Review Forspoken (PS5): all this has already been said

Forspoken, the new action RPG from Square Enix, is already among us with an open world and magical abilities. Find out what is interesting and what is not, here!

Forspoken is the latest title from Luminous Productions, the studio of Square Enix what brought us final fantasy xv back in 2016. The group now presents a new IP that leaves aside the main saga of the company, and instead of presenting us with a Kingdom Dragon Fantasy Triangle Octopath Questpresents us with an adventure that has more to do with Assassin’s Creed or the PlayStation exclusives than with anything else. These are our impressions after playing it on PS5.

Forspoken, right off the bat, is an open-world third-person action game that has two gameplay axes: one, parkour-style scrolling and two, combat loaded with magical powers. In the game, we take control of Freywhich has nothing to do with game of Thrones (luckily) she is a girl from New York who, when her apartment is set on fire and a series of strange things happen to her, finds herself transported to the world of athia. There it connects with a sentient glove that endows it with magical powers that will be the basis of your abilities during the game.

After spending the initial minutes of the game and being told the premise, you will quickly be released into the open world where you will have to go between points with the marker to perform activities such as “kill X amount of bugs”, “unlock fast travel point”, “get X weapon upgrade” and so to get precious experience points that allow you to improve your skills. To get from one point to another you will be able to move doing Parkour which visually closely resembles the abilities of Noctis in ffxv crosses with Mirror’s Edge: the system is to hold the button Parkour activated while you move at high speed from one point to another and dodge obstacles.

The other portion of the game that is relevant is the combat: this is where you can tell that they gave it their all in a very fun system where you can switch between four fighting styles. These include different ways to cast damage-dealing spells, and each have their own support magic system for doing area powers. Thus, you will have to dedicate yourself to moving around the map, gathering enemies, and liquidating them with great attacks that are precious. Of course – beyond the visual spectacle, the game is quite easy and is more spectacle than skill, especially if you play it on medium.

Forspoken, although on paper it’s fun with its mixture of Assassin’s Creed / Infamous / PlayStation exclusive with open world, it suffers from having a strange half tone that makes the plot not resonate much. The big draw is supposed to be the relationship between Frey and his glove who constantly chat as you do things and try to give it a tone of buddy copbut a lot of times it feels like they don’t have a good connection and are kind of fighting with each other – something that was already evident from the demo with comments like “Could you try to get them to hit you less?”. That still holds up in the full game and sometimes it’s hard to get hooked on the minute by minute of what’s going on.

The other aspect that doesn’t help too much is that the world of Athia, even though this parallel world with a different culture of people is trying to survive a strange corruption in a last bastion of humanity, doesn’t give you much of a reason to want to save it. . The NPCs kind of treat you badly, and as a result, Frey sometimes sounds like he’d rather be in a starbucks than saving these people – something that implies out loud several times. This takes away the urgency of the story because rather than saving people you prefer to stay unlocking little dots on the map, which is super relaxing and fun because you kill bugs and you become more power.

The thinness of the main story is a terrible drawback because the truth is that the powers you unlock are great and the fights with the bosses They are full of adrenaline. In the latter many times you will have to put the lock-on to aim while you dodge casting spells and changing styles to overcome vulnerabilities. The dodge button is miraculous because the area attacks are tremendous and dodging at just the right time to counterattack as the enemy finishes power throwing causes a feeling of empowerment that is the very essence of the game. It’s just a shame that you have to get past story moments to get to these sequences, and that’s something that shouldn’t happen in a single-player game.

Forspoken has a controversial technical section. For example, the graphics are very good, but the art style is rather bare with rather empty backgrounds, and a world divided into four regions that have no personality. Yes, the FPS are rock solid on PS5, but they’re not showing you anything overly interesting or breathtaking landscapes. Actually you are going to see a lot of stone, tree, and not much else. To make a crude comparison, Ghost of Tsushima he had a lot of personality next to Athia’s world. On the other hand, the sound is not well leveled either and we recommend you use your hand so that the ambient sound and music do not cover the dialogue, something that seems like a very easy mess to solve.

In conclusion

There is nothing wrong with Forspoken but a thousand careless details. The game is a lot like other titles. If you like Assassin’s Creed or the PlayStation exclusives, and want combat with a nice twist, you’re in for an entertaining but not very memorable experience. The point is that it feels like Square Enix made a mistake in measuring its audience. A girl who has a lot of ranged attacks fights against impossible creatures of incredible sizes in an open world that she explores to improve her abilities and help its inhabitants. Do you think we are describing Forspoken? Because we were actually describing Horizon Forbidden West. Perhaps this title would have more value on a platform where players don’t have the same access to this type of single-player experience: this game should have been released for Xbox, and that would be something else.

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