She Did Indeed Forspoke All Over Those Guys
Forspoken was really the punching bag of 2023, and I don’t think it deserved it. There is a lot of really interesting lore in Forspoken but by the time they tell you it, you are already kinda done with the protagonists shit. Our protagonist Frey has sort of a Dorothy problem, the only thing she wants is to go home and she’s very hostile about it. Her magical talking cuff is also extremely negative so it creates these sass offs that can get tiring. But after everything is explained to you I think Forspoken is a fun parkour, cat collecting game.
In Forspoken you play as Frey who is isekai’d from New York to the magical lands of Athia, along with a golden vambrace that’s stuck to her arm. These lands are covered in a corruption called “the break” and it seems only Frey can traverse them. She is tasked with helping the last remaining people alive in Athia as well as finding a way to portal back to New York.
Visually Athia is gorgeous. It just doesn’t have all that much substance. The open world area is pretty empty making exploring it seem pointless. There is one hub city where all the remaining people live and outside the city is the break which causes people to turn into basically zombies. Frey will parkour around the open world using her magic to fight off crazed humans and wildlife.
As the journey progresses she will collect different styles of magic she can use during combat. You collect them by defeating the area boss and basically absorbing their magic. The progression system uses mana that Frey can use to unlock different spells or just improve the spells she already possesses. Although our effectiveness in battle comes down to our outfit and nails.
To upgrade the effectiveness of certain colored magics as well as health and defense you must upgrade your cloak and necklace. Buffs to Frey can be added to the outfits and to her nails. Frey can paint her nails in different styles that she finds throughout the world to add certain advantages in combat. In order to unlock the spells you must complete a checklist of sorts most involving using sometime similar to it in combat. Along with combat focused magic you also can unlock parkour based magic that will help you move around the map easier. I would recommend unlocking a few of these before going out and exploring because it can be a struggle trying to scale some of those cliffs.
The game is surprisingly easy to get through. If you just push through till the end of the main plot it might run you about 20 hours. Once you learn the movement magic enemies can’t really touch you making any battle a piece of cake. This is a power fantasy game for sure and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Forspoken had a lot of potential, I think a lot of neat ideas are there and I would have loved to see what they would have done with a sequel. While the open world is pretty empty and the game is surprisingly short for 70$, I think the gameplay is fun and I did actually like the plot at the end. Collecting magical cats and having them follow you around the overworld and sleep with you in the safe houses was probably the highlight of the game for me though.
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