As I was growing up, I would often find myself watching movies from around the world on SBS and a large part of them were action movies, with a lot of martial arts. That sparked a love of kung fu movies that persists to this day, so a game that is all about perfecting your kung fu appealed to me. But how does a tactical kung fu game really play out? Thankfully Devolver Digital and developer Skeleton Crew were kind enough to let me play it outside of its BitSummit 2024 debut.

The build that was at the show and that I had access to, offered up two sections of the game, a tutorial and the first world. Before I dive into those though, it is important to know what the game is all about. You are Yu (I had to), a martial artist who has left the monastery where he lived, in order to free the Emperor from the influence of an Admiral who has succumb to evil. Over the years, Yu has trained under five different masters, each of which has trained him in their own style, such as the leaf. The goal is simple, make your way across the land, defeating all who would stand in your way, the catch though is that you get one attempt and if you fail, you are done. That is where Yu’s Foresight ability comes into play, he can simulate all the ways a fight might go and then once he knows, execute the real one.

Ok, that ability is on you, when you activate it, you will have control to simulate how everything plays out. It is important to understand that the enemies will not move the same way each time, unless you do the same actions each time. You have enemies that will just move towards you to hit, some that will throw objects, others might carry an item as a weapon and then some that are massive brutes. You are not Neo here, you can’t just unleash your amazing moves without issue, you need to consider each enemy, all at once and then attack back correctly. For example, the large brute enemies have a little more resilience to attacks, so it takes a few more hits to bring them down. However if you go in with lite attacks, they will just pile drive you down into the ground.

What I did like about the game, is that depending on the actions that you choose to do, you can do things in many ways. The final boss fight in the build had me using Foresight to attempt many options and I found one that works, after a dozen or so tries. But just because I had worked out my plan of attack, that did not mean my attack was ready to go. In fact, I got my butt handed to me and it was back to square one for me, at least in terms of progression. The developers have stated that progress unlocked in the game will be permanent, but I don’t know the context for that, from what I played. I should also point out that some stages had additional challenges to complete, which earnt you more coins, which you could spend at inns along your journey. It is important to also note that you can only more forwards, so if you missed buying something at an inn, then you have to wait for the next one.

Forestike has the potential to be something fun, its far more tactical than you might realise, especially once you start mixing in abilities that you can unlock as you play. The games main hook is practicing a fight until you get it right, but the game also has no issues in just letting you go straight for the real thing, if you feel up to it. With five different styles of fighting, two of which were available in this build, there is also a few ways you might be able to complete the full game.

The game is coming in 2025 to PC and Switch, but there is no date beyond that. You can however wishlist the game on Steam now.