Forspoken

I picked this up in for super cheap just before Christmas for like £10 brand new. I thought why not, surely it can’t be as bad as the reviews say and for a tenner I’d imagine most games are worth your time at that price.

I had liked the look of this title when early footage had dropped and contemplated buying it on release but it was pushed back a few times, and then the mighty internet slandering began. The sales weren’t the best either from what I am aware, which is why less than 10 months later it was so cheap.

The story is middling, nothing new and ground breaking but serves the game well. It won’t take you long to complete, I finished the game at about 21 hours and that was with a good chunk of exploration. You play as Frey, a New Yorker who finds a magical vambrace and gets teleported to a new land called Athia. The story here misses the point in helping to open the world up as you face off against the Tantas which give you your new powers. As there is a fair few activities you could easily just not bother with or skate on past. It obviously has a story to keep everything going, but most of that is covered in lore you find on your travels. You can easily understand the story just by reading everything. I enjoy a good open world where the setting has a deep history to be explored but not at the expense of the main story, which should be richer in detail. A few extra cutscenes or main missions would’ve easily fixed this.

The combat and traversal in the game are the biggest highlight of the game, but are again hampered by the story. It doesn’t open until you find your first power around a third of the way through the chapters, and the last three chapters which are just story exposition and a boss fight. So, once you have a complete arsenal it doesn’t leave much time to get acquainted with them. Each power comes with it’s own set of unlockable attacks and spells, which can be further upgraded by doing a specific action like kill the last opponent with it, or hit 1000+ damage from behind or with the use of another ability. You can swap between them mid fight and each action has a cool down period. Once you’ve got most of them and you are parkouring around exploiting the enemies weaknesses, it does allow you to mow down the mobs in a near effortless manner. The combat downside definitely comes from the weak dodging and parrying which you can’t upgrade, you are just lumped with it and you really have to pre-empt an attack else you’ll definitely getting pounded into the ground like a tent peg.

Frey’s free running around the world for exploration is hella fun, you can just run full pelt everywhere, scale up mountains double, triple jump. Even zip across floating rock pathways to find a guild to explore, a monument to gain extra health/defence or trigger a time trial. You can go around towns and old fortifications as well to clear them out gaining an extra stat increase or some gear. Having this in the game for me does help me want to explore, as even in some bigger games I’ve played wondering around sometimes become tedious. Added with the many fast point travels dotted around clearing up a regions icons becomes no trouble.

The game graphically looks fantastic and each new area you unlock adds a little something more to the land of Athia. As a setting and world to explore I really liked the aesthetics and scope of some areas. It’s a bit of a cross between dragon age and dragons dogma in terms of design with a bit of final fantasy sprinkled in. I enjoy going round doing everything as I work on the way to the platinum trophy. However, if you don’t go for trophies or not inclined to do much past the main mission about 70/80% game is completely missable. It’s basically do everything, get enough mana to unlock all upgrades and then do the level up to increase damage or stamina etc.

I understand from a story point of view it makes sense but everywhere feels dead. There isn’t many side missions either and most of them take place in Cipal, the sorta last human city. A few more side missions which makes you go out and about are fully missing from the game. This would benefit the game and make for a reason to go scouting for stat increases or new gear.

The gear is pretty limited, it’s cloaks, necklaces and nail blood infused paint, and is the main source of an increase in health, defence and magic increases. You can use the limited crafting upgrades to add two or three extra buffs to the cloaks and necklaces, and the nails are just set stat changes or buffs. As well as upgrading their base stats slightly which can give you higher health or defence. You can’t really do much of a character build and most of the increase are slight so don’t make for much of a difference during combat. In regards to the stats of Frey I think having everything tied to various gear or specific monuments or story related upgrade was a bad choice as well. You earn experience from your many battles but you don’t gain anything other then mana which you use to unlock new powers, even if it was every few levels some extra health or damage wouldn’t go a miss.

One thing I did enjoy were the boss fights, from the big bad, the Tantas and the mini dungeons bosses you have to defeat to clear them. They were always distinct from themselves and I’d imagine if you ramped the difficulty up it’s add a new edge to the whole game. Most of the enemies once you’ve acquired all the powers aren’t much of a threat.

I should probably mention the dialogue in the game considering the teaser trailer. It’s hit and miss it’s not completely unredeemable, but it does have its moments. I think sometimes they lay it on a bit thick for edginess. Especially with Frey as she’s the only character that seems to swear, maybe to signify cultural differences in each world.

Overall all I’d rate this game a Tasty 6/10.

The game looks fantastic graphically, it plays well. The combat and traversal is utterly fun, I think the story is too short and nothing amazing due to being a bit rushed, and if you don’t read the archives you might miss some of it. The world is dead and if you just reduce damage received it’s not particularly difficult. Having great combat hampered by poor defence mechanics doesn’t help. However not every game needs to be a masterpiece like God of War Ragnarok, and this game for me falls into the category of it’s worthwhile and can be played without much reason and a fairly straight forward platinum if you are a trophy hunter. If you can pick it up for cheap or get it for a good price it’d be worth your time.

Released 24th February 2023, Sony Playstation 5.