#forbiddenvn

The plot

Forbidden is a romance mystery visual novel, the premise is simple: MC’s parents are rich, very rich, but too caught up in their own problems to deal with their rebelling daughter, so they send her to what is essentially a reformatory disguised as a fancy all-girls college. There we meet three charming teachers, the geek nephew of the director and a few classmates secondary characters. MC is also in contact with her childhood friend who didn’t show up yet but he should be another LI, I am curious about how the story is going to evolve to include him as he is a guy and he is back home (MC is Irish but I think the setting is England). The first two acts serve as an introduction to setting and characters, it’s very much dialogue heavy with little plot except for the last scene in act 2 which was a real shock and sets the tone of the whole game.

Cons

Now, you know I’m always very balanced with my reviews, giving pros and cons. This time I’m going to talk first about what I think doesn’t work because I have lots of trust in this project and I don’t want to focus too much on the negatives. I think the main problems are essentially three:

1. First of all, the game needs a beta, more than one actually, and they have to be english mother tongue. There are typos and grammar mistakes in almost every line and it’s a real shame because it takes away from fully diving into the story. I know that the two authors are french (I think) so it’s really amazing that they made a game in english and I congratulate them for that, they just need help, a few pairs of fresh eyes. I know very well that when you read and look at something a thousand times at some point you stop seeing any mistakes. And not only in the writing, there are some issues and small bugs here and there, like some scenes being cut abruptly at the beginning, some characters called with the wrong name, the wrong answers to some dialogues etc (if the authors want to contact me in private I can point to whatever I remember, it’s not the goal of this review to make a list.)

2. The second point, and this is probably very personal, is that I don’t like much the secondary characters because I find them very stereotyped. Basically the chubby girl only talks about food, drinks and lazying around

and also there is the usual clique of mean girls. I hate games that put women against each other, especially when there is no particular reason. In this case more than ever, these girls had basically said nothing yet and MC reacted in a pretty spiteful way. 

(I don’t trust women? Seriously??)

Granted, I do like that we have a strong-minded MC that doesn’t let anyone mistreat her, but she acted as the mean girl first. The one character I liked was Claire 

hehe funny... but well... 

I hope the game will give these characters more depth as the story moves forward and we won’t have too many cat-fights.

3. The final point, and probably the main one, is that I don’t buy the premise. MC is sent to this jail/school to complete her thesis, she is 23 and has to go along with whatever her parents want because she financially depends on them. I have to say, this doesn’t work with a 23 years old MC. I understand that she grew up rich and is not used to provide for herself, but the MC has to also represent the player a bit, this is too far fetched to believe. Also, everything in the setting looks like a high school, from the fact that MC has to study different subjects that have nothing to do with her thesis, the students having to wear a uniform, the all-girls boarding school environment... also the duration of the studies doesn’t make sense, in UK university lasts 3 years, then students can do a one year master. By the time they are 23 they are done unless they have lost one or more years, which I don’t think it’s MC’s case. My impression is that the game was aiming for a rich boarding high school atmosphere but that, since the romance part of the game involves teachers, the authors decided to make it the less controversial they could and upped MC’s age as much as possible. I understand that having a minor MC romancing a teacher could have been problematic for them, but to make the story work it would be enough to say that this is MC’s last year of college, she is 20-21, it would also explain her having to get some credits in other subjects and it’s enough to believe her acting out like a rebellious teenager.

So, these are my cons, as you can see they are all very easy to solve if they wish so, I think it would be great if they did because they would make the game perfect as the pros really really good.

Pros

1. Let’s start with the easiest: the art. This is in fact the reason I was interested in the game in the first place. I love the art style and how expressive all the characters are, how everything is very detailed and the backgrounds are soooo beautiful too.

And the CGs! I’m only going to post a couple without context just to illustrate how beautiful they are

2. The setting. I said that I don’t believe in the premise in relation to MC’s age and if this has to pass as a university, but other than that the setting is really intriguing, I’m a sucker for boarding-school based stories, especially when there is more than meets the eyes

Also the school has a sort of house-system, I didn’t fully understand how it works but I think that it is based on the year of study, MC is a stag which is the last one.

3. I really liked that we could chose the subject of our thesis among history, literature and math. Usually in these games the MC always studies art because this is what the creators know and it’s smart to stick to your guns, but I really appreciated so much that math was a choice and I didn’t have to suffer through the usual stereotype of “math is hard, I hate math, it’s just numbers blah blah blah”, this is personal but it made me very happy.

(Honestly a good chunk of my excitement is now working on our thesis 🤭)

4. The romance. So... I came into this game completely blind, I knew nothing about the plot except for one thing: we are going to romance sexy teachers 👀 I had seen the guys’ sprites and, while all three are good-looking

there was only one guy who had immediately got my attention, the one in the middle. How lucky it is that it turns out he is Mr Alexander Holmes the math teacher?? And how lucky it is that it turns out he is the cold asshole of the group? (i.e. my type?)

Do I hear wedding bells already?

(talking to the class)

Be still my beating heart! 😻

(and you know babe I would take you more seriously if it weren’t for the fact that the math you wrote on the blackboard is complete nonsense, thankfully you’re pretty and brooding)

The other guys are nice and apparently sweet but they haven’t seduced me yet. Only the geek a bit because I have a weakness for geeks

(look at that background! saku you have so much talent!)

5. I find the writing style quite intriguing. MC describes everything first person present tense, but then at some point there are some philosophical monologues from MC from the future narrating in the past tense. While this could be unnerving, I think it adds to the mysterious and intriguing atmosphere of the game. (My only suggestion is to use a different font when these come up to make the reading easier.)

6. The mystery. This is probably the most important factor, this isn’t just a romantic visual novel, it’s a murder mystery! And they hint at something supernatural going on because a girl was killed a while ago and they say her spirit is still around. But this isn’t the only crime, apparently there is someone going around killing people and I’m all in for this, love me a good murder mystery.