After months of hype, Forspoken launched to an audience that was expecting a visually impressive, open-world RPG game with innovative combat and character customization choices. The game is all of that, and also weirdly, none of it. Forspoken loves up to expectations in some impressive ways, but in others, it just makes no sense at all.
Before we get into it, a major issue that PC users had was with the ridiculously big size of the game, along with equally advanced memory and video card requirements while still having serious performance issues. However, once the game starts, you start noticing other things that make no sense.
8 Difficulty Level Choice Screen
Why did the game developers design the difficulty screen like this? It's just confusing. The first time you look at it, you'll think, "but don't I want to do all these things?" It takes a second look before you realize the game is asking you about what difficulty level you want to play.
The allusion to making the story a priority in the first choice marks it as "easy" mode. The second is supposed to be "medium," but that makes no sense because why would you not be able to explore and focus on the story in the easy setting? At least the third option uses the word "challenging" to make this less of an unnecessary pre-game riddle.
7 Prologue Problems
There are some weird issues here with the plot, which feels forced, and this is the best the writing ever gets. Like in other kinds of isekai fiction, Forspoken introduces the character of Freya at a low point. She's in trouble with a gang after failing to steal a car they wanted, which results in a chase scene that's supposed to teach you how to use basic controls and some of her parkour abilities.
It doesn't make any sense that they would chase her because they have a gun. This continues with Freya escaping but then deciding to spend one more night at her humble squat even though she has everything she needs to leave and this gang is after her. Of course, this won't go well.
6 Not-So-Open World
This is supposed to be an "open-world" game but it takes a few hours of gameplay for things to open up and let you do some exploring. This can be frustrating for someone that's used to creating a character and just running out into the wilderness for a while.
On the plus side here, travel is easy, and the parkour ability is something Freya gets early in the game. The auto-pickup feature is also handy for those that plan to do some crafting. We just wished we could use all of this earlier.
5 Cinematics And Gameplay Integration
This is one of the moments when the game needs to pick a lane. A game that has a cinematic progression is just fine, but isn't this an action RPG? There's a lot of dialogue between Freya and a variety of other characters in the game, and some of it has a point but most of it is either needless or just too long.
If you like long cutscenes in a game, this works better, but it's still annoying because it's a lot of dialogue that's just banter as opposed to exposition. For those that prefer a fast game with lots of action, this decision really makes no sense.
4 Athian Society
It feels like Forspoken is trying to do two things in this regard and neither is working very well. On one side, we have the epic, high-fantasy overly-coiffed world of Athia, filled with pomp and pride, despite their kingdom crumbling at the edges. On the other is Freya, a rough-and-tumble city girl fresh off a job jacking cars.
The juxtaposition is an ambitious one that could work, but none of the characters have to earn it through compromise or understanding. Instead Auden Keen accepts Freya almost immediately for what seems like no reason, just so the plot can move along.
3 Generic Landscape
When the landscape in Forspoken wants to show off, it looks fantastic. It's clear where the game developers spent their creative powers and design talents, and that's also a problem because you can tell where they didn't.
There are too many places in Athia that are too empty to the point you ask why they're even here. The lore explains why there are no people, but a whole lot of nothing? Weird when you consider the system requirements for the PC version.
2 The Main Character's Motives
Freya spends the whole prologue trying to get out of New York, but once she does get out, all she wants to do is go back. It seems to come out of nowhere because she always talked about how hopeless life in the city was.
Her house, which wasn't even her house, burned down anyway and her cat is now living with the judge. Plus, that gang is still going to be after her once they find out she's still alive. It feels like a forced plot device just to make her character more contrary, but it doesn't make any sense because what is she going back to?
1 The Missing Lore
Athia is a really interesting place, or at least that's what the game keeps telling us. The lore of the game doesn't come up in any more detail until much later in the story, and when it does, it's not even part of the main content.
The history of Athia and the Tantas is found in places where you can read it as an optional part of exploring an area, but you can never see it or interact with it. This is when "show" would be better than "tell," because why create all of this lore and then just use it as filler in the background?