Forspoken Review – Is It Worth Playing?

Forspoken is a stunning action-adventure game for the PlayStation 5, following the journey of Frey, a young New Yorker transported to the mysterious and dangerous land of Athia. With stunning graphics and entertaining combat, players will be drawn in as Frey uses her newly discovered magical abilities to navigate the vast landscapes and battle formidable creatures on her quest to find a way home.

Impressive Immersion

The animation in Forspoken is top-notch with intricate details, expressive movements, and seamless blending of parkour and combat moves. The animation extends to characters and their hair, which reacts to player movement and external forces, adding realism. The foliage system and particle effects are also impressive, with full-touch bending and GPU-accelerated particles filling the screen during battles. The atmospheric effects, including cloud rendering and fog, also add to the game's immersion.

A Memorable Soundtrack

The soundtrack for Forspoken is stunning. The music perfectly captures the mood and atmosphere of the game, immersing players in the world and enhancing the overall gaming experience. I particularly love the mix of old melodies combined with modern hip-hop to create a unique theme. Every piece of music is well crafted and adds a lot to this world, but there is still quite a bit in the world of Forspoken that falls flat.

An Underwhelming Open World

The open world of Forspoken is particularly underwhelming. It feels empty and flat, with not much to do or explore. The landscape is mostly barren, and there aren't many interesting points of interest or side quests to discover. The one positive that I have about it is that it is very easy and quick to get from point A to B, thanks to its easy parkour mechanics. I do appreciate the game's art style, though scarce some locations do look pretty sweet, and I do love the enemy design. But, overall, the open world leaves a lot to be desired in terms of depth and richness.

A Mix of Setting Options

Forspoken boasts a variety of display modes and a user-friendly accessibility menu. Customizable settings, including text size, are available, and the map screen is beautifully designed. Which is all great. However, the lighting falls short of expectations, particularly for a game released on PS5 and PC. The game's lighting is a step back when you look at other games that are released in this day, and the rendering of light is a challenging aspect in real-time computer graphics that Forspoken did not execute well.

A Weak Story

Forspoken follows Frey Holland, a street-smart young woman from NYC who's struggled through a tough upbringing. Now, just as she's turning 21, she gets whisked away to Athia - a land where fantasy and nightmare are one and the same. Play as Frey and harness newfound magical powers to fight terrifying monsters and take on the all-powerful, twisted Tantas to have a chance of making it back home.

The story and characters of Forspoken are quite underwhelming. The dialogue is often unbearable (though I don’t think it is as bad as people are making it out to be), the writing often feels clunky and characters themselves are not very interesting or relatable, and their motivations at points feel very forced. The plot itself is also quite generic and unengaging and failed to really capture my attention while playing. Overall, I’d say the story is quite weak. I don’t think it’s unbearably terrible, but it doesn’t bring anything engaging.

Strong Parkour and Combat

One of the most impressive parts about this game, however, is its gameplay. Forspoken has amazing movement mechanics with unique and very easy ways to flip, jump, and surf through the fantasy world. Eight parkour abilities are available including Flow, which serves as the foundation for all other parkour skills and allows for easy traversal of small rocks, walls and almost all other surfaces. Along with a series of other moves which allow for increased speed, high jumps, and even surfing on imaginary waves.

The combat in Forspoken I found to be enjoyable. The game features a wide variety of flashy and powerful magic spells that players can use to take down enemies and bosses. The spellcasting system is intuitive and easy to use, allowing players to quickly switch between spells and unleash devastating combos. Combined with a host of well-designed enemies and bosses, they provide a good challenge and employ different strategies to defeat them. The parkour and combat mechanics in the game are incredibly satisfying, offering fast-paced and flashy gameplay that is easy to understand and master.

Replayability

The replayability of Forspoken is quite poor. While the combat and parkour mechanics are satisfying and enjoyable, the underwhelming story and open world make it difficult to want to revisit the game. The lack of interesting characters, side quests, and other activities makes the open world feel unengaging and empty, and the story does not offer many incentives to replay it. However, the redeeming factors such as combat and parkour mechanics make it fun to play, but it is not enough to keep players engaged for long periods of time. Is Forspoken worth the £60 price tag? No, if you are keen on playing, I’d recommend waiting for a discount.

Overall

Overall, while Forspoken's flashy combat and parkour can be enjoyable, the lacklustre story and uninteresting open world ultimately bring down the overall experience. It's not a bad game, but it's definitely not a must-play either. I’m going to give Forspoken a 6.5/10.