Yet, the game has a certain charm that I believe makes it worth giving a try to anyone.

In the end, I recommend Forspoken to anyone who loves Final Fantasy XV or Ubisoft-style open worlds and especially anyone who has a thing for character mobility. I am not sure how many steps forward versus how many steps back Forspoken takes, but there are steps taken forward. There is a lot of diversity in the cast too, in a way we don’t usually get from big-budget RPGs. And I also can’t deny there are some eyebrow-raising moments as to how the writers chose to portray a black woman like Frey, despite personally liking her quite a bit when viewed through the lens of having finished the game. But at the same time I can’t help but be disappointed with how safe Forspoken plays the open world, and I am unlikely to go back to clear out all of those rote points of interest. There is a lot of fun to be had exploring Athia and the main quest keeps things interesting even when you get bored with the open-world checklist. That fantasy world certainly looks appealing, but I realized that's often because the RTX tech disguises art assets that are really cheap and bland.Forspoken is a far better and more compelling game than I had feared, but it also doesn’t reach the heights I dreamt of. In fact, the game doesn't seem to feature any ray-tracing until Frey arrives in Athia.

The opening chapter shows NYC with snow in December, but the ground remains dry, presumably to avoid ray-tracing. Doors inexplicably grow or shrink depending on how you look at them (reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland in all the wrong ways). If the sloppy opening - presenting Frey's entire backstory through documents on a table, with a judge handing down a community service sentence - doesn't turn you off immediately, the lack of consideration only gets worse from there. With publisher Square Enix already catching heat for producer Naoki Yoshida's defense of upcoming Final Fantasy XVI's scant diversity, Forspoken makes the nightmarish choice to start with its Black protagonist in court for her third felony. Put simply, Square Enix faces too many open-world competitors to get away with a poor showing like this.

Download free forspoken metacritic