She doesn't care about Athia or its people she only wants to hop a ride back home to New York City. After receiving her local history 101 lesson from Cuff and a crew of new Athian companions, Frey sets off on a quest to find the Tantas and restore Athia to its past glory.Īthia is ruled by Tantas, four matriarchal beings of extraordinary powerĪll this while though, Frey is not driven by duty. The Tantas' extraordinary powers, which once kept peace in Athia, now wreak havoc. The Break drove the four divine mothers, the revered Tantas, to madness and rage. Once ruled by four powerful matriarchs, whose benevolent magic sustained its people, Athia fell apart when a mysterious corruption, “the Break,” took root. Corrupted creatures and beasts roam the lands of Athia now. In addition to serving as Frey's talking companion and a vehicle for exposition, Cuff also imbues our plucky protagonist with magical powers that let her move through Athia at high speed and take on its dangers. Cuff informs Frey that she's in Athia, an ancient and formerly prosperous fantastical realm that now lies in ruin. At her lowest, she finds a magical sentient vambrace, nicknamed “Cuff,” and is sucked into a strange new world. Of course, Frey wishes to escape her misfortunes and find a new life away from everything and everyone who has been cruel to her. Her only friend, like her, is a stray - her cat, Homer. She often finds herself on the wrong side of the law and is also in a particularly comical street gang's bad books. You've seen it all before: Frey Holland is the troubled underdog, abandoned as a baby, and living in the margins of society in New York as a young adult. While its core gameplay deserves attention, Forspoken's story is hard to get invested in. Photo Credit: Square Enix Forspoken review: story

It offers a colourful platter of abilities that start off simple, but get wilder and wackier as you progress and unlock more moves.įorspoken's flashy magic parkour makes traversal a meaningful part of gameplay Forspoken's magic combat, which might feel a little familiar to Final Fantasy fans, is surprisingly deep and well thought out. The same elemental magic that aids Frey's excursions also fuel her fighting abilities. With these abilities, Frey can run like the wind, skip like a gazelle, and shimmy like a figure skater, covering vast distances within minutes in the fantastical world of Athia. Frey, the game's reluctant protagonist, stumbles upon elemental powers that let her perform feats of remarkable and otherworldly magic. But, when you stop and take stock, it resembles a classroom.Īll the fun playground stuff lies in Forspoken's magic combat and parkour.

Forspoken's open world is a playground when you're whizzing through it on magic NOS. It is also, in many places, as far removed from the concept of fun as a dental exam. It's a game that often presents incredibly fun escapades, through its flashy combat and frenetic traversal. Sound familiar?ĭeveloped by Luminous Productions, a Square Enix subsidiary, Forspoken flits between many such contradictions, zig-zagging though the good and the bad, but - to its credit - it never flirts with the ugly. It is an open-world action RPG with an interminable map where points of interest dot every sliver of space like a particularly bad case of measles. And, at the same time, Forspoken is also treading conventional terrain. But then, it is also helmed by Square Enix, a behemoth of the industry, with a name as recognisable as names can get. It is neither a sequel, nor a part of a pre-established universe with existing social capital. It is a completely new IP, unattached and unfamiliar to industry precedent. The stakes are high and a new intellectual property that doesn't bear a recognisable name involves risks.įorspoken, which came out January 24 on PlayStation 5 and PC, is exactly that.

Big publishers and developers, for understandable reasons, have to play it safe. Smaller, independent games are probably the final garrison of innovation and art in the medium, with a few exceptions. A brief sift through significant releases of past few years will reveal an alarming conveyor belt of sequels, remakes, and remasters of varying degrees of merit. Major video games, like any other mass-market products in these times, are plagued by conservatism.

Forspoken plot summary