There aren't many surprises, but it's still worth a try for all players.
It must be acknowledged that the popularity of consumer-grade VR devices and the increasing difficulty of game development are creating an extremely creator-friendly development environment. Under such a premise, it is not surprising that the development cost is relatively low, the logic is simple, and the horror game with good VR has become a new force in the current VR game.
I've played a lot of VR games, and I do have some of them that pursue "extreme horror". They always seemed to be on the verge of being "scared to death" and eventually made me completely lose the courage to open it again before I reached the in-game disk. But that's not because of how good they are — believe me, with the help of a head-mounted monitor, even the crudest and lowest-level JumpScare can scare people up.
Luckily, Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits is not such a game. At least, it's not the kind of game that likes to pick players. "Entry-level" should be a rather appropriate word here.
Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits is a horror puzzle game developed by the Chinese people with "narrative" as the core. Players need to play as a man who has been in an accident, accompanied by past memories and hallucinations, to find out the stories and conspiracies behind the mysterious old mansion. Yes, in the context of a story that is not too complicated, "Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits" uses almost all the elements of horror works like, "ancient house", "illusion", "supernatural ritual", "cult conspiracy", it is not lacking in any of them.
In fact, just by looking at this place, you can probably have a certain basic expectation of "Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits". Simply put, it is not the kind of game that is amazing or gives players too many surprises, but even so, its down-to-earth, and less "catch-up" game style can still make people feel good.
As introduced in the background of the game, players spend most of the game in an extremely dimly lit old mansion, looking for key clues to drive the plot.
Like most horror games, darkness accompanies the player all the time. Although the protagonist has a constantly bright oil lamp in his hand from the beginning, the distance it can actually illuminate is less than five meters, giving players who need to look for clues a lot of pressure, afraid that if they go faster, something will appear in the darkness in front of them.
Like I said above, Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits is not a provocative game. In order to tell a good story, the production team specially used "psychological horror" and light JumpScare to shape the overall atmosphere (and dig a pit for the player). That is to say, in the actual game, the player does not feel too much pressure to survive, which directly avoids the common problems of VR horror games such as excessive operating costs and orientation recognition under immersive perspectives, and the reason why I say it is "down-to-earth" is more or less for this reason.
Because there are no "easy to use" pursuers to put pressure on the player, Forbidden: The First Appearance of evil spirits can only scare players with relatively time-consuming, laborious, and test-designed performances and preset scripts. In this regard, the production team has done a good job, not only to control the frightening rhythm in a meticulous and orderly manner, but also to combine some scripts with the player's play behavior as much as possible, and always prepare some "small surprises" in places you don't expect.
As a game based on the premise of "using two-handed interaction", the player needs to be responsible for the lighting of the lantern with one hand, and the other hand needs to rummage through boxes and cabinets to find clues related to the plot and puzzles. As a result, there is a situation in which the player is startled by the contents of the cabinet when he concentrates on opening the cabinet door in the game. Although this kind of scare technique sounds low-level, because the frequency and position of the setting are reasonable, and it is in perfect fit with the actual action of the player, it has become a rare small highlight of the game on the basis of the relatively relaxed JumpScare.
However, no matter how down-to-earth, "Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits" still has many small-scale VR games, which are prone to problems. These problems, although they do not affect the player's playing experience, but also fundamentally determine that it is difficult to get further evaluation.
It should be noted that "Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits" is a game that promotes the plot with "puzzle solving", then its puzzles should be the focus of all gameplay design, although the production team is very comfortable with the horror elements, but when it comes to the design ideas of the puzzles, it seems a bit "clumsy".
Most of the puzzles in the game are essentially about picking up a key item and placing it in a specific place for triggering traps, and they don't have much difficulty in themselves. For example, the first puzzle in the game is to put the book in a specific position on the bookshelf, and after understanding the meaning and correct position of the props, there are not too many difficulties to speak of.
However, the simplicity of the puzzle is not the problem.
The fundamental reason is that this kind of puzzle lacks the "necessity" of VR operation and its own game logic.
What I can understand is that the original intention of the production team may be to make the player have a smoother game experience, so the most common puzzle logic in most horror games (whether VR games or not), whether it is simple difficulty or "1 + 1 = 2" steps, really ensures that the play process is smooth.
But the problem is that the game shows the player in the opening tutorial, but it is "grab the hammer to break the vase", which may achieve the design of "1+1>2", and as a result, in the actual game, there are no similar elements at all, and at most only "grab the bottle and smash it", which is a pity.
In addition, some of the key UI designs of Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits are not very friendly.
In order to facilitate the player to use puzzle items, or consult related information, but also to maintain the sense of substitution of the game, this game has a menu that does not completely cover the screen, but for this reason, the player can not decide the position of this menu, it will be locked in the center of the screen with the player's line of sight angle.
I don't know if there's a technical reason involved, but it's less common for a VR game with a 360-degree view and freedom of movement. The fixed UI interface will force the player to use eye movement to obtain information, and it is very easy to cause vertigo and eye fatigue over time, even if the individual differences of the player are excluded, this is also a problem that should not occur.
Fortunately, the overall flow of Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits is not very long, for most players, the above points may not produce too many negative feelings, but vr immersion, itself, is like a double-edged sword, they will definitely amplify the advantages and disadvantages of a game, infinitely magnified.
The appearance of "Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits" is a high-quality, but not stunning small-volume VR horror game, and when you go deep into it, you can really see the sincerity and strengths of the creators. For example, they are good at setting up a reasonable JumpScare, willing to spend effort on short performances, but in turn, they limit their play space because they are too concerned about players, lack of experience, and production cycles.
However, for a game production team that is groping for it, this is not entirely a bad thing. At least in the current market environment, "Forbidden: The First Appearance of Evil Spirits" has done what most people dare not do.