Forspoken stands out as an interesting part of Square Enix’s lineup of games in the coming year or so, lacking the big brand ofFinal Fantasy 16but featuring a large open world that shares some visual cues with that game.
From the sounds of it, it’s been a bit of an experiment for Luminous Productions under Square Enix, the studio’s first standalone title, and experimental is a good word for it. This is a lopsided game that doesn’t quite stick the landing.
Forspoken feels like an interesting blend of gameplay elements from Square Enix projects past and present, but we’re not certain it all comes together. A middling story and combat make its fun parkour harder to bear.Platform tested: PlayStation 5
A new world
Forspoken opens with our chatty, spiky protagonist Frey being transported mysteriously from New York to the world of Athia through a portal.
Frey’s earliest moments in Athia see her discover that the strange talking wrist cuff she’s wearing has given her magic powers, and that the world she’s been dumped in is in peril.
Those magic powers start off earthy but soon encompass other elements to make for a wide set of flashy options.
The main gameplay loop in Fospoken (after some preamble in the course of discovering her powers) involves Frey running around large overworld areas using parkour abilities, stopping to collect information, completing points of interest and fighting enemies.
Athia has been blighted by something Frey dubs the Break, and its remaining residents are camped out in one central city.
The plot quickly establishes four evil “Tantas” for Frey to go up against, each with their own powers and motives, and each effectively offering a mini-arc of story and gameplay to fight through to a boss fight.
Before those open areas, though, you’ll often have to wade through a hefty heaping of honestly tiresome exposition and story material, all of it sadly pretty predictable and standard fare at best.
Frey herself is animatedly performed by Ella Balinska but the script she’s been handed is a weird one - largely because she swears every other line in what’s presumably an attempt at real-life vernacular. It comes off as a little too much, but we’re equally not sure it’s the total car crash some of its reception has argued.
Athia itself is nothing new, all vaguely medieval “ye olde-isms” and obscure political structures but, in fairness, Forspoken is more about the landscape than it is the politics.
Give them the run-around
The areas you get to run around in Forspoken start off medium-sized but quickly become massive, full of small side activities and optional extras, offering hours of extra content for those who really gel with the game.
Moving around these areas is pretty fun off the bat with Frey’s Flow move letting her sprint at high speed.
More movement mechanics do arrive as you progress, including some really cool late-game options, although at the outset a stamina mechanic proves a bit of a drag with little upside, forcing us to occasionally stop when we’d rather not.
You’ll also spot glowing blue lights around the map that each award a Mana point to spend on upgrading your spells - think Crackdown’s ability orbs and you’re in the right ballpark.
This is a fun way to motivate exploration and has nice tangible benefits, so works excellently.
As you move into combat with enemies, things are a bit of a mixed bag. Using Frey’s magic you’ll get access to projectiles that fire more quickly or slowly depending on if you prefer to charge them up, which almost makes Forspoken almost a highly-mobile third-person shooter.
It doesn’t excel at this, though, with imprecise aiming and spongy movement, and while each magic tree does give you different options (from up-close melee swipes to healing siphons), the combat system still ends up feeling a little lacklustre.
The game also throws huge numbers of enemies wielding shields at you at various junctures, something that just wasn’t very fun to fight against.
The whole system led us to just concentrate on a few spells we found satisfying and effective, rather than actually encouraging us to experiment a bunch, which is a shame.
The core of Forspoken’s combat system feels a little unpolished, but there are also stretches where you’re just walking around neutral areas talking and helping people out - these bits drag in a major way.
A visual feast?
Forspoken has launched as a PS5 exclusive, so you’d hope that it can take its place at the forefront of the cutting-edge graphically.
In a few areas, this comes true, with loading times that are infrequent and really brief, and a world itself that sprawls and offers large areas to explore.
That said, it’s also a little bit empty - while there are enemies and small bases to clear, detail is lacking as you move overground. Terrain and geometry are complex and impressive, to be clear, but it doesn’t feel hugely authored for the most part.
While different areas do feel fairly distinct thanks to almost colour-coded differences, there’s rarely anything to really take your breath away.
The variety is ok between zones, but each is very samey while you’re in it - this is a hard issue to convey, but it sums up the fact that Forspoken doesn’t really have the required invention to keep these areas interesting.
What we can say is unequivocally great is the explosion of effects that accompanies most battles, with particles flying everywhere - with later powers only adding more showers of sparks, flames and razzle-dazzle.
Still, Forspoken overall has a bit of a generic look and feel to it, and lighting limitations mean it just doesn’t stand out enough.
Changing the game from a 30FPS quality mode into a 60FPS performance option is a must in our opinion, since this extra smoothness feels essential given the speed of Forspoken’s combat, and makes a big difference to how it feels to play.
We’ve had a mixed time with Forspoken - moving through its world feels good when you get time to really sprint around and explore, but its story has a habit of getting in the way.
Similarly, some sprightly magic effects and detailed rock formations and landscaping didn’t stop the game from looking a bit bland overall.
As an experiment with the Luminous engine that powers Final Fantasy games, Forspoken is arguably an interesting but flawed bit of output. But if Square is hoping it’ll launch a new tentpole franchise, we’re feeling somewhat less optimistic.
