Although it can sometimes produce exceptional animation quality, Digital Foundry brought Forspoken to the workshop where the creators were unable to control every part of the product including the gear itself.
British experts verified that Forspoken has several advantages over other games in terms of technology. The game enables instant loading, and in this instance, players are immersed in a huge world whose scope is apparent right away. In the case of animation, the creators did not fall short either:
“The character depiction is superb in terms of materials and detail, and the animation moves with outstanding smoothness. Forspoken’s animation team achieved incredibly outstanding results, with a large variety of expressive animations that mingle naturally between parkour and fighting actions. Given the challenging terrain, the animation’s quality is even more remarkable, with each step blending and flowing into the next with ease.”
In Forspoken, the vegetation has also been fine-tuned, and during large-scale battles, we see how the polished settings realistically respond to the heroine’s events and deeds. Another “great” particle system is provided in the title:
“When defeating foes, the screen frequently fills with brilliant GPU-accelerated particles that dance to the demise surrounding Frey and the minions. The battle mechanism is made more appealing by the gorgeously depicted explosions and magic particles. The ambient effects, which included the depiction of clouds and fog, also caught my attention.”
Forspoken is meant to be a “huge step back,” but the production has significant lighting issues that, according to Digital Foundry, seem far worse than the game’s six-year-old predecessor Final Fantasy XV. The ambient occlusion, which also appears better in the last Japanese release, is also poor, indicating that the makers did not improve this aspect of the game. The game also has issues with shadows; ray tracing somewhat resolves the issue, although even in this instance, RT wasn’t applied consistently throughout.
The game feels choppy while displaying certain scenes to the player because of strange low-res textures, weird animation, and mysterious transitions to black, among other flaws.
The majority of game modes in Forspoken deliver a respectable experience, but the quality mode dramatically falls short:
“In terms of overall stability in typical gameplay scenarios, I’d say all modes are rather good, especially when VRR is turned on for performance mode. Of course, there are peaks and valleys, but overall, it’s fairly good. However, the problems identified in the demo are still very much there, and in some cases, they’re even worse. Even the causes of slow areas are sometimes unclear. Furthermore, it’s challenging to overlook the absurd performance dips experienced in quality mode, which goes as low as 21 frames per second.”
However, it is unquestionably worthwhile turning on VRR if you have a decent TV or monitor:
“Our suggested way to run the game” is on a VRR screen at 120 Hz in RT mode, which “produces the most consistent degree of performance.”