In battle, however, the flow gets a little cumbersome.

It hits those highs far less frequently, but the few moments where it does hit just right feel pretty awesome. The magical parkour or flow system feels like a slightly less fun version of swinging through New York in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Unlocking new abilities, stringing them together in battle, and then upgrading them by meeting certain criteria never got old, but the overreliance on the flow system and stamina did make some battles feel a little tiring. There’s a solid loop of discovery and experimentation to the magic that I found extremely enjoyable at its best and mildly frustrating at its worst. You can acquire the resource to unlock more of these trees by either leveling up or finding special points scattered across the map. She starts off with her own magic style but can pick up three additional skill trees, each with its own attacks, support magics, and special passive abilities. Magic is at the core of Forspoken’s combat, and it has a pretty impressive suite of abilities for Fre to acquire and utilize. There are multiple different types of magic to master, gear to unlock and upgrade, and powerful enemies to defeat, making for a fun, if a little uneven, gameplay experience. While Forspoken stumbles in the narrative department, it manages to pick itself up and keep limping along thanks to a surprisingly robust and enjoyable combat suite. I gained a greater appreciation for the world and its inhabitants from these little notes than I did from any of the dialogue, and that’s a good sign that your game is just overwritten. I frequently found myself wishing there just wasn’t any dialogue at all and that story was being conveyed through lore entries and journal pages. It's a shame that the story is so bland, especially because the world is so interesting. In fact, you can’t begin to move for close to 20 seconds after they’ve stopped talking, leaving Fre just standing in the middle of the road like a lump. Forspoken holds your hand so egregiously throughout most of its narrative sections that you literally can’t even walk around while people are talking. It doesn’t help that the first two hours or so are extremely dull, as the game takes an eternity to even get to the first real bit of combat and exploration. It colors every interaction she has with other characters, making every conversation feel repetitive before the game even truly begins. She’s the perfect trope of the rebellious, down-on-her-luck YA hero, and while these types of characters can be interesting and profound, Fre never moves past being weirdly cynical and “cool” at all times. The root of the problem is that Fre reads like a 22-year-old as written by a group of people in their 50s. It’s possible that this could be a statement on her own lack of identity and struggle with her past, but that doesn’t come through in her words and actions. While most of the supporting cast spend their time taking the world seriously even as they try to find some scrap of joy, Fre can’t seem to make up her mind about how she actually views this world and herself. It’s not as bad as social media would have you believe, but it still leaves much to be desired.

The Tantas are formidable and interesting enemies, characters with intrigue and tragedy, but they fall flat in execution. It feels as though the impressive writing team spent the majority of their time worldbuilding instead of plot crafting. There’s a strange corruption that’s overtaken most of the continent, transforming animals and people alike into monsters the four witches that used to rule Athia benevolently have become twisted, insane despots and there’s a dragon flying around that doesn’t seem overly fond of Fre.įorspoken has all the elements of an epic, fantasy adventure, but it somehow manages to fumble most of these in the pursuit of an ongoing comedic tone. This world is Athia, and it’s suffering, too. Faced with more hardship and struggle, Fre stumbles upon a mysterious artifact that suddenly transports her to a mystical world filled with all sorts of dangerous monsters. When Fre runs afoul of some street thugs, she loses her apartment and the nest egg she’d been saving to finally get out of the city. Alfre Holland is a lifelong orphan struggling to survive on the streets of Manhattan with her stalwart, feline companion, Homer.

Forspoken genres