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During the trailer for Forspoken, I watch as protagonist Frey drags a heavily armoured soldier towards her with a rope made of sparking fire. In the next few seconds, she swings the flames around in a circular motion and singes the ground in the immediate area. After diving towards the enemy and backflipping off of their shield, Frey, now airborne, seemingly transforms this fire power into a burning sword and crashes back down on the enemy. It really is quite a spectacle, and I'm already all kinds of excited about the prospect of getting stuck into the slick elemental abilities we look set to wield in this upcoming PS5 adventure.
I've also always loved stories that explore what happens when you take on the role of a person who's thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and Forespoken looks set to blend the real and the fantastical in a really interesting way. In Forespoken, Frey is plucked right out of her life in New York City and thrown straight into a world of fantasy creatures and magic. As a premise, there's a real appeal in seeing how Frey will handle this outlandish scenario, and how, as a character from the world we know, Square Enix could ground the experience and make it more relatable for us as players. Ella Balinska, who plays the title role, spoke about Frey as a character, saying, "she's raw, she's a girl who lost her way – both figuratively and literally – and is a character I immediately connected with, as I feel many people around will too."
With fantasy creatures such as giant dragons, there'll be plenty of dangers to face, and we'll have many opportunities to put the powers Frey can wield to the test. Armed with a talking cuff that seemingly lets her wield these slick abilities, there are so many powers I can't wait to play around with. Aside from the flashy fire fight we get to see Frey in the throws of, I also marvel at the big crash of water she can engulf enemies in, before freezing the water into giant icebergs. As well as throwing giant orbs of water, firing off a barrage of sparks in quick succession, and planting explosive traps on the ground, it would appear that there's no shortage of kickass moves to wield.
Magic powers and dragons
I'm here for Ghostwire Toyko's Slenderman meets The Evil Within fever dream.
Developer Luminous Productions is bringing us this new adventure on the Luminous engine, which was used to create Final Fantasy 15. I'm admittedly someone who thoroughly enjoyed my time with Noctis and the gang, and I also did like the real-time action of the combat in 15, despite some of its flaws. From everything I've seen so far of Forspoken, Frey moves with the kind of fluidity and freedom that I wish Noctis could have wielded, and this extends to both the combat, and expansive environments of the setting of Athia. As we see in the Forspoken trailer, Frey can swing across grapple points, dive through the air, and hop across buildings - there are a lot of agile manoeuvres on display that look too satisfying to use as you traverse the open-world landscapes.
With Forspoken set to arrive on the PS5 in 2022, my imagination is also already running wild at the prospect of how all of these movements and powers will actually feel to use on the DualSense controller. Every now and then, a new game trailer comes along that makes you emit a veritable screech of excitement in front of your TV screen, and that was me as I watched the new footage for Forespoken unfold before my eyes for the first time. I'm already drawn to Frey as a character, and I'm very keen to learn more about her and see how she tackles the challenges in Athia. With its blend of reality meets fantasy and some very slick looking combat mechanics, Forespoken shows heaps of potential, and I for one can't wait to see what it delivers when it launches next year.
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