The Commodore 64 version of Forbidden Forest is superior to the Atari 8-bit version. I probably thought it was the best computer game in the world when I first played it. I saw it on my best friend’s Commodore 64, on a black and white television – warezed version only, of course. I had the experience of seeing a lot of 5.25″ Commodore 64 disks with many games on them, their titles written across the label. I treasured these disks and immediately started making my own when we got an IBM.
Over on Atari, Forbidden Forest lacks the moon. How do you not include the moon? Forbidden Forest is one of the greatest games to feature a moon. At some point, we’ll rank games that feature the moon, or a moon. I can’t recommend the 8-bit version since the moon isn’t there. Let’s talk about the C64 version.
I had a real Commodore 64 in the past, but I no longer do. I did eventually have to get rid of some physical systems. I have … I don’t want to say limited space in the office where I am typing this. But in a way, all space except outer is limited. There’s at least 12 platforms or computers or consoles in the room I am typing this in. So I tried to give away the C64 and an Atari ST. Presently, I use a MiSTer for Commodore 64 games, or the Mini64 that I bought. (Forbidden Forest is not on the Mini64. It should have been. I can say that because I have no idea of the legal concerns.)
This post is late because I couldn’t figure out how to properly start the .d64 version of the game. The version I have starts the player fighting bees. Nobody ever had a good day when the first source of conflict in their day was bees. This version looked and sounded great, but this was not the Forbidden Forest I remembered.
There was a tape version out there. I knew of it. I saw it. But in my mind, there was no way this thing came out on cassette and looked this good and played this well. Right? Are you with me? Cassettes were a dead medium when they were new. Wrong. I was wrong. It took me two weeks, but I finally just broke down and started the cassette version. I can proudly pronounce Forbidden Forest was/is the world’s greatest cassette game. I started it and I was asked what level I wanted to start. I picked “Innocent” and I was off killing spiders, the first enemy in the game.
With the moon in the sky.
Alexander Chatziioannou wrote a book about horror video games that I recommend purchasing called “From Ants to Zombies: Six Decades of Video Game Horror”. (Full disclosure: I was interviewed for it, and my game Necrotic Drift has a feature. I also love the book and everything Bitmap Books is doing recently.) In his book, Forbidden Forest is a key entry to the long history of horror in video games, and I really like this part:
“Gratuitous violence, however, is but a single ingredient in a Forbidden Forest recipe that anticipated nearly every aspect of modern game horror.”
And I agree – I have never used the word “seminal” in a blog post or review before, but I think the time is right to finally do so.
You really are just thrown into this beautiful, haunting environment with a bow and quiver of arrows. Where Silent Hill “cheats” by spamming fog everywhere, this game just makes it dark out. Actually – not really, it has a day and night cycle. (Is it the first game with a day and night cycle? It looks like Enduro has one, but it also was released in 1983. Google’s AI trash told me, for research in this article, that Ultima V was the first game to have one, which – thanks, virtual dumbass who is wrong about everything. I understand it just read something that talked about NPCs moving about their day and night, but still. This is another innovation for Forbidden Forest, the game that I believe was the first with a day/night cycle.)
For gameplay: the first press of the joystick’s button takes an arrow out of your quiver and nocks it. Pressing it again fires the arrow at an enemy. The time it takes to get the arrow ready to fire is juuuust long enough where one of the monsters can catch up to you if you aren’t skilled yet. And it all really does look like a properly haunted forest. I originally played this game on a black and white television. Memories being what they are, I can’t say it’s better in black and white, but it certainly held up as a game with those colors – even the Atari 8-bit version looks great on a real CRT.
All this and I haven’t discussed the music. I want to talk about the “greatest of all-time” for things. If you expand the likely history of, say, baseball it is probable that we haven’t seen the greatest hitter yet. It’s also possible that we did see the greatest hitter that was ever going to exist and it was Babe Ruth and he stopped playing in 1935. 90 years later, Reddit is still okay voting him the greatest offensive force in the game. I mention this to say that it’s okay if you believe that Forbidden Forest has the greatest music in any video game, ever, and it came out in 1983. It’s okay if you believe that, because I certainly believe it and I will try to defend the statement. I believe the modern concept of the video game started with Computer Space in 1971. 12 years later, we got the game with the best music.
There are three distinct “movements” to the audio in Forbidden Forest.
The first is the intro song. It’s iconic. You are playing Forbidden Forest now, idiot, get ready, this is the only thing you can possibly be doing with your life. They got a foreboding pipe organ into your home C64. I don’t know that there’s another game that gets you as properly pumped for what you are about to experience as this one.
Every other game falls down in the next part – what do you play when the player is dorking around in the game? They could be moving. They could have the joystick down on the floor because they ran to the fridge to get Sunny Delight. The gameplay music loop is going to repeat, but it can’t be annoying. This thing being on, again, a cassette, the developer Paul Norman didn’t have infinite space to conjure something, so of course it is going to repeat, but the way he did it doesn’t make you hate the game on the first level. This may be the actual genius bit to the game. I’ve hummed it for two weeks. The sound gets a little more atmospheric once you pass the spider level, but as the one you’ll play most often, it sounds so good.
And then there is the celebratory music, which I won’t spoil, but we should all be so lucky to hear it when we “win” in life and accomplish our goals.
The music is almost as good for the Atari version, except there is a distinct pause in the celebratory music played when you clear a level. Another strike. It’s the inferior port! You may get away with it if you never heard how good it could be on the C64, but if you are familiar, the pause is just too awkward and jarring to take that port seriously.
I’ll leave you with two strong takes, and you can decide which you believe more. I think Forbidden Forest is the greatest game in Commodore 64 history. I also think that everyone doing a Let’s Play of it on YouTube should shut the hell up, their commentary is terrible, unfunny and awful to a man and a discredit to gaming everywhere.