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The surprising key to understanding Forspoken is a forgotten open-world superhero game

14K View2023-01-26
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I reviewed Forspoken, the new big franchise from Square Enix, earlier this week, and I liked it quite a bit more than a lot of other professional critics. You can read my review here. Opinions about games are subjective, of course, so I’m not here to argue that anyone who doesn’t like Forspoken as much as me is wrong. But I wanted to share a revelation I had while playing the game that just might help others find something more to enjoy here.
I was around ten hours into Forspoken when it happened. Though still relatively early and underpowered, I had started building up some of main character Frey’s magical spells. In particular, I found myself focusing on unlocking any of the parkour-based navigation abilities as soon as possible. Forspoken’s world is massive, so getting around quickly is useful. Likewise, it’s chock-full of huge cliffs, imposing chasms, and incredible heights to scale, much of which remain out of reach until you either earn more powers that can keep you in the air longer, or spend a lot of time mastering the powers you already have. Or both.
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So there I was, zooming around the desert zone of Praenost to visit different points of interest, to collect mana shooting up from the ground, and of course to go head-to-head with various wandering zombies and beasts transformed by the game’s nearly world-ending plague. One of the things I loved in Forspoken is how the game blends together its parkour and combat scenarios, so naturally, many of these fights opened with me slamming down from above with an area-of-effect spell, or leapfrogging over the heads of brainless baddies and then raining bolts of magic down on them from above.
As this was going on, something kept tugging at the back of my brain. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that what I was doing felt familiar in some way. In my review, I mentioned that Forspoken was developed by the same team that created Final Fantasy XV, and in many ways the combat system here builds off the action-RPG stylings of that title. But that wasn’t it. There was something else, some other game from my memories that I was being reminded of.
And then, as I won another hard-fought battle against a big group of creeps and looked through the menus to see what new powers I could unlock, it hit me like, well, a bolt of lightning.
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Do you remember the Infamous series? This PlayStation-exclusive franchise was created by Sucker Punch, with the first game launching for the PlayStation 3 way back in 2009. The last new title in the series, Infamous First Light, launched as a bit of stand-alone DLC for the PlayStation 4 almost a decade ago.
Since then, nothing. Though the Infamous games were fairly well-liked, the franchise never seemed to burn up the sales chart quite as much as other major Sony first-party releases. Developer Sucker Punch moved on to Ghost of Tsushima, which launched to rave reviews and the studio’s fastest sales ever in 2020. And in a letter to fans in July of last year, Sucker Punch was clear that “for now there are no Infamous...games in development.”
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For those who aren’t familiar, the Infamous games were open-world superhero titles—sort of comparable to the 2018 release Marvel’s Spider-Man from fellow Sony studio Insomniac Games, except Infamous didn’t have the benefit of a big, well-known protagonist. Instead, players took on the role of Cole MacGrath (at least in the first two games), a bike courier who gains the power to absorb and shoot out electricity in a freak accident. In addition to taking on tiny quests throughout the map and progressing the main story, players could make decisions that would inch Cole toward being good or evil, resulting in different endings depending on where they ended up.
So what does this great but dormant old superhero series have to do with Forspoken? More than you might expect!
See, Forspoken is an action-RPG that’s set in a fantasy world, but the actual gameplay feels shockingly similar to that of the Infamous games. Like Cole, Frey gets around the world via impressive acrobatics and parkour movement. Like Cole, many of her core powers are based around movement and helping her to blast through the world faster. And though Frey eventually gains access to a whole range of elemental powers, and though her base power is technically earth-themed rather than lightning, like Cole, her first primary attack is shooting small bolts at enemies.
Maybe these are the ramblings of a nostalgia-addled weirdo who deeply loved and misses the Infamous games, but once I made this connection in my mind, the Forspoken experience cracked right open for me. I went from fumbling around the world like a klutz to smoothly leaping from ledge to ledge and plotting out complex lines through the environment on the fly. I shifted from clumsily mashing down the attack button and feeling sort of exhausted with combat to recognizing how I could utilize all of my tools to string different types of attacks together.
When I figured out the ways in which Forspoken and Infamous are similar, everything just clicked into place for me. I went from feeling sort of ambivalent about my experience in Square’s new game to really enjoying it.
It’s not just the gameplay too. Though most of Forspoken is set in the fantasy world of Athia, it opens in New York City; the first Infamous game takes place in Empire City, a fictional locale clearly inspired by the Big Apple.
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And for as much crap as Forspoken has received for its hit-and-miss writing, Frey and Cole share a lot in common. They’re both down-on-their-luck twenty-somethings who get pushed into crazy circumstances and given unbelievable abilities. They’re both kind of grumpy jerks about having to shoulder the responsibility that comes with these newfound powers. And they both have wisecracking buddies who have to keep pushing them to actually continue on their hero’s journey every time they try to give up.
Heck, Infamous and Forspoken even both share a penchant for melodramatic twists in the story. I won’t spoil the endings for either game (even though Infamous is pretty dang old at this point), and they’re far from identical. But both titles have surprises near the end that play with expectations and reshape moments from earlier in the narrative.
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Now to give credit to those who haven’t enjoyed Forspoken, when I say, “Hey, this game is a lot like Infamous in some ways!” it’s not like that magically fixes all of its shortcomings. Game design and games writing have both come a long way since 2009, and if this specific type of throwback doesn’t appeal to you, that’s totally understandable.
However, hopefully I won’t be totally alone in being pleasantly surprised to discover the similarities between Forspoken and one of my favorite old PlayStation franchises. Who knows if or when I’ll ever get the chance to play around in the world of Infamous again. Athia may not be quite the same, but it’s close enough to feel welcoming, and I’m looking forward to continuing my journey through it as I clean up all the post-game content.
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Comments
Master Tac
Master Tac
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1

Infamous was so much fun! I knew there was a reason something about Forspokens combat and movement felt a bit familiar somehow

2023-02-02

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Kef
Kef Author
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Glad I'm not the only one who felt that way :)

2023-04-20

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手机用户862136
手机用户862136
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nice to see another infamous 1 & 2 fan here. well Forspoken reminded me of infamous : second son in its story so it's not really a surprise since compared to 1 & 2 second son has story filled with plot holes but nailed combat section of the game.

2023-01-30

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Kef
Kef Author
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Second Son is a great point of comparison for those exact reasons! good call

2023-04-20

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man660
man660
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useless post JFC 🤦🏼‍♂️

2023-01-28

Kef
Kef Author
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I'm sorry you disliked it 🤷‍♂️

2023-01-30

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