Lolinreallife

I don't consider myself a hardcore MK fan, but I've played pretty much every mainline MK game from start to finish. I wasn't bothered by the story here at all. I think it was refreshing and fun. Actually, this game is the most invested I've been in the story in a long time, if I'm being honest. I think it was a genius way to acknowledge SOME of the game's history and relationships while also starting off fresh. 11 entries in, it's necessary, but the internet will complain about literally anything. All the time.

If I'm being honest, this game is a mid-to-hard 7, but I'll clock in as a soft 8 just to combat the onslaught of unfairly harsh criticism. By no means is this game groundbreaking, but it feels false to not acknowledge that its overwhelming negative reception was, at least, somewhat influenced by the political discourse at the time. All that aside, Forspoken is an engaging and ambitious RPG, mixing open-world exploration with magical action-RPG combat and some parkour elements sprinkled into both. I played the game not long after its release in 2023, buying it on sell. I didn't expect much but I was still surprised as how enjoyable it was after the drawn-out introduction. I revisited the game recently to see if it was really as good as I remembered or if my positive memory was a contrarian fluke. While the story and environment feel familiar, I do really enjoy the world-building and magic system. There's no shortage of magic for the protagonist to use, and every magic element has multiple basic attacks and special attacks to use. Unfortunately, there's very little there in the parkour traversal system of the game. There's very little real parkour and more magically-enhanced free running and jumping/climing up steep obstacles. Though, I wish the controls for the magic system felt more natural. It took me a while to get back into the flow of the controls when I jumped back into the game years later. Makes replayability less likely when compared to games like Spider-Man and Assassin's Creed, which are generally easier to get back into after a long absence. Also, the open world is so empty and similar. Every area looks the same; rocky, hilly, desolate, and lifeless. Sure, it makes traversal using the magic fun, but there's so much more that could've been added. Also, the severe lack of side-quest activity is damning to the vast, underused open world. There's not much endgame content here. A few collection-based side-quests, and a bunch of unexplored towers and arenas/challenges. Personally, I spent a lot of time post-game trying to level up my magic, seeing as I beat the main story before utilizing even half of the vast magic system. As I said before, the story is fine. Basic, but fine. The characters are also fine, if not forgettable. I've seen some people say she was too unlikable, but I never thought she was unlikable. I just think they're confusing unlikable personality with unlikable dialogue. The dialogue was so forced. Like an "edgy" teenager wrote the script. The cursing was excessive and the game isn't quite as funny as it thinks it is. But video game dialogue during cutscenes are often a little corny, it's not a dealbreaker. Overall, this is a fun game. The biggest problem being a slow introduction, an underutilized world, and a bad scriptwriter. It felt a little undercooked, but definitely not bad by any stretch. Worth a try, especially seeing that the game is usually on sale every month.