Forspoken

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Forspoken
"I just blew up lots of computers, an entire game studio, and hope that my publisher will one day reclaim its former glory, all with my freaking mind!" - Takeshi Aramaki
Protagonist(s): Frey Holland Genre(s): Action role-playing Rating(s): ESRB: M CERO: Z PEGI: 18 Platform(s): Microsoft Windows PlayStation 5 Release: January 24, 2023 Engine: Luminous Engine Developer(s): Luminous Productions Publisher(s): Square Enix Country: Japan

Forspoken is a 2023 action role-playing game developed by Luminous Productions and published by Square Enix released on January 24, 2023. This game was notable for being the second (their first game being Final Fantasy XV) and final game released by Luminous before the company's merger with Square on May 1, 2023.

Plot

A young woman is transported to another world by a magical bangle and has to find her way home.

Bad Qualities

1. Insulting PC spec recommendations. To run the game at these settings, you would need an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3070 8GB Graphics Card, 24 GB of memory, and 150 GB of space. Even Call of Duty Modern Warfare II (2022) and Cyberpunk 2077 had better specs than this.
2. Very shallow and one-dimensional plot. Two of the four writers of the story have never written a game before, while Gary Whitta and Amy Henning have writing involvements with Rogue One and Uncharted respectively, even though they can't save the script.
   • The story is like this: You play as a young woman named Frey who is transported from New York City to the world of Athia from a magical bangle named Cuff. She discovers that Athia was once ruled by four goddesses known as the Tantas who unleashed a deadly fog in the world known as the Break. You fight the four Tantas only to discover that one of them is your mother and that Cuff manipulated you the whole time and was responsible for everything in the entire game. And then Cuff's easily redeemed by the end of the game, and you don't return to New York.
3. Frey is an unlikable protagonist. She tries too hard to be funny with the comedy falling flat on its face many times, leaving you very frustrated. This also isn't helped by the other characters who are also forgettable.
   • She's also incredibly rude to everyone in the game, and once even acted ungrateful to her friend, who saved her from death and even lost her dad, by trying to outvict her. Not helping matters is that this happened right before the endgame, meaning that not only her character didn't develop, but this event also destroyed any chance of character redemption.
4. Speaking of the comedy, the dialogue tries way too hard to be snarky, but it ends up as insulting. Such as:
   • Destruction and corruptions are beautiful forms of creation in themselves!
   • I need to voosh back home! Where I came from!
   • And of course: I just moved s**t with my freaking mind!
5. Some enemies are bullet sponges, creating a sense of artificial difficulty.
6. The world of Athia is also very barren, adding to the game's repetitiveness.
7. It's also clear that most of the budget went toward the actors, as some big names are involved here, including Ella Balinska in the lead role.
8. The game was $70 on launch with a small runtime of 10 hours.
9. This game ultimately killed Luminous Productions, leading them to be merged with Square Enix.
10. While the graphics are beautiful, they are a bit downgraded from the trailers.

Good Qualities

1. The combat can be fun at times, with a decent enemy variety and spells to choose from.
2. Movement can also be fun at times as well.
3. Ella Balinska does a good job voicing Frey despite her character's horrible execution.
4. Ultimately this game had potential, but its shallow execution is what caused it to fail.
5. As mentioned above, the graphics are beautiful despite being a bit of a downgrade.
6. The Japanese dub is more tolerable as the voice acting is good, and the dialogues are less cringe-worthy.

Reception

Forspoken received mixed reviews from critics but mixed to negative reviews from audiences with many criticizing its basic story, dialogue, and short length, but praising the combat and movement. It did no better in terms of sales. It also didn't help that a day after the game's release, Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks was released with little marketing and crushed this game in terms of sales and quality.

Despite this, Some YouTubers considered it one of the worst games of 2023

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