Forspoken Reviews

​​It has been said numerous times in recent years that modern triple-A games don't take enough risks. For an industry that prides itself on innovation, one could argue the major bigwigs play it all too safe too often.In step Square Enix to the rescue with their latest release, Forspoken. A major Japanese developer building a fantasy open-world game that stars a black female New Yorker is not something you see every day, so here's hoping their gamble paid off. Here's the review roundup:

GAMEINFORMER (SCORE 7.5/10)
'Forspoken's story and combat fail to reach the heights of its movement and exploration, but thankfully those two latter elements make up most of the experience. I sprinted, often literally, through the campaign in about 15 hours, and now I have a large world filled with nooks and crannies I'm eager to run through and explore. The narrative won’t linger with me, and I avoided combat in the open world often, but I loved making Frey leap and fly through Athia to discover all its treasure chests and secrets.'

For the full review please visit here.

DESTRUCTOID (SCORE 7/10)
'Given the opportunity to dare, Forspoken chooses to play it incredibly safe, with muddled pacing and strict adherence to both narrative and gameplay tropes holding it back from reaching its groundbreaking potential. Regardless, its dazzling visuals, charismatic leads, memorable boss battles, and energetic and varied combat will reward the more patient player with a solid, spellbinding adventure… And, for everybody else, there are magical cats.

For the full review please visit here.

IGN (SCORE 6/10)
'Forspoken is the sort of game you’ve probably seen before – from its stereotypical fish-out-of-water fantasy story to its giant open-world map full of repetitive optional tasks. Its combat is flashy and fun enough to entertain across its comparatively short RPG campaign, with fights that do a good job of pushing you to shake up your use of elemental powers even when the overall variety of enemies isn’t particularly impressive. Its parkour system is also satisfying enough, despite the scenery you are running through being about as picturesque as a bowl of rocks with an Instagram filter slapped on. There’s a kind of person that might be enough for, happy to spend hours and hours uncovering every inch of Forspoken’s needlessly large map after the main story, but that doesn’t mean I was able to find much reason to do so once the credits had rolled. 

For the full review please visit here.

GAMESRADAR+ (SCORE 2.5/5)
'The kindest thing I can say about Forspoken is that it is aggressively fine. The good and bad parts are roughly equal such that it comes to be, in summation, an exceptionally middling experience. The magical parkour is exhilarating, but not really backed up by significance when you get to where you're going, and while half the game might have you moving from place to place, the other half is what you do when you arrive. The wide variety of spells is appreciated, but there's basically no reason to bother beyond a few favorites. Forspoken wants to be a game about hope and choice and community, and it's willing to hit you over the head with those themes explicitly to make sure it gets across though it never manages to instill them organically, which is a shame.

​For the full review please visit here.

GAMESPOT (SCORE 5/10)
'Forspoken is a tricky game to recommend. The lore of its world is interesting but delivered in a stilted expository manner, and the freeing sensation of taking off across the landscape in a magically-propelled sprint is sullied by the knowledge that there's nowhere to go or anything fun to do. Combat is visually impressive but not all that engaging, and the excellent sound design and the catchy musical score are regularly undermined by unfunny quips from an unlikable protagonist. I enjoyed parts of it, but too often my fun was dragged to an unrewarding halt.'

For the full review please visit here.

EASY ALLIES (VIDEO REVIEW)

Overall, after 59 critic reviews, Forspoken averages a healthy 68% on Metacritic. A rather poor score, and one that reflects how I always felt about this game...that it was an impressive tech demo that lost its way after it was fully fleshed out. A shame too, as traversing the world looks exhilarating.

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