The Empire is under threat from within, and only the Order of Foresight has a chance to save it. The latest game from Olija developer Skeleton Crew, Forestrike is a martial arts brawler where you can see the future… kind of. Coming to Switch and PC later this year, a demo is now available on Steam to try and we’ve been hands on.
You see, the power of Foresight is bestowed upon a select few, including our apprentice protagonist, Yu. When faced with a clutch of bad dudes that need defeating, Yu can only take a couple hits, but can enter into Foresight and unpick the chain of events that’s going to occur and how to turn it around in his favour. It’s a bit like he’s borrowed Doctor Strange’s time stone to have a peep at all the possibilities.
Foresight is basically a trial run, a practice arena where you can figure out the attacks coming your way and how to use your limited dodge, pickups and standard light and heavy attacks to defeat them. You’ll see what enemies emerge to surround you, and then learn to pick them apart one-by-one until you stand victorious.
If an enemy comes charging at Yu, he can engage a dodge mode that will pass that charing enemy straight through you and see them barrel into someone stood on the other side, dealing damage to both. Similarly, an enemy that is able to dodge can be tricked into using that either by a bullrushing enemy you’ve evaded or by triggering them with an attack for your own, opening themselves up for attack immediately after.
It’s essentially an action puzzle game where you need to try and figure out a path through and then execute your plan. Get it wrong and you’ll lose health pips or even die, sending you right back to the start of the game’s roguelite form.
The demo does a good job of slowly introducing you to these concepts before letting you go on a run and see the roguelite structure. Working your way from the countryside, through the mountains, the city and into the inner court of the Emperor, you’ll have a choice of levels to take on, many of which come with rewards and fresh abilities.
For example, one could make your light attacks spin enemies around, potentially disorient them to then turn and attack their allies. Or you could gain health from instances of friendly fire amongst them, or cancel out and steal their weapons. Levels that reward you with a new abilities present you with three to choose from, but others can also upgrade abilities – that turn-about ability can then stun enemies, if upgraded. There’s also a shop to spend coins – if not using those to open up a further path.
It comes to a head when facing a boss. Larger health bars, quickly recharging dodge abilities, and some audacious attacks – Master Ogai in the demo can tumble into one of his allies and just fling them at you – makes them a real task to figure out, come up with a plan and then pull it off. It’s not something that I managed in my exploratory run, despite well over a dozen efforts in Foresight.
The demo has one of Yu’s potential mentors, the old Master Talgun who pops up in your Foresight like a Jedi ghost and gives a little guidance. He rejects violence typically, but even he pushes for an attack-first principle in certain situations. He’s just one of a handful of masters that you’ll be able to choose from at the start of a run, each of which has a different school of combat, which you can master and ultimately combine.
For now, the demo provides a tasty morsel of the action that Forestrike will offer when it launches later this year. Unpicking the combat puzzles is sure to prove delectable to a particular cachet of players, ramping up to those ‘real’ battles where you have only one shot to pull off what you’ve been practicing, and leading to some gloriously slick combat sequences that would fit right into a martial arts movie.