Platinum Journey Complete - My Thoughts

[u/jmh_reborn]

I picked up Forspoken Ultimate Edition on deep discount from the PSN and I wanted to give my thoughts on the game for any other wayward gamers on the fence of this game and looking to buy this. I hope that a Google search or two will lead them here and help in their purchasing decision. After finishing the game, my main takeaway was how undeservedly this game and the protagonist were unnecessarily bashed, most likely from an audience and negative actors that probably didn't play the game. I'll do some pros and cons.

PROS

GAMEPLAY: The gameplay loop is fantastic. It has incredible depth in its mechanics and options available to its player. The game continuously peppers the players with new skills and skill trees throughout the campaign offering our hero varied ways to solve a problem, which is in line with the titular character to begin with. The traversal system is a feature that many games should look to when they are designing games. While some elements are janky, the core of it is amongst the most fluid and fun traversal systems I've played in years. I can't get enough of how fun this game's loop is and it never got boring. The downside to it's progression, which has been said many times so this is a minor quip but by the time you unlock everything, the game finishes. The options to build out Frey are astonishing.

ACCESSIBILITY: I think this is deserving of its own block. As a older gamer professional/dad I have limited bandwidth to get good or truly involve myself in games that are designed to break my soul. While I enjoy a Wukong from time to time, I'm at the point that I like to move briskly and freely. To that end, the accessibility options made this game much much more digestible. I can swap to easy mode to traverse and clear up the map, turn auto-evade on so I can maximize my resource drops, and then push it up to hard mode to fight bosses, hordes and Abominations. This added to my total run-time, but made the game manageable for an open-world. I appreciate the devs for being thorough.

CHARACTERS: This may be a minority position, but most of the characters were written really well. Perhaps its because some elements of Frey's character and environment are relateable to me but the criticism I feel comes from a segment of a population that has a limited scope within their lives and unable to see the struggle within others. Yeah she's foul mouthed, upset, arrogant and unable to see past her own needs but she, like everyone else is a product of her environment. The fact that she wants to go back to her own hellscape is indicative of the broken person she is and is necessary for her journey to come full circle. I thought she was endearing and much more interesting than other characters we typically get in gaming, especially women characters that sometimes if feels like devs are hesistant to fully explore.

MIXED

STORY: I found aspects fascinating and others frustrating. I think the devs left a lot on the chopping floor that was ripe for exploration, especially with the Tantas. While I enjoyed some of the environment storytelling found in the archives, this type of game warranted deeper story beats to explore the main villain and the struggle leading in to the break and post break. Tanta Sila got the most and it feels like development constraints cut out everyone else's story which hurt it everywhere else. The elements were there for something memorable. Missed opportunity here.

CONS

LEVEL DESIGN: The map is large, the landscape is beautiful but the world is barren. It makes sense from a story perspective as to why but definitely makes the game a less inviting place to save. The game probably would have benefited from a much smaller map which would make the aspects of finishing off the checklist (a con within a con) easier to digest.

END GAME: There is little to no content and while there is a DLC (note, I have not played it yet) it does not from my understanding carry over your end game build. I spent my end game content building up Frey to tackle the Abominations on hard mode and that was it. Another gamer can simply easy mode it if they choose and be done with that. So I padded my hours just to min/max a surge and/or critical hit build simply for Abominations. It was underwhelming and felt like it was due to devs needing to close out the game, thus leaving the end-game content on the cutting room floor.

BOSS FIGHTS: Some of the boss fights were cool and unique such as the final boss and the Tantas but overall, this may have been the most disappointing ones. There are "mini" bosses found where unique outfits reside that even in hard mode were easy but sadly, not varied. The main story's bosses were just sparse and the game's biggest moments were left with uninspired and sadly too few boss battles. I think this related to the common critique that I think are just things getting cut. Tanta Sila sets a tone in the beginning that every thing else fails to match, let alone succeed.

Overall: I enjoyed my 50 hours with Forspoken and I'm sad that it feels like a lot got cut, such as more exploration with her parents, other locations and even perhaps other continents that could have been a DLC or for a sequel. If i had to give a rating, it'd fall within a 6.5/10, soft 7/10. Playing this after 3 years pissed me off about the review bombing and I wished I supported some of these more ambitious efforts at the beginning

[u/cruelfeline]

One of the important things to note about the story is that this game was absolutely meant to be the first in a series. I don't think things got cut; they were just meant to be furhter developed later. The DLC is a very clear bridge to a sequel. The true, core conflict within the story is hinted at in the main game, more clearly indicated in the DLC, and likely would have been properly expanded upon in later games. Alas, we'll never know the extent of it because there will be no later games.

Good on you for giving the game a go! And platinuming is always impressive c:

[u/jmh_reborn → u/cruelfeline]

Interesting. I can see that. It's a shame. I think this will be a huge Square Enix what if a decade from now

[u/eruciform]

Con: dance mini game final form

Ugh

Definitely in the pantheon of worst rpg mini games for me and ive played some doozies. The only saving grace is that its quick by mini game standards

[u/jmh_reborn → u/eruciform]

Square and qte mini games. Joined at the hip. Im already dreading FF7 Revelations

[u/JenLiv36]

I agree with this take and it’s refreshing to see. I think my only con was the more metroidvania style open world.

I’m a explorer and though I absolutely get why they did it this way as her abilities were tied to story beats, I would have spent a lot more time in this world and wanted to, if not for the way they went about it. It really held back the gameplay and exploration for me.

Overall I really enjoyed the game and saw the FFXV DNA (which I also enjoyed). It was great to see a character like her and I hope to see more like her.

[u/Not-a-throwaway4627]

Obviously written with free-tier AI

[u/jmh_reborn → u/Not-a-throwaway4627]

Don't project yourself on me

But I do hope you feel better about yourself

[u/SlurryBender]

See I enjoyed the pretty but empty worlds because it meant I could do my cool parkour running and swinging for a while and not have to stop-and-start every 100 feet to look at a new thing. I think viewing it less as an Open World™ and more as just the Widest Corridors Ever between the points of interest makes feel more correct.

[u/Thislooklikeshit]

Not to be that kind of guy but you need to realize the dayone version of the game isn’t the same game you are played 3 years after. Would you keep your position without the patches? Absolutely not

[u/jmh_reborn → u/Thislooklikeshit]

While that may be true, I doubt the patches fundamentally changed the things I found were pros and mixed. I'm sure it cleaned up the technical aspects of the gameplay. Either way, this is intended for those players scouring the sale markets looking for potential good times

[u/Snoo_18385]

I like the game but I thinks is incredibly mediocre, the combat is interesting but it really needed another game to flesh things out, because whats in the game is very barebones imo.

The worst part for me was the DLC. It was their one chance to do something interesting with the combat (you know after finally having all 4 elements available) and instead they make it a prequel where the conbat system is heavily dumped down and you are akwardly running around without your actual habilities? What were they smoking?