You then stop holding one button and press a different one to activate the ability, before pressing or holding another to start attacking again, while also pressing or holding to do different types of dodges. You then push the right stick – which moments earlier you were using to move the camera in a totally different direction – towards one of ten different, similar, symbols.

Using the default control scheme, every time you want to move onto a new spell you need to hold either L1 or R1 to slow down time and bring up the menu. The game might end up causing some Frey'd nerves. There’s an impressive amount of different spells, especially as the story progresses, however, changing between them on the radial menu can be clunky and confusing because the constant switching between pressing and holding buttons feels like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. While on your right you have your typical damage dealing spell types that you switch between with R1 and fire by pressing or holding R2. On your left hand, governed by L1 and L2, you have support spells designed for defensive zoning, stealing health from enemies, and buffing your abilities. Pressing the DualSense triggers in Forspoken is so hard I feel like I can now do finger push ups like Bruce Lee, but thankfully this doesn’t stop the combat from being one of the better parts of the experience – once you figure out how to play Bop-It with the complicated controls.

The game certainly knows how to present itself in trailers – but what about in gameplay? Forspoken shows the best and worst of the Luminous Engine’s tech, mixing kinetic combat with dazzling particle effects and janky set pieces.

Square enix forspoken