After analyzing Forspoken for PC, we also tested Square Enix’s new game for Playstation 5 s sweet and sour taste: great details, but looks half-baked in some aspects.

This is an open-world role-playing game in which we get into the shoes of Freya, a young New Yorker who, without knowing how, ends up trapped in Athia, a medieval world full of magic and of course. , great danger. So we’ll have to embark on a journey that immerses us in the world we’ll be discovering, while learning more about Frey herself. Undoubtedly, a title that raised a lot of expectations after its announcement, but which left the general public a little cold. Let’s see why.

As we told you, Frey, a young woman from New York, sees her life take a 180-degree turn when she finds herself transferred to Athia. Before that happened, we are shown how Frey tries to overcome all the problems that surround her, and they are not few, because she is an orphan who lives almost in destitution and who tries in any way to get money to start a new life. A big cat lover, Frey is a big fan of the Alice in Wonderland story and would no doubt love to see something like this happen to her. And all said and done, after finding a strange abandoned bracelet, when she picks it up, a portal to another dimension opens, to which she is transported without further explanation. Frey suddenly finds herself trapped in Athia with a bracelet attached to her wrist, and is able to speak to her and grant her powers.

That’s how Frey knows Cep, the name he decides to give him. Thanks to him, our main hero will be able to perform various magical powers which will serve to defend against the terrible creatures that inhabit Athia. And it is because this world is under a curse that causes the creatures that inhabit it to mutate and become violent. In addition, Cepo tells us more about Athia and helps us learn more about Frey herself, as well as Cepo himself, who seems to be a being trapped in the bracelet and who is not even in Athia on his own initiative. .

This is how we will discover the territory and inhabitants of Athia, a medieval-style world ruled by the Thantas. Although Frey is initially distrusted by her people, she gradually becomes the only one capable of healing their world. Therefore, we will have to travel all over the territory and discover clues to reach our destination, and who knows if we can also return to New York.

Going around Athia might sound like we have to go around from here to here. Although this is indeed what we will have to do, it will be quite simple thanks to the so-called magical parkour, which Frey will master more and more. So, we can move fast, as well as very easy climbing on huge walls. The transition from one place to another thus becomes quite simple, as we find other tasks and rewards along the way.

Thanks to these rewards, we can upgrade Frey like you would in any other RPG. We have capes, pendants and nail polish patterns. Although it sounds strange, painting your nails is a way to enhance the abilities the Thantas have discovered using blood as paint. These three pieces of equipment will allow us to improve Freya’s various skills and attributes. In addition, we will be able to upgrade their abilities and gain more mana to cast more spells during the adventure. And, of course, we also find materials with which devices can be made or improved.

Gameplay and performance, a lot to check

In terms of gameplay, we are facing a game in which we will basically have to move from one place to another and fight. We can also use for fighting magical parkour. Thanks to it, we will be able to move very quickly around enemies, avoid them and cast spells where it hurts the most. While it may seem complicated, it gets the hang of it pretty quickly and soon we’ll be showing off some really spectacular fights.

And about spells, We will have two options, attack and defense. Offensives are shot, so we’ll never seek to melee an enemy unless they’re critical. Meanwhile, the defensive ones will burden the enemy or give us some advantages, even though they have a recharge time. Finally, we can use a special magic power combining both types of magic that has an even longer cooldown.

For its part, the variety of enemies not too high, but it is true that there are quite a few final bosses, or zone bosses, with their own combos. And while they’re generally not overly complicated, there are some, especially the optional ones, that put us to the test.

O optional missions It can be said that there are quite a lot of them, and there are very many of them. Thanks to them, we will get improvements that will be useful throughout the adventure. However, these quests aren’t very fleshed out, see one of each type, see all, and aren’t even going to add significant extra content to the story.

This level of work in side mission It can be applied to the whole game and also to the technical part. What awaits us is rather an average game on a technical level. While the designs of the main characters and the most prominent locations are very attractive, the graphical result is rather weak. Even more so when we look at everything that is not the main element of the game. So the rest of the characters, environments and enemies that are not the main ones have a slightly refined treatment and are closer to previous generations. It’s a real shame because it really takes away from the game.

And the same goes for performance. Although we have three performance options, none are quite well executed. We have a balanced option to play in 4k and around 30fps. On the other hand, a higher quality variant with flashes for lighting, a variant with improvements that are not visible to the naked eye. Finally, the ability to perform at a lower resolution, but at 60 frames per second. However, in neither case is the performance completely stable, and it is noticeable that there are times when the graphics engine drops out.

A separate case is the performance of the game on PC. Although we played it on Playstation 5, our colleagues who tried it on PC complained about excessive requirements or even elements of the game that did not work outright.

All this is made worse when we see that the price to launch the game is in the highest range (80 euros), which should guarantee the game in good condition, and it is not. The retail channel already offers great discounts, 30% from Amazon, which keeps its price 56 euros.

We liked its soundtrack and musical setting. It is appreciated that in a good part of the game and very interesting soundtrack and that gives the game a certain character. We also saw good use of the Dualsense controller via vibration, trigger and microphone.

So we can conclude that Forspoken is a game left halfway. The elements that work best are decent, but many others are left half-way and spoil the game, both narratively and technically. So here we have a title that may appeal to lovers of RPGs of a medieval nature, but that may fit the rest of the public.