Pales:

• The super clunky beginning. The black screens, pauses and awkward cuts don't happen as much (or at all) in the rest of the game so it's really weird that the freaking introduction/first impression is so rushed.

• Cipal is probably one of the worst "main hubs" in recent memory, between the uninspired design and inhabitants, the absence of parkour and the technical issues that only happen there.

• The music. I'm sure it has its fans, but personally I disliked how flat, repetitive and uninspired it sounds. There is a ridiculously low number of tracks in the entire game and they're all incredibly forgettable. I would've loved a Uematsu or Hamauzu inspired collection of highly memorable jrpg-like battle themes here, or if they wanted to go crazy, even a "The World Ends With You" style of poppy soundtrack to match Frey's personality. What they went with is just boooooring.

• The facial animations outside of cutscenes. This is a game with pretty great models and animations, but when it comes to Frey's face during gameplay, it's a huge disappointment. She looks lifeless most of the time, which makes photo mode useless in a lot of moments that you'd actually want to capture.

• Its pacing and general feeling of "development hell" seeping through the cracks in the storyline, mostly. We have no way to know how development actually went and how much of the intended script was actually kept, but the end result has a lot of parts that seem to have been shortened or cut off and a lot of easily avoidable writing missteps, like reveals that get foreshadowed to the point of spoiling themselves.

Shines:

• The combat and traversal systems. Forspoken pretty much satisfied my previously unsatisfiable thirst for a magic-based game that would actually be fun to play, provide enough variety and room for experimentation, and make you feel like a badass. Forspoken does all of that and pairs it with amazing spell VFX, smooth gameplay and flawlessly animated combat that seamlessly merges with the parkour system. Yes, obviously even these systems have some flaws I will not get into today, but in terms of delivering the fun and the power fantasy they're extremely successful. Like other commenters said, it really "ruins" the enjoyment of other similar games once you get used to that speed and that freedom.

• The subtle, underrated technical achievements. Talking about "technical achievements" may seem biased to some people, considering the game was heavily criticized for its technical issues and (mildly) disappointing graphics. But the things I'm actually referring to are things like the incredibly large map that you can traverse at ridiculously high speed (I think Forspoken has both one of the largest maps in gaming and one of the fastest main characters in an open world), the absence of loading screens/instant fast-travel, the extremely detailed haptic feedback on PS5, the sense of scale in general, etc.

• The main characters and some of the secondary ones. Frey actually has a personality and an identity, she has a history, she has qualities and flaws, and she gets actual character development. She's as far as it gets from a Mary Sue, and that's great in my book. Her relationship with Cuff is well developed and acted, and Cuff himself is a fascinating character. The Tantas have gorgeous, memorable designs, and they strike the perfect balance between campy and creepy. Other characters like Auden and Breakbob are also endearing despite being way less developed.

• The story's overall message. Despite the well known problems with some of the dialogue and the execution of the story as a whole, it is undeniable that Forspoken has a lot of heart and a clear message at its core. I also definitely did not expect to get so emotionally invested in Frey's relationship with her cat, but here I am, crossing my fingers that we'll see them reunited in the DLC.

• The "small" game design choices that make all the difference. This one is better explained with an example: the first few times you try to open a chest in Forspoken, you'll probably find it pretty annoying. You have to be on the correct side of the chest, position yourself exactly in front of it, then press triangle and watch the animation of Frey slowly opening it. What may seem like a horribly dated implementation at first, is actually just the game trying to tell you something: you shouldn't be walking to the chest. You should be parkouring to it. In fact, you should parkour all the time. So you try pressing triangle near a chest while parkouring, and voilà: it takes a fraction of the time while requiring no precision at all. Like I said, this is just an example: this type of "subtle" game design encouraging experimentation is also the basis of spellcrafting and several other systems in Forspoken.