In recent years, Square Enix seemed to lack internal quality control. Action-adventure Left Alive fails in every way (see our review), platformer Balan Wonderworld came in second according to Metacritic worst game last year, The Fall of Babylon it only ranked third in the same ranking this year, and the Quiet Man movie is even so stupid that even the developers themselves make fun of it (see our article).
What’s more, Forspoken looks great in promotional images.
No, Forspoken’s upcoming action-adventure game probably won’t be such plain trash, but we certainly won’t be arguing about it in the editorial office. Or maybe actually yes, unless we are forced to, maybe we won’t force anyone to review.
Already from the first trailer, the game (then still called the Athia project) aroused more curiosity in us than outright pleasure, apparently targeting a teenage audience that is more weaned to the genre of young adult fantasy than hardcore gamers. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, not every game has to be about people brutally injuring themselves, even in this lighthearted genre there is good stuff to be found. However, there’s no indication Forspoken should join them yet in terms of story. The cast actually laughed off the film’s trailer for its grief (see our article), in the demo offered no sight or hearing after a few plots.
But in reality, it’s not that great.
This demo, which you can download for free on PS5, doesn’t really show anything great about the game. It’s just a patch of landscape with nothing, but literally nothing but a few randomly scattered enemies. We haven’t seen a world this empty since the days of the Two Worlds RPG.
After all, based on the public’s not-so-positive reaction, the developers have already announced that the full version will be much better and the game part presented is made especially for the purposes of the demo version. If this is true, then they really claim that the demo version is unrepresentative, which is why I’m a bit confused as to why they released it in the first place.
Perhaps they just wanted to show players the famous “fantasy parkour”, which should become the main “highlight” of the game. When you press the corresponding button, the main character rushes forward and automatically jumps over obstacles. If it’s supposed to be cool, it’s not, on the surface I see nothing that I don’t already know from something like inFamous or Prototype.
I wasn’t even impressed by the combat, which offers a very wide range of offensive and defensive spells for an action game, but the need to constantly swap them out is more of a stepping stone than a joy. And to make matters worse, I was also disappointed by the lackluster graphics, which look a class worse than in the original trailer.
Overall, I can describe my feelings about the demo as being “meh” bored and I’m really glad that brands like Tomb Raider or Deus Ex are already Square Enix. not belong.
By the way, please know that this is not a review, so don’t take my impression of playing for about an hour as dogma. Perhaps the game will turn out even better, as the developers promised. There are even some who already like it. Each commodity has its own buyer, and perhaps Forspoken will be exactly what they expect from a game. But I wouldn’t recommend pre-ordering them either.
Forspoken launches on January 24 on PC and PS5.
