作者在各种方面的塑造都是非常好的，但是我认为唯一美中不足的地方就是作者对主角童年闪回描述的缺失，一笔带过和家人之间的关系/主角战争之外创伤的心路历程，导致我刚开始玩的时候难以与主角共情，初见妹妹也让我有种[spoiler] “主角就应该是个男的妹控” [/spoiler]的感觉，但是玩到后面我就变成了[spoiler] Elya的钢铁大姐姐 [/spoiler] 还有就是该死的军队管理啊啊啊，我知道这是故事的一部分，但是完全不知道该怎么选啊，如果有个简单模式就好了QwQ（不过好在后来发现了指南 [h3] 8/10很不错的无奇幻中世纪背景(互动)小说 [/h3] 如果你喜欢中世纪欧洲背景/喜欢军队管理，那就是[b]9/10或者是10/10[/b]。 很可惜我跟这种类型相性不是很高（到现在都没看权游）但是各种场面描写还是让我看得浑身鸡皮疙瘩，就像看了场电影，各种角色不管是Darin还是Mira都塑造的各有各的特色，让我对这本书这个作者不爱不行，所以还是很推荐的！！！！ [h2]注意:[/h2] ·这本只有 男女/女男/男男，开头可以选女同但是没有女同RO（和作者写作手法有关，后作可能会有？ ·有比较严重的心理创伤描写，有类似心路历程的可能要小心trigger ·可能因为是男作者？所以女MC的差分有的地方稍微有点男味，但是感觉得到作者挺用心的了+设定可能也有原因在？所以对我来说还好 I wanna bang Vedran so bad why he has to be my brother author plz give me a pathetic male ro id do anything