Review: Forestrike Will Test Your Skills

Forestrike, a roguelike about martial arts fights and the power of premonition, sounds like it makes so much sense. Go on a journey. Enter basically your “mind palace” to work out a fight in your head. Implement it in reality, based on your foresight, to ideally survive and keep moving forward. If you manage to learn exactly what you should and do everything right. There are times it can be great! But when it isn’t, I’ve found it can be the most frustrating roguelike I’ve ever played.

A foreign Admiral placed Emperor Lun Liao under his spell, and Yu is one of the few who sees exactly what’s going on. As such, our warrior heads out under one of multiple Masters and Paths in order to deal with the Admiral and save the country. This means using the power of The Cold Eye, The Leaf, The Monkey, The Storm, and The Tiger to win, with only Master Talgun and The Leaf available initially. While you will head through the Moongate and practice using foresight to deal with the situation, you need to go through everything in reality, with no practicing, to understand the full scope of this political thriller and discover the truth. 

While it’s never guaranteed that a roguelike will feature a fantastic story, or even offer any explanation at all, Forestrike offers an explanation and intent. Granted, you absolutely need to earn it! (Not to mention, I had to unlock my favorite Master.) Which is frustrating due to the difficulty. After seeing the outcome, I do think it is interesting. However, I’m not a fan of a design decision that means you lose access to certain options once beating a run with them. I feel like narratively, more could have been done with it, not to mention I really liked certain run types a lot. I do appreciate how the narrative does tie in to the repetitious nature of things and explains the foresight ability.

When a Forestrike run begins, you choose a Master. This influences the techniques and moveset you get. You then head into fights against The Admiral’s forces. So an initial tutorial match will involve three enemies and Yu, with a task of surviving and perhaps accomplishing an optional goal for additional rewards. (For example, clearing it in under 10 moves.) Since Yu has three health and a heavy hit could knock out more than one, being careful is critical. Enemies come at you one at a time, and certain types have specific patterns you can memorize. You can use attacks or Techniques you’ve learned, and if you collected the right resources perhaps block or dodge an attack. When you win, you might get an active or passive Technique. These involve precise button presses and perhaps even resources. Once the first fight is done, you can see the map and determine which road (and experiences) you’ll face that run. 

While Forestrike is a roguelike, in that we are picking a path, building a “deck” of moves, and should expect to try multiple times before we succeed, there are ways in which it doesn’t work like one. As a result, I feel like that weakens part of the experience. For example, the fights against foes felt random sometimes. I’d find myself in situations where I couldn’t win, even if I was doing things “right.” Also, unlike a more traditional roguelike, if you lose you don’t start off in a better place next time. You begin with nothing carrying over. As such, it can get incredibly frustrating going through an attempt. Things might go great and you’ll get situations that take advantage of your Techniques. But more often than not, I found myself outclassed. 

I also felt like not all Masters’ paths were created equal. Some of them can be really cool and fun! The Leaf is a good start, and I enjoyed The Storm. The Monkey is my absolute favorite. However, I hated The Tiger, even though I really liked Buton as a character. Perhaps it’s just me, but it seemed like some were more creative and offered more opportunities for success depending on your choices and implementations of Techniques.

Forestrike features an interesting concept and aesthetic I appreciate, but can feel unbalanced. I happened upon many situations where I felt like I couldn’t win, which was even why it took longer to prepare this review. I like the story and the way some of the martial arts movesets work. I just wish it didn’t often feel like chance so heavily affected my odds of success.

Forestrike is available for the Switch and PC.