The Forsaken

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom has a rather prophetic name. The game has you exploring an old crumbling land, abandoned and left alone in its desolate beauty. For me playing through the game has served as an analogy of what happens to so many supposedly solid but average games, whose sales seem to be based on those who had a Christmas voucher going spare, who picked it out of a bargain bin or who wandered into a game shop to buy a game for their grandson and bought one with a nice cover. Released in the same few weeks as Call of Duty: Black Ops, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Gran Turismo 5 and Kinect it wasn’t surprising that it got overlooked by many. It’s worth remembering that both Dragon Age: Origins and Assassin’s Creed  came out around the same time as big Call of Duty releases and although both of those game became huge successes the initial reactions in their first few weeks on the market were muted in the face of more well known titles.

Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is a grower. It reminds me very much of Ico and Beyond Good & Evil. It looks like Ico and has that sprawling map like BG&E, that you can run back and forward through endlessly to explore every nook and cranny. More than that though it reminds me of those classics in that it will only be with time that people realise how good a game it really is. There’s a real sense of other worldliness and lonesome, ponderous exploration that is a rarity in games. While titles like Red Dead Redemption and Fallout: New Vegas may lay out sprawling worlds for you to wander through they’re “balanced” by engaging, more visceral combat. The feel of Majin’s battling is somewhat disconnected and intangible. I’m under no illusion that this was intentional but rather than taking away from the game it somehow adds to it. In both Ico and Beyond Good & Evil’s fighting systems the poor sense of realism and lack of a real clashing connect with enemies makes their worlds all the more dreamlike. They never even approach ‘gritty’.

If you haven’t tried Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom  it really is worth playing. Let’s not consign it to the forsaken pile of games along with Darksiders, Singularity, Tales of Vesperia and all the other incredible games left off the list of plaudits through the years.