There’s a successful balance to be had it’s just not currently there. The game does include an option to reduce the frequency of Cuff’s dialogue, but even after turning it down as much as possible, I still encountered the same "What's so good about Newark" exchange between Frey and Cuff so frequently while exploring that I wondered if the setting change had done anything at all. Frey's stereotypically teenage edge butts up against Cuff's antagonism at 300 bpm, and my ability to cope had an awfully difficult time keeping up with it. Even so, the snippets of dialogue making stupendously poor landings on the regular wouldn't be as notably grating if they weren't so near to constant. This scene has been memed to death online, and it's not hard to see why. “You absolutely sound like that.” Yeah - see? Two can play at that game. You sound like a serial killer.įrey: “Destruction and corruption are beautiful forms of creation in themselves.”Ĭuff: Oh no. Their banter does sometimes work, and the game does a decent job of expanding their relationship throughout the game, but the repetition of their back-and-forth drowns out the successes here.Ĭuff: Destruction and corruption are forms of creation in themselves.įrey: Wow. If Cuff had been a bit more serious to counterbalance Frey’s sass, the pairing might have been more successful, but the end result is that the two characters you're spending almost the entirety of your time with are constantly bickering. The heart of the problem is best demonstrated by the nonstop reel of quips being doled out from Frey and Cuff throughout. The voice acting is always genuine and earnest, but the writers are constantly reaching for generic, oft-times cringey quips that rarely land in their attempts to channel a buzzy, contemporary lexicon. That said, the unfortunate reality is that the dialogue ranges from middling to forgettable for most of the cast. The story goes in fairly predictable directions, though I hardly found them dissatisfying, and the final few hours of the campaign left me higher on the game than I’d been throughout most of the journey. Later chapters deal heavily in narrative revelations, and despite the missteps leading up to them, they were engaging, providing a much-needed level of heart to the narrative. While the writing is consistently rocky early on, it does eventually find some footing. Jumping from cutscene to brief gameplay, then back into cutscene (all with awkwardly placed and overly long fades to black in between) while enduring the barrage of codex entry pop-ups forces you into a stuttering and awkward pace that's difficult to come to grips with in the game's opening hours. Forspoken also has an incredibly uncanny way of getting in the way of its own momentum. The stilted exchanges between key players and the excessive amount of profanity (seriously, it’s more than you think) coalesce with Frey's one-note abrasiveness to paint a fairly grim initial picture. The overall plot is sound - if a bit by the numbers - but it’s the moment-to-moment dialogue that immediately began to wear on me. The game does not leave a strong first impression. Throughout her journey, Frey unlocks various schools of magical powers and (very reluctantly) transforms into the hero Athia needs. But the lands are covered in a mysterious corruption known as the Break, which has nearly killed off all of its inhabitants. After arriving in Athia and becoming attached to a talkative magical bracelet called Cuff, she sets out to find a way home. With the game now fully released, Forspoken delivers on some of these promises - the magic itself can be incredibly satisfying once mastered, and traversing through the open world is a joy - but the game is riddled with odd decisions and technical missteps that leave the experience overall frustrating, if still satisfying.įorspoken follows Frey, a down-on-her-luck 21-year-old in New York City, who is transported into the mysterious and magical world of Athia. It boasted some explosive magical combat, thrilling traversal, and a fantasy world that looked a little lifeless but seemed like it just might capture our imaginations. Forgettable characters, awkward dialogue, odd choicesĭisclaimer: Copy was provided by the developer for review purposes.įorspoken turned heads after its initial reveal trailer back in September 2021.
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