Forestrike Review

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times…”

- Bruce Lee

The secret is out.

All of those kung fu movies you grew up watching, all the modern and ancient masters; the choreographers, the wuguan/kwoon teachers, the mountain-born monks… all of them have used the “Forestrike” to see all variations of every move in every encounter, and be ready to counter them. It’s why kung fu rules and it’s why it looks almost impossible to the lay-peeps out there like us. At least, if we’re to believe videogames that’s a whole truth, and we do centre most of our lives around them so we’ll sit firmly in that camp.

Actual truth be told, Forestrike from Skeleton Crew Studio and Devolver Digital, is a wonderful take on the speed of reaction and general foresight of high stakes martial arts. It’s a classic kung fu tale told in a charmingly pixelated roguelite way, and it grabbed us, turned us around and threw us out of the arena, unharmed, more than once. And in the most loving way possible. But can it rinse-repeat one too many times to keep up its initially mesmerising hook, or does it eventually leave you flattened upon its pixelated tea house floor, out cold and bloodied?

We explore those questions and reveal more in our review of one of the better budget games out there you could pick up today, if you have the patience to watch a leaf effortlessly fall from a tree, unannounced...

Let us explain, Grasshopper.

Forestrike

Genre: Kung Fu-Based Rogulite
Developer: Skeleton Crew Studio
Publisher: Devolver Digital
Release Date: November 17, 2025
Classification: PG
Author: Stephen Farrelly
Date: December 04, 2025

Switch it up!

The setup here is simple: enter into the “Foresight” and pre-plan your actual real-time attack in a series of single-stage combat events. There’s no limit to how often you can enter the Foresight and thus the old adage “practice makes perfect” comes to bear. As you play through each combat event though, you’ll have access to a limited set of moves from an offensive and defensive perspective, leaving you with a unique economy of moves and abilities to manage in what relates more as a series of puzzles to solve than actual fights, despite its setting. As a roguelite, you’re never expected to best the game or its challenges in one run, but after each failure you gain and grow, equally bringing to bear the training tropes of the myriad upon myriad kung fu and martial arts media out there. 

In its simplicity, but eventual depth, it’s glorious.

"Bruce Lee and Jet Li classics permeate its makeup - in particular, The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk..."

We played Forestrike on our Switch 2 and it never disappointed. Small or large in presentation, the game’s charming visuals relay, confidently, a game designed around homage. Bruce Lee and Jet Li classics permeate its makeup -- in particular, The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk, while the adhoc fighting styles of the likes of Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Jackie Chan -- the original “Three Dragons” -- also feature in both slapstick and infinitely helpful form. Given its minimalist presentation, however, we’re subject to a lot of written dialogue and no voice acting, which isn’t a huge deal except that Skeleton Crew Studio has opted to fill in your in between run segments with a huge amount of story. Again, not usually an issue except that some of the writing eventually presents as a bit wooden and once exposition and world-building is out of the way, the rest reads and feels too much like filler.

What this does, however, is have you itching for the next go at it all and once you flesh out your skills and abilities and even make some bank, falling leaves all of sudden start to make sense and you’re no longer focusing on the woman in the red dress. (Nerd joke, sorry not sorry.)

One More Time, Grasshopper

As a roguelite, Forestrike is a punish right out of the gate. And it becomes increasingly more difficult the further you progress. Natch. The problem doesn’t lie so much in your skill or even your ability, but execution demands perfection. A single misstep and you’re flat on your can, which in most games of this type is par for the course, but there’s something brutal about Forestrike’s makeup -- Groundhog Day-ish, if you will. And you’ll rue each and every one of those missteps, especially if you spent an inordinate amount of time in Foresight practicing. But this throws up a potentially unintentional gameplay element -- stage fright.

(No, not the kind you experience in public bathrooms.)

"Within the subgenre we genuinely feel Forestrike is maybe the single most unforgiving..."

There’s nothing quite like feeling you’ve rehearsed every bit of choreo needed to advance only to press a button too early, spend a defense skill unintentionally or forget to use this bad guy against that bad guy. And that’s because all the tools are there and every encounter is entirely beatable, so the sense of failure is slightly more impactful here than in, say, a Hades II run. They’re not like-for-like or anything, but within the subgenre we genuinely feel Forestrike is maybe the single most unforgiving, despite the fact you progress with each defeat. Here it just feels, you know… personal.

But you do learn from mistakes and each new run presents slight variations, so there’s a genuine sense of RNG lite you can also lay blame on, but progression really boils down to just a handful of things: using the environment to your advantage, defensive manoeuvres to hilariously turn enemies on themselves, and good old fashioned attacking moves. And as mentioned above, some of these are limited in usage, so the planning phase becomes window shopping to a degree, meaning you often need to leave the best, most impactful stuff till last, but this can also take you forever to work out the best build-up combo just to utilise, and often it can simply feel like a grind.

Tea for One

The other major issue with the game is its hook becomes a bit one note after a while. It’s cool for the first couple of hours, but we did find ourselves ignoring it on certain runs and hoping instinct and all learnings were enough. The reason for its tediousness is strictly repetition, which also means Forestrike is genuinely for die-hard and puzzle aficionados first and foremost. It’s charming, for sure, and a budget release, to boot, but you can tire of it all pretty quickly.

"You can certainly explore ways to utilise, say, Tiger style in a given situation against that of Leaf, but there didn’t feel like a lot of gameplay draw from such a decision..."

Thankfully, the fact you take on different masters who accompany you on each run does give some room for expression and for the game to be less strict in its win requirements, but there’s not a huge amount of wiggle here. There are five masters, or mentors, and each has a different style for you to utilise and those switch up your abilities economy, but aside from that and their cheeky quips at your eventual likelihood to fail, there’s not a major amount of differential between them all. It’s where we’d have loved to see the game expand a bit more broadly, given how micro so much of it is. You can certainly explore ways to utilise, say, Tiger style in a given situation against that of Leaf, but there didn’t feel like a lot of gameplay draw from such a decision, just a new way to think about how to spend and save, again. Ultimately, your choice of Master is akin to a loadout in other games, but it certainly does help keep what can otherwise feel chore-ish, interesting if for their dialogue alone.

Still, at under $20 dollarydoos across either Steam or Switch, this is definitely worth your time and investment. It also has a lot of charm that, in a sequel, with expanded gameplay ideas, could go a very long way. We kind of hope Yu’s story isn’t finished yet, and implore you to use any spare change you have to check out this otherwise budget Indie darling.

What’s Boss?

  • Charming presentation
  • The ability to "Foresight each fight is great
  • An unfurling tale befitting kung fu classics from yesteryear
  • Use the environment to best your opponents, or better yet, themselves!
  • Five Masters to unlock and utilise

Not Boss Enough?

  • A great hook that can tire quickly
  • Some of the dialogue and written content becomes wooden after a while
  • Genuinely challenging but not as high on the rewarding end
  • More focus on expanding the Masters and various skills/styles would have helped

A roguelite that allows you to practice a kung fu fight as much as you like before taking on the real thing. But, mess up in the real thing and you're back to the drawing board!

Learn about our reviews

About the Author

Written By Stephen Farrelly
Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms (particularly street and tattoo culture), and is the director of Swear Jar Editorial and Media Pty Ltd, this site's owner and publisher. When not dispensing words, he's also dispensing boutique beers as a taproom fixture at Bracket Brewing in Marrickville, NSW...
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