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kyndaris · 1 year

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Purpose and Direction

Mental illness is something that has only, in recent decades, been properly acknowledged. With the help of the pandemic, it was pushed to the forefront of the social consciousness as people struggled to adapt to the new dorm of lockdowns. yet, even in this day and age, there is still a stigma associated with getting professional help to address the underlying issues of one’s psyche. And while society is focused on the high levels of anxiety and depression in our youth, in an age where purpose is almost impossible to find and apathy pervades even the brightest of minds, it should be noted that no age group is immune to mental illness.

Or its consequences.

From a personal level, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no stranger to suicide ideation. After all, when the world seems such a challenge, when all I do is float around, never hitting the milestones in life that others have, there have been days when I’ve wondered if the struggle is worth it. It just seems easier to remove oneself from the equation. To put an end to needless pain and suffering.

And this is exactly where we find Alfre “Frey” Holland in the opening moments of Forspoken. As the game begins, players find the main character on trial for theft. Which is her third misdemeanour. If not for the sympathetic judge, Maya Bird, and the fact that it’s nearly Christmas, Frey might be on a one-way trip to jail.

Fortunately for our protagonist, she gets off with community service instead. After all, the game needs to game. And putting Frey in prison isn’t going to lead to the events of Forspoken now, is it?

As Frey leaves the courts, however, she is accosted by the very thugs that asked her to steal a car and deliver it to their boss. She managed to escape but later the miscreants find the apartment Frey has been squatting in and burn it down. Along with the cash she had accrued to finally escape the mightmare her life had become.

Honestly, not being able to pick up the gym bag full of money bfore Frey went searching for Homer, WHILE THE APARTMENT WAS ON FIRE had me screaming at the screen. Every interaction I had with it, Frey would refuse to pick it up, commenting that she needed to find her cat.

I know the game needs a reason for Frey to hit rock-bottom but learn some common sense!

Anyways, without the means to escape her current situation and having nowhere else to turn, Frey hands Homer to Maya Bird and then contemplates what to do with her life atop the Crossroads Hotel near the Holland Tunnel where she was found as a baby. As Frey debates whether or not to jump, she spots something in the corner of her eye. Breaking into the shop, she find a strange glittering vambrace and, as she reaches for it, is suddenly thrust into Athia.

Just like Alice, in her favourite book, Frey is now in a brand new world. But Athia is no Wonderland. Whereas Lewis Carroll, also known as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, crafted a whimsical world with grinning cats and mad tea parties, the world of Athia is not nearly as fanciful. Rather, it is a world on the brink of collapse. And when viewed from the lens that its current state is a reflection of Frey’s tenuous mental state: her bone-deep depression that is just one bad day away from utter destruction, it makes sense that the world, although filled with fantastical landscapes and magic, is also a vast empty land devoid of people. Abandoned towns scatter the countryside and the only ‘living’ things are the creatures that have been corrupted by the Break. And as I was exploring the world, I couldn’t help but feel that the land itself was much too drab and washed-out (unless, of course I was in the heavy break-infused lands near the Tantas’ palaces. But those were really just word filters). It was only in photo mode where I could adjust the colour and saturation that Athia felt more alive.

After an encounter with a dragon, Frey begins her quest to find a way back home to New York and her cat, Homer. Along the way, she is forced to fight against the corrupted Tantas. In the process, she becomes a beacon of hope for the surviving denizens of Athia, even though the idea of being a hero is something she struggles to accept until the end. The weight of expectations and the duty thrust upon is something that Frey fights against throughout much of the game. An understandable reaction if one considers her fraught childhood and her difficult circumstances right before she was transported to Athia.

Some might have complained that her refusal to take up the call goes against the usual plucky video game protagonist, or makes her weak, but I thought this characterisation for Frey particularly apt. If I fell into another world that was suffering from a particular malaise and learned that I was their only hope, I’d be scared, too, of picking up that mantle. More so if I had a history of falling through the cracks of society as others failed to provide aid when I needed it and failing to meet the expectations of others.

But, supported by the townspeople that believe in her, such as Auden, Johedy and Pilo, Frey is able to push past the fear that held her back and save the broken land once and for all from the machinations of the evil daemon, Susurrus.

Of course, even by game’s end, Athia is not entirely free of the Break. While the work of trying to clear it may seem daunting, Frey and the Athians are content to put in the hard yards to rebuild. Just because you defeat the ancient demon of destruction doesn’t mean that the world suddenly returns to normal. As with mental health, saving Athia (and oneself) is a journey of thousands upon thousands of little steps. It’s about reprogramming the biases that we have. It’s about taking some time for yourself so that you don’t collapse when you focus on looking after others. And it’s also about accepting those bad parts of yourself and reconciling it with your strengths as a whole.

In not many games have I seen such a thorough exploration of mental health beyond Psychonauts. For, if we are to take the metaphor even further, Susurrus himself is that inner negative voice we have inside. The one that tells us we aren’t worthy. That we’re ugly. That we’re stupid and will fail whatever endeavour we try our hand at. I know that as a writer, I’m one of my own worst critics. Rereading some of my works, I can’t help but pinpoint every misspelling or error. Worse is when I’m editing my long-form stories and wonder why I spent so long on something so horrendously atrocious. It would be easier if I simply deleted everything.

Fittingly, sussurus is a noun that means whispering, murmuring or rustling: “The susurration of the wind in the trees.”

I suppose my only gripe with the mental illness angle of Forspoken is how each Tanta breaks. Theirs is not some slow descent. Somehow, Susurrus manages to push them over the brink and they suddenly go from well-meaning protector to outright tyrant. Or suddenly develop a split personality. I’d have preferred witnessing the descent into so-called ‘madness’ rather than be peppered by notes from the citizens that speak of the sudden reversal in the Tantas demeanour.

And for that matter, I’d have liked to have seen, rather than read, what life had been like in Athia before. Or to hear of the world before the Break from the older residents of Cipal. Forspoken, much like The DioField Chronicle has a lot of world-building and lore that is relegated to the background but remains untouched by the main narrative. It would have shown better the hope the people carried and the resignation they had reached after twenty years of worsening circumstances.

Beyond the story elements, Forspoken is a fun game especially in terms of traversal. After all, it’s not everyday that the main protagonist is a dexterous mage that can do magic parkour. While I did find some of the controls a little floaty or inexact, I loved being able to climb cliffs and watch the trail of magic that Frey left behind as she ran, jumped and floated to her next destination. Combat, too, was a blast. While I know that there are people who complained about it after playing the demo, I thought each set had its own unique quirks. It helped that enemies, too, had vulnerabilities or resistances to certain types of magic, which allowed me to change them on the fly when needed.

Of course, there’s no need to actually change the type of magic one liked best if you were overlevelled, but the different effects and the flashiness of the spells were quite enjoyable to see. That and the fact that you could switch them around on the fly with a button prompt.

Now, the dialogue. The one point that many critics and players alike too umbrage against. For me, personally, I never found anything to dislike about the exchanges between Frey and Cuff. Some people pointed to the awkward writing when Frey discovered she had powers and I retort that if I could suddenly move things with my mind, I’d probably say the same thing. The only character that I felt was lacklustre in delivery was actually the bard: Wallace. Most of his lines sounded like they had been phoned in or they were just said awkwardly.

Once you’ve played through Biomutant and had to deal with the grating narrator commenting on your every move, there isn’t anything else that compares.

Long story short, I enjoyed my time with Forspoken. While I was a little hesitant at first, seeing all the negative impressions of the game, I thought it best to still give it a fair go. And while the ending message was a little on the nose, reminding me of the one I wrote for my short story Unseen, I still feel like it bears repeating. If you are going through something hard or difficult, you are not alone. Help is available! You are NOT a burden. People DO care. Even if it’s just one other life, you HAVE made an impact and you have CHANGED it for the BETTER.

I’m also just going to insert a link to crisis lines for anyone that may need it right here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

And hey, you never know if you might just isekai into another world and become its saviour.

On a site note, I definitely felt there were a few longing looks that were exchanged between Frey and Auden. But maybe that’s just me trying to see if there’s anything I can latch my fantasies onto. In any case, a sequel to Forspoken might be a far-off dream considering its poor performance.

#video games #forspoken #mental health #Frey x Auden #Or maybe they really are just gals being pals #I'm gonna ship them anyway

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