Forever To You is a slightly confused game. Not in its mechanics, which are easy to grasp, but in trying to find its identity as a game. Basically, just imagine the main character is Franz Kafka, but he’s overdosed on Viagra. (This is now the strangest sentence I have ever written in a game review, and by a large margin.)
On the surface, it’s just a very simplistic “play cards to get sex and nudity as a reward” game – something very run of the mill and pretty common in the adult gaming space. It has a typically ludicrous premise – a naughty harlequin appears and gives you a magical deck of playing cards, and then proceeds to teach you how to use them to seduce women.
What follows is not the hilarious sex romp and pseudo-harem game that I anticipated, however. Instead, the main character monologues at great length about whether or not this is what he wants, and if it makes him happy. The game is divided up into chapters that follow your encounters with several different women, and at points the tone ends up being a very heavy one, touching on desire, forbidden attraction, unhappiness in relationships, and at points, the human condition itself. It’s unexpected, and unfortunately, I’m not sure that it really works here.
Part of the issue is with the translation – the dev is clearly trying to explain some complex thoughts and philosophies at points (though sometimes those thoughts really are just “I really want to have intercourse with this woman”, in fairness), and whatever translation program or service he used is just not up to the task. It leads to stilted and confusing dialogue a lot, and sometimes it’s bad enough that I was unable to even understand what they meant to say. (Though context usually at least provided a general idea.) It’s really a shame, because I feel like the writer had a lot to say, and really wanted to explore some more complex themes than the genre normally allows. All that aside, however, I’m not sure that this particular subgenre is necessarily the place where that sort of stuff is going to hit its mark with the audience, even with perfect translation.
Mechanically, the game is sound enough – the card game is simple to learn (though it never explains how to discard a card from your hand, which led to some trial and error on my part), and generally not very nuanced or tricky. The sex scenes have a very simplistic “click the hot spot” style minigame attached, and there’s also a memory game to unlock CG’s. The latter two are easy enough that you could sleepwalk through, while the first requires some thought, but not a ton. That’s not a complaint-most of us would rather not have to try too hard to complete a game like this, and the added gameplay sections do add some value.
The CG’s are fairly high quality, while the sex scenes have simplistic animation and art of average to above average quality. It’s nothing revolutionary, but at a price point of $5 USD, it’s pretty hard to complain. I feel good giving this a recommend, but be aware that it’s not the happy-go-lucky style adult game you’re probably used to, tone-wise.
CLICK HERE to buy Forever To You on Steam.
