Forspoken Review – Enormous Potential, Failed Execution

Forspoken brings a mesmerising world in the most uninteresting manner. Early impressions of the game were not strong as the characters had no depth, the dialogues seemed forced, and the story was so-so. But during all my time completing the game, there was only one thing on my mind, this game has massive potential. But the developers failed to execute the game properly.

I reviewed Forspoken on the PlayStation 5 and played with the Ray Tracing graphics mode. Even though the frame rate did drop a lot, the beauty of the world allowed me to stay in this mode for the rest of my play through. There were different modes of difficulty available, but I went with the one the developers had recommended to the players.

Breathtaking Athia in Forspoken

It was an overly ambitious undertaking as the developers created this massive open world with different biomes and exhilarating sites. The only issue here is that with all the beauty in the world, there is no incentive for the player to explore. There is nothing they find in the world that might be worth looting or adding to the story.

The world is undoubtedly huge and is filled with different types of threats and monsters that players can go up against. But, other than the few altered mutants, the players will find themselves fighting with the same 2-3 types of enemies in the world. One good thing about one type of enemy is that they come in hordes, which adds to the challenge.

Most of the time, the players will feel that this huge open world only serves one purpose and that is to highlight the flashy traversal and parkour mechanics that have been created for the protagonist. But even using those powers doesn’t feel exciting for too long and you eventually find yourself fast travelling to every location.

The locations also hold references to Indian words, such as Junoon Castle or Svargana. A portion of the game has been influenced by Indian mythology. However, it also draws inspiration from fantasy worlds such as Harry Potter, Witcher and more. Another thing that I noticed while going through the game is that it would only allow the players to explore at certain points and restart from the last location if the players did not stay within the destination.

Cuff and Its Powers

Gameplay is where Forspoken really shines, and we get to see the potential of the game. Right off the bat, the protagonist, Frey Holland, is granted powers to traverse and parkour through the world with magical abilities. On top of that she is also granted the power to control rocks and use them for defensive and offensive measures.

As the game goes on, Frey defeats more enemies and unlocks more elements to wield. Towards the end, Frey can wield four different elements represented with a primary color. This list of color and corresponding elements includes Purple for Rock, Red for Fire, Blue for Water and Green for Light. All these powers have distinct offensive styles, defensive styles and special attacks that can be chained together to wreak havoc on your enemies.

The style of combat is like a general hack-and-slash game. Forspoken also motivates the player to move around a lot while fighting. This movement adds to the charm of the game as players fight while using parkour while sliding across and dodging. These moves both look extremely flashy and feel satisfying at the same time. At the same time, being able to wield so many different powers simultaneously does make you feel like a badass.

The same charm also applies to the traversal in the game. All new magical powers that Frey learns along the way, add to her traversal moves. At first, she is only able to parkour and run, then with the following power she can grapple onto things. As the game progresses, she can glide on the water with the next power. The final power enables her to shoot herself in the air to add to the variety in gameplay.

Frey Holland and the Crew

The in-game characters are not the strong point of the game. Most of the time the performances from the supporting characters were so flat and uninteresting that I forgotten about them right after the introduction. On the other hand, some main bosses like Tanta Prav and Tanta Sila have been written very well and really end up adding to the story.

On the other hand, Frey is dealing with a lot from her past life, and it bleeds into her life in Athia. The problem here is the lack of consistency in this part of the story which left me with a strange feeling. At times it feels like Frey has everything under control and there is nothing to worry about. But right in the next moment Frey would act out and cry to return to New York.

Frey’s character development feels rushed and abrupt at times making it extremely difficult to connect with the character. Her dialogues are all over the place and players would find themselves figuring out what she means most of the time. The Cuff, her talking magical tool, does add some humour to the overall game but fails to be consistent with the quips.

Corruption, Tantas and Awakening

Now, the writers of the game created a grand narrative where a mystical virus called “The Break” is spreading corruption all over the realm of Athia. As part of the corruption, this virus is turning people into mystical Zombies. The Athian realm is ruled by the Tantas and Frey must beat down each one of them to rescue the last surviving member of this world.

The story is great, and it does get interesting towards the end. But the pacing is just all over the place. The beginning of the game is quite slow and for a game that is 15-20 hours long, you take a decent amount of time before you get into action. Even after you get into the action, things do not get any exciting until you face off with the first Tanta.

Side missions in the game are called Detours and developers could not have found a better word to be honest. These missions feel like actual detours over the main missions as they do not serve any real purpose. The players will find themselves rushing through them just to get back to the main story. One of the detours where you are given a tour of Cipal is pure agony.

The conclusion of the game on the other hand was not too bad as we got to see the much-needed character development in Frey through the Awakening phase. The game also throws a couple of unexpected twists and turns at you which ramp up your intrigue. Finishing off the main boss was more than satisfying and provided closure to the game.

Conclusion

Forspoken has a lot of charm and personality that it brings through its beautifully designed world, signature gameplay and combat styles that will have you immersed for hours. But these elements can’t compensate for the flaws in the story, characters, and the expansive in-game world. Forspoken could’ve been one of the best games of 2023 if the developers spent a little more time in developing the characters and story as they did with the gameplay and combat.