With us now into 2026, I’m starting the year by trying out a few games I heard about in late December. This week, I am writing about Forestrike. This is a rogue-like action game that allows you to ‘experience’ a fight sequence before doing it. It’s a novel idea that relies on patience to keep the player’s interest.
Fights before the fights
Forestrike is a run-based game that draws inspiration from classic martial arts films. Your character is looking to save the Emperor. Along the way, you’ll come across different foes looking to stop you. The key feature here is your character’s ability to use “foresight.” This ability allows you to visualize the fights before entering combat.
Every section starts the same. Your character will arrive in a location, and a group of enemies will enter the scene. Early in the game, there are two or three foes. As you progress, not only will you get more, but the variety of enemies will vary. Some might be big, burly foes that take many swings to take down. Other times, you might encounter monster-like characters that ‘explode’ on contact.
If you want, you can go into a fight blind and hope for the best. But what ‘foresight’ does is allow you to simulate a fight in advance. When you enter this mode, the game plays out at a slower rate, allowing you to see how enemies will approach you. You, in turn, can attempt to see the best way to defeat your foes without them taking you out first.
Foresight is a great feature, but has its limitations.
If foresight is available at a stage, you can use it as many times as you want before initiating the fight. You don’t even have to play through a battle from start to finish. You start ‘wrong’, jump out of foresight, and go back in.
It’s a great way to learn enemy types. As mentioned before, there are a lot of different enemies you’ll encounter. Some might have weapons that do more damage. Others have shields or can dodge your first strike. The key is to learn and to master the scenario before you attempt the real fight.
But that’s all there is to foresight. Once you get the hang of it, they don’t add any new mechanics. Instead, as you progress through the game, you will unlock different fighting styles. These do give you a different fighting experience, but that’s about it.
It doesn’t always go according to plan
A flawless run with foresight doesn’t always mean a perfect fight in reality. A slight misstep, a preemptive or delayed reaction, can alter a fight. It can be frustrating to pull off a perfect test fight only for you to get hit, and the entire sequence falls apart.
Your character doesn’t heal between stages. The only time you can heal is if you reach vendors and buy back health. There are a few abilities you can unlock in a run that can heal you, but they don’t always appear. Because of that, messing up a fight and losing health can make later stages impossible.
The randomization of each section does make it so that you can’t go into every fight knowing exactly what to do. While you will learn the behaviors of some enemies, things can change. Some people will love the unpredictable nature. I didn’t mind it until I had a run end early because I wasn’t able to correctly dodge a strike.
A deep story if you bother to stick around
The four zones you visit are not particularly long. Even with the branching paths, a successful run is only a handful of fights. But finishing a run once doesn’t tell a complete story. They expect you to complete the game a few times, with all the different fighting styles you unlock.
So, that does pad the length of the game. There are five fighting styles you unlock as you progress. So far, I only unlocked four, so I’m not sure when I trigger the fifth one. I am guessing that I need to finish a run with the other four styles first.
If you’re finding the game too difficult, some settings can make the journey easier. This includes adjusting the amount of armor and dodging, or giving yourself invincibility. Invincibility doesn’t make the game easier; it only means that you can’t die. There are a few instances where you have to protect an NPC; if they die, it would cause your run to end in defeat. So you still have to play smart if you turn this feature on.
Like it, but didn’t love it
My thoughts on Forestrike varied as I played. I enjoyed the idea of getting to try your fights in advance to better understand your foes. But the novelty does run out and gets frustrating, with some foes able to use weapons, including guns. The lack of a jump button and defending being a perk makes it super frustrating at times. I’d recommend most people to go into the settings and turn on the invincibility. From there, enjoy having fun seeing what this game has to offer.
