Forspoken

GameSpewKim Snaith

8/10

Early on, Forspoken‘s somewhat empty, barren world isn’t the most appealing. Stick with it, though, and you’ll be rewarded with more interesting landscapes, plenty of side content to sink your teeth into and a range of magical beasts itching for a fight. Frey makes a great protagonist, and we couldn’t help but be charmed by her punchy personality. But it’s her exhilarating parkour that really sets Forspoken apart. This open world adventure offers up the type of fun that’s hard to put down once you get started. We’re certainly keen to keep returning to Athia to mop up those remaining distractio...

WayTooManyGamesLeo Faria

7/10

Earlier this year, the internet had collectively decided to label Forspoken as the worst game of the year, the culprit for everything that was wrong with gaming, and so on and so forth. It almost made me want to test it out right away, just to see if it was indeed worthy of these titles, or if it was going to become yet another victim of internet hyperbole, like many other games in the past like Castlevania 64, E.T., Final Fantasy XIII, Contra: Rogue Corps, and many others. I took advantage o...

SiliconeraJosh Tolentino

7/10

Explore the beautiful and cruel world of Athia in the shoes of Frey Holland, a down-on-her-luck New Yorker sucked through a magical portal. Defeat your enemies with high-powered elemental spells and uncover more about the Break, the mysterious corruption plaguing the land. PS5 version reviewed.

Impulse GamerAbdul Saad

Forspoken is the highly anticipated fantasy action RPG from Luminous and Square Enix that's made quite a wave and an impression on the gaming community since

Checkpoint GamingLuke Mitchell

6.5/10

Forspoken is a game not without controversy, largely since the demo that released towards the end of 2022 didn’t put its best foot forward. The weight of expectation is also strong considering the pedigree of its developers Luminous Productions, a team assembled from folk who worked on Final Fantasy XV. It’s a big bold swing at a fantasy title, with a gigantic open world to explore with parkour and fancy magical abilities, and in some ways it’s an energetic and enticing experience. A pr...

Capsule ComputersTravis Bruno

6.5/10

Forspoken squanders its impressive magical combat and parkour with a check-list open world and some of the most generic and predictable writing around.

DualShockersJeff Brooks

6.5/10

With some highs and plenty of lows, Forspoken might be worth playing for some, but it'll be forgettable for many.

RPGamerAlex Fuller

Square Enix's Forspoken serves up a volley of great gameplay ideas as well as strong representation. However, a firestorm of poor design choices, pacing, and other issues leave the game in a permanent battle of contradictions.

RPGSiteAdam Vitale

6/10

Serviceable action combat can't salvage a disappointing narrative and trivial open world.

GGReconHarry Boulton

No summary available

MonsterVineJoe Bariso

None of this is bad, the game runs fine, and nothing is broken, but it isn’t fun and to quote one Monkey D. Luffy: “I don’t want to go on an adventure that isn’t fun.” What’s the point of a massive world if nothing is interesting? What’s the point of exploring if you know exactly what you’re going to get? One could argue that the journey is the reward, playing with the combat system and seeing the world, but at a point, that isn’t enough. A good adventure is its own reward, but you have to have something worth adventuring for.

Rock Paper ShotgunAlice Bell

Unscored

Squeenix's epic-ish isekai game has cool magical combat, but it's far too big for its own good, and that scale leaves it feeling empty and disappointing.