Foreclosed (Switch) Review – A Brief Look Into The Future

Foreclosed is a game that immediately caught my eye when I first saw trailers for it. As the resident shooter-man of the Source Gaming team, seeing such a stylistic third-person shooter coming to the Switch was definitely something I could get excited for. So does Foreclosed deliver on action with aesthetic? Or is it simply style over substance?

Foreclosed is about three things. An art style inspired by comic books and specifically the cyberpunk genre, Third-person shooting complete with gun upgrades and telekinetic powers, and a narrative about identity that takes center stage during and around the action. So this review will focus on each of these aspects and how they hold up.

First, we’ll talk about the visuals and this is easily the one aspect of the game that really sells the game. Comic book-like visuals are of course nothing new to the medium of games but Foreclosed is perhaps one of the best examples of the style that I’ve seen. And this extends over to the technical side of things as well. Many would probably expect the Switch version to struggle with this kind of game but I was genuinely surprised with the port. Resolution on both handheld and docked mode seems to be at about or very very close to native resolution. As for the framerate, it seems the game runs uncapped but tends to often hover around 30-40 frames per second. Although I also assume the game uses some sort of heavy v-sync to keep things feeling stable, with no obvious slowdown or screen tearing. I did notice a couple of hitches when a new group of enemies would spawn in the middle of a firefight. But overall, Foreclosed on Switch both looks, runs, and feels great to play.

Next, we’ll briefly talk about the gameplay and that’s generally where things take a turn for this game. The main bulk of the game is spent mainly as a third-person shooter and a pretty limited one at that. The closest comparison to another game I could give would be Remedy Software’s Control as the combat is mostly focused on one gun you can upgrade as well as a few telekinetic powers. And I do mean a few. This is mostly due to another problem the game has which is its length. I don’t have an exact time off-hand but it seems the campaign took me about 5-6 hours to complete and it generally feels like the developers knew the game would be short enough that they didn’t feel the need to really flesh out the combat much. Despite the game only having two enemy types (well, technically it’s one enemy type and then sometimes they have a shield), your one gun feels pretty weak. You can switch between either your gun firing bullets (of which you have infinite supply and never have to reload) or its alternate telekinetic mode. The telekinetic mode is where you get to upgrade the gun with fun abilities like exploding bullets or bullets that lock on to enemies. But there are only 6 total upgrade options and the game only lets you equip 3. The telekinetic mode is also tied to your health so the more you fire the gun, your health decreases. And even with the upgrades, the gun still feels really pitiful. Of course, landing a headshot will instantly kill an enemy but the hitbox is so small and the gun is so inaccurate that it’s easier said than done. Otherwise, enemies will usually take about 6-7 shots to go down and with how many enemies the game spawns in later sections, I basically only used the telekinetic mode as a last resort which I feel really counters how ‘cool’ the gun is supposed to be.

Speaking of telekinesis, you also get the ability to unlock powers that allow you to pick up objects and throw them, stun enemies, pick up enemies, all that fun guff. Although just like the gun’s telekinetic mode, these are also tied to your health. So again, you end up feeling discouraged from using any of these often. Especially given how hard shots from enemies hurt you. Weirdly enough, this game doesn’t really have any kind of melee attack. The closest it has is the telekinesis powers that you only really unlock later on in the game. So if one or two enemies get within 5 feet of you, it’s a guaranteed death on your head. But I also don’t want to outright say the combat is bad. It definitely has a rhythm and momentum to it and it’s aided by the fact that the controls are generally smooth and the animations play out really well. It really just feels limited. And I wish time had been given to either add more weapons and enemy types. Or just generally allow me to fully unlock all the upgrades available without such penalties.

Other than shooting, the game also has lots of moments where you have to run around and solve puzzles and do hacking mini-games and these were probably my favorite parts of the game. Especially since these sections also usually had the game change perspectives from third to first-person and sometimes even isometric. With the one exception of near the end of the club section where you have to sneak around some turrets and get infuriatingly close to disarming them.

Last but not least is the story and this was something I also felt a bit let down by. According to some interviews, the leads over at Antab Studio (who developed the game) said the game’s plot was inspired by a real-life incident they had experienced of identity theft. The game centers around the main protagonist Evan Kapnos who loses his job and identity and must fight and weave his way through the web of conspiracies that landed him in such a predicament. Obviously, I do not wish to downplay what I can only imagine was a very harrowing experience for the leads to go through that lead them to create this game, and the game does have lots of heavy-handed metaphors to what victims of real-life identity theft often go through, but at the end of the day, I didn’t necessarily find the game’s plot to be very engaging or coherent. And just like what I said about the combat, I wouldn’t say it’s bad but more so that it feels very limited. Like the narrative begins with a very strong start and then the story generally feels to just take more of a backseat to the combat the longer the game progress. Only for the game to end with a big exposition dump and a choice and…yeah. It just doesn’t really stick the landing in my opinion.

Foreclosed is a game with a lot of potentials that gets very very close to pulling off what it sets out to do but feels too limited and held back to really be a satisfying experience. I still enjoyed my overall time with the game and if the developers have a sequel or successor in mind, I would love to see them try and improve and build upon the foundation this game lays out. There’s definitely something almost great here.

5/10

Special thanks to Merge Games, Antab Studio and Evolve PR for supplying us with a code for review!