![]() The further she got from New York, and the more invested she became in the world of Athia and its characters, the more relatable she was. The lore explains this as the patterns themselves being an incantation of sorts, but in practice it's just a cool way to have elaborate nails that grant passive buffs to augment your particular play style.Īnd almost invisibly, as I was enjoying the combat and movement tools and making my way through the story, I started to warm up to Frey as a protagonist, too. Frey can equip a variety of cloaks and necklaces that augment her abilities, and passive buffs come from nail patterns. The equipment types come with all the usual combat upgrades you'd expect from an action-RPG, but the system seems designed around giving you some visual panache. You can upgrade your magic by exploring the open world and collecting Mana, and the equipment is very based around looking good while doing it. As with the combat, it took me some time to adjust to the speed of the movement, especially when some moments required platforming finesse, but I enjoyed what I tried and I'm looking forward to having more time to perfect my magic-parkour skills. It's exciting and kinetic, and even the most basic movement tools show a lot of room to build on with further traversal abilities. You push off of the ground (or even thin air) like a professional skater, scaling walls in a split-second and then leaping off a precipice. ![]() For fans of Final Fantasy XV, this combat will feel very similar, albeit with more singular focus revolving around Frey and her ability to control the battlefield herself.įrey's parkour abilities also tie into the traversal in the massive open world, and feel great. It took me some time to adjust to this new, much more agile playstyle, but once I did, the combat fell into place. Once you earn your magic parkour, combat becomes a frenetic ballet, juking around the battlefield to flank enemies, fire off some shots, and then zip away again.įrey is almost disorientingly fast once you acquire these abilities, since the initial burst of speed when you trigger the parkour movement is so quick compared to the steadier rhythm of sprinting. The combat is built around the movement, and Frey's ability to launch into a huge burst of speed is instrumental in making everything else work. The earliest fights, especially before Frey starts to get her magic-enhanced movement abilities, felt like trying to dance with bricks tied to my calves.Īs more abilities open up, however, it becomes clear why those first few fights didn't feel very good. It takes place in third-person, so these are basically magic-guns with the over-the-shoulder perspective you'd expect from a third-person shooter. In practice, these are ranged spells with some minor variations: a standard shot that can be charged for a more powerful burst, a weaker rapid-fire spell, and a rudimentary shield that can burst out and deal damage at close range. Frey starts off with just a handful of magical abilities, a family of purple magic representing the element of earth. ![]() I was similarly put off by the very earliest taste of combat. Now Playing: Forspoken Demo Trailer | The Game Awards 2022 Hailing from New York, she often drops casual references and slang from her world only to be met with a confused "huh?" from those around her, forcing her to explain herself or shrug it off with a hasty "never-mind." It happens so much, in fact, that it gets a little grating-come on, Frey, shouldn't you have figured out to just stop using idioms by now?īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Frey talks to herself and her sentient vambrace, nicknamed Cuff, constantly, narrating her way through events and repeatedly pointing out how unbelievable it all is. That trailer was largely from the earliest part of the game I played, Chapter 2, and yes, that element is absolutely present. Those awkward early moments have already been a dominant topic of conversation after a trailer in August inspired a flurry of conversation across social media about Frey's running "well, that just happened" style of narration. Despite a rocky start, Forspoken found its stride and showed real promise. However, those early growing pains slowly subsided as I continued on until eventually, time slipped away without my notice. The dialogue was too cute by half, and the combat felt cumbersome. While at a preview event ahead of the game's release next month, I was able to play the upcoming action-RPG and the first few minutes filled me with trepidation. Forspoken does not make a great first impression.
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