The start ofForspokentries to spend a lot of time developing its characters and world before giving the player the real freedom to roam around and explore the sandbox that is Athia. This is disappointing to see considering that developer Luminous Productions has already heard the criticisms that came with a slow start to an open world asFinal Fantasy 15tried to reach out to new playerswith its own large map.
Starting off with this type of stumble is especially dangerous for a new IP likeForspokenthat needs to immediately grip players with either its narrative or its core gameplay. However, while it does fail at these two specific aspects at first, getting through these first couple of hours does lead to an impressive gameplay loop that leads through the rest of the experience.
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Forspoken’s Slow Crawl to the Starting Line
At the start ofForspoken’s runtime, players are immediately greeted with protagonist Frey Holland being taken into court where she struggles to keep herself out of jail after having attempted to steal a car. From there, the story quickly jumps from encounter to encounter with a host of characters that are currently impacting Frey’s life in one way or another. However, this is where the first narrative failing of this opening comes in, as these characters are immediately sidelined and forgotten by the end of the very first chapter once the story takes Frey to Athia.
On top of the issues with the haphazard narrative and introduction of characters that have little baring for hours and hours of content, these segments also takes place beforeFrey recieves Cuffand can start using any kind of magic. So, not only are these story segments clunky, but the actual gameplay is little more than walking through a handful of streets in New York and Frey’s makeshift apartment. It’s an opening that can easily give the wrong impression right off the bat, as once the player is actually free to explore Athia, they’ve spent the last few hours watching the game mostly play itself.
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Exploring Through Chapter 3 and Beyond
Once the action gets going and players are able to freely explore the main sections of Athia, the gameplay suddenly springs right into action withForspoken’s Magic Parkourand one arm of the dynamic combat. It is just unfortunate that this comes after hours of slowly walking through town, an overly simplified stealth segment, and a boss fight that throws cheap tricks out to force a loss. In fact, the first really open section of the game doesn’t appear until players start Chapter 3 and begin exploring outside the hub city of Cipal.
At this point inForspoken’s third chapter, both the narrative and the gameplay pick up considerably from the meandering segments that came before. In the story, the stakes are set at this point and players are primed to start questioning everything that the citizens of Athia claim about the current state of the in-game world. Additionally, the gameplay becomes about exploring this new, fantasy realm and conquering its various side missions with the first branch of the magical combat that is available.
The pace is still held back to a degree in Chapter 3, with only a small area being available to explore when the player first sets out. This chapter on its own acts as a strong opening for exploration and story, with the lead-up to it paling harshly in comparison. While the opening could have benefited from givingForspokenan opening likeKingdom Hearts 2that takes the time to establish these new characters and their connections to others, it drops the ball by only really getting the runtime part correct. It’s an unfortunate retread of a similar mistake that really hurtFinal Fantasy 15’s jump into an open world that spends too much time funneling the experience before finally opening up for exploration.
Forspokenis available now for PC and PS5.
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