Forsaken Realms: Vahrin's Call Review - Booty Call

FOR STARTERS…

There’s an Elder Scrolls VI-sized hole in the gaming sphere right now, and any epic open-world RPG that comes out between now and the heat death of the sun (aka, Bethesda’s planned release date) has a shot at fully running the table until then. Forgotten Realms: Vahrin’s Call ambitiously steps up to the plate.  Does it knock it out of the park?  Or is this a swing and a miss?

Well, neither.  But it does get on base.  Which one?  That’s a longer answer.

STORY & VIBE

The world here is pretty dense, and that’s before you throw in the chaos of lands at war, shifting allegiances and all.  If you have a hard time keeping up with stuff like that, you may feel a lack of context to everything.  I now love Lord of the Rings and Dragon Age, but there was a healthy amount of growing pain before I really clicked with them; there was just so dang much to them. Forgotten Realms is the same way.  If you want something super accessible and easy to follow, then you might struggle.  There are a lot of proper nouns to memorize without much context—and oftentimes bits of the story are doled out while you’re fifth-wheeling a conversation between other folks who don’t care to bring you up to speed.  It’s like crashing a party between close friends with years of history.  A lot of stuff may go over your head.  

But on the flip side—if, say, writing dense stories for tabletop campaigns is your jam, then what would otherwise be an opaque wall of lore for some people will be a juicy bit of high-minded escapism to sink your teeth into.  What I’m saying is, sometimes the best experiences take a bit of homework and if you’re willing to slow down and learn about the world at the pace it gives you, then you may find a very rewarding experience.  Still… a comprehensive codex would go a long way and I’m a little shocked there isn’t one included as of time-of-writing.

You experience the world through the eyes of a character you create.  Don’t go into this expecting something like, say, Commander Shepard, though:  a protagonist with a defined past and a glut of opinions about the world around them.  Your mercenary is a blank slate who mainly acts as a vessel to carry the player around.  And that’s a perfectly valid way to approach the player character; you get to project whatever you want onto this blank canvas, as opposed to having your personality dictated to you.  I thought it’d bother me at first, but I got over it pretty quick.  My character has little history and few ties, further driven home by the fact that you don’t really make a ton of personal connections in this game.  You’re more of a wandering stranger of few words, if anything, which is a valid trope in and of itself. 

That may be the way to be, for a mercenary in this world at this time– because you see some pretty messed up stuff from time to time: dead folks, bloodied and strung up like messed up Christmas ornaments, for example.  Kindergarten stuff like that.  It’s fantasy, but more dark than anything else.

GAMEPLAY

The story is one thing, but how does it play?  Where the world is confident and knows what it is, the gameplay itself is a little more muddied.  There’s an open world here with a fair amount of things to do and side quests to complete.  I didn’t have a ton of time to devote to going off the beaten path, unfortunately, but the side quests I came across felt surprisingly fleshed out.  Yeah, there was some “go here and kill this” stuff, but that’s not all there is.  It’s not, like, Witcher stuff, but I’ll take these over any MMO side quest any day.  They let you explore the world, which is nice.

Main quests are actually a little less impressive– which is surprising, because usually it’s the inverse, right?  A big chunk of the main storyline goes like this: receive an assignment to help some folks take care of business, run over to this place over here, find a big baddie hiding somewhere in it, kill ‘em, receive another assignment to help some folks take care of business.  The formula holds up for multiple chapters and it kinda gave me Disgaea Mayhem flashes.  Ideally, you’d break this up with side quests, crafting, and the like; if you run through this you’re not gonna have a great time.  

Combat isn’t bad, but it could be tighter.  It feels a little….muddy or sluggish, if that makes sense?  Hitboxes are fine, balancing is alright, and blocking works well, but it didn’t feel as immediate as I would’ve liked; felt like a conversation where two people talk around each other, as opposed to a punchy back-and-forth.  But still, it ultimately passes muster.

There are a good handful of playstyles you can mess around with, whether you’re a nimble swordsman, a heavy hammer wielder, or a wily magic user.  It borrows a little from Skyrim by virtue of the fact that you strengthen skills as you use them, though you need to find books scattered around the world to fully upgrade them.   

Going back to quests: quest tracking can be a little pesky.  The game’s really designed to be played with a minimal HUD with no quest trackers, actually– sort of like Morrowind, I think.  Someone tells you to go over here and find a doodad, and you just figure out where to go.  It’s a great concept and I’m bummed that I wasn't able to devote more time to explore that playstyle more fully.  Me?  I turned quest markers on.  Didn’t ruin the experience by any means, but it’s more proof that this game is made to get lost in.

SHOUTOUTS

Now for some shoutouts– odds and ends that clicked with me.  If you’ve followed my reviews for a while now, then you won’t be surprised to hear: the soundtrack is pretty good.  It has the exact sort of orchestral lilt that I want from my fantasy, and effortlessly swings between magical wonder and morbid dismay when it needs to.  I’d put this score on my video game playlist in a heartbeat.

I’m impressed at how immersive the game ends up feeling.  Conventional wisdom would have you believe that you need Rockstar money to build out a world that you can believe exists when you’re not looking at it, but Forsaken Realms manages to pull it off with Not-Rockstar-Resources.  Forests feel dense and endless, and towns feel lived-in.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I buy into it– which is critical for any RPG.  

What also helps is a pretty solid voice cast.  For the most part, everyone in the voice cast sounds like a professional who believes what they’re saying.  I didn’t hear anyone sleepwalking through their lines– which isn’t a given, even in AAA titles.  So that’s very impressive.

RAINOUTS

As for rainouts, things that fell short?  I mentioned the game is impressively expansive and immersive for what it is, but it does suffer from some visual shortfalls.  Namely, stuff can be a little blurry at times, the player character in particular.  It’s commendable that the developers took on the task of going with an art style that skews toward photorealism, but I wonder if a more stylized, even cel-shaded approach would’ve done them better.  As it is, the presentation’s rough edges can be glaring.

Performance can also be a little chuggy, particularly when loading into the overworld.  Give it a few seconds before heading off and you should be fine.

Stealth is an option, but it’s a little clunky.  It follows the standard new age Assassin’s Creed model: crouch up behind someone and hit the stabby stab button.  Thing is, most games prompt you when a sneak attack is possible, but Forsaken doesn’t, so you have to eyeball it.  It’s not a huge deal most of the time, but there were a couple instances where I must’ve been just outside of the sneak attack box and ended up hitting the bad guy with a normal attack and alerting his pals.  Also, you need to specifically have your melee weapon equipped to do it.  There were some instances where I forgot I had my bow equipped and nothing happened until I manually switched to my melee loadout.

Next, I’ve seen silent protagonists and protagonists that speak, and this is one of the few times that I’ve seen both in one.  I mentioned voice acting already, but one glaring thing that stuck out to me was the unvoiced player character.  In a game that is otherwise fully-voiced, it feels strange for a player character to fall back on silent subtitles when they do occasionally chime in.  It’s not a huge ding against the game, but it was a bump I noticed that others may not be bothered by.

IN SHORT…

What do I need you to take away from this?  Forgotten Realms: Vahrin’s Call doesn’t knock it out of the park, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time.  It’s rough around the edges sometimes, but if you look at it you can see the amazing vision that the developers were striving for.  If you want a new world to get lost in that wasn’t made by Todd Howard or JRR Tolkien, then give this a shot– especially if you’re in the mood to roam around this handcrafted playground.  But if you’re in the mood for faster-paced doses of dopamine, this might not be your speed right now.  

Forgotten Realms: Vahrin’s Call earns a bronze lamp from me.  What’s there is cool, but I’d be interested to see what a tighter sequel would look like.

GOOD