I only knew about Ishtar Games because I had written about a small game they had developed. The Last Spell (read our review here). My understanding is that it is an incredibly challenging tactical adventure where the odds are constantly against the player. Although they are the publisher and not the developer of Forgotten minesI went into the adventure more than a little intimidated. And after a truly hair-raising tutorial where I learned the basics and then quickly got massacred, things were looking bleak. But after diving into the game again and again, I started to realize something. While the game isn’t particularly good at explaining all the nuances, there is actually a worthwhile and relatively balanced system in this turn-based, tactical rogue-lite adventure.
Developed by Cannibal Goose (which is an amazing name in my humble opinion), Forgotten mines is a story of suffering. An expedition accidentally opened the gates of hell and flooded the mines with all kinds of goblin, demon and undead plagues. It hit everything like something from Lord of the ringswhich I really liked. What I didn’t like so much was how incredibly challenging the game was. Each section of the mine is split into five floors, and your goal is to drive out the beasts and return the land to its ancestral owners, the dwarves. The difficult part is that if you wait too long, more monsters will show up to consolidate their position, making it almost impossible to succeed. On normal floors, you’ll be overrun after eight turns, while boss fights allow a bit more time before that happens. But once I started working with the clock instead of against it, I started to enjoy it more.
Mordor calls
At the beginning of each run, you are presented with a team of 3 heroes. Well, heroic-near might be more accurate. See, similar to Villain LegacyIn Forgotten mines, Your characters inherit delightfully unhelpful traits. I noticed this when some of my archers had the hobble trait, which prevented them from moving more than one space at a time. There are also nearsighted heroes who can barely see in front of their eyes, which drives up their hit rate, and idiots who are less intelligent. You get what I mean. While you can change the race (humans level up faster, elves are better at magic, and dwarves are sturdy) and class of any hero before you start, that doesn’t remove their traits. This was a little annoying, as it meant you had to work with a random handicap for the entire run.
Fortunately, there are some things you can do in Forgotten mines to increase your very slim chances of survival. Bear in mind, the game itself only explained one of these, but I managed to figure it out. See, the game only tells you about the magic shop, where you can buy amulets. These are passive bonuses for your whole team, and you can equip three at once. For example, they increase the damage you do to certain enemies, your critical hit rate, and things like that. This might not sound like much, but it really makes a difference, especially the amulet, which allows you to do greater damage to boulders. Wondering why you’d want to break boulders? Simple. You need gems to power the game’s upgrades, and you usually only find them in rare, bright blue boulders. But you can also collect iron and gold from boulders, which you can use to buy equipment in runs.
Magical life support
In addition to the magic shop, there is also a barracks where you can buy new classes. But perhaps the most important thing is the guilds. Here you spend gems to unlock kingdom coins that you can invest in various guilds to increase their levels. This will do things like increase the amount of experience you gain, the types of magical damage you deal, and, most importantly, heal your team after battles. This is incredibly important because otherwise you don’t heal at all (except when casting spells) and when a team member dies, they generally stay that way. The first time I got through the Green Halls section of the Mines, I only managed to do it with my archer. Let’s just say he didn’t survive the next section very long.
Now that you have an idea of how the game works, let’s talk about how to play it. Since you’re playing against time, every turn counts. Also, your characters have limited AP (action points) to act with each turn. Movement costs 1 AP, the same as attacking, and many skills cost more. Your starting healers can heal each turn, but it costs 2 AP, meaning they can’t move and cast a spell. Your main way to increase a character’s AP is to level them up. Once they reach level 3 or 5, they increase their base AP while allowing them to learn a new skill with each level up. One of my favorite skills was Troll Blood, which allowed my champion to heal a bit each turn, but I also taught my archers to strike twice and my healers how to banish the undead.
Oh God, don’t hurt me…
Your enemies also rely on their own AP and initially the pathetic goblins with only 1 AP were easy to take down. Simply running away from them would prevent their attack that round, because if they came at you it would use up their AP. It’s not long before more dangerous enemies join the fray, like wizards, archers and really scary bosses. On every 5th floor you’ll face a boss fight and they won’t fight you alone. Oh no, they usually have an entourage ready to help them murder you. Worse, the boss units are really overpowered, usually equipped with lots of AP and armed with powerful weapons and skills. An early example was a goblin riding a wolf who could strike multiple times each round. Worse was a grey-bearded goblin who looked weak and then suddenly unleashed a torrent of flames on my team.
The reason why bosses are even more dangerous is that Forgotten mines doesn’t do a great job when it comes to taking a quick, astute look at enemy stats or the battlefield. You can click on enemies until you’re blue in the face, but the game won’t tell you their stats, abilities, or anything like that. Likewise, when you find loot in chests, you won’t know what it is until you actually pick it up. I prefer games like Fire Emblem And Wars of advancewhich gives you a very deep insight into what is happening on the pitch.
There’s another element of the game that really held it back, at least for me. That’s the fatigue system. Basically, powerful abilities increase your chance of getting fatigued, making them increasingly difficult to use. This also increases the cost of all your fatigue-based abilities. Worse, if your movement points are low enough, you generate a fatigue point every time you move. Let’s just say I watched all of this and avoided ANYTHING that mentioned the word fatigue, no matter how epic the ability sounded. Honestly, I think Forgotten mines is already difficult enough without features like this making the game even more merciless.
Enjoy the victories
Visually, Forgotten mines is an attractive, retro-inspired outing. It looks like it could be an NES adventure, but with some really nice static graphics to spice things up. In fact, it almost looks like it would fit perfectly on a handheld. Where the game really shined, to my surprise, was the sound design. I’m not usually enamored with most games I play, but the music and sound effects were over the top. There’s a rousing Gregorian chant playing in the background that’s both moving and melancholy, and things get really tense when the odds are stacked against your team. Together, the visuals and music do a good job of centering you in this deadly world.
Pray for the dwarves…
I’m a little torn Forgotten mines. While I enjoyed the game a lot, I fear it’s unbalanced enough to discourage most players from investing the time necessary to collect enough gems to improve their chances. And while the combat is fast and hard-hitting, it’s also unpredictable, often cruelly turning everything against you. If you’re really patient and can stand to die many, many times on your way to reclaiming the mines, you’ll find a game here that you’ll love. For everyone else, it’s a harder sell.
Final verdict: 3.5/5
Available for: PC (tested); Publisher: Ishtar Games; Developer: Cannibal Goose; Players: 1; Released: July 23, 2024; MSRP: $7.99
Editor’s Note: The publisher provided Hey Poor Player with a review copy.
