This review contains spoilers
Foregone is mid and that's okay.
I bought it on a whim during a Black Friday sale, and played the entire thing on mute whilst I binge watched the Spider-Man films before No Way Home. Ideal way to play, honestly.
What I liked: The graphics were amazing. It looked like 3D animation that was somehow rotoscoped with pixel art. Felt like a real labour of love, particularly with the character animations. The combat was actually quite fun too, especially when I found some weapon combinations that worked for me. The level design was passable but enjoyable to traverse, particularly when new abilities unlocked with time.
What I didn't like: The story and setting was so fucking boring bro. Like I felt like I missed nothing by totally zoning out from any story content whatsoever. I couldn't tell you anything about the main character, she was such a void of personality, only there to make perfectly functional quips. Environmental storytelling and secret notes to fill out the lore is fucking boring when there's no engaging plot. Plus the vaguely fantasy/steampunk? No fuckin clue what the setting was, was boring as heck. Can't even comment on the music because I played the whole thing on mute. The visuals, whilst technically really impressive, were impossible to read. Some challenges relied on you killing a certain number of enemies in a harsh time limit, but when there are 10 enemies in the same spot, and they're all doing elaborate death animations that don't immediately signal that they're dead, it's so difficult to read what's even happening. Pair that with a million particles on screen, the massive slowdown when lots is happening, and the busy backgrounds, and it's just soup. Chunky soup. The UI is also awful because why the heck is all the text so damn tiny? I played the whole thing in handheld mode and I had to squint to even see things. The loot was shit because why would I care about the differences between a purple gun and a gold one? Beyond the damage numbers I didn't give a shit. Every weapon, armour, etc had so many damn buffs and effects like "extra 4% chance to stun" like what the fuck why would I EVER care enough to upgrade that stat. A number that tiny makes me feel absolutely nothing. Every weapon felt the same and I totally disregarded those buffs and effects. I wish it was simplified and obfuscated a bit so I could focus more on "what type of weapon build do I want?" rather than "what numbers am i meant to be optimising?". Similarly, the skill trees and upgrade paths were overly granular and specific - I stuck to my preferred abilities and kept it moving tbh. And the boss battles were dead. It just became "hit enough times, roll away" - no interesting mechanics or anything either. Boring. ALSO the structure was sort of strange? Like it wanted to be a Metroidvania but it just ended up being totally linear along the main path, alongside a series of side missions which were actually quite challenging. It was just a bit oddly communicated to me, I initially didn't know what the missions were meant to be in relation to the "open world".
Foregone was mindless and a fun distraction whilst I had a film on in the background, and that's about all it was to me. It really needed an entirely different approach to its story and characters, and much more interesting setting, to stand out. It also needed a complete overhaul of its loot system (or for it to be scrapped entirely in favour of traditional unlocks) - I wasted so much time deleting grey weapons from my inventory just to hoard more gold ones I wasn't using. MID. But fun mid.
I bought it on a whim during a Black Friday sale, and played the entire thing on mute whilst I binge watched the Spider-Man films before No Way Home. Ideal way to play, honestly.
What I liked: The graphics were amazing. It looked like 3D animation that was somehow rotoscoped with pixel art. Felt like a real labour of love, particularly with the character animations. The combat was actually quite fun too, especially when I found some weapon combinations that worked for me. The level design was passable but enjoyable to traverse, particularly when new abilities unlocked with time.
What I didn't like: The story and setting was so fucking boring bro. Like I felt like I missed nothing by totally zoning out from any story content whatsoever. I couldn't tell you anything about the main character, she was such a void of personality, only there to make perfectly functional quips. Environmental storytelling and secret notes to fill out the lore is fucking boring when there's no engaging plot. Plus the vaguely fantasy/steampunk? No fuckin clue what the setting was, was boring as heck. Can't even comment on the music because I played the whole thing on mute. The visuals, whilst technically really impressive, were impossible to read. Some challenges relied on you killing a certain number of enemies in a harsh time limit, but when there are 10 enemies in the same spot, and they're all doing elaborate death animations that don't immediately signal that they're dead, it's so difficult to read what's even happening. Pair that with a million particles on screen, the massive slowdown when lots is happening, and the busy backgrounds, and it's just soup. Chunky soup. The UI is also awful because why the heck is all the text so damn tiny? I played the whole thing in handheld mode and I had to squint to even see things. The loot was shit because why would I care about the differences between a purple gun and a gold one? Beyond the damage numbers I didn't give a shit. Every weapon, armour, etc had so many damn buffs and effects like "extra 4% chance to stun" like what the fuck why would I EVER care enough to upgrade that stat. A number that tiny makes me feel absolutely nothing. Every weapon felt the same and I totally disregarded those buffs and effects. I wish it was simplified and obfuscated a bit so I could focus more on "what type of weapon build do I want?" rather than "what numbers am i meant to be optimising?". Similarly, the skill trees and upgrade paths were overly granular and specific - I stuck to my preferred abilities and kept it moving tbh. And the boss battles were dead. It just became "hit enough times, roll away" - no interesting mechanics or anything either. Boring. ALSO the structure was sort of strange? Like it wanted to be a Metroidvania but it just ended up being totally linear along the main path, alongside a series of side missions which were actually quite challenging. It was just a bit oddly communicated to me, I initially didn't know what the missions were meant to be in relation to the "open world".
Foregone was mindless and a fun distraction whilst I had a film on in the background, and that's about all it was to me. It really needed an entirely different approach to its story and characters, and much more interesting setting, to stand out. It also needed a complete overhaul of its loot system (or for it to be scrapped entirely in favour of traditional unlocks) - I wasted so much time deleting grey weapons from my inventory just to hoard more gold ones I wasn't using. MID. But fun mid.