Foregone PS4 Review – Several times during my run through Foregone, I debated on if I was having fun or not. Some aspects kept me going while others made me regret my decision. It wasn’t until the final moments of the game until I understood the conflicting feelings I had. Unfortunately, this realization came at the expense of Foregone.
Foregone PS4 Review
A Pattern Develops Early
The narrative to Foregone delivers a simple premise: You’re the first Arbiter, and you have to use your resources to stop the Harrowing from occurring. Details for these words are vague, to say the least. At the same time, the simplicity of the story’s delivery doesn’t command much need for investment either. Much like the game as a whole, everything is minimal but far from minimalism.
As the game progresses, you learn more about what’s taking place and your role in it all. The downside to it all is that the ideas in it, while far from unique, could become something interesting if done well. However, the delivery coaxes little investment out of you, so the would-be impactful moments fall flat. Arguably, the game isn’t intended to move mountains, but it won’t move molehills either.
The one strength to Foregone is its accessibility. It takes a lot of ideas from a lot of other games (those references apparent from the get-go), but Foregone accommodates the player to the nth degree. Skills obtained throughout the game grant different methods to dispatch enemies. Even better still is how those abilities overgrease the experience.
Simple Combat With Issues
All of the available skills can be used as you see fit. If you want to play one way, you can do it. Nothing gets in your way of playing how you want. However, there’s one immense caveat.
Out of all the bosses, only the final one demands any discipline. To make it more unbalanced, the final boss also demands the use of one specific skill: Barrier. The final boss uses an unavoidable skill that blasts through a quarter of your health. To avoid this, Barrier gives you multiple immunity hits.
Much like every other boss, the final encounter follows the same three-attack pattern that can be avoided by sliding behind them with Circle. There are no invincibility frames with the slide, but that’s not the problem. The 2D aspect of the game makes it so that you cannot pass by enemies without being drastically slowed down. This isn’t the problem either.
When enemies, bosses in particular, perform aerial drop attacks, their presence is already accounted for by the game. They are still in the air, but their hit box is already on the ground. This means that you get slowed down by nothing in the same way you get slowed down by walking through enemies. This results in a lot of unnecessary hits and undeserved deaths.
Thoughtless RPG Elements
Weapons and skills use coins and orbs, respectively, to upgrade them. These upgrades quickly make the vast majority of the game easy to complete, and new weapons make the journey to the end interesting enough without bringing in much complication. There’s always that illusion of equipment management but no real time investment needed to do so. This has been the common theme to Foregone.
Weapons and equipment also offer random bonuses, and you can mix them as you so wish… as long as you get lucky with the bonuses that show up. Anything with health regeneration or extra damage helps you progress, but so many bonuses only benefit specific skills, and all of the bonuses are determined at random when the equipment drops.
This means that your best gear could still give you benefits for skills you don’t want to use. Drops are not frequent, and min/maxing the effects you want takes far too much time and investment for the lack of challenge that the game has to offer.
The one subjective note I wish to add is the frustration I felt after getting into the groove of the game’s simplicity only to face the brick wall on the last boss. The random stuff I had to start caring about for the first time at the very end of the game sent the game’s accessibility right out the window. This accessibility was the one welcoming silver lining to this middle ground game. I love me a good Platinum Trophy, but I lost any interest in pursuing this one after that.
Simplicity Done Incorrectly
Foregone is one of those titles that comes on the heels of successful games but can’t reach the fame of its inspiration. If the game had ended the same way it began, it might be a nice pallet cleanser and a decent, mindless Platinum. Foregone uses its own formula of simple algebra but tries to divide by zero at the end. Play Foregone only if you’re looking to play all of the 2D platformers you can find.
Foregone is available now on PS4.
Review code kindly provided by publisher.