Forest Adventure!

Intro

"Forest Adventure!" is a horror themed visual novel/adventure game that was being developed by HorrorBox using RPG Maker VX Ace that hasn't seen any major updates since sometime in 2019 as far as I can tell. Though why exactly this weird game about a forest, nightmare creatures, and murder was left incomplete is a mystery to me. A mystery I'm not particularly interested in solving since it really doesn't matter why this project was left in it's current state in my opinion. After all, I'm here to review the portions of this project that were completed.

Story

The plot for "Forest Adventure!" is rather mysterious to say the least. We begin this game with a group of friends heading out to a campsite next to a lake. This camping trip quickly takes dark turns as the friends slowly peel away from the group one by one and appear to die at the hands of gooey monsters. At the same time they then pop up again leaving the playing to wonder if the stuff these characters experienced was real or all in their heads. A question that will probably never be fully answered. After all, this project is effectively on indefinite hiatus as far as I'm aware.

Gameplay

For the most part in this game you'll simply run around looking for your next location. It's not until you begin exploring the dark places in this game where a few puzzle elements are tossed in like needing to find keys or tools in order to advance. Though the quality of these puzzles is debatable since the most prominent one in the demo has you playing a character named Felix who needs to avoid coming into contact with a cat with a dead-eyed stare while trying to collect a series of keys. A task that is pretty difficult since the cat frequently spawns right next to the player when you exit one of the rooms. And you need to enter this room in order to find the first key. As a result your probably going to die a few times do to bad programming before you reach the next target location.

Another weird oddity with this game is that you can't run in certain rooms. At times this appears to be so it's easier for monsters to keep up with the player, but at other times the restriction makes no sense since you'll be in area devoid of threats or points of interest.

Graphics

The game does feature some original art assets, but the bulk of the stuff on display comes from the RTP for RPG Maker VX Ace. Unfortunately the few custom assets this game does have tend to hurt it in my opinion. This is because you'll sometimes see the characters pasted on top of a real world background. A look that really doesn't work since the playable cast looks like they would fit in with characters from "Maple Story".



Though I'll admit that comparison is mostly based on how big their heads are in comparison to their bodies.

To make matters worse the mapping in this demo is rather mixed in my opinion. On the plus side the maps feel right in terms of how many objects exist within their confines, but they also have feel unnaturally square. A good example of this is the lake edge which is straight as a ruler on multiple maps in a row.

Sound

On the sound side of things this project is also a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. On one hand the game makes solid use of music to help accentuate the mood. This is especially true during the scarier sections of the demo. At the same time the demo also contains multiple areas utterly devoid of background music which hurts the overall experience in my opinion.

Conclusion

"Forest Adventure!" is one of those projects that has potential in my opinion, but I'll admit a lot of that potential relies on the answers to what the monsters are and how do they operate. After all, if the answers the player ultimately receives to these questions are underwhelming it would have devastated this project. Sort of like how I'll never get over the immortals in "Highlander" being from the planet Ziost. Though I suppose in away the incomplete nature of this project gives it power. After all, people are drawn to the unknown. Which is something the Beautiful Suzuki wished to capitalize on.