FORBIDDEN SOLITAIRE

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I finished FORBIDDEN SOLITAIRE and there is a crucial lesson here for me to impart, one that you probably already know, but I wish to reiterate upon anyway. Hype can be the death of joy. Getting your expectations through the roof risk a chance to tarnish an otherwise perfectly enjoyable experience! Now that it put these sentences to the digital paper, I can believe you might already have a feeling in which direction this review is going towards - I was slightly disappointed, yet in such a way, that I do not want to take the „points” away from the game overall rating. Because it’s not a problem with the game itself - it was the lens through which I approached it.

At first, everything felt delightfully intriguing! Stellar ratings, great reviews, interesting premise. Another of those inscrutable games about lost media, retro-vibes, a sprinkle of meta horror. As a colossal stan for INSCRYPTION, my skin was tingling, my mind was pumping anticipation straight into my system. Yes, please, bring it on! And then, the game begins. With a strong start, promising a lot! A view on some ancient desktop, a forbidden old game by some edgy studio - the titular FORBIDDEN SOLITAIRE - which, of course, has a tragic and grisly story written all around its shady creation.

And the feeling of creeping potential only grew! Everything feels so on point here. See, I am not an ancient grognard, but I do have my years upon me and I do remember playing some truly ancient games. On Amiga, on Commodore, pixelated romps through early gaming wild west, were no idea was too wacky or too outlandish. And this game nails the aesthetics, to a tee. Fantastic visuals, great music, the vibes are impeccable. And it is, of course, a solitaire! A game any office worker stuck on early Windows knows well, a proper mindless time killer, with rules that many a player barely comprehended, and yet, shuffled the cards on the screen anyway in a feeble attempt to kill time between staring at soul-eroding excel sheets.

Combat is all about making combos with stacking multiple cards in a row to ramp up the damage.

But here, the act of placing cards is dreadfully sexy. It’s all grim and ghoulish, all rendered in grime and cheeky, 90s horror aesthetic. Cards yield mana, powerful abilities from crazy jokers help you out of any pinch. Maggots can infest the cards, brambles and poison can seep into the digital cardboard. And then there are stages with watchful eyes gazing at your moves, forcing you into less optimal moves to keep away from their wrath. Grotesque enemies haunt the dungeon, made of gnarly polygonal clay, tossing you into card-laden traps of exchanging blows via stacking combos.

And that’s not all! Cram gemstones into your very flesh, decorate your card dealing hand with glinting minerals to graft yourself with new powers. A sense of progression between stages and little puzzles, a lovely nod to the more modern sensibilities of players in this day and age.

And yet… Everything felt a little too spoon fed. A bit on the easy side? That might sound like such a petty complaint, right? Not every game needs to be a challenge, a grueling test of mettle. But here it gnaws at me, somehow, most likely because of the juxtaposition of its aesthetics to the presented difficulty. Not once was I stumbled, not a single combat encounter was lost. And I am not some god damn cards Amadeus, I never played solitaire for any real time beforehand! It was just… generous in its dealings, I reckon. Intuitive to a fault? Is that even a thing?

The progression also felt mostly enforced. What I mean by it, is that through the natural progression of the stages you WILL get them all. There is no real choice here, no opportunity cost of picking one upgrade over another. Ultimately you just check the shop between every stage, buy what you can, and call it a day. It’s less of an upgrade system, and more of a narrative push to unlock a bit more - more heath to tank bigger swings from monsters, more jokers to get out of stickier situations, more power to reward your snowballing wins. It’s not necessarily an issue, but it still felt a little disappointing - like I gleamed a potential for a very fun system, but instead was fed a streamlined solution. An airplane meal.

The enemies are all a lovely mix of gnarly clay-looking rejects from a C-class horror flick! Delightful.

But my biggest issue, my personal hill to shout from about this game is its story. Don’t get me wrong - it does what it want and does it well enough! Proper meta plot with our curious sister investigating the studio behind the game as we play it, here and there sending us clips, links and texts explaining the gruesome nature of the digital trap woven into the game we’re playing. It’s neat, for what it is, but to me it felt like a hugely wasted potential. Again, it might be simply because I expected way too much out of this aspect of the game. To explore more. Be forced to check the game files, do some investigations. Browse obscured links from hints on the net within the game. Be able to god damn respond with a single text to my sisterly investigation! Do… something. Anything. Have some agency with the story.

You won’t find anything like that here. It’s as firmly in the rails as it can be, a rollercoaster ride in a theme park. This was the realization that made me scrunch my face up a bit. What is the point of making a whole meta-narrative if you are not going to squeeze out some proper spooks out of it? Not let us, the players, dip our toes in it, even a little bit? For you, it’s just cards. Sure, fun cards! With nice sense of growing density of things to play with and around. But the whole horrory aspect of the package felt lacking, exactly because it never felt like it works with me. With no reactivity, with no agency, come no stakes and no risks. It just… happens to you, a slideshow, a power point presentation that eyes skim over. A shame, really.

Does it mean that FORBIDDEN SOLITAIRE is a bad game? Perish the thought! I enjoyed my time with it. It was a very time conscious title, direct, to the point. A quick stage by stage romp with cards, with great aesthetics and solid gameplay that plays off a dusty formula to a very satisfying degree. In short, a good time. If anything, I would just propose a little mental shift about the whole meta-narrative aspect of the experience. It is not a big thing here, not anything substantial - at best it is a little cherry on top. A sprinkle of spice on top of a solid meal. It will not tantalize you, won’t make you go „damn, this is crazy”. But it serves it’s purpose, I reckon, and make for a tasty morsel.