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Having put 37-38 hours into Forspoken I can confidently say I enjoyed this title and may find myself replaying it to try different builds/combat styles!

Forspoken has a slow start with a lot of story setup before you properly get into the game which may have turned some people off and caused bad reviews, but that would be the only thing I've personally found that could turn someone away from the game. I still suggest giving the game a solid try (there is a demo!) before completely turning it down because I find the bad reviews to be somewhat misleading.

The Full Review

To preface this, I played the full game on the hard difficulty.

The Story
The story itself is a pretty cookie cutter story. Protagonist gets transported to strange new world that is under some kind of threat and has to resolve the threat to go back home. Simple! A lot of the story hooks are somewhat predictable but there were a few curve balls / plot twists that I didn't see coming and one which properly shocked me and was a nice surprise as I fully expected it to be a story I could turn my brain off for.
A lot of info is given to you throughout the game in the form of side-quests / collectibles which build up the world and give you a point of view that can definitely be flipped upside down when you least expect it.

I won't spoil it but the ending to the game tied up all loose ends, but felt somewhat lacking. There was definitely space for more epilogue involving the side-characters and (spoiler for a small part of the ending) the choice to leave Homer (Frey's cat) with the judge she left him with at the start of the game as opposed to taking him with her left me torn as a cat owner.

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The Gameplay
Tl;dr: The game-play is phenomenal and fun. Enough said, honestly.

To elaborate a little bit for those that want more info:

Combat
Combat feels incredibly fluid and has you memorize exactly where your spells are on a radial wheel after you unlock them. You have a support spell and an offense spell ready to go (L2 and R2 on controller) but swapping spells (which is not necessary but Forspoken will be very boring for you if you don't) requires you to open a radial menu and select the different spells before being able to use them. The game does not pause while you do this, which in my opinion makes the combat feel incredibly rewarding when you pull off your spell combinations but makes it incredibly punishing if you have a bad memory for where your spells are. This rewarding feeling is increased further once you unlock other types of magic and are able to switch between the trees at will as well.

You gradually gain access to more schools of magic throughout the length of the game, starting off with Frey's own unique brand of "purple) magic. Switching between these schools is a simple arrow key-press at the start, but you have unlock-able abilities that allow you to fluidly swap between them mid-combat and weave in relevant spells while doing so. Some types of magic are definitely more fun than others but this will largely be a personal preference thing. If you come across a new type of magic you'd like to play instead of the one you invested all your points in, the game offers you the ability to unlearn any spell you've manually invested in and refunds you the full point value which means you get to swap back and forth whenever you like (including in combat!).

Now If you bother with side-questing and collectibles right off the bad like I did, then the first type of magic is what you will spend most of the first hours of the game with. However, I advise doing just enough to get past the first big boss of the game and THEN going for open-world content as it opens up some other traversal methods that are quite detrimental to getting around.

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The Visuals
Visually Forspoken is gorgeous. The world of Athia is divided into 4 separate zones each with their own unique style and feel to them which are genuinely stunning to see. One of the side-quests in the game has you taking pictures of certain locations and those in particular are sometimes of wallpaper quality. The game starts off in New York which is dressed up due to Christmas time and I will say that it looks absolutely stunning.

Your look is slightly customizable through cloaks and necklaces, which come in varying styles and colors. I found one particular one I liked and kept finding style-upgrades for it (such as an attached hood) so I just stuck with that, but there's options out there for most people's tastes!

Spells look amazing. Every type of magic comes with an ultimate ability, the upgrade of those further increases how magnificent that spell looks. This applies to the lesser spells too which visually upgrade with their level. Some of my best screenshots from the game are through ultimate spells.

Enemy design is pretty copy-paste, but there is a large variety of enemies so it doesn't feel too repetitive most of the time. Bosses are designed with a unique look for each (often matching their fighting style) and are definitely a cut above the regular mooks in the game.

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The Problems

Like most games, Forspoken has its problems.
Are they so glaring it caused me to put the game down at any point? No not at all.
Did they disrupt gameplay to a point where I couldn't comfortably continue playing? Absolutely not.

My first gripe was short-lived.
The free-running early in the game (until you get to the open-world portion of the game) feels incredibly clunky. I jumped into several buildings and got stuck on some crates here and there while trying to explore the first town you go through. This problem is remedied in the rest of the world and especially after unlocking other traversal methods which give you an option to deal with every type of terrain.

Secondly is the difficulty.
Hard didn't feel very hard. Most of the generic type enemies in the game can be killed rather easily if you're familiar with the controls and become annoying cannon-fodder for the actual harder fights in the game. The final boss of the game is also one I wouldn't consider to be particularly difficult.
Overall in the entire game I died 6 times, 4 of which on the final boss where I simply got greedy and had been up for nearly 24 hours so was being incredibly sloppy.

Thirdly is the dialogue.
The content of it isn't bad, just sometimes a little cheesy/cringey. It definitely suffers from random pauses which may be attributed to the localization in other languages taking up more talking-time in the scene. This is also primarily for side-characters as I absolutely love Frey's way of talking and quips to the people around her. Cats also sound incredibly weird in this, almost as if they were recorded via phone or webcam.

Lastly is the crafting. It feels almost unnecessary to have it in there. The only reason I went to my crafting table was to complete a spell challenge by upgrading materials, craft health items or upgrade my bag size for mats and potions. I'd have loved to see a more intricate system involving the cloaks or even the ability to craft your own based on what materials/magic you use.

Closing
Forspoken is in my opinion a good game that does not deserve the immense amount of flak it's currently getting. I strongly believe that most people piling on negative reviews are simply there to join the bandwagon of negativity or haven't played enough of the game to give an accurate review.
I advise at least trying out the demo which will give you a taste of the combat in the game which is its main draw.

If you are a fan of magic in video games and vibrant fantasy landscapes, open world exploration and swearing like a sailor you will feel right at home in Forspoken.


Questions about anything specific? Feel free to comment!

The moment the story all clicked for me was the moment my brain exploded. 10/10 I wish I could erase my memory of it so I could experience it for the first time once more.

Reaching the true end took me 9.5 hours total without any guides, and I still only have 7/12 achievements.

The regular combat is great, the vehicular combat is great.. the only problem is that you reach the height of the game around the middle where you actually get some -boss- fights.

If you intend to play this game, you may as well stop after you reach dead city for the first time.
Without giving spoilers I can tell you that beyond this point the story progresses without any actual challenge provided you use the right guns and ammo. If you do look for a challenge I strongly suggest you try to beat the game with only your fists.

The end of the game is extremely anti-climactic and doesn't provide any form of closure regarding any of the involved characters. Where you anticipate a massive boss fight (they even provide you with a -huge- gun with BFG rounds) there's only a short and easy holdout mission as you activate the final plot device. All that leads you into one single cinematic which contains some graphical errors alongside the general "wtf is the point of this" story of it.

All in all; Don't buy this game if you're looking for a story. Don't buy this game if you're looking for a challenge.
If you like easy games where the game thrusts its phallic shaped "story" down your throat as they spoonfeed you the guns you need for the encounter just before the actual encounter then you should probably give it a shot.