Man, when we have a new Action RPG game that comes out of the woodwork, I am always curious. Will this be the start of a new overdone franchise? How will they cram in the inevitable live service stuff? I know, I am cynical. The good news is that while Forspoken has its flaws, in many ways, it ticks the boxes I want to see more games try.
Yeah Nah, the story has it’s moments
Forspoken begins on Earth with our heroine Frey as she deals with a court date. We get just enough time on Earth here to get a vibe for our new young delinquent. She shows that life has been pretty shit for her, but she is doing what she can to get by. She comes across a mysterious vambrace in an abandoned looking room where she is pulled away to a mysterious land with the vambrace stuck to her wrist. Best of all, it starts talking to her.
This new world is Athia. Some prickly dialog takes place between the vambrace; that she calls Cuff; and herself as she learns a lot about this world. There’s a big dragon, there is a mysterious haze called the break. The break turns humans into zombies, but thanks to Cuff she seems to be protected from it. That’s not the only ability Cuff gives her; she can also use defensive and offensive magic, as well as magical parkour abilities.
Cuff helps lead her to an isolated city where she is immediately feared as an outsider. Turns out this place is under the fear of the 4 magical leaders called the Tantas. Once upon a time they were amazing leaders, but the world has turned to shit since a brutal war and this mysterious break occurred.
On the whole it is an interesting story, albeit a bit cliche at times, and an interesting world that has been built. There are some really good story beats, and the pace of the plot speeds up as it goes on, which I really liked, and it lands a really solid ending. It easily could have been unnecessarily stretched out for another 5 or so hours, but I am glad they structured it the way they did. Dialog can be really hit and miss at times, with a lot of the talking between Frey and Cuff as you play. It has some good moments, but there is a lot of time that I wanted the two to shut up a bit. There are also moments, like when Frey picks up the Alice in Wonderland book and comments which are unnecessarily on the nose. But these are nitpicks, to be fair.
Nah Yeah, the gameplay is hit and miss
Gameplay is what makes or breaks a game like this, and here the game is good enough. The combat is clunky at times. You basically use the Trigger buttons to shoot and have individual weapon wheels for both triggers. As you progress you gain different power types and so switching between powers and power types gets clunky quickly. Every so often I would change it, but I quickly just went with the pick and stick method. Shooting, aiming, and aiming at enemies in the world can be very, very clunky. It works, and when you get a rhythm it is good enough, but it does take a bit to gain that rhythm.
Where the game absolutely kicks ass is in the parkour. By holding one button, Frey uses magical parkour, allowing her to leap over, run up, and scale objects all around the world. It looks smooth and plays smoothly, but it is easy to overshoot stuff at times. It’s just damn fun, and half the reason exploring the open world is fun. As the game progresses and as you complete tasks, it gets even better and is quite easily the best part of the game.
Yeah Nah, The open world is saved by the parkour
The open world is very open-worldly. There are heaps of stuff to do from exploring, finding challenges, additional bad enemies, and heaps of collectable tasks to do. This is all passable, it isn’t overwhelming, but there is heaps of stuff to do if you want to. I generally did side tasks because I was enjoying exploring using the parkour, and would just do stuff as I came across it. The world is also packed with enemies, from break-corrupted humans, to break-corrupted animals. They are very aggressive and do mix up their attack types which adds some decent variability.
There are some other minor details I found interesting. One thing is you don’t have to mash a button to pick up all the resources in the world. Some games have started doing this, but far too many still require you to press the button by basically mashing X as you run around. So this is one little thing, the game does so right. The flip side is you do have to press X for collectables, which feels weird when you auto-pick everything else up. One annoyance is that when you pick up a bunch of repeated collectables it makes you load up the same information page about the item, and then stand there as it loads or as Frey talks about it. In other ways the game makes it nice and streamlined; in others it is clunky as shit.
Nah Yeah, The game is worthwhile
So basically, in short, I really enjoyed my time with Forspoken. It’s not going to be my GOTY, but it was a damn fine time. It looks good, plays well enough, has a good story, and is just damn fun to play once you get the game’s rhythm. It has its faults, so don’t expect gaming perfection here, but if it is piquing your interest at all, it’s an easy, Nah Yeah, get stuck in.
