From the beautiful trailer alone, you can fully understand the vibes of Forever Ago. This journey puts us in the shoes of Alfred as he follows his partner Audrey’s journal through memories of their life together. All I know already is that I’ll probably be in tears by the end of this game, and I’m completely okay with it.
The demo has Alfred showing up at a gas station he and Audrey visited in 1977, but this time he’s older and Audrey isn’t with him. You see the list of items he needs to get from the store, and he recollects the times he had and people he met, including the owner of the gas station. As he goes it, he meets Milton, who’s the most chipper person in the most annoying sense to Alfred. The owner has “semi-retired” and Milton is running the day to day operations.
As Alfred looks around, he remembers things about his life, such as the cookie debate with Audrey as to if Chocolate Chip or Oatmeal Raisin is better. You, the player, can pick either, and I picked Oatmeal Raisin in remembrance of Audrey. Meanwhile, Milton keeps talking and talking and talking, annoying Alfred more and more.
Fast forward to the payment where Alfred gets lost in a memory that starts quite beautifully but quickly becomes a nightmare. We can assume this is some sort of illness causing him to lose these pieces of the memory and replace them with this nightmare hellscape, but this demo didn’t provide those answers.
The game ran smoothly, the art was simply so beautiful, and the story is already devastatingly beautiful in just the small amount of time I had with it. The gameplay is a lot of moving around collecting items and then moving forward. As the editor who covered Mixtape, I know not everyone will want to play this, but I really fell for it. It’s an experience of Alfred at this stage of his life remembering the life he loved and lost, or, what ever happened to it.
I was pleased to award Forever Ago with a GamingTrend: Best of Summer Game Fest award. This game will surely cause me to burst out laughing, crying, and everything in between. I’m ready for Annapurna to hurt me again (I cried a lot at the end of Mixtape too). The game is “coming soon” to Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Game Store.
Stay tuned to GamingTrend for more Summer Game Fest content!
