Forspoken Review

 

I took this shot in-game. Incredible, right?

     Forspoken is an incredible game. Unfortunately, the story is very badly paced. Most of the best parts happen in the last three to four hours.

    As much as I like Frey, for most of the story she's a complete a-hole. What's worse is that after you complete the campaign where she has become more loveable, the end-game extra content takes her personality backwards as the normal banter she has with her "cuff" is from the beginning of the game where she's an a-hole.

     While I can understand why Frey is such a jerk most of the time due to her history, instead of being relatable, she's just mean to pretty much everyone for no real good reason ever. I can be a jerk too but damn, you know? Anyways...

     I really love the environments and side activities in Forspoken. Sadly, none of the combat really opens up until you've already beaten every boss in the game. The good thing is it opens up enough after just the first main story boss because of the new ability set you unlock. I had totally forgotten the game even had different ability sets until I had unlocked my first one. I was very happy about it because I played the open world for around twenty-five hours before finally moving on with the campaign and I had gotten bored of the first ability set by that point.

     For my first twenty hours of exploration, I was really impressed by the combat and world. I was sad that there was no real melee combat apart from the low health finishers which can't be considered melee combat. I had decided to move on with the story and after completing the first boss is when I was reminded and realized that I would unlock all new abilities and gameplay. And it was epic! The first main story boss unlocked melee combat!

     The coolest thing about the combat in Forspoken is how each spell tree has three different main attacks that you can pick between with multiple variations of use for combo style attacks as well as charging them up for stronger attacks. On top of that, each spell tree has multiple "support" abilities that add both offensive and defensive spells. All of the spells are beautiful and really flashy which I love. There's no ten-plus combos or anything which would have been awesome but there is a very nice variety of attacks and special effects.

     It is very weird that you don't really get to enjoy all the splendor that the combat has to offer until after you've completed the story because each boss fight is how you unlock the new abilities. From what I can tell based on other reviews and comments, the story itself might be around eight to ten hours long if you just rush through it. I didn't complete the story myself until around fifty hours in because I had spent a lot of time exploring early on. I currently have sixty hours played and will have at least seventy if not more before I'm done with it. There's massive amounts of content in the game. It is kind of "copy/paste" but it's cool stuff. 

     The world in Forspoken is nowhere close to "empty" as a lot of moron sheep commenters on forums and such keep saying. This is obvious to anybody that has actually taken the time to really play the game. There's so much to do everywhere you go and there's all kinds of random enemies in-between the content itself that you eventually will end up just running past them without bothering to fight. The "opinions" of sheep that didn't like the demo and don't think for themselves are ludicrous. I'm not going to hold back on these words because I'll never forget what happened with Anthem and the same is happening here. 

     While the best parts of the story happen towards the end of the game, the rest of the world offers so much awesomeness. There are very cool side dungeons with bosses that you don't see anywhere else in the game which sucks! There's only a few unique ones. Most of these dungeons have the same boss types but they're all cool. The open world itself has special bosses as well. There are normal enemies, stronger enemies, and then super badass enemies. The very special ones are marked on the map as well, either once you've been close enough to them or by accessing towers that reveal the areas.

     One of my favorite side activities is finding special cats. It's kind of stupid but it's a fun and adorable part of the game. I will be the best cat lady! It would have been awesome if there were parkour races as side content. The movement is pretty amazing. There are minor annoyances like auto-jumping off of pebbles (with auto parkour enabled) but overall it's wonderful.

     Since Forspoken plays out like an RPG and you do level up, there is a point where you basically become god-like. There is a very nice amount of Accessibility and difficulty options that allow you to set up some preference that can change up the overall challenge.

     An interesting lesson found at the end of the game is to be careful who you trust. I don't know why I never realized how true to our every day normal life stories like this are. I always thought of them as fantasy. I could recognize the truth in them but I didn't realize how deep everything is in regards to our normal every day life and that we should be very careful with whom we place our trust every single day. I've been too trusting for most of my life. I understand that now and it sucks. 

"Putting your faith in humans is a great way to guarantee disappointment." - Cuff (I like how the bracelet lights up when talking.)

     I thought about writing some more details but I think I've said enough and shared most of the things I care about. I really love Forspoken. There is some very bad dialogue and poor voice acting but overall it's awesome. I think it's unique and special while it also has most of the check box open world type gameplay.

     Some bullet point feedback:

• the delay between npc talking and interacting with the world again sucks
• forced snail's pace slow walk at times is so gross
• dungeon treasure rooms woulda been cooler if they had different shapes or colors depending on boss type or just different every time
• the music is so good
• the main story bosses were truly incredible

     Note: I've read about a lot of optimization issues with the game on PC. I experienced a few crashes myself as well as a couple of full system reboots on a very high end rig so it is a bit alarming. I would be hesitant to play this on a lower end PC until after patches or maybe just play on Low to Medium Graphics settings. Overall, my experience was nearly flawless. 

     Unrelated Note: Gotham Knights is also a cool game that I recommend. I haven't beaten it yet cuz I burnt out a bit on it after forty hours played. Happens sometimes. I burned out on a few of my favorite games including Mad Max and Days Gone before eventually returning later and completing them.

Thanks for reading. Game on. Trust your instincts. Question everything. Authority is the enemy. Expertise is an opinion. Professionalism is inhumane.

My Steam Review of Forspoken which is a bit more short and sweet but I wanted to give more details in this one.

Includes replies to comments here.