If you’re a fan of Square Enix, there’s a good chance that you’ve been waiting for Forspoken to be released. This much-anticipated game dropped in late January, and it’s time to explore Athia as Frey in magical, awesome ways.
As you’ll see in this Forspoken guide, the game mixes a lot of the elements that people love from the Final Fantasy franchise and adds new twists to this open-world adventure.
We weren’t sure what to expect from this game after numerous delays, but it’s definitely one of the games to look forward to in 2023. The gameplay, story, graphics and music are all that you would expect from Square – stunning.
In our Forspoken beginner’s guide, we’re going to walk you through steps you can take to make the game more fun.
P.S. Make sure that you get a PSN Gift Card from OffGamers, as they’re running great deals for this PS5 exclusive (or that’s the speculation we’re seeing online).
Forspoken Beginner’s Guide
Adjusting The Difficulty
If you’re used to being able to adjust the difficulty of a game only when you first start, you’ll be happy that Forspoken allows you to change difficulty at any time during gameplay. We love this trend from developers because it makes games more fluid for players of all skill levels.
A few things to remember here are:
- If you find the game too difficult or are stuck on a part that is driving you crazy because you keep dying, set the game’s difficulty to a lower setting.
- Changing your difficulty level won’t impact your story.
When adjusting the difficulty levels in Forspoken, we found the following:
- Difficulty changes damage taken.
- Difficulty changes damage you deal.
It’s important that you look through some of the other settings after changing difficulty because they will also change.
Keep Scanning
Exploration is what makes Forspoken so much fun. Running around an open world and killing enemies is a great time until you start getting obliterated. When Frey is in New York, you’ll encounter Cuff.
When choosing a companion, Cuff is a great option because you can use Cuff to scan your surroundings. Exploit this ability.
Scanning will:
- Help you detect enemies before they start attacking you.
- Highlight items, such as chests, that you might not be able to see easily.
- Identify an enemy’s weaknesses and resistances.
If you’re an explorer and love looting chests or finding every item in a game, using Cuff to scan your environment is the one tip in this Forspoken guide that you’ll really appreciate.
Also, and this is something we’re seeing a lot of players overlook, is that you’ll want to tamper with your game settings once you get Cuff.
Tamper with the Game Settings
Cuff is a major part of our Forspoken beginner’s guide because this is the time in the game when things start to get really interesting. We recommend that you go into your settings menu and change the following:
- Automatic spell switching.
- Auto item gathering.
You’ll find the automatic spell switching in the Gameplay Balance menu.
What does this do?
When your support magic is on cooldown, it will rotate to another spell. You can manually change spells by hitting L1, but it’s not an engaging part of gameplay. By switching this option on, you can let the game rotate spells for you.
Some players may want to choose spells on their own, but for most players, toggling this option will not hinder gameplay.
The auto item gathering setting allows your character to pick up resources without you tapping a button in the process. A few of the other settings that you may want to know about include:
Cuff chat frequency can be adjusted. If you don’t want to hear Cuff’s commentary as frequently as you are, adjust this setting.
The spell-switching slowdown is another setting in the gameplay balance menu that you’ll want to adjust. If you find that changing spells in combat is too difficult, adjust this setting to stop time when changing spells. New players may find this setting invaluable and can adjust it in the future if it hinders gameplay.
Forspoken has a lot of refinements for players hidden in their menus. We recommend going through the menus extensively to ensure that you’re getting the most out of the game.
Always Look to Craft Upgrades
Craft upgrades are a major part of the game and something that you’ll want to do every time you find yourself at a Refuge. Quickly try upgrading items while you can. Sometimes, you’ll overlook upgrades and only know about them when you are at Refuge.
Improving your spells will help you:
- Advance in the game.
- Stand a chance against stronger enemies.
On top of this, you always want to activate your Spellcraft Challenges. You can do this by going to the Archives library and interacting with books. Later in the game, these challenges will be found at the Refuge, too.
Activate three challenges at a time and:
- Initiate new challenges every time you beat one challenge.
- Upgrade as many spells as you can.
Challenges are a major part of the game and something that you’ll need to focus on while exploring the world. The spell upgrades will make the game a lot easier and more fun.
Crafting will also allow you to:
- Boost equipment stats.
- Upgrade material capacity.
- Hold more healing items.
What we like about the challenges is that they’re usually easy. Obtaining Dash was as easy as knocking 15 enemies down. The challenges are often intuitive and mesh perfectly with the gameplay.
It’s Worth it to Complete Locked Labyrinths
Labyrinths are challenging dungeons, and you can ignore them if you like. However, ignoring them will also mean missing out on the best rewards in the game. You’ll find locked labyrinths filled with amazing rewards.
In addition, you’ll receive:
- Tons of experience.
- A lot of mana.
- Valuable crafting items.
Frey will often leave one of these dungeons with some new gear, such as a cloak or necklace, that has a lot of great stats.
Are you a fan of lore?
If you love learning about the lore and find it to be one of the game’s better elements, it’s another reason to go through these labyrinths. You’ll find that completing these dungeons always unlocks some of Athia’s history.
Understanding Magic Sets and Types
Magic sets and types are so important to understand. Frey has four sets of magic that she can use in the game. Each magic set that you equip will have its very own set of spells that will help you as you advance through Athia.
And don’t worry. These sets aren’t hidden or difficult to find. You’ll acquire them through normal gameplay. The four main sets are:
- Frey’s Magic – earth elemental
- Sila’s Magic – fire elements
- Prav’s Magic – water elemental
- Olas’ Magic – light elemental
As you can see, each set corresponds to a certain elemental magic that you can use throughout the game.
On top of sets, there are also three main types of magic spells in the game:
- Attack Magic: Frey needs to use aggressive spells during battle, and these are attack magic spells. These spells can be spammed since they don’t have a cooldown. You can also charge up the spell by holding down the attack button before releasing it.
- Support Magic: Sometimes, you need to control enemies to win a battle, and this is what support magic is all about. You can use support magic to do a lot of fun things, such as slow enemies down, restrain them, or add more attack power with allies who will help you in battle. Unlike attack magic, support spells do have a cooldown, which you’ll need to learn to manage to win battles.
- Surge Magic: Your surge magic is a special type of magic that is only available to you after you’ve cast enough other spells during the battle. Surge magic will inflict a ton of damage on anyone it hits, but you do need to fill up the bar to perform these spells.
Frey will need to unlock spells throughout the game. You’ll start with just a few spells and can only unlock new spells in one of two ways: spend mana to buy spells or go to Founts of Blessing to unlock spells.
Founts of Blessings are scattered throughout the world and are easy to see because they have a light shining from the top of them. However, most of these blessings will not provide you with an attack spell.
Instead, you’re likely to unlock a support or traversal spell.
What spells should you try unlocking?
Crucible (Sila’s Magic) puts a circle on the ground, increasing all of the magic damage that you do inside the circle. If you combine it with something like firetrap, this spell will help you deal a massive amount of damage.
Disperse (Frey’s Magic) is one of the spells that you’ll use in every battle. This is a turret-like spell that will interrupt aerial enemies and cause a ton of damage in the process. You can complete a challenge to make the spell even more powerful and boost the damage that it does.
Distortion (Olas’s Magic) is a unique spell that causes AoE damage and confuses enemies. When confusion inflicts an enemy, it will cause them to attack each other instead of you.
Firetrap (Frey’s Magic) inflicts a lot of damage and is a single-person spell, although it can hit nearby enemies on occasion. The spell shoots fire from the ground, and it’s something that is very useful against bosses.
Implant (Frey’s Magic) is a seed of damage that will act as a DoT that inflicts damage for around 30 seconds. You’ll want to cast this spell early in a fight to help inflict damage on an enemy without any further interaction from you.
Naedre (Prav’s Magic) is a spell that you’ll want to make heavy use of when fighting a lot of enemies at one time. This spell will poison enemies by launching a snake that will weave from one enemy to another.
Oubliette (Prav’s Magic) does two things: damages and controls groups. Enemies can be trapped in the water orb, and when or if you attack it, the orb will break, causing AoE damage to those around it.
Sublimation (Olas’s Magic) is another spell that grants you a lot of healing. In fact, it’s the best healing spell in the game and is known for draining the life of enemies nearby and then healing you over time.
Tendril (Frey’s Magic) is an AoE attack that also doubles as a heal because it heals you for a certain amount of damage that the spell inflicts. You’ll find yourself spamming this spell quite a few times in battle, which is nice when you’re running low on healing flasks.
Of course, these are just some of the many spells in the game that you’ll want to use. Spells like Projection and Up and Away are immensely useful and will be worth unlocking, too.
Forspoken Guide: Random Tips to Consider
- When falling from high heights, you can cast a magic spell to break the fall speed.
- Hold the circle button while running through the world to glide across gaps in the terrain.
- Purple dots on the map are often chests to open, but they’ll be guarded by enemies.
- World spells, such as Shimmy, will allow you to gain a speed boost when jumping while running.
- Exploring the open world can lead to a lot of places with little to do, but it still needs to be explored as there are a lot of hidden goodies that you’ll miss if you don’t explore a bit.
- Experiment with the spells you have to learn what you like and enjoy. The goal is to have fun and use the spells that make the game fun for you.
Twitch and YouTube are great options if you want to watch playthroughs or find something that we didn’t go over in our Forspoken guide.
If you don’t like the gameplay of Forspoken or just want to try something different, we recommend reading through our blog on 7 Entry-level JRPGs for Beginners to find a few games that you may like playing.
