Sid is a writer. He’s got a deadline to write a story, but he has writer’s block. With piling late payments and bills, he must get his life in order. But then comes the invitation to a last get-together at the home he grew up in. His mom is selling the house and is inviting people over for one last night. While this is coming at a bad time, maybe his former house can help reignite his imagination and get him going again. Sid and his friend will stop by various locations, and he will have a few things to do before finally going home, one last time.

Here’s what I liked:

Visual Appeal — While the actual characters are a bit on the low visually, the rest of the environment is vibrant, specifically the waves, which I thought must have had extra effort put into them. Obviously, this isn’t going to blow you away, but it is a calm look with a style that may seem familiar to you. You can read books, and some of them have some pretty cool covers. I also really liked the neighborhoods, simple yet quite detailed. There’s a small amount of customization with the main character, allowing you to change shirts, pants, and shoes, so that you can play the adventure in whatever style you like the most.

Not Stressful Short Story — While Sid is writing a novel, this plays out more like a short story. This can be welcoming to a lot of people who have games on their back-burner and just want a quick break from the other tedious things they have going on in the gaming world. This can be finished in a few hours, and you can easily get all the achievements. There is a decent amount of reading, but the game allows you to skip it fairly quickly if you want to move things along, as a good chunk of it is backstory and small talk. You aren’t on any timer and there is a great save system so you can pick up where you left off if you have to spread the game over a few sessions.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Glitch Galore — I encountered numerous glitches throughout the game, making me need to restart checkpoints. Some weren’t exactly glitches, but just poorly designed interactions. One was talking to a specific person on the ground. It said “talk” above them, but as I ran around smashing the button, nothing would work. I eventually had to be in a weird angle and let the game walk me to him. This happened on both playthroughs. Another one was at the beach, when you complete a scene, you are stuck in the water in first person while you see your character still seemingly up on the rocks. Eventually, I was able to get through this section, but it was quite frustrating. At the house in the final section of the game, you must do a few chores. This was annoying to do because everything was so dark, and I kept getting stuck and blocked trying to move around. I went to turn up the brightness in the settings, however, there is none. This game was originally released four years ago, so I’m not sure why it has so many problems, some of which seem to have existed back when it was released.

Camera from Hell — When you are running around the world, you may find yourself blinded by trees and bushes. They just get in the way and take up the entire screen, making it impossible for you to see. As this does tend to happen in third-person perspective, typically when an object gets too close to the screen, it becomes translucent to avoid obstructing the player’s view. I’m not sure if this was an oversight or a means of making you change direction, but most of the time, I was going the right way.

Seems Lacking — While you can openly explore areas of the game to a degree, it’s all a waste of space. The beach is a great example of this. You can run down either side of the beach, but there’s nothing there. I did a jog towards nothing, because I wasn’t aware of what I was supposed to do. I turned around and had to run back, feeling like a total waste of time. This happens when playing in Sid’s story as well. I had no clue I had to go rest on a bench that looked like a part of the environment. I went running around aimlessly until the game told me not to go too far. This “invisible wall” was way too far away. Speaking on the topic of not knowing what to do, the game has no objective on display. If you don’t carefully read and pay attention, you could have to guess what to click on. Sid is trying to write a book but gets writer’s block. His story, from what I could gather, is quite bland. It is a magical story that was more boring than Sid’s real-life problems. You finish the game without content, but at the same time, you don’t care what happens because you weren’t all that invested anyway.

Wrap-up

On the surface, the game looks nice, and the thought of playing inside someone’s story is quite awesome. But with so many bugs, annoying encounters, and obstruction of sight, there are too many flaws to make this very enjoyable. Also, a lot of what you do in the game is very mundane. Especially at the end, when you have to do chores. Get the plates, put them on the table, get the drinks, get the food, put the food on the table. Clear the table, get the coffee, and take the coffee to the people. That’s a whole lot of stuff to do that isn’t very entertaining. I also don’t understand why a group of people would drink coffee after having dinner and alcohol, at night, before bed. Pretty strange! Of course, there will be some people who enjoy it for what it is, similar to when people say art is subjective. There will be a few who adore it. But everyone else is a different story, one that Sid would not like reading.

Score: Limited Appeal

Forgotten Fields was published by Nejcraft and developed by Frostwood Interactive on Xbox One. It was released on May 14 2025, for $11.49. A copy was provided for review