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Another AAA disappointment, Forspoken.
8K View2023-01-30
Nothing surprising, another AAA turned out to be nothing like you'd expect, besides a disappointment. Though, something really special about this game is that the price is the same as the main character would price itself, way too overvalued. That's one of the main reasons this game is simply souless, with only the intent of taking its innocent customer's money. But let me elaborate.
First of the reasons I'm saying this it's because if you want to play on PC you need at least another $1600 to get an RTX 4090 to be able to play this at 60fps, and even then that's not guaranteed, and don't worry if you have an older graphics card you "might" be able to play this game in 720p30fps, just might, thought probably not. Just shows you how insane the system requirements are and how poorly optimized this game really is. I also would've said it feels like it's a bad port from console, but guess what, from what I heard it doesn't run all that well on consoles either. Already an amazing start for a game that charges a premium over other premium priced games.
But if you meet the requirements, what do you get after? A super narcissistic girl that feels like her whole personality was designed to copy a self entitled 14y/o that uses Twitter all day. It was a horror every time Fray (the main character) opened her mouth, cas not once something nice came out of there. Literally, I do not get why did the people that wrote Fray's character thought it was a good idea to create one of the most insufferable bitch, that is rude to everyone for no reason, it just made the game much less enjoyable overall. And you'd expect that there would be some character development, but nope, absolutely nothing. She remained being an asshole throughout the whole game, I actually felt like she got worse the more the game progressed. And because of it, the dialogue, as you'd expect, was pretty hard to listen to. With her also saying fuck every other sentence, it was just getting boringly annoying after a while.
Now the story itself isn't half bad in my opinion if you only ignore what the main character is saying most of the time, though it is a little silly. It basically goes how Fray, a pretty much thief from New York, is trying to make a new start for herself and her cat, but she is involved with a gang which she pissed off just one day before she was planning to leave the city, so the gang found the apartment where she was living and set it on fire, making her leave the money she prepared for her escape behind. After she found a new home for her cat, she finds herself on top of a building thinking of what to next, when all of a sudden she saw a glowing golden bracelet in an abandoned apartment, where she then goes to, only to get herself transported into the world of Athia when she tried to pick it up. From then, she is stuck in this magical world plagued by a devastating miasma called "The Break" which corrupts everything inside of it, with her new companion Cuff which the same as the name implies is the bracelet that transported her into this world, she also gains elemental powers because of him, now having to fight with these new powers of her to get rid of The Break after she went to the last surviving city in exchange for information and help to get herself back home. It is quite captivating at times, but don't expect too much out of it.
One of the things that annoyed me quite a bit was whenever you talk with Cuff, you literally can't move for no reason, and most of the time you aren't even talking anything of importance with him. Also, it's really stupid that you have to wait to talk with him just so you go into a cutscene right after, instead of just integrating the dialog into the cutscene.
Now, one thing that is a bit of a saving grace for this game is the combat. Though it only becomes fun and flashy a little further into the game after you upgraded some of the skill tree, craft a few items and such, and just then you're being able to do a few cool combos. Before that you're stuck with only 3 things, burst rock, fast rocks, and rock shield, and you are stuck with them for a while. In my opinion it would've been better if you could get some attacks faster as it gets pretty repetitive and boring, but I guess it is somewhat worth the wait when you finally get there.
Also, one more thing that I kinda liked about the game is the parkour, it feels pretty nice, and you can do quite a bit of cool things, the only with complaint I have about it is that sometimes it feels like you only have to keep holding one button, and it does the rest for you.
Now, something that I have to mention that is really dumb in this game are the difficulties. The only thing that really changes between difficulties is the amount of health the mobs and bosses have, only making this game more tedious if you chose to play it on a higher difficulty level. The attack patterns, attack speed and everything else remains the same, so I don't see a reason why anyone would choose to play it on hard difficulty when the game is easy no matter what, the only thing that is changing is the time you're wasting fighting the stupid AI in this game.
The world on the other hand it is quite beautiful, but sadly, it also feels pretty dead and empty. While you're able to find a lot of treasures and items while exploring, none of them are really that useful in the completion of the game, and while you're able to find a few beasts and zombies to fight against when you're out there, it just feels like they have been just randomly scattered around the map. I get that the setting of this game is inspired by "the plague" which pretty much means it's all death and sorrow, but it's just not fun to run around the world and finding nothing major or rewarding.
The graphics also nothing special either, with some pretty bad textures even on max quality, it doesn't really feel like you play a triple A game of 2023. In my opinion, this game has slightly better graphics than The Witcher, which was release in 2015, and that has to say quite a lot.
I believe this game should've never been priced over $40 for how linear and a shell of a game it is. It's just sad to see all the AAA industry going faster and faster in this direction. Purely for the money, no love behind this game because that how it felt for me. If you really want to try this game out for yourself, wait for a sale or get a key that is under $30 or better $20. There's no world I can get isekai'd in where I'd change my mind, either.
Comments
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I'll be checking it out myself, but not for that price. They must be out of their freaking minds.
2023-02-01
Author liked100%, you might have some fun in this game but wait to see it’s price this spring sale
2023-02-01
Man I don't know who got to all the reviewers but this game is just the latest in a slew of games getting review bombed. The game run very well on console and looks beautiful. the combat flows incredibly smoothly (anyone calling it clunky is obviously just bad at the game) with a huge variety of spells that cater to many combat styles. the open world is massive (you could fit nearly 3 skyrims in it) although it doesn't always feel as alive as some other world's (this is for a reason however and is explained in the games lore) there are plenty of things to find and exploring is fun with the magical movement. Honestly if you have a magic power fantasy no game has done it as good as this one.
2023-02-01
There isn’t a review bomb. The reason why a lot of people write negative reviews about this game is because a lot of people just don’t like the “protagonist” and understandably so. And also for its price you’d expect much more since you can also play Skyrim three times and have a lot more to do then in this game. The combat it is pretty cool, but I’ve played better with better combat for a cheaper price. And that’s why people write bad reviews about this game. It was just disappointing for what it offered.
2023-02-01
Ravi
2023-02-25