It may come as a surprise but Final Fantasy XV was not only my favourite game of 2016, but one of my favourite Final Fantasy games of all time. When I heard that a lot of the same development team was heading up Luminous Productions to make another open-world RPG called Project Athia, I was ecstatic. Forspoken was revealed in its final form and while that excitement has kind of worn off, there's still some good to be found underneath a mound of oddly executed ideas.

Note: This review is completely spoiler-free.



Forspoken starts in New York and follows protagonist Frey Holland, a struggling New Yorker dealing with her criminal past and just trying to get by in life. One day, she discovers a magical talking cuff (named Cuff) that transports her to a fantasy world called Athia. Here she quickly discovers a terrible calamity that's threatening its inhabitants and must use her newfound magical powers to battle the looming evil.

Forspoken has an interesting but familiar setup. The "isekai" genre is everywhere in anime (and some older games too) so fans might immediately notice typical story beats: an outsider arrives in a fantasy world destined to save it from impending doom. We've seen that story multiple times before and Forspoken doesn't do anything necessarily new or inventive with that concept. Admittedly, the story is engaging enough, especially towards the latter half of the game where I found myself hooked in despite having a strong sense of deja vu.



Unfortunately, a lot of weight falls on Frey's shoulders who ends up being a difficult hero to root for. Her interactions with characters - and even Cuff - sometimes comes off as mean-spirited and rude; it's just uncalled for in a lot of cases. The setup explains her backstory but we never really get the satisfaction of seeing Frey grow as a character. She's mostly one-note throughout a majority of the game, trades dialogue with quippy remarks and treats almost everything with an apathetic attitude. By the time we do get some semblance of a character arc in the end, it's too little too late. It becomes hard to get invested in a world and story when the main character shows no effort to be invested in it either.

...a lot of weight falls on Frey's shoulders who ends up being a difficult hero to root for.

I've seen all the discourse online surrounding Forspoken's dialogue and how it comes across as very Marvel-esque. Just to be clear, I'm perfectly fine with witty dialogue in games but the problem with Forspoken is that the quips and sarcastic slights are always in conflict with its dire tone and story. They never organically work together so there's always dissonance between Frey's dialogue and this serious fantasy world. That said, I never felt annoyed by it but just kind of indifferent after a while.



The open-world of Forspoken isn't anything particularly new either. In fact, Luminous Productions took a lot of inspiration from Final Fantasy XV which, in my opinion, isn't a bad choice. This is a sprawling and massive world with stunning vistas and environmental design that immerses you around every corner. It's also a bit empty. The main hub area, for example, is a beautiful classic medieval-styled city where the last remnants of the world's inhabitants have fled to. It's initially fun to explore until you realise just how lifeless it is. Dialogue never really flows naturally either with awkward pauses in between lines, so talking to NPCs, who should be delivering vital information necessary for world-building, begins to feel like a chore and a bit tiresome.

This is a sprawling and massive world with stunning vistas and environmental design that immerses you around every corner. It's also a bit empty.

By far, the most positive and exciting aspect of Forspoken is its gameplay. Frey is able to utilise a variety of offence and defence-based spells in combat and seamlessly string them together in satisfying explosions of particle effects. The first few hours severely limits your capabilities but once you start opening up the surprisingly robust skill tree, upgrading your abilities and unlocking new ones, it all just clicks. From firing off rapid shots and unleashing devastating elemental strikes to blocking with barriers and dodging at the perfect time, the gameplay is always visually stunning, flashy and flexible. Frey's wardrobe is also especially stylish and I loved most of the attire designs which come with their own perks.



Exploration is also something that took a while to get going but parkour becomes a pretty cool method of traversal once you unlock new ways to run, leap and glide. It's kind of basic at first; Frey's parkour actions are tied to stamina so dashing around is limited but after unlocking better skillsets, you're flowing up mountains, grappling around obstacles and leaping across caverns in stylish ways. Traversal is quite entertaining so travelling across the large open-world feels like a fun activity in and of itself and mitigates some of the tedium.

You might've noticed that a lot of Forspoken's best elements require a bit of time and investment to really enjoy to its fullest. It's a slow progression that not everyone will take kindly to, but I didn't mind the steady flow of new upgrades since they all felt meaningful and contributed towards my increasingly powerful arsenal of spells and magical parkour.



Enemies, on the other hand, can be a bit of a mixed bag. Smaller enemies are your bog-standard slow moving types that come at you in mobs but are easy to decimate, while the larger enemies (particularly boss fights) are among the flashiest and most challenging encounters in the game. A lot of it usually boils down to unloading heaps of spells that bombard your eyes with particle effects while the camera often struggles to keep up with the action. Battles don't always feel refined but there's something addictive about the chaotic nature of it all that held my attention.

...actress Ella Balinska's line delivery is great at points and a bit corny in others...

On the technical side, Forspoken delivers some great visuals and detail in the world's environments let down by inconsistent facial animations and voice acting. The world feels like a true display of current-gen technology but when contrasted with the stilted facial animations, it feels like a bit more time was needed in some departments. I've already talked about the dialogue but actress Ella Balinska's line delivery is great at points and a bit corny in others, even if the writing is at fault most of the time.



Perfomance on PS5 is good, albeit with minor framerate dips, texture pop-ins and a couple of glitches that need to be ironed out with patches (it seems to be the norm with a lot of open-world games today). The haptic feedback on the DualSense feels great and gives off a snappy response to all of Frey's actions and traversal. The DualSense also lights up according to the colour of Frey's spells which is a neat little addition.



Forspoken has plenty of faults (most of them justified), but I'll be honest, the basic story is effective, the gameplay is flashy and addictive and the visuals are outstanding for the most part. Unfortunately it also fails to live up to its true potential which is constantly derailed by questionable writing and dialogue, lifeless environments and a protagonist that I tried my hardest to like, but just couldn't. It's not a game for everyone but it's also not something I'll recommend you rush out and buy right now either. As it stands, it's a good time that falls short of being great.



*PS5 Review code provided by Square Enix