Forspoken review – from Hell’s Kitchen to the world of dragons and magic

When Sony showed the first footage of Project Athia, the game’s working title, in 2020, everyone was just staring at the screen with their mouths open. The game looked incredible and everyone hoped that nothing would go wrong and that the Japanese studio Luminous Productions would give us an unforgettable experience. However, the last days before the release showed that not everything is as good as we hoped.

• Platform: PS5, PC
• Publication date: 01/24/2023
• Producer: Luminous production
• Genre: Action
• Czech localization: Not
• Multiplayer: Not
• Data to download: 150 GB
• Game time: 25+ hours
• Price: 1900 CZK (couples)

Forspoken puts you in the role of Frey, a nearly twenty-one-year-old woman from pre-Christmas New York. Frey is an orphan who was found abandoned near a New York subway station as a baby. So she didn’t have a happy adolescence, and as an adult she has no one but Homer – her cat. At the start of the game, Frey is put on trial for an attempted car theft. A friendly judge lets her go free, but only trouble awaits her. local gang Hell’s Kitchen her barn burns down, she loses her fresh start savings in a fire, and she manages to save her cat and her bare life.

Moments later, Frey finds herself in despair on the roof of one of the houses near the station where she was found. She is alone again, as the cat was placed in the care of the previously introduced judge. Noticing an unusually glowing firefly, he follows it and finds a mysterious decorative forearm guard that fuses with it and opens a portal to another world. The first steps in this world take Frey by surprise – this is not New York, but a fantasy environment where there are dragons and a smart talking forearm protector – Cuff. This inseparable companion then accompanies her on her journey to find her way home. During this adventure, Frey learns many magic spells that he uses both to freely move around the open world and to fight monsters and fallen witches who have become his curse from the defenders of the world. And if you’re lucky, he’ll even learn something about himself.

cranky teenager

So, the message of Forspoken is quite unusual in the gaming field, but for fans of Japanese anime series, the opposite is true. This is a standard subgenre of isekai anime, where the main character (mostly from our world) finds himself in a fantasy setting. However, in this case, Frey is somewhat unusual. She is not happy to be in a world full of monsters, and although her life in New York was miserable and full of despair, she wants it back. Frey is distrustful, quick-tempered and generally very, very unpleasant. Given her teen years, this is understandable, but even so, I expected a slightly better approach than what the main “heroine” demonstrates in the game. She makes it unnecessarily clear that no one is interested in her, she doesn’t care about anyone, and she just wants to save her neck. Of course, only in the form of an “evil teenager”, and therefore she becomes a rather difficult character for most of the game.

The dialogue between Frey and Cuff is a missed opportunity. Based on the relationship and teasing each other more harshly, it could have been a pretty memorable couple, but it feels like the writers didn’t know what they wanted. While Cuff tries, Frey mostly acts irritable or just like a self-absorbed boy. Luckily, towards the end she changes her attitude and instead of being an irritable high schooler, she starts acting a little more mature, and in this way the humor shifts from infantile swearing to a somewhat more mature and intelligent tone. However, this does not change the fact that most of the game is played by a rather annoying character whose only positive trait is that she loves animals, especially cats. They also accompany her on her adventures in various forms.

Symphony of Destruction

I don’t want to reveal anything more about this story (since it’s not exactly one of the most difficult, so any additional information might reveal something), so we can dive into the gameplay itself. During the game, Frey gains several types of magic. Each type is further divided into offensive and utility spells. Every spell in the game can be upgraded after special “challenge” conditions have been met. Instead of skill points, there are so-called mana points, which are used to learn new spells. In combat, Frey always has only one support spell and one attack spell at his disposal at any given time, which he can cast or change to another spell with the press of a button. This way you can combine multiple spells that have utility effects and then switch to a completely different set of skills and watch the hell Frey can bring on screen. Some spells from different sets work together, and even if it’s not a complex system of elements interaction, such as Magicka or Genshin Impact, it’s sure to please. And I have to admit that visually the fights are really beautiful. Parkour is pretty seamlessly integrated into them and their fun is really great thanks to the ingenious spell system.

Outside of combat, magic is most often used for travel. As much teased in the trailers, the game features a kind of magical version of parkour that looks great and works pretty well most of the time. So unless you want something like fine control. But more on that later. Luckily, the open world has plenty of places to explore and activities to keep you entertained. Whether it’s different challenges, killing minibosses, or just looking for boxes with materials or equipment. More rare are special dungeons that have one or two rooms with enemies, a boss fight, and then a digression into the history of Atia and, of course, a piece of equipment. If you’re one of those people who loves platinum trophies, get ready to spend a lot of time at Forspoken.

Visually, the fights are really beautiful.

In addition to parkour, you can use Fast Travel, either to small houses that act as a safe zone where you can create, pet the cats you tame while traveling, choose a new challenge to improve your spells, or just sleep. You can craft supplies like HP bottles or modify gear – these are cloaks in Forspoken that have stats like HP, Defense, or increase the power of various magic sets. Amulets that de facto do the same, and then nails. Depending on what you paint on your nails with witch blood, you will receive various other bonuses. However, itemization in the game is not as important as it might seem, so minimaxing it is by no means necessary, at least on medium difficulty.

For better or for worse

In addition to the giant world, impressive free movement through it and fun and spectacular fights, Forspoken also suffers from a fairly decent supply of minor and major ailments. The graphics are on a level worse than what was presented in the trailers, but then again, I did not have the slightest problem with the frame rate on the PS5. Which is a pretty important factor in an open world game. The world of Afia is very large and has several different biomes, but the impression of it was somewhat ambiguous. It’s not that the zones are empty or flat. Rather, it’s caused by the pace at which the story drags you across the vast world. No time to slow down and enjoy. Combined with the insane speed of movement, it is therefore very easy to get lost in it, and navigation is also not entirely simple. The map doesn’t really help either, and in general it’s fun to run around Atia, but the orientation is at a very low level. The option to “zoom out” the map so that the whole world is visible is missing here for some reason. However, the freedom and especially the speed of movement in Forspoken, unfortunately, highlights some of the shortcomings. Frey is sometimes difficult to control precisely because of the way parkour works. Even outside of parkour, I would compare accuracy to the first release version of The Witcher 3, where overall movement was not a problem, but trying to blow out a candle on a table was worse than defeating a miniboss. The impression of movement is not greatly facilitated by “buggy” running stones or completely illogical walls invisible in the city. Not to mention that in this city you can not use parkour.

No time to slow down and enjoy

As stated, the graphics quality has been reduced since the first trailer was released, but the game still looks very good and doesn’t suffer from the bugs, frame drops or other ailments that are so common in other open world games from much more. verified studios. However, the sounds are excellent and the spells – in combat or out of combat – sound great. The music was written by Bear McCreery, who you know from the Norse god of war saga, and it’s like that. The music is really great. Whether it’s the main theme or background for fights.

Disaster averted

Even if the developers failed to bring the game to perfection, Forspoken has the potential to win you over. The combat system, beautiful effects and a huge amount of content in the open world are sure to keep you entertained. You just have to overcome the problems that the game suffers from. But if you can do it, you will have a lot of fun, as I did, despite the game’s shortcomings. A funny note at the end – although the creators are from Japan, a lot of Czech words got into the game. I assume that it was inserted into the game as a little joke, from which the authors did not expect anything – the Ruins of Svetlo and similar names are something that only a Czech or Slovak would laugh at. Tried to find it in the end credits but couldn’t. If anyone notices and finds a Czech working on Forspoken, please share it in the comments.