In 2016, Final Fantasy XV saw the light of day via Luminous Productions, the major title Square Enix showcased in varying forms for the better part of a decade leading up to its release.
Unfortunately, the game ended up as a half-baked product. It bore traces of having over-focused on gimmicks over substance – a world that looked much bigger than it was, a combat system that – again – so way cooler than it ended up being, and a main story that could be completed in no less than 20 hours.
Why do I mention this? The prophet is in a rather similar situation. Having been shown in demo or concept form for several years now, Forspoken is also made by the excellent Luminous Productions. And unfortunately, history repeats itself.
Alice in Wonderland
Frey does not have it so easy in New York.
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
The prophet tells the story of Frey, a girl from New York who has little to thank the world for. As an orphan and on the edge of the law, she has almost given up everything – that is, she has saved enough money to leave New York and start a new life with her cat Homer. But when her apartment is set on fire, her savings are lost, and Frey is forced to give up her cat to the only person she trusts; the judge who showed care for her. All alone, she accidentally finds a gold bracelet, which turns out to open a portal to another world. And not only that. The bracelet speaks, giving Frey magical powers.
The harbinger does not allow you to move while having actual conversations with Cuff. Along with other aspects, this makes the game feel heavy and old-fashioned.
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
On wild roads, Frey and “Cuff”, as she christens him, must set off on a journey in the world Athia to find civilization. However, Athia is on the brink of destruction as “the Break”, a dark force, corrupts the continent more and more with each passing day. The guardians who were supposed to defend the land are instead destroying it, and the people live in constant fear of what awaits them. It is with this as a backdrop that Frey, after all an up-and-coming 21-year-old girl, must collect the pieces and set off on an adventure with Cuff to find a solution to the corruption – and a way back home.
A battle system under development
Foresken leans heavily on the systems that make the game unique – the quick movements and the large-scale combat system. With the help of the Cuff, we can sprint and jump over large stretches in no time by holding down the circle button, and at its best it feels both flexible and fun to get from one point to another. The entire game revolves around this movement system, and as you can move so quickly, the world has also been made larger and more open than most.
Throwing rocks isn’t as much fun as using flames or electricity!
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
At the same time, the combat system is as quick as it is bouncy, and Frey jumps, ducks, and dodges enemies while throwing all kinds of magic back, all using nothing less than two or three button presses. Again, this is a visual feast of particle effects plucked straight out of an animated Final Fantasy movie from the early 2000s. At its best, this combat is unique and at times spectacular, but it takes time for the coolest opportunities and attacks to show up, and the early fights suffer from doing a lot of the same thing. In fact, the latter is something that characterizes all the game to varying degrees, and the lack of really many upgrade options means that the feeling of progression is not very present.
THIS is what you need to achieve.
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
Forerunner leans so heavily on these unique systems that they soon start to feel like gimmicks, especially since the developer seems to have shaped the game around them, and not the other way around. Because while this agility feels good – and feels like a continuation of the more vertical movement system in Kingdom Hearts 3 where you could run up walls – it also exposes one of Forspoken’s big problems: this world is really very empty. It is rare that I am so uninterested in exploring open spaces, but Forspoken’s Athia is so uncharming and so unattractive – be it due to a lack of depth, possibilities, or the lack of use of figures and life in general – that I’m dead tired after only a few half hours. Because after all, Forspoken is awfully predictable, only half-developed, and a shadow of what it could have been.
What is this actually?
There is sometimes something strange about the colors.
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
In Forspoken, agile movements, explosive combat systems, a magical open world and a mysterious story with ups and downs will together create a fantastic experience. Unfortunately, for the most part, the game appears as a product that has had far too little time in the oven; an idea that went far too far, and an execution that does not measure up to what a really good story requires.
The reason is simple – The Forerunner is primarily reminiscent of a twist on the Final Fantasy narrative, but has been shrunk down to a main narrative that can be completed in no less than 10-12 hours. At the same time, Athia is clearly a world that is meant to seem vast and varied, with a lot of backstory and love put into its creation – at the very least its thought. But none of this gets time to breathe or be shown off in a really good way. The vast majority of things are explained in menus rather than cutscenes or while playing, and because the game is so short, that neim is not given much time to unfold. It still doesn’t mean that the world gets any better by spending more time in it, because it is simply inherently boring and soulless.
The graphics on the faces are really good.
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
At the same time, it doesn’t quite seem like Luminous Studios (again: the creator of Final Fantasy XV) understands what they want to say, or who the game is intended for. Because even though Forspoken is gloomy, dark and at times frightening, there are jokes to such an extent that you might wonder if you’ve watched a Marvel film. Here the jokes flow like regurgitation from infants – and like regurgitation, it is not always as desirable or welcome.
The hub area is much more boring than it should be. And look at the ugly clouds!
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
Frey shows little awe of her betters in this new world, nor does she seem as startled or surprised as she should be at having landed in an entirely new and dangerous universe. Instead, she chooses to play-argue with companion Cuff, and again something is not right.
What are intended to be funny or charming back-and-forth banter mostly end up as annoying or unfunny comments. Little in The Prophecy does anything special to earn our sympathy (aside from general human empathy), and similarly the relationship between Frey and Cuff fails to be portrayed as either funny or charming. In a game with as much dialogue as this, it’s all the more noticeable when the execution doesn’t match the idea. All the characters could use a few extra hours of exposure to get to know them as well as they should.
What is happening at Luminous?
The problem with Forspoken is simply how uninteresting it is, and what it says about the situation at the studio. This is simply not suitable for Easter. The harbinger seems to have all the components of a good Japanese role-playing game. Here is a dark and unknown world to be explored, powerful villains to be tamed, and personal battles to be won. But nothing is told or portrayed as it should. The only thing that saves Forspoken in a narrative way is the fantastic voice acting, which alone saves the relatively awkward dialogue, and the animations, which at least sometimes show realistic facial expressions and in that way elevate the experience.
Some characters are more charming than others, although the acting is usually terrific.
Andreas Bjørnbekk/Gamer.no
The Prophet offers some genuinely good and heart-warming and heart-wrenching moments, but apart from these talents, there is very little here that stands out. You’ve sort of experienced this isekai narrative before (a person suddenly finds themselves in another world), and there’s little about the characters that comes off as unique or particularly human. Despite the postponements of the game, and in the same way as Final Fantasy XV in its time, Forspoken seems completely unfinished, poorly thought out, and almost like a tech demo rather than a proper full-fledged game. And it’s a tragedy when it’s clear that quite a lot of thought went into how this game was supposed to work.
Conclusion
The sad thing about Forspoken is how constantly close it is to being so much better than this. The game’s best parts – the combat and movement system – are unlike most out there and are often fun, but lack the extra flair, variety, and sense of progression to be really good. At the same time, the voice acting performances are genuinely good, and make me able to tolerate and at times like our main characters despite the many boring and silly things they actually say.
However, it all falls apart when the predictable narrative and wildly uninspired open world never fails to charm. It’s definitely magical at times, but there’s rarely anything more hidden than what can be seen on the surface, and because you can move as fast as you can, it’s also not made to be enjoyed in silence, and is almost completely without the finer details one would expect from really strong sandbox games.
The Forerunner is simply a game I had to agonize over, and even though it only took me about 10 hours to complete, it still feels like a waste of time.
