My time with the game certainly made me want to find out more, at least about Athia and the Break, and I definitely want to just let loose in a world where I can run like the wind. I worry that the oversaturation of spells might be too much to handle, and I’m still not completely sold on Frey. The magical parkour in Forspoken is a joy, and the world and premise are quite captivating. Frey is just adopting this for her own needs, but let’s face it, this would never happen with a male protagonist. You learn that it’s a trait the Tantas use to amplify their magic, and given their unique looks, it feels right for them. Despite initially cringing at the idea of the female protagonist getting to change up some of their stats by changing their nail polish, it’s not quite as terrible as it sounds. Between the spells, crafting, and the nail customisation, it was a lot to get my head around in a short time. I also had some time dabbling with the crafting system, but not as much as I should have. She grows on you somewhat, but mainly because of her comedy-duo setup with Cuff, and I can already foresee that her character will soften as you progress, as the people of Athia will make her care about things once again, and she’ll stop being selfish. She’s not immediately likeable, and often comes across as too harsh to the characters she meets.

Frey and her backstory feel like a tired trope, the typical misunderstood young woman who’s found herself on the wrong side of the law, and so she has that ‘I don’t give a shit about anyone else because no one gives a shit about me’ attitude. The game looks great, there’s no denying that, and the characters and premise are certainly intriguing.

I guess that’s the beauty of knowing the game much better than I did.

The first thing they did was go into the menu and change up the equipped spells.

I still failed miserably, and embarrassingly had to ask for help. I flipped on almost every helpful configuration I could, auto-dodge, enemies deal less damage, you name it. I didn’t want to reload my last proper save and go back to the beginning of the whole area just to grab potions as I was running out of time, but unfortunately, you can’t change the difficulty mid-battle either. Fortunately for me, should you fall in battle, you restart from the last stage checkpoint you reached. Hacking away at a large HP bar is monotonous, but there are a variety of stages to mix it up too.

Forspoken ps5 review