From a gameplay perspective, the idea of taking such a slow burn through the New York segment of Forspoken, with no magical combat or parkour might initially feel like an outright terrible idea. That being said, from a narrative perspective, giving Frey time to simmer as a normal young woman in a modern setting before latching Cuff to her arm and throwing her into Athia could go a long way towards getting players to understand and feel for the character.
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Kingdom Hearts 2’s Infamous Roxas Segment
The prologue to Kingdom Hearts 2 has become something of legend among fans, as it handles the hard task of establishing the entirely new character of Roxas to returning players. In order to do this, Square Enix decided to spend more than three hours of this opening segment just hanging out with Roxas and his friends during the last week of summer. It’s a seven-day-long segment, where the action-focused Kingdom Hearts series grinds to a halt as the player spends hours with less than a dozen enemies until the very end of this mini-story.
While everything mentioned so far might make it sound like the Kingdom Hearts 2 opening is boring or uneventful, it is still one of the most effective opening segments of any RPG. It establishes who Roxas is, and what being in Twilight Town with Hayner, Pence, and Olette meant to him. The result of this whole setup is that when Roxas has to return to be a part of Sora, the story has earned his acceptance that his summer vacation is over and the pain it reflects onto the real protagonist when saying goodbye to these three at the train station.
Frey Needs a Connection to Tether Her Back to New York
The best thing that Forspoken can take from Kingdom Hearts is this heart-wrenching start to the story as Frey is ripped away from her life in New York and cast out into Athia. A best friend or family member could act as that anchor that continues to remind Frey and the player that she has to get back home, no matter how much she might start to connect with Athia the longer she stays there. Even more important would be to take the choice to leave New York away from the character and leave the condition of this perspective relative up in the air.
More than anything, Luminous Productions needs to give the player a reason to like Frey in Forspoken’s opening act, and make fans want to root for her to succeed. In the same way that the slow burn introduction of Roxas earns his eventual sacrifice to save Sora and the pain of leaving his friends, a similar prologue could be the key to establishing Frey’s struggle. So, it might be a better idea in the long run to hold off on the action for a while, and focus on building up the characters in the opening segments where the developer has the most control to start establishing the world.
Frey has the same struggle to a new audience that Roxas had. She is a brand-new character being introduced in an IP that has to fight off constant comparisons to the Final Fantasy series. As such, Luminous Productions has to treat this new protagonist similarly, giving her time to grow on the player before throwing her into the more active combat and bombastic boss fights.
Forspoken is set to release on January 24, 2023, for PC and PS5.
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