Forest's... unique. If you've read Umineko, you know the confusion you can find yourself experiencing at times. Yeah, with Forest, you'll be experiencing this confusion for hours on end. It does get annoying at times when you're being told a bunch (of what appears to be) completely incoherent, irrelevant stories; towards the end things should clear up a bit, though. In all honesty, I'm still not sure how to interpret most what I found confusing in Forest, but I will say that the last couple of hours kept me glued to my chair. It's definitely one of those VNs that could really use a second read with a different perspective on things.

Some say you shouldn't read this in English, and they may be right; I can imagine it does detract from the experience. But then again, ignorance is bliss. If you feel like you'll read this in Japanese some day, then that's perfectly fine. I had to find out what it was about though, and my friend egged me on. He's more or less fluent in Japanese though; his input is was the final straw.

I honestly don't know how I would describe Forest's plot, because it's not completely linear, and you will most likely perceive it to be completely incoherent at first (I did). The first half is mostly composed of short stories that will make no sense to you. I would even go so far as to urge you not to try to bring logic into this first half.

I will now tell you what I really liked about Forest. As I've already mentioned, the last couple of hours were phenomenal. Every chapter from "V. The Game" and forward were really intensive and intriguing. I read about an hour a day until "VII. Treasure". I then finished the VN in about 2 days.

The music... is absolutely fantastic. Here, have a taste of Forest's OST. The obscure and gloomy settings in combination with the music together made some fantastic scenes even more so. The visuals are amazing, too. This is Black Alice.

I also want to talk some about the characters in Forest. Firstly, I think you have to realize that Forest is not your average VN. I don't think you're supposed to get as attached to the characters in comparison to those of many other VNs. I realized half way through that I didn't really feel an attachment to the characters like I often do; this was a little sad to realize. I think it would've been nice, but it may be possible that this was something intentional. I didn't find most of the characters particularily likable, but I didn't find them unlikable either.

I don't know. Forest's a mess, and I've been looking for discussions about it in order to help sort out my own thoughts and theories, but I haven't really found anything of the sort. If you're interested in getting your brain played with by psychosis-like stories, try Forest. And if you feel like you don't have the patience for convoluted storytelling and symbolism, definitely look elsewhere.