Social media can be a force with great benefits or costly regrets. A tool by which faceless corporations and intellectual properties can provide a semblance of humility, personality and acknowledgment that "friendly banter" isn't a bad thing. Or they can reinforce what prejudices and biases people may already hold against any one name. In a way I have some sympathy for Luminous Productions. What should've been their debut break from out the former Final Fantasy template -- a game all about magic-based combat and magic-based parkour -- has as of late become the latest laughing stock. A work-in-progress years in the making, undone by a mere thirty second promotion released last August. Cue the ridicule, the memes, the endless (though admittedly funny) copy-pasta implementation poking fun at Forspoken's style of dialogue. A brand of snark we've all in some manner come to know of. The kind of writing you either gravitate towards or feel immediately repulsed by.

If nothing else, Luminous have seemingly acknowledged that the game's over-abundance of said dialogue will not be to everyone's tastes. A toggle in the options menu of its latest public demo released at the end of last week, allowing you to minimize -- but not completely remove -- the consistent and incessant one-liners offered up by the game's main protagonist Frey and her sentient, talking cuff. Not to get too drawn into the ongoing antics of social media, but to say Forspoken has found itself with a less-than-exciting reception in the build-up would be an understatement. Not helped by not one, but two delays to its original May release of this year. And above all else, its conception as an action RPG neither Western nor Eastern in make-up, but a synergy of both. Japanese construction mixed with a Western-based writing team that plucks Freya from out the wintry abode of New York and into the seemingly fantastical surroundings of Athia -- Forspoken's primary setting. Any fan of RPGs should welcome the prospect and at least on the surface, for a team partially composed of those having worked on Final Fantasy XV, the grandiose, not-of-this-world spectacle and unfiltered flash of such, makes its return. Welcome or not.

Forspoken Preview Screenshot

But is this not one of the genre's more captivating appeals? The notion of a world to navigate, explore, discover for one's self in piecing together its potentially social, cultural and [possibly] geopolitical norms as that of an outsider? Forspoken taking that premise and making it rather more literal at the narrative level -- Frey being plucked from her regular dwelling of Earth and finding herself in a completely new world. That may also lend itself to the reason behind Luminous' focus on traversal here. The ability to so quickly sprint through, leap across and parkour one's way from ground to cliff-face and back down to ground level in the span of a few seconds. Hopeful minds, much like its magic-based, particle-effect laden, combat will presume such mechanics are there for a reason. Validation for the huge vistas. A tool by which players can freely navigate a world, you'd think, is built to justify said systems. Then the reality sinks in and those concerns start to pop up: is this simply a remedy for a problem the game itself has created? An illusion of resolve when the alternative, in Forspoken's case, would be to simply not make things as large and as devoid as they potentially feel. A deflating conclusion you can't help but draw when what's offered up, small a sampling it is, is conflicting a mixed bag. Forspoken's demo doesn't leave a bad first impression, but a confused one instead.

At the risk of harping on too much on comparisons between it and one other game -- personal preferences noted -- the original Xenoblade Chronicles’ emphasis on the enormity of its surroundings wasn’t a shallow attempt to impress with size for size's sake. It was thematic, reflective of you and your party’s [in]significance compared to that of the two colossal Titans the game’s story revolves around. Later down the line -- as locales shift from organic to synthetic -- thematic soon transitions to narrative ends as you're gladly reminded at just how far you’ve progressed on your journey. That gigantic, looming sword you once took a gander at elevated so highly in the sky above you in Gaur Plains? Well, you’re now exploring it -- the plains of prior now beneath and beyond you, little more than a stretch of green making up Bionis' "leg."

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Could there be similar moments of juxtapose and reflection later down the line in Forspoken’s tale? Possibly, but if we’re to take what’s provided in the demo -- and assume that Luminous and Square Enix have chosen this section because it’s the best chance a vertical slice has to entice people in — you can’t necessarily say that what the game is offering is anything as remotely imaginative or suggestive as that perspective glance up at a glowing-eyed, menacingly-idle Mechonis wielding a valley-sized sword. Small enclave of floating rocks you can grapple and parkour across, aside. And while I wouldn’t go as far as to proclaim this is Sonic Frontiers levels of half-hearted, "drag-and-drop" carelessness in how its environments are populated, questions do have to be asked as to how this game is aiming to justify its scale. More importantly: if the technology and engine underpinning can match the vision. Not least when it becomes so easy to spot the sparse foliage and environmental detail popping into view in the near-distance. Or how Forspoken unfortunately finds itself in that litter of current-gen titles that, even in Performance Mode, still can't maintain a consistent 60FPS throughout.

Not that there's much to entice, or even detect, as far as major changes go in the demo's other available modes. You'll need a fine comb to pick out where the ray-traced additions pop up or indeed why, in all its occasional clumsiness in movement, you'd want to decrease the frame-rate even moreso. Even with the bonus of a 120Hz support, to say the increased cap in frames from 30 to 40FPS makes all the difference would be unwise. As would the idea that Forspoken's visual improvements make this a more appealing trek. And the less said about what the demo's default definition of reasonable HDR balancing entails, the better. But you see, minor tweaks to back-end settings are a mild, but brief, annoyance one can work around. The same can't be said for what there actually is to do in Forspoken and why one would feel tempted to run amok, experiment and see what these newfangled magic-powered abilities actually offer.

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The open space here, broken up by conveniently-placed mobs of foes, the occasional huddle of buildings to hop rooftop to rooftop between and most striking of all, an isolated fortress that has "Ubisoft Outpost" written all over it. Is this not a game marketed primarily on its "magic parkour?" Its willingness to allow players to zip, flip and whiz through environments at one’s leisure? So why is there so little to apply this on? Other than the inevitability of activating such sped-up movement not because the world is curiously shaped, but pure-and-simply: it cuts down on the time needed to get from one end of this game's drawn-out empty fields to the next. And that's without mentioning just how unruly it can feel to control Frey during moments of magic-powered antics. How an attempt to climb a vertical cliff-face isn't as fluid or reactive as one might be led to believe. Animations triggered more erratically in a desperate attempt to just reach the next pivotal spot. Forspoken has thus (knowingly or not) manufactured a problem, only to then provide the solution and suggest this is a prime selling point. Movement may well end up fruitful, the problem is that what locales are provided in the demo aren't sufficient for this sandbox style of traversal to be properly utilized.

Thank goodness then that Forspoken's combat is what salvages things -- to end this piece on a positive. To an extent, whereby even its own manic pacing and loose sense of control can often get the better of itself, but not enough that in a vacuum the short-bursts of particle-filled chaos doesn't lend itself to some pleasant indulgence. Despite feeling chaotic at times, it's quick to settle into the power fantasy Forspoken is so clearly going for by way of the magical arsenal at one's disposal. A little fiddly in trying to quickly change abilities and passive skills on the move, it's interesting enough, even if for the simple curiosity on how frantic and deadly one can be in juggling, at most, a dozen or so enemies at one time. The demo providing essentially two types of magic: ranged projectiles and melee-styled strikes at close-range. The trick then: to vary one's play-style enough so that both stationary, aerial and those prone to specific elemental weaknesses are not forgotten. At least on paper that's the intention, but at times Forspoken can get lost in its own indulgent love for spectacle to the point where visual effects can become visual obstructions. And on top of that, this uptick in speed can worryingly devolve into senseless button-mashing that in actuality gets the job done just as well as any thoughtful orchestration of strategy.

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But if anything, one's four-or-so hour time invested in the demo has but reinforced those low-to-mid expectations prior to its full release come the end of January next year. No one wishes a game comes out underwhelming and/or bad, but you do have to worry for a game like Forspoken. On the basis of just how much they can change or more realistically, how much will end up settling into the backdrop so as to not undermine the experience too much. Or at least one hopes it settles far back enough; Frey's never-ending quips and repetitive use of the f-word, the notable example. So even if the questionable [putting it mildly] dialogue is here to stay, what of the wider world of Athia though? Is there enough structural diversity for this emphasis on parkour to feel if not an overruling and enjoyable distraction, then at least a justifiable one? It's that incoherence of parts -- elements that may find synergy, but in all likelihood could cause too much mechanical and tonal friction alike -- that may well be the biggest concern. The individual pieces for the most part are all there. It's whether Forspoken can somehow, against increasing odds it seems, make it work. As uncertain as I was on what Luminous were attempting coming into this. Coming out of it, with a frown, needless to say that uncertainty -- scattered modicums of enjoyment there are to be had here -- remains.