Analysis | Forspoken wastes good combat in problematic game

Forspoken wastes good combat – The current Square Enix is ​​a box of surprises, for better and for worse. At the same time that the Japanese giant can reward its fans with games of the caliber of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Dragon Quest XI, it can also drop bombs on the level of Ballan Wonderworld and Marvel’s Avengers.

Forspoken wastes good combat

Forspoken is neither far north nor far south, but it’s definitely disappointing. With aggressive marketing due to the exclusivity with PlayStation on consoles, it hinted that it would be one of the high points of 2023, but at the moment it is among the lowest.

From New York to Athia

Forspoken’s story follows the classic line of sending the protagonist who came from the real world to a fantasy world. You’ve already seen this in Alice in Wonderland, which the game literally references with a book in Frey’s apartment, and also in manga in the Isekai genre. Frey is a New York girl who grew up without her parents, leading a troubled life in the suburbs of the city. The introduction is very touching and even the mannerisms of the dialogue and the weak facial animations of the characters do not harm the objective of connecting the player to the delicate situation that she lives between the life of crime and the dream of moving to a better place. Finding a mysterious golden bracelet at the most critical moment in her life, Frey ends up traveling to another universe, to a magical continent called Athia.

At that moment we are introduced to the most important supporting character in the story, which is the bracelet itself. He talks to Frey all the time and is the only one who can hear him, thus starting the problems in the story that are widely publicized on social media right now. The dynamic between the two rarely works and the attempt to give a comic air to the dialogues ends up hitting few jokes and leaving everything with that little way of other people’s shame and unnecessary exaggeration.

Forspoken wastes good combat

The heart of the story, however, is interesting and at times holds you. Athia was once a paradise protected by four great warriors called Theias. After a mysterious event which is called the Rupture, the protectors of this land went mad and began to attack the people themselves. The effects of the Rupture hit the people as well, turning most of them into crazed individuals or zombies that roam the countryside. Humanity’s last hope is a city called Cipal. It doesn’t take a detective to imagine that the goal will be to hunt down the four great protectors of the past and unravel the mystery of the Break. Although it sometimes loses its rhythm, and the mysteries are unraveled very quickly or slowly, the script ends up keeping good surprises about the protagonist’s past and how she was connected with Athia all the time.

In Cipal there is a good core of characters and it is in this place that the story about the formation of magic and groups in this world is told, even if sometimes misused in secondary missions poorly constructed from a gameplay point of view. Overall, the game has positive points in the open world, as I’ll discuss later, but drops a lot in quality in the city due to the boring activities and slow pace.

Highlight for combat

Every aspect of the Rupture is reflected in the world of Forspoken. The fields are large and empty, populated only by enemies, many of them the people who have been turned into zombies, and the ruins of the past. With a good variation of scenarios, it would be a delight to explore if it weren’t for the below average graphics for a new generation exclusive, and the terrible performance. On PS5, where I played, the fidelity mode tries to keep the resolution as high as possible, but the result is not the best. To make matters worse, it fails to lock the FPS at 30 in fights and in several places it drops well below that, slowing down the screen and lacking responsiveness to the controls. The performance mode manages to be even more frustrating, with absurd drops in resolution, sometimes falling below 1080p. Something unacceptable in the middle of 2023.

Even with all these technical issues, the traversal mechanics stand out. As new skill trees are unlocked and Frey masters more spells, her transition speed through the open world increases, with magic sprints, jumps, a board to float at high speed through water and long, powerful leaps to climb the cliffs. higher locations. Even with distant objectives, it is not tedious to get from point A to B, as the player feels empowered and in control of someone really impressive.

Forspoken wastes good combat

The open world has several activities that are interesting at first and you spend few moments without having something to do. There are mazes to explore in search of new equipment, areas to clear, treasures to find and powerful monsters to hunt. The problem is that most of these activities revolve around combat, which despite being the highlight of the game, will inevitably tire you out at some point. This gets worse as the game progresses, as all areas have the same activities and the map becomes one of those full of tasks to check off on a little list.

Speaking more about combat, it allows Frey to master earth magic at first, being able to create plants to help in fights, trapping enemies with roots and using that connection with the earth to run faster through it. By itself, this skill tree is already very fun to use and takes a long time to be fully released. However, she still learns more trees as she defeats the Theias and absorbs their power. There are electricity, fire and water trees, for example, each with a very diverse array of special powers that work both in combat and in the world. The effects of the spells, their diversity, and the number of enemies on the screen impresses and makes the fights memorable several times, especially with everything already released and being able to change trees to exploit the weakness of each opponent.

The boss fights are also pretty cool and with good animations in general. The game turns out to be quite easy, which sometimes frustrates one or another fight against a powerful being, but still manages to provide exciting moments in these clashes. Again, it’s a shame that poor performance so cripples the game as a whole and undermines potential that Forspoken rarely achieves.

Conclusion

Forspoken is disappointing for what it could have been and wastes very interesting and varied combat on a generic open world, mediocre graphics and dreadful dialogue. The lowest point is definitely the technical performance, far below average, which is unacceptable in a game exclusive to a current generation console. Even so, there is something to praise, especially in the gameplay, which with good use of spells manages to load the game until it gives in to Athia’s repetitive activities.

pros

• Dynamic combat full of different spells
• The history of the world where the game takes place is interesting and has potential
• Crossing the open world is fast and full of possibilities

cons

• Graphics and facial animations fall short of the current generation
• Performance and resolution undermine all the good points of the game
• Dynamic between Frey and the bracelet doesn’t work and the dialogues are bad
• Generic open world with exhaustive activities
• Activities in Cipal and side quests are poorly constructed

Grade: 6.0/10.0

A PS5 copy of the game was provided by Square Enix for the purposes of this review.