SquareEnix has a way of adverting expectations when it comes to its productions both new and old. From turning “Final Fantasy” into an action-oriented RPG instead of focusing on turn-based strategy, to producing a beat-em-up that has yet to get a sequel following its appearance on the PS2, it’s hard to predict what the minds behind SquareEnix will come up with next. With the arrival of Sony’s Playstation 5 came the opportunity for SquareEnix to unveil its newest IP, “Forspoken”. After some enthusiasm-reducing previews and a free demo, this open-world, action RPG experience is here for gamers to, potentially, appreciate. Having played the demo like many others, my excitement was tepid; but I came in with an open mind hoping that my first impressions with “Forspoken” would be dashed in the most magnificent of ways.
Did I Complete “Forspoken”?
Players take control of Alfre Holland – known as “Frey” throughout the game’s entirety beyond the opening cutscenes where the resident New Yorker is facing a potential jail sentence for thievery in various forms. Given a second chance, Frey finds herself harassed by her immediate past, almost shot in hilarious fashion, and burned out of her home; left wandering the cold streets until a glowing bracelet transports her to the medieval setting of Athia – a world consisting of documents sporting years set in the 32nd century.
A long-winded opening two or so hours witnesses Frey and her vambrace companion she dubs “Cuff” being introduced to the infliction destroying society that Frey calls “The Break” and interacting with some of the few NPCs that get screen time without much character development. The player is allowed the chance to explore the rather expansive map broken up into five grandiose sections sporting varying degrees of terrain and, most importantly when it comes to completion, a plethora of optional objectives.
Taking a cue from Ubisoft’s design strategy, the Luminous Productions produced game pads its rather short main story run time by placing hundreds of icons on the map representing tasks like Monuments that can give Frey an addition to certain base stats including increasing her strength or overall health, present time trials where the players will have to defeat re-spawning hordes of enemies, or sneak up on mystical cats that, when successfully petted, join Frey whenever she enters one of the safe houses (“Pilgrim’s Refuge) scattered around the map where she can upgrade her equipment, craft healing items, and accept in-game challenges that enhance each spell Frey can learn either through automatic scenes, purchasing with “Mana” on the skill tree (Mana is usually collected via blue hazes bellowing out of the ground throughout Athia), or diving into an enchanted fountain.
These challenges usually include performing that spell a certain amount of times under specific conditions like defeating twenty-five enemies vulnerable to the spell’s elemental property. Monuments are only a small sampling of what’s available to the player if they want to experience everything from liberating fortresses of foes, to completing the few side quests offered throughout the main story’s entirety, to fighting optional bosses known as “Abominations”.
After forty-three hours, I finished the main story on “Normal” difficulty while trying to complete a lot of the optional content such as taking photos with Frey’s cellphone at designated spots to show off to a pair of kids who’ve never been outside of the only area with living humans, “Cipal” (though it makes little sense how Frey’s phone battery lasts so long to take all fifty of the necessary pictures scattered across the map).
When the thirteenth chapter representing the endgame began, I took advantage of Frey’s traversal abilities to scour the map in ways she couldn’t during chapter five or even chapter ten; ticking off the necessary requirements to gain the platinum trophy including completing the 105 spell challenges, defeating every boss again in a time trial environment, and attaining all of Frey’s equipment with one piece of gear being located in nightmarish section featuring aggressively re-spawning enemies bombarding Frey on a narrow mountain. This quest for the platinum while upping the difficulty in several aspects took me another sixteen hours to put this one & done playthrough at the near sixty hour mark.
What Makes “Forspoken” Unique?
Not long before “Forspoken’s” full release, a cutscene showcasing Frey’s amazement over her newfound magical powers became gaming’s latest tiresome meme. But in truth, the awe of Frey’s magic-based abilities don’t end after that supposed “cringy” moment as she is eventually gifted four elementally-infused spell sets (earth, fire, water, and electricity in that order) with all four sporting three categories of usage: “Attack”, “Support”, and “Surge”. While every “Attack” spell can be charged up, their varying forms and elemental properties work differently as each magic “Attack” also has three sub-categories per spell. For example, “Sila’s” fire-based “Attack” spell “Blast Slice” produces a spear that is automatically thrown and explodes upon piercing an enemy that will do damage to nearby foes as well; where as “Rage Slice” sees Frey rushing forward and throwing haymakers like Tifa from “Final Fantasy VII”.
After upgrading each spell via the skill tree, both “Attack” and “Surge” spells can be charged to level three with devastating effects including the latter’s range expanding exponentially. “Surge” attacks are essentially Frey’s limit break/super maneuvers where the meter in the spell menu’s middle fills up when successfully using “Attack” and “Support” magic. Once filled, pressing the two buttons associated with performing “Attack” and “Support” spells at the same time will unleash the “Surge” magic attack. But, just like every other spell, enemies can interrupt “Surge” attacks if the player isn’t careful.
As expected by the name, “Support” spells are rooted in buffing Frey and, depending on the magic, debuffing an enemy. Frey’s initial “Support” spell set will allow the player to cure her of poison with “Leach”, while “Disperse” provides a temporary flower turret that sprouts from the ground. As varied as “Attack” and “Surge” magic are, “Support” spells increases the level of experimentation with the player being able to stack buffs, debilitate foes, and build up the “Surge” meter by constantly switching between spell sets. Sadly, the game drip-feeds the unlocking of spells with the last set only becoming available after the tenth of twelve story-based chapters; meaning a majority of experiencing the electric elemental powers will happen post-narrative.
Another big factor in “Forspoken’s” gameplay is the traversal system. Frey’s magic-infused parkour maneuvers work exceptionally well when moving throughout the map with new abilities being unlocked by the player to really make Frey seem like a superhero; be it using the “Shimmy” to bounce off the ground for some increased momentum after a jump, or floating inside a water bubble from one elevated pillar to another in hopes of reaching that far-off Monument. But the parkour system isn’t just for getting Frey from one point to another as it plays a pivotal role in avoiding death in battle.
By using well-timed dodges and jumps, the player can have Frey avoiding attacks and even temporarily stunning foes. With successful attacks and avoidances during a fight, a rating meter will appear in the top right corner. The higher the rating, the experience points gained after finishing the last enemy is multiplied up to two times while the potential item drop rarity is also increased; making it imperative during those early hours to get the best rating possible and keep it high.
As if there weren’t enough systems in regards to combat, there is Frey’s gear that, too, is broken down into three categories: “Cloak”, “Necklace”, and “Nails”. Frey’s cloaks and necklaces have base stats when attained connected to boosting her health, defense and the strength of whatever spell set is currently available. These pieces of jewelery also sport up to four slots to add supplementary effects like increasing the chance of landing critical hits; though some cloaks and necklaces have the slots automatically set and may or may not be the most beneficial including decreasing “Attack” magic power in favor of auto-healing in battle. Nails, however, have no upgradable stats and only two slots with predetermined effects that should help Frey.
For everything that “Forspoken” offers in terms of combat options and gear load-outs, the enemy AI is lacking no matter if the player has switched the settings to make each battle the hardest possible. Adversaries range from overly annoying birds, shuffling infected humans, or shielded warriors who need to be shot in the face or from behind. Larger foes throw out unblockable maneuvers frequently that not only damages Frey heavily, but will also send her flying skyward in dramatic fashion.
Every enemy has an elemental property with the opposing element being the apparent road to victory; yet even when the word “Resistant” pops up when attacking a foe, constant usage of said elemental attack will still put that creature down rather quickly especially if the player is geared up moderately well. This waning difficulty as the narrative progresses and the player goes about exploring Athia also affects one of the environment’s most interesting implementations: “Breakstorms”.
Happening randomly, “Breakstorms” envelope particular portions of the map at any time the game sees fit to not only blacken out the surrounding area alongside blustering winds, but also starts infinitely spawning gigantic, ethereal creatures known as “Nightmares” that, when initially confronted in the story, will have the player hitting the “use healing potion” button frequently until they opt to keep fighting or run away before death overwhelms Frey. Sadly, by the time the player attains the water elemental spells, Nightmares become woefully easy even if the player hasn’t focused on picking up or modifying Frey’s gear mostly because a “Nightmare’s” water-based vulnerability.
For all of its positives and negatives in terms of combat, what really has gained the ire of gamers almost everywhere is the dialogue. A majority of the time, Frey and Cuff will banter back and forth in a fashion that emphasizes Frey’s “fish out of water” thinking in this world that Cuff apparently knows very well. As the main story progresses there’s actual tonal shifts in their relationship with Cuff becoming more aggressive when the plot dictates. Sadly, moving throughout Athia, their communication barely changes with dialogue exchanges heard in the first few hours being repeated even post-story far too frequently.
The most underwhelming narrative aspect has to be the plot’s general presentation with an interesting premise hampered by typecast NPCs, underwhelming villains who barely get any screen time until the last two chapters, and side quests that do little to add any incentive to help these plastic-faced people. Frey, though understandable in her intent of getting back home, doesn’t prove too likeable for the first few chapters before the third act changes her dramatically during an extensive information dump where an entire chapter is essentially a walking simulator with cutscenes sprinkled in to break up the monotony.
Technically, “Forspoken” is a mixed bag. Athia’s map is massive with some impressive differing regions in terms of presentation. Sadly, the textures associated with these environments are mostly muddied or too similar in terms of what can or can’t be jumped off of when Frey tries to attach herself to a rock. Enemies can blend into the setting way too easily due to the game’s muted color scheme and framerate drops occur at any time be it during a simple moving through world or when confronted by a horde of enemies even when the game is set to “Performance Mode” on a PS5.
The camera and lighting can prove troublesome with the prior being the cause of Frey being hit by enemies off-screen especially flying foes as it’s hard to keep up with their movements even when using the in-game lock-on system; while lighting may be too inefficient when taking on foes in a forest or blinding the player upon exiting a building. Thankfully general stability is remarkably solid in a grandiose game like this featuring no soft or hard crashes throughout sixty hours of play.
Another aspect of “Forspoken” that must be praised is its accessibility options. Beyond the display and sound options is full controller layout changes the player can use to make everything feel easier to play. One of the most impressive settings option is making the game easy or as difficult as the combat can allow in its current form including increasing or decreasing how much damage Frey can take, or how fast her stamina replenishes to perform those parkour maneuvers even if the overall difficulty is set at “Normal”.
“Forspoken”, for all its ideas and positive aspects, falls into the same open-world trappings of its genre-rooted predecessors with a short-winded story featuring unlikeable or unremarkable characters, a plethora of map icons to complete, and a combat system that is both satisfying thanks to the tools given and disappointing due to enemies failing to adapt to the growing power of this outsider turned hero.
Should You Play “Forspoken”?
Though given a lot of flack initially, “Forspoken” isn’t an inherently terrible game broken at the seams and failing to inspire. The combat from beginning to end has flairs & flashes of greatness with the traversal system really making exploring an empty world enjoyable especially when the task at hand is to finish a nearby part of the extensive checklist needed to get a potentially useful, though eventually unneeded new piece of gear.
Even if this game sounds like something interesting from a gameplay perspective because the story is lacking no matter how one looks at it, “Forspoken” is a perfect “wait for a sale” experience as it really does nothing unique; but is still quite enjoyable a majority of the time. If someone doesn’t wait and buys it at full price, there’s a good chance the player will want to slap themselves for spending too much money on a simply solid experience like Frey verbally assaulting Cuff for stressfully asking if she is okay after falling from a dangerous height onto a bed of rocks.
