Frey Holland is having a strange day. When morning broke, she was in court arguing about her future potential, and also the grim circumstances of her lifetime. By afternoon, she was in a strange fantasy land filled with dragons, talking wrist cuffs, and magic powers. Her reaction, understandably, is among complete shock. ‘I’m somewhere that’s not what I would call Earth, I’m seeing freakin’ dragons, and oh yeah, I’m speaking with a cuff!’ she says, in one scene that’s gone inexplicably viral for being ‘cringe’.
It’s a very human moment in otherworldly circumstances – a slice of dialogue that feels out of place as Frey travels through a light-dappled castle, and gazes out onto a beautiful, crystalline forest. But that’s the point. A staple of the isekai, fish-out-of-water genre is displacement, a merging of cultures from alternate worlds.
Frey’s dialogue, out of context – in a trailer, for instance – feels over-the-top. Inside the actual realm of Forspoken, it’s an essential window into a complex, intriguing character.
As a young woman with little stability along with a thrumming anger at her circumstances, Frey has a tendency to lash in bold quips and declarations, reassuring herself, and providing a prickly defence to people round her. While this anger is occasionally overblown and overwritten, its white-hot drive helps to shape the field of Forspoken, and Frey’s overarching journey as a hero.
From as soon as Frey enters the magical realm of Athia, she’s swept right into a blisteringly-paced story that thrusts her into an unenviable position: saviour of the land she’s never known. Becoming an adult in foster homes and with a disregard for wider society, this creates a real feeling of conflict – one which plays out in each story beat and snappy little bit of dialogue.
From the kindly Auden to the brash Johedy, Frey soon discovers something she’s didn't have: a found family worth protecting. While these relationships adapt, with one particularly grating cutscene threatening to derail Frey’s character development entirely, they play a crucial part within the journey as danger advances.
Open fields and open hearts
Frey’s growth plays out in a sweeping arc that encompasses the entire story of Forspoken, bringing players from imposing castles and townships to open plains and fields filled with gorgeous skies, floating fortresses, and twinkling lights.
While the overworld of Forspoken is technically a poisonous landscape infected by dangerous magic, it’s also extremely beautiful, and appears to push the bounds of what modern consoles are technically able to (the PS5 version of the sport was deliver to review).
The outer landscapes of Athia are diverse, and sparkle with life – there are dense trees, purple forests, red lava pits, sandy oases, flowing oceans, and yet more sights to behold. Importantly, you can always see far over the glittering worlds in front of you, the horizon inviting you with promise.
While they're populated by roaming monsters, twisted and warped by magic, these realms are real marvels, and make exploration in Forspoken incredibly eye-catching. Additionally they serve as a backdrop to mastering the game’s intricate and satisfying combat system.
Frey has access to a variety of magics in her journey, because of the magic of Cuff, and the corrupted evil from the ‘Tanta’ witches. Much of this magic is ranged, and allows you to parkour-attack your way through enemy hordes, but there’s additionally a close combat magic set, and a range of other hyper-powered abilities to understand.
Each includes a welcome flow, and feels meaty. Spells hit hard, and also the PS5 DualSense controller reacts well to these attacks, providing highly tactile responses. While ranged combat can typically be hard to truly communicate a genuine impact to the player, Forspoken strikes a perfect balance here, enabling you to achieve a satisfying flow with every zap.
Time your attacks and counter-attacks well, and you’ll bring about an impressive, high-powered dance that grows more complicated as you encounter new bosses and enemy types. The further you travel into Athia, the more of these threats you’ll uncover.
The only real shame, then, is that you spend not enough time really dealing with explore these realms for their fullest potential.
As mentioned, the pace of Forspoken is impressively fast, using the entire journey taking around 12-15 hours. In this time, you're able to know Frey, she gets to understand Athia, and multiple dangling story threads loosen and unravel.
You can certainly take more time stopping to smell the Athian roses, but each plot has a tendency to include hooks – the world is in danger, the people of Cipal need help, the orphan kids of the town demand your attention – that help you stay running towards the next goal.
Spending amount of time in the world also feels fairly fruitless sometimes, with simply minor upgrades obtainable in the darker corners from the map. If you spend time levelling up, you will gain an advantage in battle that’ll be beneficial, especially in the final stages from the adventure – but Frey’s combat abilities are already so strong in Normal difficulty that levelling doesn’t feel extremely necessary as you stick to the main plot.
A new cloak or necklace may provide additional health benefits, or a new nail set may give you special powers. Upgrades can be found along the journey, and every yields additional strength, magic power, and a range of skill boosts. Obviously, you may also do away with these extra challenges, and thereby skip the vast majority of the game’s open world.
Structure and story pace
Forspoken remains a gripping tale throughout Frey’s journey, but there are gaping cracks within the adventure’s foundation that hold it back from complete brilliance. Its open world is, strangely, one of these simple cracks.
While gorgeous anyway, Forspoken‘s open world often feels superfluous to the narrative-based story. It’s just a path to traverse, practice your skills, run into secrets, and level up. There are no major quests out in the deep – only more enemies to defend myself against in endless battles.
The game itself seems structured around this fact, too, with story missions simply popping a point on the map for Frey to travel towards, and the other point, once she reaches her goal. This, coupled with frequent cutscenes that seem to prefer guided storytelling over player-led exploration, makes Forspoken feel cloistered sometimes.
Not all the games needs to be open world, and Forspoken is a good example of why – with exploration segments often feeling like filler for any genuinely enthralling, constantly twisting tale.
Frey continues to be beating heart
Despite these woes, the center in the middle of Forspoken shines through.
Frey is a very human protagonist – one rarely seen in games – and while the experience could be overwritten and overly dramatic, leaving some scenes feeling silly instead of poignant, she remains an impactful protagonist. You want doing succeed, to embrace Athia, and to shed her insecurities.
Her story and journey wobbles in places, but it’s redeemed in the game’s epic closing arcs, which reveal Frey’s true nature. Rough and ready, much like Frey, Forspoken is a tale worth stomping through one high-stakes, magic-infused battle at any given time.
4 Stars: ★★★★
Forspoken
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