Sony Entertainment’s latest exclusive from Square Enix, Forspoken, has been getting hit or miss coverage from just about every angle. The game features a couple different storylines that run concurrently, one taking place on Earth proper and the other taking place in the mystical world of Athia. The protagonist, Frey Holland, doesn’t know much about her past as she was discovered as a baby on the Holland Tunnel as a child. As an orphan, Frey grew up in the system and is a troubled kid who doesn’t believe in herself as much as she should.
Frey’s “partner” for this adventure is a sentient vambrace she calls Cuff. While Cuff pretty much sounds like Jarvis from Iron Man, some gamers have complained at the constant stream of dialogue your inanimate partner spits out over the course of the game. As with other games featuring talking items, you can turn the dialogue down if you find it grating but it’s mostly just the repetition of phrases that I found annoying, and that’s when I was bothered by stuff, which wasn’t too often.
The combat of the game relies on magic and environmental spells that allow Frey to defeat her enemies. The game adapts to players and forces them to mix it up in combat, doing so by featuring enemies that are immune to certain tactics or whose form changes throughout the battle, giving them multiple different attacking styles. Fortunately for players, the game feeds back information on your spells, letting the player know if their attacks are having any sort of impact on the enemy or if they need to change it up. If they’re having too difficult of a time, they can simply ask Cuff for advice and then adopt those settings to press the attack.
Forspoken is definitely an RPG, even if it’s an action-RPG. You’ll come across villagers who repeat the same thing no matter when you run into them, you’ll find enemies randomly walking across the environments, and you’ll need a host of different items and helpers to eventually complete your quest. I mention these things because I’ve never been a huge RPG fan, but I actually found myself enjoying this game quite a bit. The story is one we’ve all heard and seen a million times, but it’s done well enough that I was amused. It’s not going to win any awards with its writing, but it’s pretty inoffensive.
The part of this game that I struggled with the most was the parkour and that’s because it doesn’t quite work like it should. It’s a bit more unwieldy than I was expecting from a Square Enix exclusive that was clearly given a substantial budget. It’s baffling that the parkour was as hit or miss as it was in the game. I am also not sure I fully understand why we couldn’t save during an “event scene,” which was often nothing more than downtime between conversations.
Another problem I had was that the game had really abrupt ends to conversations and events. One second you’re doing something and the next second things are being wrapped up and explained to you after the fact. It’s really confusing and often really breaks up the immersion as you’re trying to figure out if you accidentally hit a button that skipped a bunch of information or if the game just decided you didn’t need that information to begin with. It’s very disorienting at first and takes a second before it becomes a natural part of the experience.
But even with these problems, this game is still a lot better than some of the reviews have suggested. It isn’t a game that is going to blow you away or offer up a Game of the Year story contender, but it’s certainly done well enough that people should be able to find several hours worth of fun within. I’d wait a few months for this to go on sale and then grab it and all the accompanying DLC for about half-price. It’s not going to be the best game you’ve ever played, but I promise it’s nowhere near as bad as some folks are making this out to be, either.
The game is really whatever you make of it.
BSO Review: 7.25/10