There’s a deeply rooted part of the human psyche that plans and anticipates the worst things you can imagine. What if, while you’re stood in line waiting for the self checkout, or are sat in a cafe, a fight suddenly breaks out? What would you do?Suddenly you are daydreaming as you imagine the guy in front suddenly charging at you, but you move out of the way so he collides into the person behind you who was about to hit you with a stick. In your head, you can visualise these scenarios and outcomes as much as you want, but in reality you’d only have one shot. Forestrike takes that scenario of imagining fights and puts it in video game form.
In Forestrike, you play as Yu, who is an apprentice of the ability called Forestrike. The Order of Forestrikers used to be vast, but now it is just you and a handful of old masters imparting their knowledge to you as you go on a quest to save the Emperor and the Empire. The gameplay of Forestrike is built around a roguelite form, where each run offers different abilities to build up Yu to face the different combat puzzles ahead. And while it has all the appearance of a martial arts battler, Forestrike really is at its heart a puzzle game with combat elements.
As you progress through a run, Yu is put into different single scene situations with different enemy types being presented to you. This could range from two enemies up to around six. Yu’s own skills depend on which of the five masters you choose to follow for a run. Taigun, for example, is a master who values using enemy movements against them, encouraging a playstyle where you dodge and have enemies attack each other. Nodai, meanwhile, is much more focused on taking the tactical fight to the enemy, with his path offering a key block ability, and Ogai has the power of the storm on her side, and following her allows you to evade attacks and strike from behind.
While your chosen master gives you the bulk of the abilities on a run, you can pick up techniques from the other masters as you move along the paths, generally if you beat them in a fight. Some abilities will provide additional bonuses with dodging, better blocks, or ways to disarm enemies and cause more damage to them. All of them are reliant on your planning and execution, and that is where Forestrike comes in.
Unlike the majority of roguelikes, Forestrike allows you to practice a fight an unlimited number of times using the Forestrike power. When you foresee, you can test out different tactics to take out the enemies you are facing before they take you down. It doesn’t matter if you fail during this, because this is just Yu planning his attack in his mind. You are encouraged to find a tactic and practice it a few times before triggering the actual fight, because if you lose the real fight the run ends and you have to start again without any of your upgrades and abilities.
Some of the fights are relatively simple and may only need one or two practice runs, while others will need a lot of goes before going for the real attack. Even then, success is no guarantee, because a slight deviation from a plan can spell disaster. A misstep here or a rushed attack there may mean you suddenly need to think on your feet to salvage a fight, your best laid plan going right out the window. At other times you will face an impossible fight no matter what, whether that’s down to not having enough health or the wrong mix of abilities to progress. It can be really frustrating to reach those points, as you know the run is over no matter what you do.
Forestrike’s story is pretty run of the mill with a few little mysteries thrown in, but this is ultimately the struggle of a small group of rebels fighting against a powerful foe and their forces. I did like the music in the game as it has that martial arts feel to it, and the pixel art does convey the fight scenes pretty well.
A major issue I had while playing on Switch 2 was the game kept crashing at different times back to the home screen. A day one patch is planned that targets stability and performance, but Forestrike already had the foresight to save between each level, so runs aren’t cut short by crashes.
