The five reasons why Forspoken is not as bad a game as they say

In the video game industry there are many cases in which the hype kills the game before it is even released. Sometimes the blame lies with the advertising made by the distributor itself, in terms of promises that the player does not see fulfilled. Forspoken It’s not a bad game, but with each advance, the community was generating expectations that seem to have not reached the expected level.

They don’t help either the demanding specifications that the game demands to work on the PC, something that however can be solved by Square Enix in the future, thanks to a patch. Without having tried the demo, I plunged into Athia’s universe and after the bad reviews and various skinning on social networks, it seemed to me that the fairest thing was to end this adventure and be able to judge Frey’s adventure properly. through the looking glass

Before learning more about the engine that drives Forspoken, the Luminous Engine, the first look reminded me of Final Fantasy XV and the truth is that they have certain similarities, in addition to sharing the engine. There is a detail that I always, really, always pay attention to in games, the hair animations. An aspect that engines like Unreal Engine 4 (let alone 5) or especially Decima, manage to reproduce quite successfully.

In fact, Death Stranding and the Horizon games (Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbiden West) have a depth of field and animations that are very difficult to compete with. Both have been seen and enjoyed on PS5 and Xbox Series X, so it becomes normal to compare graphic aspects between games of this generation. In Forspokensome animations are not perfectsometimes the hair moves by itself (as it happens with the RE Engine), even if there is no wind and they are indoors, but they are small details, not so perceptible, that do not affect the gameplay.

A world full of loot

As in Final Fantasy XV, the world of Forspoken feels rather empty. Athia is very big, not New York since they barely let you get a few meters away from the area you have to go to, however, despite having vegetation and ‘fauna’ with which to interact with blows and spells, it shows at half throttle. This isn’t just a Forspoken problem, it’s endemic to many RPGs. At the time, Skyrim lived it, whose sensations improve remarkably with mods (something that Bethesda took advantage of for Skyrim Anniversary Edition). Although it should be noted that in Forspoken, the map is full of dungeons, chests and caves that make exploration and magical parkour interesting.

The devil is in the details

By making it ‘open world’ (although in-game, development feels more linear) it’s hard to get a feeling of a living, dynamic world, especially if there are more things to attend to in the game and in Forspoken, probably the theme of spells and magical parkour required a lot of attention. In addition to the amount of detail that the game has. For example, the protagonist, Frey, will acquire different improvements that are applied by painting a specific design on her nails, a specific detail that makes the game go beyond the standard skill tree pattern.

An outstanding combat system

The combat is satisfactory and part of it is the fault of the parkour and movement system of the protagonist. Although it requires some customization by the user to achieve a more fluid combat. Our recommendation is to go to Settings and customize controlsplace the magic parkour on L3 and the cast magic button on R2. At first, it is true that it takes time to get used to the game, what seems like an introduction becomes eternal and skills are released in such a dose that the desire for more does not translate into wanting to continue playing to see what else it can offer, but the opposite.

That is why another recommendation is to give it time, because in the end it shines brighter than it seems. It is something that Forspoken will surely live, a game that at launch has earned a lot of hate but, over time, more and more players will be delighted with the result of Luminous Production and Square Enix. In addition, the magical parkour system It does feel quite fluid, both in movement around the map and in the combat itself, allowing to offer a minimum of strategy when facing a final enemy. In addition, this parkour thing is necessary to advance through the map without it feeling eternal, since there are no vehicles or mounts.

However, as the game progresses, it comes to feel that with less frills, attacks are more effective, but it’s nice to flip while combining spells. However, as progress is made and magic is unlocked, it feels like there is less and less time to get familiar with new skills, a similar feeling appears as more areas of the map are discovered.

A particular protagonist

Obviously, bad comments have rained down, both on those responsible for the game and on the actress who plays Frey, Ella Balinska. It seems that she looks at herself not with a magnifying glass, but with a microscope, when the protagonist is a woman, having to meet very demanding standards in terms of charisma, dialogue, etc. It is true that sometimes falls into clicheslike, even being poor, and sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a squat (yet another young woman without access to rent or decent housing), she has a shelf with several sports shoes that she reveres (in fact, this love thing towards the shoes is something he thinks about during the game).

However, I don’t think it’s entirely fair to classify Frey as a bland protagonist or lacking in personality. The relationship that she has of her with her bracelet / her stocks, subtly marked by the difference in her accents (American on her part, British on his part), is particular enough to be endearing. and endearing. Making an allegory that one is more streetwise and younger, while the other seems to have more refined tastes and a larger vocabulary.

a familiar narrative

I’m not going to dwell on the multiple references that Forspoken has to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ (I don’t feel much sympathy for Lewis Carroll either because of his fixation with children’s audiences), because the whole story looks like a modern adaptation of Carroll’s concept. Although for my taste, there are many other references to well-known stories that give me better sensations, such as the clear inspiration for ‘The Neverending Story’. Both its protagonist, in trouble in the real world, and above all the fate that the inhabitants of Athia seem to be suffering, due to the phenomenon called the Tear, which is well reminiscent of ‘Nothing’.

It is true that they could have taken the opportunity to offer secondary missions and dimension to secondary characters or those who populate the world, to provide a little more dynamism and dispel the sensation of following a linear plot, despite being able to do magical parkour through the game. there is a kind of collectible that has to do with cats, does not try to pet them but to follow them until they lead us to valuable resources. The rest of the secondary characters participate in the story lines, but there are no secondary characters to use, beyond mini-games and similar dynamics.

They may seem like minor details, but all these little things are what make Forspoken different and are undoubtedly going to cause this game to be more loved in the long run that when I went out An aspect that may not be so positive for sales, but as an entertainment product. Many films, such as ‘Donnie Darko’, were a true box office failure, but at this point no one doubts that they are part of cinema history; Forspoken has plenty of potential to charm over time.