Forspoken is an action fantasy role-playing game developed by Luminous Productions and published by Square Enix. This game is one I have been looking forward to for a while; I played the demo and was lucky enough to be picked to review the full game. Was it all I hoped it would be? No. Is it still an amazing game? Yes.

Now, I have seen a lot of comments about Forspoken from both players and reviewers, and I did my best to ignore most of them or avoid them entirely to not tarnish my experience, however, I will touch on a few complaints that didn’t sit well with me as a reviewer. Now, I do not claim to be number one, but I still believe that what I have to say about them is reviewing 101.

First, the story, or at least the intro. You play as Alfre “Frey” Holland, voiced and motion capped by the talented Ella Balinska. Frey is a young woman from New York, orphaned as a baby and spending her life in the system and foster care. Now as an adult, she is on her own, and falling into the wrong crowd, she is given one last chance to turn her life around. This is harder than she would like, since the gang she failed is now after her, so in a last-ditch effort, she tries to flee the city.

Thwarted by a fire set by her pursuers, losing all of her belonging and money, she escapes with her cat, Homer. Later, as Frey tries to devise a plan to get out of dodge, she tracks a strange butterfly that leads her to a golden cuff. As Frey examines the cuff, there is a bright light and Frey finds herself in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar voice speaking to her. His name is Vambrace, or as Frey prefers, Cuff.

After the initial shock, Frey comes to terms with her situation, if a little begrudgingly, and by that, she loves telling everyone how much she does not want to be here. Discovering she has powers does alleviate some of that angst, and she finds some comfort in a few of the people of this corrupted land. I could go on but that would spoil the story, which leads me to one thing I want to talk about, and that is the length of the game’s introduction.

To get to the free roam part of the game is a little lengthy, and I do understand some people could have a less than enthused go of it. Could some parts be replaced with a cool cinematic? Yes. Escaping the cell I am looking at you; playing that part is kind of pointless. However, this game won’t be easy for everyone to just pick up and play. I believe the extended tutorial start was to give players time to adjust, figure out the controls, and just get used to them. I played the demo, so I already had an idea of what to expect, so this introduction wasn’t necessary for me, but I did not hate it.

Now for the best part of this game, the gameplay itself, and ooh boy, do I love it. I was a little skeptical while playing the demo. It seemed a little overwhelming. Playing from the start and having that long start progression I think actually helped. I knew what to expect but was able to ease into it, and now, if I do say so myself, I am pretty good.

As for character movement, you have your standard run, sprint, and a surprisingly realistic jump; all stock standard for the average human, but Frey has Magic. Using this, you can run faster, jump further, parkour and climb almost all surfaces, and eventually, slingshot yourself up a cliff face. One thing that does annoy me, which seems to come with every game now, is overstepping; being precise with your movements is incredibly hard and you will overshoot your marks.

Along with Frey’s new maneuvering abilities, she now has some kick-ass fighting, defensive, and supporting skills. She does gain a variety of elemental skills along the way, but we will focus on the starting abilities, which for lack of a better term is earth bending with a sprinkle of floral manipulation. You start with three initial attack abilities rapid-fire rock bullets, a rock grenade, and a shield that defends her, but then it explodes outward for damage. It takes a minute to get used to switching between abilities, but luckily, doing so slows time for a bit to help you get prepared without being overwhelmed.

You can use these skills by pressing and holding the R2 trigger and opening the radial ability menu by pressing and holding the R1 button. Next, you have your support skills, some for combat, some for non-combat situations, and these use L2 and L1 to bring up the radial menu. With these abilities, you can hold enemies in place with vines, you can place some rock mines, heal yourself with a vine whip, or sting them with a life-sapping seed and dip.

Using these abilities to gain the advantage is the best thing ever; getting through a fight without getting injured because you executed your abilities with flawless grace is a tremendously great feeling. After you accumulate enough power, you can unleash your special, which initially, is a torrent of vines bursting from the ground in a cone in front of you by pressing R2 and L2 together.

Now imagine all of those flashy abilities with ray tracing. Some people did not think the game looked great, but I beg to differ. The land and the creatures all look amazing. Did the trailers look better? Of course, they always do. There is one thing that was not so great and that is some of the character models – not all, but some. It is almost like they tried too hard to make them realistic, and it ends up making them look even more fake.

Other than that, there are stunning views, amazing architecture, and Auden Keen, probably my favorite NPC, voiced by the fantastic Monica Barbaro. When starting, you are given three options; quality-focused, ray tracing, and performance-focused. I mainly played using ray tracing mode however, performance seemed better in combat situations. Though to be honest, there is little difference unless you look for it. I would go ray tracing if you want to focus on the story, or performance if you are focused on the cool fights and parkour.

For the most part, all the main character models and objects always looked pretty spectacular close up, and more distant objects start to feel more lackluster, but again, you have to be focusing on the specifics to notice. I rarely noticed anything that hindered my experience. The only notable irritation for me was the fade-outs. There were so many, but more importantly, for no reason, it would fade to black on a person in a room and then come back in that same room at a different angle.

The sound effects, voice acting, and soundtracks were brilliant. I loved the voice acting. I mean, the script wasn’t always the best, but the conversations on the fly between Frey and Cuff were sometimes hilarious and on point, but sometimes it just felt forced and unnecessary, like with Frey swearing like a sailor. As an Aussie it was fine, and I am not a connoisseur of New York linguistics, so I cannot comment on if it’s a normal amount of swearing.

The sound effects of the monsters, abilities, and the environment were sharp, though the same can not be said about the music. The issue with the music is the same as the fade-outs; every time there was a fade the music changed, even if the scene was the same, but these are nit-picks and only really noticeable unless you just zone it out.

Before I end things, I do want to elaborate on my annoyance with one particular comment I have seen in some reviews. It is that their biggest gripe was they finished the game and were not able to unlock all of Frey’s abilities. For one, that is because you rushed to the finish, and by doing that, how could you enjoy the game? When you review a game, you want to spend time searching, unlocking, and discovering as much as you can, and Forspoken has plenty to discover.

What is the point of rushing and completing the game to complete a review if you haven’t even really played it? What I am getting at with this rant is to “take what you read from reviews with a grain of salt.” I spent fourteen hours without even unlocking my second element. I fully unlocked and upgraded all of my earth power combat skills and support magic, and I had barely scratched the surface of the first area. There is so much to see and do, and I think a lot of people missed out because they were so focused on finding what is wrong with the game. They forget that they should be having fun.

All in all, I had, and I’m still having, a great time with this game, and though it did not exceed my expectations, and let’s be honest, my expectations were unobtainable, it did well. I believe I could spend hundred-plus hours exploring this game without getting bored or losing interest. Nowadays this is rare, with so many games coming and going, and new titles constantly being released, it is a good sign, and with a bit of luck, they might release some patches to fix the few visual and music issues that have been picked up. I do recommend this to all role-playing game and Square Enix fans out there, as this fairly unique parkour combat style is crazily addictive.

Written by: Adam Brasher