A lot of people are looking forward to Forspoken, one of the first big games of 2023, and a brand-new IP from the creative minds of Square Enix. It’s an ambitious game that combines deep magic and open-world exploration with a cinematic experience. Is it the game we’ve been waiting for? Time to find out!
Welcome to Athia
In Forspoken, you’ll take control over Frey Holland, a young woman growing up in New York City. Frey has always been an outsider and can’t get her life together. In the first moments, you’ll see Frey struggling to keep her head above water. From court meetings to your local gang members asking Frey for money she clearly doesn’t have. In the real world, Frey clearly isn’t living her best life. Living in a small and messy apartment with only Homer, her cat, to keep her company. She’s struggling and the game really manages to suck you into the drama of Frey’s life. In a desperate attempt to run away from her faith, Frey finds a mysterious golden bracelet that quickly transports her to Athia, a strange land with people, places, and cultures, unlike anything she has ever seen.
In Athia, she discovers she isn’t just your average New York girl, Frey has certain abilities, abilities that enable her to cast powerful spells and use the power of her magic to traverse the sprawling landscapes. Together with her sentient bracelet called ‘Cuff’, she sets off on an epic journey to find her way back home. The first couple of hours introduce you to the story and although the soundtrack is stellar, the acting often felt a little uncanny or forced. There’s something about Frey that I found extremely cringe and forced at the beginning of the game, making it harder to connect with her. Luckily, the voice acting of Cuff is a lot better but the dialogues suffer the same forced humor in my opinion. It’s something I grew used to the more I played and the deeper I delved into the world of Athia but I never really got fully invested in the story. A bit of a letdown since the game focuses a lot on the story and you’ll be entering cutscenes at incredibly high pacing during the first hours. It does get better when you gain more freedom to explore Athia but just keep in mind that the opening hours aren’t as epic as they are portrayed.
Magic is here to save the day
Although I wasn’t really fond of my opening hours with the game, it did get better when the magic got introduced and I was able to explore the world of Athia at my own pacing. Magic is a crucial part of the gameplay mechanics and flows into everything you’ll do. It goes way deeper than what you would first expect and it’s one of those mechanics that you can easily sink countless hours into, finding the right spells that work best for your style. Let me explain the basics and why it works surprisingly well.
When in combat, the game focuses on Frey’s magic which is triggered by the triggers on your controller. One side activates the more long-ranged attacks while the other triggers are used for closer-ranged combat. It’s here where things get interesting. You can easily consider the magic attacks of the left triggers supporting attacks while the attacks under your right triggers are the ones that will inflict real damage. You can easily switch between different spells and combine both spells to deliver a brutal special attack. It’s a unique system that really comes into play the more you advance. What looked like a fun way to cast spells, eventually goes so much deeper when you explore and unlock more lore and more abilities. Take the fact that you can paint your fingernails in certain patterns to buff your magic powers, different patterns are spread across the world of Athia, and the more you’ll find, the more powerful your powers will eventually become. The best part about this is the fact that you can combine different spells to create new unique combat mechanics. The game gives you a lot of freedom so being able to create your favorite combat style is a no-brainer. Messing around with the magic spells and finding the ones that work best for you, is one of the game’s main selling points and it’s actually a lot of fun if you’re willing to spend a couple of hours with it.
Besides the combat spells, Frey often learns new tricks to buff her magical Parcours skills, making it easier to travel the enormous world that lies ahead of you. This magical Parcours is your main way of transporting yourself aside from fast-travel locations. It’s a good idea but it doesn’t always work out as intended. By pressing the O-button while running, Frey will automatically enter her magical gotta-go-fast Parcours skills which enable her to run, jump and climb at an incredible pace. The main problem, however, is the fact that it isn’t as precise as it should be. It happened on multiple occasions that I just got stuck behind an object or couldn’t climb over certain walls because I wasn’t running as precisely as I should have. A bit of a letdown since I do like the idea of this fast-paced travel but it doesn’t work as well as it should and that’s a returning issue in Forspoken…
A diamond in the rough
The main problem with Forspoken is its lack of polish. Yes, the magic looks great and the particles of your attacks are pretty impressive. Yes, the hair of Frey blows realistically in the wind but why do the locations look so boring and muddy? The draw distance is very limited and the world feels empty and unoriginal, especially in the first couple of locations. There’s a huge disconnect between how great some parts of the game look compared to the environments. It’s clear that the team wanted to create thrilling and realistic characters but didn’t receive enough extra development time to give the environments the same kind of love. Since this is one of the first PlayStation 5-only games, I was expecting a lot more visually speaking. If you get over the lesser graphics, there is a lot of fun exploration going on and the way you level up your magic Parcours skills does offer the needed fun. I did enjoy my time with Forspoken but it could have been so much better than what it is now.
The story has fun moments but suffers from unnecessary and cringe dialogue that should have been edited out. Sure, there are moments that feel absolutely epic and there are multiple moments in the story where you’ll feel a deeper connection with Frey but it isn’t as good as it could have been and the story is over a bit too soon. With some extra editing and development time, this would easily be one of the best new IPs in years.
Conclusion:
Forspoken has some stellar moments thanks to its genius combat system and magic spells but fails to truly deliver. There are a couple of things that stand in its way of becoming a must-have game on day one, especially the environments and dialogues often fall flat on their face. That being said, it’s not a bad game at all and you’ll enjoy your time with it once the game finds its pacing after the first chapter, just don’t expect this to be the next big miracle.
