The very fact there’s an option to reduce or entirely disable some of the bracelet banter says to me that they realize, on some level, this is all very annoying
I find it crazy how many ppl repeat exactly what you said ...the talking during combat is not important...it's a good thing that there is an option...if you guys are going to not like the game atleast give a better reason ....
The idea of a loner who uses escapism to pep herself up being propelled into a world where she can be both amazed and overwhelmed by it, and use what she knows from that escapism to help is a cool idea. A fantastical take on "be careful what you wish for". Seems like it was fumbled though.
Also, the dialogue being atrociously cringe is REALLY confusing when you remember this is Amy Hennig's latest work-- yknow, the writer of UNCHARTED games and NOSGOTH (Legacy of Kain)!
@@xenonecromera which is unfortunate because a demo could easily be a great opportunity to gauge consumer interest and hear from an unabridged audience what’s working and what isn’t.
I'm surprised that it took us so long to get a game that follows the tropes of the wildly popular isekai genre of anime...right down to it being mostly bad
I would say its thhhaaat bad, The combat system is fun and I love how they do magic. And at the end of rhe day isnt thay the best part of these types games?
Just came here from the IGN review. I now know why i subscribed. You not only talk about the bad stuff but also give credit where its due. And why a piece of media cannot be explained by just a score.
@@kingszeno Oh yeah I agree. IGN will tell Fallout 76 is a bugfree masterpiece if Bethesda gave them enough money. They're tabloid journalists in the same ballpark as the Daily Mail and Buzzfeed. I only go them to see trailers because they can't be biased by uploading a trailer.
IGN is simultaneously paid to have high scores, gives too low of scores, focuses too long on the number and spends too much time on shit not related to gamers, like IGN is so conveniently every bad thing all at once impressive
I mostly hate quippy one liners and "witty" banter because it nearly always comes across as the writers (or the director) being too embarrassed to let the characters show genuine emotion - it's like they're so afraid of being "cringey" that it comes right back around to being exactly that. Which is a shame, because like you said, the setup for this story sounds like it had potential to be a heartfelt journey that a lot of people could relate to or find inspiration in.
But like some Marvel shows/movies. They must kill any serious moment with a bad joke. Like let them just be there's no need for that joke. Forspoken COULD have been that generational game yet the shot themselves in foot too many times.
@@Skip-Towne and yet something like Sable, made by a tiny team and were 90% of the playtime involves zero dialogue or even any other characters felt like a beautiful, indulgent experience that nearly brought me to tears. And it managed all that emotion and investment with as much dialogue as a single round of between-mission-banter between Kratos and his kid. Hell, for all the issues with it I was so happy that Cyberpunk actually committed to its story without trying to be "self aware" or anything. Basically, the Matrix takes itself very seriously and spawned years of edgy assholes in extremely uncool trenchcoats but it would have been a shit series if it hadn't gone all in
@@Skip-Towne definitely one of my top 5 games! Be warned it can be a little stuttery even with powerful hardware but the visual style alone is worth experiencing, as is the soundtrack. The sort of game I'd recommend really sinking into for a couple of longer multi hour sessions to get the feeling across. And while it's fairly small, I'd done about all there is to do in around 12 hours, it nails discovery and exploration like nothing else bar maybe Outer Wilds so definitely go in as blind as possible!
FFXV was made by that exact team. They got renamed after FFXV released. The FFXV left shortly after the rename, but this is the game they've been making since. It's no coincidence you see the similarity. Where FFXV may have had to overcome being a revive of a game lost in development hell for most of a decade, this game seems to have had a worse obstacle to overcome: not really having a reason to exist or be the way it is. To me is seems like it was open world for the same reason Avengers was an online service game: Square-Enix heard those sell well. If they have made a shorter more focused linear single player game about the same character with the same system and mechanics, they could have spent a lot more time making sure they worked, and more importantly making sure there was any consistency to the quality of what you're actually doing. It's like Square's business side thinks you'll see how big the map is and go "wow, well now I dont care about what Im doing out there, Im just glad it's big"
AAA games today either come out as a skyrim/ubisoft empty open world, a last of us walkin-talker, or both. Like the shoulder high cover shooters or brown color palette ww2 shooter before.
I'm so sick of open world games. At this point, it's legitimately a reason for me to not buy a game. So many of them are carbon copy, garbage side quests and filler content (find 20 maguffins, clear 10 bases, fetch x), or they're massive for no reason with no incentive to explore, so like 80% of your game is just running to get to where you want to go. I'm over it. It feels like the games don't respect my time at all. Most of the time the games have zero reason to be open world anyway
Square is still traumatized by how final fantasy 13 was received. Now they believe everything "linear" is as bad and pointless as it was on the first half of 13
I immediately got the vibe off this game that it was gonna be one of those big budget flops, where there's an inkling of something good but everything winds up being generic feeling. Looking forward to watching this
This is honestly just the death of escapism and detached modern cynicism creeping from the writer's room, where it usually silently smothers those kinds of stories in their crib, into a protagonist, who feels modern, sure, but does so by literally deconstructing everything good and awesome that comes her way. I am myself a pretty subdued, cynical person, and while it is good to keep my cool, I am also not a fan of being that way will- and gleefully all the time. It is a terrible habit.
Especially since we now kinda know Forspoken was supposed to be a different game it might have been more or less a lighthearted magical girl with some darker themes type of game. Yet that deconstructist and bland cynicism isn't fun.
It's the curse of these types of writers that has, for some reason, persuaded the higher ups that people want it. It's everywhere. Films, TV series, comics... And now this game. I really don't get It. There is always a failure of some type behind the angle for these projects, yet they insist with this writing style. If only they were at least interesting "asshole protagonists". They aren't even that. They are only mean and annoying.
A big, beautiful world means nothing if it's just a space I'm going to run/fast travel across. Lots of things to do means nothing if they aren't things *worth* doing. BoTW manages to have a pretty empty world because interacting with and traversing the landscape IS a big part of the game, AC Valhalla doesn't because it's just a lot of fast travelling and pressing the W key. It's why I'm very unsue about Starfield, Bethesda claims a truly vast array of planets but I doubt the developers who can't make a capital city with more than a dozen NPCs (sharing 2 voices) can actually create a solar system worth exploring
@@helplmchoking how is anything in BOTW worth doing? You collect functionally identical weapons for combat encounters that offer zero challenge, ingredients for recipes you don’t need to cook, money that you can’t spend on anything, and Korok seeds for more weapon slots to make up for them breaking after ten hits. It’s probably better than this game, but not by nearly as much as people pretend it is. If it wasn’t called Zelda it would be seen as the mediocre game it is.
@@jamesbrincefield9879 Eh, I think we just have very different tastes. I'd never played a Zelda game before, so the name carries no weight but at the end of the day it's a video game. Nothing is worth doing except maybe turning it off and going outside, I enjoyed BoTW BECAUSE I didn't have to do the most efficient tasks, I was exploring for the joy of it. To me, that's the better game - exporing, getting into trouble, hunting down rewards etc. purely for the fun of discovery. To others, there needs to be more structure to the gameplay, more of a framework to base your characters, items and actions on and that's cool to
@@helplmchoking you should give Elden Ring a try. It does everything you’re looking for, just exponentially better than Breath of the Wild does. I think it would help open your eyes to how to do those things successfully and show you how many basic levels BOTW fails on. There’s a video series by a guy named “Orion C” on TH-cam that does the best job I’ve seen of putting individual tastes aside and explaining why this game fundamentally fails at almost everything it’s trying to accomplish. You should check it out if you have the time.
You can see the brainstorming whiteboard in their office now. How do we appeal to this "Gen Z"? - GoG Marvel dialogue - Sassy female protagonist - Cat - Sassy GoG Marvel protagonist - Sassy cat - Female GoG Marvel dialogue - Female sassy GoG - GoG sassy Marvel cat
ngl everything that I've heard about the game made me feel like this is just a game version of an original English Isekai Light Novel story. Even down to extraneous gaming systems, cheat skill, and smug incessant quipping.
That's more Korean than english but the english Isekai novels I read don't do the quipping as much. Hell, the major series I'm reading "he who fights with monsters" has the quips but it is more like a spider-man type of way. Like he does it to calm himself down and to confuse the people because what the fuck does these people know about Knight Rider. That just confuses them to leave them open to attacks or to leave them confused during a political situation. It also gets called out a lot by his other party members or the party members that came with him from Earth and keep telling him to stop acting the fool. This game is more towards LA "modern audience" type of writing. Just look at Willow on Disney+. It supposed to be a fantasy show but the writing makes the girls speak like this one in the game. Super modern and annoying with no real purpose behind the words.
I’ve never seen as terrible dialogue from any isekai ever as the dialogue in this game. Ever. And i’ve read/seen a lot of trashy isekai out there. This is to go even further beyond.
4:00 Just answer me one question: about her cat, does she miss him in the other world? Does she even mention her cat and wanting to go back to him? edit: don't know the whole context, but personally in her place I would get desperate to go back because of my cat that was left behind.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend trying Gravity Rush 2. It's not identical, but looking at what's presented and explained in your video, so many of Forspoken's strengths remind me of that game, while so many of its weaknesses are absolutely absent from it.
Love it, you've clearly articulated your perspective that there's a nugget of something good buried deep in this game. Anthony Burch had a bit on a very old HAWPcast about still being able to enjoy something if it's 99% spaghetti and 1% shit, and his cohost at the time had the opposite opinion where he loves things more if its 99% shit and 1% spaghetti. I'm now convinced to pick this game up, but only after a substantial discount.
“Why didn’t she pick up the bag of money?” The one phrase muttered by all who played this game. Hell, some streamers were ready to charge into the other room with the cat in hand to get that money since they were that annoyed by it.
It's not an accident, that forspoken reminds you of FF15. Forspoken was developed by the square enix owned studio Luminous Productions, who also were the developers of FF15.
Quantity =/= quality. I've watched dozens of first episodes of isekai anime because I try to watch the first episode of every new anime series, and most of them fall into similar pitfalls. The dialogue in Forspoken to me doesn't even sound that far-off from the typical quippy, fill-in-the-blanks way most generic isekai protagonists react to having magical powers, just performed in English instead of Japanese 4:19 also a problem a lot of isekai have when they struggle to balance characterizing the main character as a struggling fish-of-water with relatable vulnerabilities vs. a confident, skilled, heroic source of wish-fufillment
I love isekai and watch a lot of them : most are very bad with all the problems this game seems to have. It seems to me they asked a lambda isekai writter to write the story of this game.
It's even more surprising when you realize one of the writers for this game is AMY HENNIG, ONE OF THE WRITERS FOR UNCHARTED. One of the main writers of Uncharted couldn't even escape the black hole of bad writing that is both the isekai genre and modern Square Enix stories.
The main theme slaps though 😎. I had a decent time so far, but, this gripe I had was synonymous with the game overall: they made it a huge point of giving her a New York origin... but why? The dev team couldn't even be bothered to recreate the actual city and instead randomly generated buildings. It's small and maybe a nitpick considering it's where I'm from and live but it shows a lot of ideas haphazardly thrown in.
Frey's personality was the main reason I disliked the game. She's been transported to a whole new world where she gains magical abilities yet she would rather go back to her own world where prior to being transported she was implied committing suicide via jumping. Her motivations for anything she does is lackluster and the way she treats herself as the victim is annoying. She herself stated she she doesn't care about Athia because she's not from there yet once she's told otherwise from her mother then all of a sudden she's self-proclaimed Athia's protector? If she bettered herself instead of expecting everyone to take pity on her then I'd totally dig this character.
@@TheLingo56 yes for the original Blood Omen, but she directed and wrote Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance. Which are the true high points of the series (particular SR 1+2)
Forspoken seems to have a few major problems: 1 Writing that works best in passive media like books or movies. 2. Open world design. Developers refuse to figure out that dead worlds are not really interesting, they are deserts. 3. An audience pool that is utterly obsessed with having "likeable" characters to the point that they equate unlikeable with bad or poorly written. 4. A 70USD price tag for what is a 40-50 USD game at most. This review in particular gives me the impression that there are some pacing issues with the character arc. While it has the character change it takes so long that it becomes an exercise in willpower to see it through to the end.
I agree with most of those takes, if it was no a game it'll work a bit better. "Dead" worlds can work if they also give you something more to do. I think people are tired of unlikeable characters. Not every character needs to be some sort of variation of Max Payne or Spider-Man with the quips and cynicism. Maybe for once something lighthearted and hold true to that.
@@ExeErdna She isn't really either of those types of characters though. She is barely an adult with a crap life who is gang adjacent who gets sent to a hellscape that makes her crap life look like paradise. Furthermore both Max Payne and Spiderman are what people would call likeable characters. I suspect that most of the people who don't like Frey would like either of those characters. Max Payne is the hard boiled cop. Spiderman's snark is actually a combat strategy in the more modern lore. He acts the way he does to piss off the people he fights so that they are off balance. (Think showing up late to a duel on purpose.) Honestly most of the heroes in videogames alone fall into the likeable category, it is very rare to see unlikeable characters.
@@metachronicler They take responabilty for their actions and realized they messed up. That why Peter and Max are relatable and Frey isn't. You don't get Isakai and go "damn this sucks" After a house fire, money gone, cat gone, most likely gonna get shot
@@ExeErdna Yea because fighting giant monsters that want to eat you, while having the hopes of aliens who are on their last legs thrust upon you is a fun time. Definitely a house fire and living on the street is worse than having to save a whole planet on the verge of destruction.
@@metachronicler I've been homeless give me the Isakai if I'm the one the help them shit that's 1000% better than being on the streets of NY. Why be happy with being mundane when in another world you're basically a god? It's why we don't have super powers now. We'll be reckless with them
Great video. Thanks for going into depth for a game most people are dismissing. I haven't played it yet but, ouf, seems like a ride, for better or worse.
I really hope this game gets a sequel, because after playing the demo I never knew I needed “infamous but it’s an isekai”. Hopefully they get a chance to write better dialogue and refine the movement/combat mechanics, because while I think I can find myself enjoying it I know not too many others could.
We're in a phase where every piece of media has to be Guardians of the Galaxy, and I hate it. I hope writers grow out of it soon, but they are, sadly, only getting younger. This is what it feels like to get old. It's happening to us.
Random numbers during combat that means nothing... Random nonsense acrobatics... Effects that clutter entire screen and I literally cannot see what is going on during simplest of combat... Holy hell it's Anthem all over again.
The demo was enough for me. I only played it 'cause I couldn't fathom why they were marketing this game so hard. I still can't figure out what it is SquEnix thinks they have on their hands, but I'm guessing their ability to smell a turd has completely left them.
Personally i was never gonna give this game a chance because it is way to overpriced here in Australia at $115 so im glad other people have and didnt totally hate their decision of purchasing this game.
a handful of the mcu movies are fun but holy shit did joss whedon have a disastrous effect on dialogue in popular media. I have next to zero tolerance for this style of snarky banter anymore. it genuinely just makes me want to see this product crash and burn.
I don't think your opinion on this has anything to do with your distaste of the latest Guardians game. I loved Guardians of the Galaxy but I find the dialogue I've heard in Forspoken reviews cringy af.
This game sounds like a classic example of an “over-designed game” with RPG systems, a big world, crafting, and side quests all thrown in there just because that’s what the developers thought they should or needed to do. That combined with pretty poor writing and story telling and you’ve got serious issues. Which is a shame because some of the core gameplay, with the movement and combat, seems like it has moments of fun. It looks like there’s a good game in here somewhere, but a lot has to be stripped away (or ignored) to appreciate it.
I've been replaying Metal Gear Rising, and that janky constant acrobatic movement looks exactly like ninja run but worse. Which is weird considering how long ago MGR was. The point about FFXV is interesting. XV is one of my top 3 in the series for exactly the jank and the bond. I dooon't think I'll be grabbing Forspoken for full price though.
You are like the first person i've heard outside of myself that commented negatively to the Guardian of the Galaxy game's constant banter. I hated it myself, it was not endearing at all, it was annoying as hell.
It annoyed enough with one character trying to be quippy all the time it even worst when the whole group of them doing it make it so hard to take story seriously.
The banter itself didn't annoy me but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much dialogue. What pised me off was having to wait for them to shut up so I could move on without cutting half their lines, which sometimes I did anyways because I wanted to actually play.
Frankly, I'm quite disappointed. Perhaps my biggest problem with the glut of open-world games we've gotten over the past few years is how uninteresting it is to actually move around them. Insomniac's Spiderman is one of the few I've played where just the act of traversing is super fun, and I was hoping that Forspoken had learned from that and was following in Insomniac's footsteps, in a way. Unfortunately, it appears that Forspoken forgot that the *rest* of the game has to be enjoyable, too.
Great review. While I like the game, I think a LOT of the issues with this game could’ve been solved by giving it the Breath of the Wild formula: let the player out into the world and allow the story and systems to gradually reveal themselves
So basically Immortals Fenyx Rising without the charm, the humourous take on ancient history, and double the MODERNITY. What a shame. This game, its story, and its main character could have been so much better. I'm okay with diversity, have no problem with female protagonists (if they're well-written, which Frey is not), and I enjoy fish-out-of-water fantasy stories, but sadly Forspoken is a telltale reminder on how exactly NOT to implement those elements.
Reviews of this game remind me very much of my feelings playing Final Fantasy XV. I also can’t help but feel like we would have had a better final product here had Square not attempted to so desperately “over westernize” this game and just let it be an organic fantasy story.
In watching this video and listening to Writing On Games simmering irritation, I now know what it sounds like to hear a man chew through his own teeth.
Just like my impression Mess! Young people likes to run, jump and shoot. So our game will be all like this. Youngs likes flashy colors, so our game will be colorful like eastern bazaar. Youngs is stupid so our game will be casual as worst mobile garbage. So my corporate friends we surely make tonnes of dollars!
So basically, it really was made by the people who made Final Fantasy XV. A hodge podge mess of a hundred different useless mechanics that don't gel together and amount to very little. Honestly, this seemed interesting, but XV being by far the worst in the series, it was written in the sky this would also be awful.
Great Review! I want to give this game a chance because I loved the combat in the demo, FF15 comparison is on point despite the bloat and jank I liked that game. valkyrie elysium got dissed and I ate it up, shame this couldn't be better but your points deff swung me to a buy.✌
I've seen so many saying this would be how anyone would react if they were thrown into a situation like this. So, either I'm a special little fruit loop here, or they're dead wrong, because if I found myself in an unfamiliar world, I certainly wouldn't be acting like this. I'd first be asking that voice "A. Where am I? B. How did I get here, and C. where did these powers come from. And I would NOT fight any of the wildlife. I'm a stranger here, I have no clue what these things are capable of, and one wrong move would mean death. Instead, I'd flee and attempt to find myself a safe haven; somewhere open so I can see everything around me. Next, I'd ask where the nearest town is to this voice and venture there while staying very cautious. No, I would not try using those powers again since it would take training to perfect control, and I wouldn't eat any of the fruit or vegetables since, again, I have no idea if they're safe or not. In the end, I'm being very careful while also taking in information I can gather from the world. I'm not running around, fighting everything I see like it's some game.
What, your first response wouldn’t be “Well, THAT happened!” followed by a string of one liners? 😂 Honestly, if I got teleported, I’d just scream for a solid five minutes until I got my shit together lol.
Yeah especially dig on something they always have been known for , witty one liners and that style of banter between them.. I played the game and at first found it strange the different voices from the Marvel movies that are out with them in it... lol but i did appreciate they nailed the internal dialogue between them and that quickly made me forget the diffent voices... SO what he tryimng to say he hates that they are acting the way they always have? lol i don't get the comment to be honest...
A lot of Final Fantasy 15 issues can be broken down into development hell. FF15 started off as FF vs 13 in 2006, then got scrapped completely and rebranded to Final Fantasy 15. Characters were taken away, stories completely changed, new director, art style, engine, you name it. If we compare the stories between FF15 and Forsaken, we can see similarities. Noctis didn't want to be king, Fray didn't want to be a savior. Noctis was born into royalty and everyone had high expectations for him, but he failed because he just didn't care (at first). No one had expectations for Fray, she was a nobody living on the streets doing petty crime, and she didn't care what others thought. The main difference between Fray and Noctis is that Noctis was changed as he slowly lost everything that was important to him. His Dad died, his future wife died, the buff friend disappeared, the responsible friend went blind, and the nice caring one isn't even human, he's a literal Empire test tube baby. Noctis eventually realized that everything was his fault and had he been a man sooner, perhaps none of that would have happened. When he loses his powers, that's when he SHOULD have given up, but he pressed on, BY HIMSELF! He picked himself up, made it to the crystal, and met up with his friends who never turned their back on him, even though they should have many times. Noctis earned his redemption arc. But what about Fray? Fray is just a horrible person. One could justify her rotten attitude due to her living situation in New York. But after Fray is transported to another world, all she wants to do is go home. Go back home to what?? She finally got surrounded by people who literally told her "we like you, and we need you" and she treats them like crap. When that one girl's Dad dies right in front of her, she's like "I don't give a da** about this world, it can burn for all I care." She only changed her mind AFTER she lost her powers. Unlike Noctis, she never did anything on her own after she arrived in Athia. When Noctis lost is powers (the dreaded chapter 13), you were all alone, doing all the fighting yourself, no teleporting, no magic, no support, just your sword and potions. You had to run from all these crazy monsters, and you didn't get your powers back thanks to the power of friendship. Fray literally got her powers back because her Dad's name is Al. After treating everyone like crap, she gets rewarded in the end. That's not even a character arc. Guess what happens when Noctis gets his powers back? He literally gets transported into the crystal, only to have what he tried to protect forcefully taken from him, all according to Ardyn's plan. Fray is just gifted her powers back because of love and friendship, and she's the chosen one >_>. This game's biggest letdown is the story and the characters. I wonder if they went through their own kind of development hell, because this character makes no sense.
Not about writing but there have been a couple of games recently that basically make the game systems only worth interacting with on the higher difficulty. I don't think I like it.
Fantastic review! Really made me think about why we enjoy some of the games we enjoy, and how idiosyncratic experiences can sometimes be a lot more interesting to talk about than "good" ones.
I've not seen a more over designed game, they seem to think everything is better cranked up to 11.. the UI, the quips, the cutscenes, the particle fx, the spell and combat design. They needed to take a step back and simplify and streamline the game, i guess that's where an experienced producer would have helped. If there is a Forspoken 2, they would do well to simplify.
From your video (and especially from the latter half of it), Forspoken seems like the perfect game to buy... a few years from now discounted. A game with potential that was utterly ruined by the inability of the devs to execute it right. Basically the Japanese version of Euro Jank but with *a* *lot* of money thrown into it.
I use to live/play by reviews, but after cyber punk, which I loved day 1, it had its bugs but I still throughly enjoyed. And still play just to see how much it's improved since last time I played. I now tend to play what seems fun. To many times I enjoy games only to hear content creators bash and critique every aspect of game play and every line of dialog.
I had hoped for a better balanced game, but from the beginning the whole hollywood-esque thing, combined with the open world, make me wonder if Squeenix was focusing on the wrong parts of the game to build up. Millions wasted on scripts, photorealistic capture and surface level elements, when time should have been taken to finetune the game design and map, rather than just hope filling it with Stuff is "a game". And if you think Frey has a non-reaction to the fantasy world, you now feel the pain of many consumers of anime and the glut of similar stories that have flooded Japan's bottom-feeding literature market, the stuff that's the easiest for English-speakers to get their hands on, online.
Sometimes that unintentional human element to it all, in all the roughness shining through, leaves a greater impact than those of the supremely polished variety whose beats leave their intended effects. Not sure if I should say Forspoken is a better game that the studio understands through and through by somehow ending up in the same place in their work with FFXV, but oddly it does act as a greater recommendation to me! Knowing this studio can have its fluff and boggling design/structure without weighing down the emotional thrust of what’s holding it together (albeit with Elmer’s Glue and toothpicks at times) is something truly special to me. I thought it was incredible you mentioned how most games barely move you at all and yet this wacky, fantastical diarrhea-mouthed game somehow brought you to greater feeling, even if conflicted, than most and it’s kinda awesome to hear. May not have ended in a recommendation, but I definitely am more interested in this game than I ever have been and for that I’m pleasantly surprised. Great, great video!
This game got that "millennial writer" with it's cringe Joss Whedon/Takia Wakitit MCU inspired dialogue. It's seriously looks like it was made for Kotaku and Polygon staff.
While this review seems more fair than others, it is still mostly too harsh. The biggest point I disagree with is the discussions around Frey. Yes she wanted to escape her world, but that doesn't mean she wanted to be thrown into an dying, apocalyptic one. Yes she wanted to feel important and needed, but that doesn't mean she wants to play savior to people who locked her in chains, and treated her like a monster when she was lost, confused, hungry & desperate. It doesn't even mean she feels qualified to be the hero. Its like Frey is not allowed to be complex or have nuance to her character. That said, the review sort of hints at what I think is most true about this game: the beginning is rough but it gets better the more you play it.
To be fair: I find the out-loud verbal statement of: "IS THAT A MOTHER F-ING DRAGON?!" a correct thing to say when seeing a dragon. In-fact, after wondering for a minute what I would say out-loud upon seeing a mythical creature the size of a building, I find that exclamation quite tame in comparison. And this is a great review btw. Incredibly reasonable- really could hear the frustration of seeing something really amazing mired by really weird narrative choices. Definitely going to give this a try when it goes on sale.
I get ya, but with that line in particular, it's less what she's saying and more how she's saying it-like she's just come back to her car to find a parking ticket or something. Thanks for watching/the kind words!
@@WritingOnGames No problem. After reading other reviews and checking some videos online, I find that the old way of number scores just don't work here. It's a lot more nuanced and this review perfectly illustrates that. Something is simply not connecting correctly. The original writer wrote Uncharted and I find a lot similarities with the style of quips that are used. I'm curious why there are not enough comparisons over why they work for that series but have difficulty sticking the landing here. Delivery or voice direction. And there's also the issue of whether or not a character that is unlikable a good choice for a main character in a game, if there's a way to do that without alienating the player.
Funny how the vast majority of streamers I've seen playing this game without expecting to hate it or just wanting to hate (mob mentality) enjoyed the game. I, personaly, loved every single moment I had with it. I was okay with the long game and I do like Frey a lot as a character.
It sounds like an issue with game direction. A lot of these things could've been tweaked to have a coherent feeling and personality. Instead it's just a bunch of moments stitched together in a story that takes way too long to pay off. It's a shame.
They should have made a first person platformer instead, that would have leaned into the few positives it has to offer. As an open world rpg, it does nothing that hasn't been done previously and does them worse with ludicrous performance as a bonus
This makes me sad, because this game looks very good intentioned, and it has amazing ideas, but it seems that the developers didn't had too much experience
The mere description of the auxiliary mechanics and overall structure of the game make me borderline nauseous. The game might have its high points, but it's also the embodiment of everything wrong with AAA game design, sans shoehorned in microtransactions.
"Systemic melange" are two words so unrelated that the fact you put them together perfectly encapsulates the flaws of this game. Also a nuanced review which gaming outlets need more of.
Why are you basically apologizing at the top of this video? Just because someone put in hard work into something, doesn't give it value. _Especially not monetary value._ After all, that's what they are asking for, people to spend _their_ hard earned money on this. Games development isn't a charity. If the game isn't worth playing, that's that. So, _please,_ don't apologise for helping people spend their money on titles are worth it and avoiding ones that aren't.
After seeing what Forspoken is actually about, had no real clue or care before hand. It really looks like a subpar version of Prototype using magic instead of genetics, put into a fantasy setting and made several times lamer. There is potential, but none of it was flushed out and your characters abilities look to range from meh to painfully generic, it needs more flash and dynamics to make the abilities at least look worthwhile. Its sad when games back on the PS3/360 did this similar concept so much better.
Very glad for this review. Forspoken is now a hard skip for me. 70$ for an empty open world that gets better hours in? No thanks, I value my time and money more than that.
Dragon's Dogma had ultra surface level 'story', 'characters', and 'dialogue' but it's a cult classic because of the gameplay. I think Forespoken's focus on magic as primary combat mechanic is interesting. If ever this is optimized on PC, or has mods that silence the dialogue, fixes the horrendous UI and goes on $10-$15 sale I MIGHT get it lol
It may get mods if enough of the mod community thinks its worth the time. UI redesign isnt necessarily super hard but it is time consuming cause you have to change all of the widget coding as well. The amount of menus and whatnot else, would take awhile.
Dragon's Dogma had the perfect amount of hand holding. You get pass the Hydra and you can basically ignore the story for a long time. I even like they don't really teach you anything THE PAWNS do like how the Cuff should be in the game. They give little nuggets of knowledge due to them learning as you learn.
Something DD did that was really great was the character's relation to the world around them. Every NPC had a name and unique (to some degree) situation. After any major event, you can clearly see how the NPCs change to reflect the situation. While the bigger story wasn't told very well, the world felt real.
I was pretty happy your first bone of contention focused on the smarmy quippy dialogue because that has to be one of my biggest pet peeves in triple A games. It seems like it's finally on the downswing thank god but stuff like this still creeps in. Nothing pulls me out of an experience I'm supposed to take seriously like terribly written characters and dialogue. Considering I can't even stand it in Uncharted games and that's like relatively well-done, I think I'll be avoiding this game. Although the story of a very lonely person only having their cat to talk to might actually hit me pretty hard. Too bad it's surrounded by so much other junk.
The very fact there’s an option to reduce or entirely disable some of the bracelet banter says to me that they realize, on some level, this is all very annoying
Annoying is subjective
They got a lot of feedback on it in early betas. Seems like more just an option for those who don’t care for it, but I get your point
People hated the narrator in Biomutant. I loved it. Annoying is subjective.
I find it crazy how many ppl repeat exactly what you said ...the talking during combat is not important...it's a good thing that there is an option...if you guys are going to not like the game atleast give a better reason ....
@@devinvez3869 they all are parroting the same thing
The idea of a loner who uses escapism to pep herself up being propelled into a world where she can be both amazed and overwhelmed by it, and use what she knows from that escapism to help is a cool idea. A fantastical take on "be careful what you wish for".
Seems like it was fumbled though.
In the end she wakes up from the bed and realize it was all just a.....
This is confirming to me that a lot of the issues I saw in the demo were indeed too late to change.
A real shame, that.
Also, the dialogue being atrociously cringe is REALLY confusing when you remember this is Amy Hennig's latest work-- yknow, the writer of UNCHARTED games and NOSGOTH (Legacy of Kain)!
The demo is almost always gonna be how the game will feel upon release. I'm not sure why people think any differently
@@xenonecromera which is unfortunate because a demo could easily be a great opportunity to gauge consumer interest and hear from an unabridged audience what’s working and what isn’t.
I'm glad they put out the demo. Saved me $70
@@Hugsloth she didn't get to have influence the whole time
My question is this: is asking for a character to react to a fantasy world with genuine wonder too much?
Unfortunately, only jaded cynicism is allowed these day.
I'm surprised that it took us so long to get a game that follows the tropes of the wildly popular isekai genre of anime...right down to it being mostly bad
I would say its thhhaaat bad, The combat system is fun and I love how they do magic. And at the end of rhe day isnt thay the best part of these types games?
I mean, yeah. Pretty much all isekai anime sucks. ReZero is okay, but that’s about it
@@JohnDoe-uf3lj POV: you only read trashy isekai
@@notimeforcreativenamesjust3034 I don’t really read, I watch. I’ll take recommendations. But a lot of the stuff I’ve seen sucks.
@@JohnDoe-uf3lj damn, because most of the good isekai are manga, manwha, *books*.
Just came here from the IGN review. I now know why i subscribed. You not only talk about the bad stuff but also give credit where its due. And why a piece of media cannot be explained by just a score.
It also highlights the importance of getting information from multiple sources.
@@PlebNC Better, if none of those sources are IGN.
@@kingszeno Oh yeah I agree. IGN will tell Fallout 76 is a bugfree masterpiece if Bethesda gave them enough money. They're tabloid journalists in the same ballpark as the Daily Mail and Buzzfeed. I only go them to see trailers because they can't be biased by uploading a trailer.
The idea of assigning a numerical score to subjective works of art is truly one of the worst we've ever come up with
IGN is simultaneously paid to have high scores, gives too low of scores, focuses too long on the number and spends too much time on shit not related to gamers, like IGN is so conveniently every bad thing all at once impressive
I mostly hate quippy one liners and "witty" banter because it nearly always comes across as the writers (or the director) being too embarrassed to let the characters show genuine emotion - it's like they're so afraid of being "cringey" that it comes right back around to being exactly that.
Which is a shame, because like you said, the setup for this story sounds like it had potential to be a heartfelt journey that a lot of people could relate to or find inspiration in.
But like some Marvel shows/movies. They must kill any serious moment with a bad joke. Like let them just be there's no need for that joke. Forspoken COULD have been that generational game yet the shot themselves in foot too many times.
@@ExeErdna exactly. There are times in marvel movies where I think silence would be better than the witty one liner they choose to go with.
@@Skip-Towne and yet something like Sable, made by a tiny team and were 90% of the playtime involves zero dialogue or even any other characters felt like a beautiful, indulgent experience that nearly brought me to tears. And it managed all that emotion and investment with as much dialogue as a single round of between-mission-banter between Kratos and his kid.
Hell, for all the issues with it I was so happy that Cyberpunk actually committed to its story without trying to be "self aware" or anything.
Basically, the Matrix takes itself very seriously and spawned years of edgy assholes in extremely uncool trenchcoats but it would have been a shit series if it hadn't gone all in
@@helplmchoking man, I've been meaning to check out Sable for ages, thank you for reminding me it exists!
@@Skip-Towne definitely one of my top 5 games! Be warned it can be a little stuttery even with powerful hardware but the visual style alone is worth experiencing, as is the soundtrack. The sort of game I'd recommend really sinking into for a couple of longer multi hour sessions to get the feeling across. And while it's fairly small, I'd done about all there is to do in around 12 hours, it nails discovery and exploration like nothing else bar maybe Outer Wilds so definitely go in as blind as possible!
The UI isn't being mentioned nearly as often as it should in other reviews! This games UI is truly an eye sore. Agree with most everything said here.
I do mention that!
@@WritingOnGames didn't mean to imply that you didn't
@@Thelionofcaliban sorry, might have read the comment wrong - very late night trying to get this vid done, haha. Thanks for watching!
Updated my comment so my meaning was clearer
@Writing on Games All good. Great video, as always!
FFXV was made by that exact team. They got renamed after FFXV released. The FFXV left shortly after the rename, but this is the game they've been making since.
It's no coincidence you see the similarity.
Where FFXV may have had to overcome being a revive of a game lost in development hell for most of a decade, this game seems to have had a worse obstacle to overcome: not really having a reason to exist or be the way it is.
To me is seems like it was open world for the same reason Avengers was an online service game: Square-Enix heard those sell well.
If they have made a shorter more focused linear single player game about the same character with the same system and mechanics, they could have spent a lot more time making sure they worked, and more importantly making sure there was any consistency to the quality of what you're actually doing.
It's like Square's business side thinks you'll see how big the map is and go "wow, well now I dont care about what Im doing out there, Im just glad it's big"
AAA games today either come out as a skyrim/ubisoft empty open world, a last of us walkin-talker, or both. Like the shoulder high cover shooters or brown color palette ww2 shooter before.
I'm so sick of open world games. At this point, it's legitimately a reason for me to not buy a game. So many of them are carbon copy, garbage side quests and filler content (find 20 maguffins, clear 10 bases, fetch x), or they're massive for no reason with no incentive to explore, so like 80% of your game is just running to get to where you want to go.
I'm over it. It feels like the games don't respect my time at all. Most of the time the games have zero reason to be open world anyway
@@vangoghsseveredear Amen, Brosiah. Gimme that linear level design again
I still think that the best talent at Square is with CBUIII.
Square is still traumatized by how final fantasy 13 was received. Now they believe everything "linear" is as bad and pointless as it was on the first half of 13
I immediately got the vibe off this game that it was gonna be one of those big budget flops, where there's an inkling of something good but everything winds up being generic feeling. Looking forward to watching this
Well Square Enix can't make a non final fantasy game worth a damn these days anyway.
@@Blackreaper95 what are you on about? The 3rd Birthday was great!
@@Blackreaper95 Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Nier Automata, Octopath Traveller, Triangle Strategy...
This is honestly just the death of escapism and detached modern cynicism creeping from the writer's room, where it usually silently smothers those kinds of stories in their crib, into a protagonist, who feels modern, sure, but does so by literally deconstructing everything good and awesome that comes her way.
I am myself a pretty subdued, cynical person, and while it is good to keep my cool, I am also not a fan of being that way will- and gleefully all the time. It is a terrible habit.
Especially since we now kinda know Forspoken was supposed to be a different game it might have been more or less a lighthearted magical girl with some darker themes type of game. Yet that deconstructist and bland cynicism isn't fun.
It's the curse of these types of writers that has, for some reason, persuaded the higher ups that people want it.
It's everywhere. Films, TV series, comics... And now this game.
I really don't get It. There is always a failure of some type behind the angle for these projects, yet they insist with this writing style.
If only they were at least interesting "asshole protagonists". They aren't even that. They are only mean and annoying.
I think you've actually sold me on Forspoken - once I can get it for $20 or so.
They'd have to pay me 20$ to play it.
I wouldn't even get this game for free.
@@lucianwong420 I would though.
Forespoken looks like the kind of game that's far more enjoyable receiving for "free" with ps plus or game pass than paying for at launch
Yeah this is precisely what I expected. The game felt sus ever since I saw how empty the openworld was.
amogus
A big, beautiful world means nothing if it's just a space I'm going to run/fast travel across. Lots of things to do means nothing if they aren't things *worth* doing.
BoTW manages to have a pretty empty world because interacting with and traversing the landscape IS a big part of the game, AC Valhalla doesn't because it's just a lot of fast travelling and pressing the W key.
It's why I'm very unsue about Starfield, Bethesda claims a truly vast array of planets but I doubt the developers who can't make a capital city with more than a dozen NPCs (sharing 2 voices) can actually create a solar system worth exploring
@@helplmchoking how is anything in BOTW worth doing? You collect functionally identical weapons for combat encounters that offer zero challenge, ingredients for recipes you don’t need to cook, money that you can’t spend on anything, and Korok seeds for more weapon slots to make up for them breaking after ten hits. It’s probably better than this game, but not by nearly as much as people pretend it is. If it wasn’t called Zelda it would be seen as the mediocre game it is.
@@jamesbrincefield9879 Eh, I think we just have very different tastes. I'd never played a Zelda game before, so the name carries no weight but at the end of the day it's a video game. Nothing is worth doing except maybe turning it off and going outside, I enjoyed BoTW BECAUSE I didn't have to do the most efficient tasks, I was exploring for the joy of it.
To me, that's the better game - exporing, getting into trouble, hunting down rewards etc. purely for the fun of discovery.
To others, there needs to be more structure to the gameplay, more of a framework to base your characters, items and actions on and that's cool to
@@helplmchoking you should give Elden Ring a try. It does everything you’re looking for, just exponentially better than Breath of the Wild does. I think it would help open your eyes to how to do those things successfully and show you how many basic levels BOTW fails on.
There’s a video series by a guy named “Orion C” on TH-cam that does the best job I’ve seen of putting individual tastes aside and explaining why this game fundamentally fails at almost everything it’s trying to accomplish. You should check it out if you have the time.
I found it interesting when you started to bring up FFXV. From everything you were saying, it really reminded me of both the good and bad of FFXV.
Same team too
I want to see a cross over with those two now.
Too bad its so badly optimized on the PC that it could ruin it for some people
The story and characters are better written though, and way more content (side quest, easter egg, FOODS!!!)
@@r3dr4te963 Light years better, the writing was the best part of XV, I loved every single second I spent with the boys.
The writing I've seen stinks of "How do you do fellow kids?"
You can see the brainstorming whiteboard in their office now. How do we appeal to this "Gen Z"? - GoG Marvel dialogue - Sassy female protagonist - Cat - Sassy GoG Marvel protagonist - Sassy cat - Female GoG Marvel dialogue - Female sassy GoG - GoG sassy Marvel cat
ngl everything that I've heard about the game made me feel like this is just a game version of an original English Isekai Light Novel story. Even down to extraneous gaming systems, cheat skill, and smug incessant quipping.
That's more Korean than english but the english Isekai novels I read don't do the quipping as much. Hell, the major series I'm reading "he who fights with monsters" has the quips but it is more like a spider-man type of way. Like he does it to calm himself down and to confuse the people because what the fuck does these people know about Knight Rider. That just confuses them to leave them open to attacks or to leave them confused during a political situation.
It also gets called out a lot by his other party members or the party members that came with him from Earth and keep telling him to stop acting the fool.
This game is more towards LA "modern audience" type of writing. Just look at Willow on Disney+. It supposed to be a fantasy show but the writing makes the girls speak like this one in the game. Super modern and annoying with no real purpose behind the words.
I’ve never seen as terrible dialogue from any isekai ever as the dialogue in this game. Ever. And i’ve read/seen a lot of trashy isekai out there. This is to go even further beyond.
4:00 Just answer me one question: about her cat, does she miss him in the other world? Does she even mention her cat and wanting to go back to him?
edit: don't know the whole context, but personally in her place I would get desperate to go back because of my cat that was left behind.
they should have had the cat come along and become able to talk rather than the "cuff".
Yes. She mentions him often although after losing everything in the fire she gives the judge she's close with the cat to take care of.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend trying Gravity Rush 2. It's not identical, but looking at what's presented and explained in your video, so many of Forspoken's strengths remind me of that game, while so many of its weaknesses are absolutely absent from it.
!! gravity rush mentioned !! spurella!!
Underrated as hell series.
Love it, you've clearly articulated your perspective that there's a nugget of something good buried deep in this game. Anthony Burch had a bit on a very old HAWPcast about still being able to enjoy something if it's 99% spaghetti and 1% shit, and his cohost at the time had the opposite opinion where he loves things more if its 99% shit and 1% spaghetti. I'm now convinced to pick this game up, but only after a substantial discount.
“Why didn’t she pick up the bag of money?”
The one phrase muttered by all who played this game. Hell, some streamers were ready to charge into the other room with the cat in hand to get that money since they were that annoyed by it.
Definitely not worth the release asking price, in any case.
It's not an accident, that forspoken reminds you of FF15. Forspoken was developed by the square enix owned studio Luminous Productions, who also were the developers of FF15.
Weird how se struggles to write an isekai story when how much impact and how big that genre is in japan
Well there are thousands of bad Isekai...
Quantity =/= quality. I've watched dozens of first episodes of isekai anime because I try to watch the first episode of every new anime series, and most of them fall into similar pitfalls. The dialogue in Forspoken to me doesn't even sound that far-off from the typical quippy, fill-in-the-blanks way most generic isekai protagonists react to having magical powers, just performed in English instead of Japanese
4:19 also a problem a lot of isekai have when they struggle to balance characterizing the main character as a struggling fish-of-water with relatable vulnerabilities vs. a confident, skilled, heroic source of wish-fufillment
I love isekai and watch a lot of them : most are very bad with all the problems this game seems to have. It seems to me they asked a lambda isekai writter to write the story of this game.
It's even more surprising when you realize one of the writers for this game is AMY HENNIG, ONE OF THE WRITERS FOR UNCHARTED. One of the main writers of Uncharted couldn't even escape the black hole of bad writing that is both the isekai genre and modern Square Enix stories.
@@TheNobleFive even the bad isekai are better than Forspokens story and dialogue lol
The main theme slaps though 😎. I had a decent time so far, but, this gripe I had was synonymous with the game overall: they made it a huge point of giving her a New York origin... but why? The dev team couldn't even be bothered to recreate the actual city and instead randomly generated buildings. It's small and maybe a nitpick considering it's where I'm from and live but it shows a lot of ideas haphazardly thrown in.
Frey's personality was the main reason I disliked the game.
She's been transported to a whole new world where she gains magical abilities yet she would rather go back to her own world where prior to being transported she was implied committing suicide via jumping.
Her motivations for anything she does is lackluster and the way she treats herself as the victim is annoying.
She herself stated she she doesn't care about Athia because she's not from there yet once she's told otherwise from her mother then all of a sudden she's self-proclaimed Athia's protector?
If she bettered herself instead of expecting everyone to take pity on her then I'd totally dig this character.
It makes sense why you'd get FF15 vibes considering it was the same basic team that did that game as forspoken
how did the writer of this game also write The Legacy of Kain, one of the best written series of all time :/
Hennig was just consulted, she didn't do the meat and potatoes writing for the game. Allison Rymer and Todd Stashwick did most of that.
@@TheLingo56 yes for the original Blood Omen, but she directed and wrote Soul Reaver, Soul Reaver 2 and Defiance. Which are the true high points of the series (particular SR 1+2)
@@zackalden6447 I meant the writing for this game lol, not LoK. She wasn't very involved with Forspoken apparently.
@@TheLingo56 oh I see, my bad!
I can't tell you how much I despise the Marvel style "witty" dialogue that everyone wants to emulate these days.
Much appreciated. It sounds like the balance of bad to good is weighted towards me playing something else.
Forspoken seems to have a few major problems:
1 Writing that works best in passive media like books or movies.
2. Open world design. Developers refuse to figure out that dead worlds are not really interesting, they are deserts.
3. An audience pool that is utterly obsessed with having "likeable" characters to the point that they equate unlikeable with bad or poorly written.
4. A 70USD price tag for what is a 40-50 USD game at most.
This review in particular gives me the impression that there are some pacing issues with the character arc. While it has the character change it takes so long that it becomes an exercise in willpower to see it through to the end.
I agree with most of those takes, if it was no a game it'll work a bit better. "Dead" worlds can work if they also give you something more to do. I think people are tired of unlikeable characters. Not every character needs to be some sort of variation of Max Payne or Spider-Man with the quips and cynicism. Maybe for once something lighthearted and hold true to that.
@@ExeErdna She isn't really either of those types of characters though. She is barely an adult with a crap life who is gang adjacent who gets sent to a hellscape that makes her crap life look like paradise. Furthermore both Max Payne and Spiderman are what people would call likeable characters. I suspect that most of the people who don't like Frey would like either of those characters.
Max Payne is the hard boiled cop. Spiderman's snark is actually a combat strategy in the more modern lore. He acts the way he does to piss off the people he fights so that they are off balance. (Think showing up late to a duel on purpose.) Honestly most of the heroes in videogames alone fall into the likeable category, it is very rare to see unlikeable characters.
@@metachronicler They take responabilty for their actions and realized they messed up. That why Peter and Max are relatable and Frey isn't. You don't get Isakai and go "damn this sucks" After a house fire, money gone, cat gone, most likely gonna get shot
@@ExeErdna Yea because fighting giant monsters that want to eat you, while having the hopes of aliens who are on their last legs thrust upon you is a fun time. Definitely a house fire and living on the street is worse than having to save a whole planet on the verge of destruction.
@@metachronicler I've been homeless give me the Isakai if I'm the one the help them shit that's 1000% better than being on the streets of NY. Why be happy with being mundane when in another world you're basically a god?
It's why we don't have super powers now. We'll be reckless with them
It’s really a shame because it seems like this game had a lot of potential but it fell short.
Great video. Thanks for going into depth for a game most people are dismissing. I haven't played it yet but, ouf, seems like a ride, for better or worse.
I really hope this game gets a sequel, because after playing the demo I never knew I needed “infamous but it’s an isekai”. Hopefully they get a chance to write better dialogue and refine the movement/combat mechanics, because while I think I can find myself enjoying it I know not too many others could.
6:58 is this captured on Nintendo Switch ?
We're in a phase where every piece of media has to be Guardians of the Galaxy, and I hate it. I hope writers grow out of it soon, but they are, sadly, only getting younger. This is what it feels like to get old. It's happening to us.
Sounds a lot like the writing on Willow. It's so painful to listen to it's almost fascinating.
If i could conjure magic attacks why would i use them to shoot as a normal firearm? Doesn't make sense to me.
Random numbers during combat that means nothing...
Random nonsense acrobatics...
Effects that clutter entire screen and I literally cannot see what is going on during simplest of combat...
Holy hell it's Anthem all over again.
The demo was enough for me. I only played it 'cause I couldn't fathom why they were marketing this game so hard. I still can't figure out what it is SquEnix thinks they have on their hands, but I'm guessing their ability to smell a turd has completely left them.
Personally i was never gonna give this game a chance because it is way to overpriced here in Australia at $115 so im glad other people have and didnt totally hate their decision of purchasing this game.
a handful of the mcu movies are fun but holy shit did joss whedon have a disastrous effect on dialogue in popular media. I have next to zero tolerance for this style of snarky banter anymore. it genuinely just makes me want to see this product crash and burn.
She's more than likeable seeing her at the game awards, her character in the game maybe not so much. Good Review Enjoyed it ACG sent me. ;)
I don't think your opinion on this has anything to do with your distaste of the latest Guardians game.
I loved Guardians of the Galaxy but I find the dialogue I've heard in Forspoken reviews cringy af.
This game sounds like a classic example of an “over-designed game” with RPG systems, a big world, crafting, and side quests all thrown in there just because that’s what the developers thought they should or needed to do. That combined with pretty poor writing and story telling and you’ve got serious issues.
Which is a shame because some of the core gameplay, with the movement and combat, seems like it has moments of fun. It looks like there’s a good game in here somewhere, but a lot has to be stripped away (or ignored) to appreciate it.
I've been replaying Metal Gear Rising, and that janky constant acrobatic movement looks exactly like ninja run but worse. Which is weird considering how long ago MGR was.
The point about FFXV is interesting. XV is one of my top 3 in the series for exactly the jank and the bond. I dooon't think I'll be grabbing Forspoken for full price though.
same team made FFXV, but it seems like they didnt manage to pull it off despite some of the same issues.
FFXV team is not good with hack'n'slash, if anything they should have used the team behind Kingdom Hearts.
All I care is that it showed me the existence of Ella Belinska and life's slightly better for that fact (she's very pretty).
This game makes you appreciate silent protagonists more.
Aw this is gonna be some good Hamish content
some good wot m8
Frey could never hope to defeat Fin Fang Foom
You are like the first person i've heard outside of myself that commented negatively to the Guardian of the Galaxy game's constant banter. I hated it myself, it was not endearing at all, it was annoying as hell.
It annoyed enough with one character trying to be quippy all the time it even worst when the whole group of them doing it make it so hard to take story seriously.
The banter itself didn't annoy me but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much dialogue. What pised me off was having to wait for them to shut up so I could move on without cutting half their lines, which sometimes I did anyways because I wanted to actually play.
I have yet to see an enemy perform one attack
Frankly, I'm quite disappointed. Perhaps my biggest problem with the glut of open-world games we've gotten over the past few years is how uninteresting it is to actually move around them. Insomniac's Spiderman is one of the few I've played where just the act of traversing is super fun, and I was hoping that Forspoken had learned from that and was following in Insomniac's footsteps, in a way.
Unfortunately, it appears that Forspoken forgot that the *rest* of the game has to be enjoyable, too.
Great review. While I like the game, I think a LOT of the issues with this game could’ve been solved by giving it the Breath of the Wild formula: let the player out into the world and allow the story and systems to gradually reveal themselves
So basically Immortals Fenyx Rising without the charm, the humourous take on ancient history, and double the MODERNITY. What a shame. This game, its story, and its main character could have been so much better. I'm okay with diversity, have no problem with female protagonists (if they're well-written, which Frey is not), and I enjoy fish-out-of-water fantasy stories, but sadly Forspoken is a telltale reminder on how exactly NOT to implement those elements.
Reviews of this game remind me very much of my feelings playing Final Fantasy XV. I also can’t help but feel like we would have had a better final product here had Square not attempted to so desperately “over westernize” this game and just let it be an organic fantasy story.
In watching this video and listening to Writing On Games simmering irritation, I now know what it sounds like to hear a man chew through his own teeth.
Just like my impression Mess! Young people likes to run, jump and shoot. So our game will be all like this. Youngs likes flashy colors, so our game will be colorful like eastern bazaar. Youngs is stupid so our game will be casual as worst mobile garbage. So my corporate friends we surely make tonnes of dollars!
So basically, it really was made by the people who made Final Fantasy XV.
A hodge podge mess of a hundred different useless mechanics that don't gel together and amount to very little.
Honestly, this seemed interesting, but XV being by far the worst in the series, it was written in the sky this would also be awful.
1:56 um... I fucking loved the snarky dialog in GotG.
It loses its appeal when EVERYONE talks like that.
Great Review! I want to give this game a chance because I loved the combat in the demo, FF15 comparison is on point despite the bloat and jank I liked that game. valkyrie elysium got dissed and I ate it up, shame this couldn't be better but your points deff swung me to a buy.✌
I've seen so many saying this would be how anyone would react if they were thrown into a situation like this. So, either I'm a special little fruit loop here, or they're dead wrong, because if I found myself in an unfamiliar world, I certainly wouldn't be acting like this. I'd first be asking that voice "A. Where am I? B. How did I get here, and C. where did these powers come from. And I would NOT fight any of the wildlife. I'm a stranger here, I have no clue what these things are capable of, and one wrong move would mean death. Instead, I'd flee and attempt to find myself a safe haven; somewhere open so I can see everything around me. Next, I'd ask where the nearest town is to this voice and venture there while staying very cautious. No, I would not try using those powers again since it would take training to perfect control, and I wouldn't eat any of the fruit or vegetables since, again, I have no idea if they're safe or not. In the end, I'm being very careful while also taking in information I can gather from the world. I'm not running around, fighting everything I see like it's some game.
What, your first response wouldn’t be “Well, THAT happened!” followed by a string of one liners? 😂
Honestly, if I got teleported, I’d just scream for a solid five minutes until I got my shit together lol.
Its a rather fun Isekai combat game with an abysmal story and writing, yea no thank you, mby on a sale, and even then a few years down the line.
2:05 Why the dig on Guardians of the Galaxy game!? that game was Awesome.
Yeah especially dig on something they always have been known for , witty one liners and that style of banter between them.. I played the game and at first found it strange the different voices from the Marvel movies that are out with them in it... lol but i did appreciate they nailed the internal dialogue between them and that quickly made me forget the diffent voices... SO what he tryimng to say he hates that they are acting the way they always have? lol i don't get the comment to be honest...
A lot of Final Fantasy 15 issues can be broken down into development hell. FF15 started off as FF vs 13 in 2006, then got scrapped completely and rebranded to Final Fantasy 15. Characters were taken away, stories completely changed, new director, art style, engine, you name it. If we compare the stories between FF15 and Forsaken, we can see similarities. Noctis didn't want to be king, Fray didn't want to be a savior. Noctis was born into royalty and everyone had high expectations for him, but he failed because he just didn't care (at first). No one had expectations for Fray, she was a nobody living on the streets doing petty crime, and she didn't care what others thought. The main difference between Fray and Noctis is that Noctis was changed as he slowly lost everything that was important to him. His Dad died, his future wife died, the buff friend disappeared, the responsible friend went blind, and the nice caring one isn't even human, he's a literal Empire test tube baby. Noctis eventually realized that everything was his fault and had he been a man sooner, perhaps none of that would have happened. When he loses his powers, that's when he SHOULD have given up, but he pressed on, BY HIMSELF! He picked himself up, made it to the crystal, and met up with his friends who never turned their back on him, even though they should have many times. Noctis earned his redemption arc.
But what about Fray? Fray is just a horrible person. One could justify her rotten attitude due to her living situation in New York. But after Fray is transported to another world, all she wants to do is go home. Go back home to what?? She finally got surrounded by people who literally told her "we like you, and we need you" and she treats them like crap. When that one girl's Dad dies right in front of her, she's like "I don't give a da** about this world, it can burn for all I care." She only changed her mind AFTER she lost her powers. Unlike Noctis, she never did anything on her own after she arrived in Athia. When Noctis lost is powers (the dreaded chapter 13), you were all alone, doing all the fighting yourself, no teleporting, no magic, no support, just your sword and potions. You had to run from all these crazy monsters, and you didn't get your powers back thanks to the power of friendship. Fray literally got her powers back because her Dad's name is Al. After treating everyone like crap, she gets rewarded in the end. That's not even a character arc. Guess what happens when Noctis gets his powers back? He literally gets transported into the crystal, only to have what he tried to protect forcefully taken from him, all according to Ardyn's plan. Fray is just gifted her powers back because of love and friendship, and she's the chosen one >_>.
This game's biggest letdown is the story and the characters. I wonder if they went through their own kind of development hell, because this character makes no sense.
Did they ... base the entire monster aesthetic on the Gaping Dragon from Dark Souls?
Not about writing but there have been a couple of games recently that basically make the game systems only worth interacting with on the higher difficulty. I don't think I like it.
Fantastic review! Really made me think about why we enjoy some of the games we enjoy, and how idiosyncratic experiences can sometimes be a lot more interesting to talk about than "good" ones.
Does WoG have a video where he goes deeper into his feelings indicated by the "don't pre-order games" aside he throws in at 15:49?
I've not seen a more over designed game, they seem to think everything is better cranked up to 11.. the UI, the quips, the cutscenes, the particle fx, the spell and combat design. They needed to take a step back and simplify and streamline the game, i guess that's where an experienced producer would have helped. If there is a Forspoken 2, they would do well to simplify.
From your video (and especially from the latter half of it), Forspoken seems like the perfect game to buy... a few years from now discounted.
A game with potential that was utterly ruined by the inability of the devs to execute it right.
Basically the Japanese version of Euro Jank but with *a* *lot* of money thrown into it.
I use to live/play by reviews, but after cyber punk, which I loved day 1, it had its bugs but I still throughly enjoyed. And still play just to see how much it's improved since last time I played. I now tend to play what seems fun. To many times I enjoy games only to hear content creators bash and critique every aspect of game play and every line of dialog.
I had hoped for a better balanced game, but from the beginning the whole hollywood-esque thing, combined with the open world, make me wonder if Squeenix was focusing on the wrong parts of the game to build up. Millions wasted on scripts, photorealistic capture and surface level elements, when time should have been taken to finetune the game design and map, rather than just hope filling it with Stuff is "a game".
And if you think Frey has a non-reaction to the fantasy world, you now feel the pain of many consumers of anime and the glut of similar stories that have flooded Japan's bottom-feeding literature market, the stuff that's the easiest for English-speakers to get their hands on, online.
Sometimes that unintentional human element to it all, in all the roughness shining through, leaves a greater impact than those of the supremely polished variety whose beats leave their intended effects. Not sure if I should say Forspoken is a better game that the studio understands through and through by somehow ending up in the same place in their work with FFXV, but oddly it does act as a greater recommendation to me! Knowing this studio can have its fluff and boggling design/structure without weighing down the emotional thrust of what’s holding it together (albeit with Elmer’s Glue and toothpicks at times) is something truly special to me. I thought it was incredible you mentioned how most games barely move you at all and yet this wacky, fantastical diarrhea-mouthed game somehow brought you to greater feeling, even if conflicted, than most and it’s kinda awesome to hear. May not have ended in a recommendation, but I definitely am more interested in this game than I ever have been and for that I’m pleasantly surprised. Great, great video!
This game got that "millennial writer" with it's cringe Joss Whedon/Takia Wakitit MCU inspired dialogue. It's seriously looks like it was made for Kotaku and Polygon staff.
While this review seems more fair than others, it is still mostly too harsh. The biggest point I disagree with is the discussions around Frey. Yes she wanted to escape her world, but that doesn't mean she wanted to be thrown into an dying, apocalyptic one. Yes she wanted to feel important and needed, but that doesn't mean she wants to play savior to people who locked her in chains, and treated her like a monster when she was lost, confused, hungry & desperate. It doesn't even mean she feels qualified to be the hero. Its like Frey is not allowed to be complex or have nuance to her character.
That said, the review sort of hints at what I think is most true about this game: the beginning is rough but it gets better the more you play it.
Seems like the kind of game that I will wait to get $15 on a steam sale,.
To be fair: I find the out-loud verbal statement of: "IS THAT A MOTHER F-ING DRAGON?!" a correct thing to say when seeing a dragon. In-fact, after wondering for a minute what I would say out-loud upon seeing a mythical creature the size of a building, I find that exclamation quite tame in comparison.
And this is a great review btw. Incredibly reasonable- really could hear the frustration of seeing something really amazing mired by really weird narrative choices. Definitely going to give this a try when it goes on sale.
I get ya, but with that line in particular, it's less what she's saying and more how she's saying it-like she's just come back to her car to find a parking ticket or something. Thanks for watching/the kind words!
@@WritingOnGames No problem. After reading other reviews and checking some videos online, I find that the old way of number scores just don't work here. It's a lot more nuanced and this review perfectly illustrates that. Something is simply not connecting correctly.
The original writer wrote Uncharted and I find a lot similarities with the style of quips that are used. I'm curious why there are not enough comparisons over why they work for that series but have difficulty sticking the landing here. Delivery or voice direction. And there's also the issue of whether or not a character that is unlikable a good choice for a main character in a game, if there's a way to do that without alienating the player.
Funny how the vast majority of streamers I've seen playing this game without expecting to hate it or just wanting to hate (mob mentality) enjoyed the game. I, personaly, loved every single moment I had with it. I was okay with the long game and I do like Frey a lot as a character.
It sounds like an issue with game direction. A lot of these things could've been tweaked to have a coherent feeling and personality. Instead it's just a bunch of moments stitched together in a story that takes way too long to pay off. It's a shame.
Very nice breakdown of your ideas here! Love your review videos!
I see that SE is trying to go for that Tommy Wiseau style once again.
They should have made a first person platformer instead, that would have leaned into the few positives it has to offer. As an open world rpg, it does nothing that hasn't been done previously and does them worse with ludicrous performance as a bonus
Any game that takes a long time not to hate simply isn't worth it. We're spoiled for choice. I'll just replace it with something I like immediately.
This makes me sad, because this game looks very good intentioned, and it has amazing ideas, but it seems that the developers didn't had too much experience
The mere description of the auxiliary mechanics and overall structure of the game make me borderline nauseous. The game might have its high points, but it's also the embodiment of everything wrong with AAA game design, sans shoehorned in microtransactions.
"Systemic melange" are two words so unrelated that the fact you put them together perfectly encapsulates the flaws of this game. Also a nuanced review which gaming outlets need more of.
The only people who are going to play this are the people who say that ALL indie games have bad level design
seeing all the curved and skewed UI elements really annoys my brain
Why are you basically apologizing at the top of this video? Just because someone put in hard work into something, doesn't give it value. _Especially not monetary value._ After all, that's what they are asking for, people to spend _their_ hard earned money on this.
Games development isn't a charity. If the game isn't worth playing, that's that. So, _please,_ don't apologise for helping people spend their money on titles are worth it and avoiding ones that aren't.
Did anyone one else get the trailer for the game as a advert
After mastering Japanese in game menus one can speak coding languages fluently
After seeing what Forspoken is actually about, had no real clue or care before hand. It really looks like a subpar version of Prototype using magic instead of genetics, put into a fantasy setting and made several times lamer. There is potential, but none of it was flushed out and your characters abilities look to range from meh to painfully generic, it needs more flash and dynamics to make the abilities at least look worthwhile. Its sad when games back on the PS3/360 did this similar concept so much better.
Also Forspoken was directed by the same guy who directed Final Fantasy XV, which is likely why it reminds you of that.
Very glad for this review. Forspoken is now a hard skip for me. 70$ for an empty open world that gets better hours in? No thanks, I value my time and money more than that.
Dragon's Dogma had ultra surface level 'story', 'characters', and 'dialogue' but it's a cult classic because of the gameplay. I think Forespoken's focus on magic as primary combat mechanic is interesting. If ever this is optimized on PC, or has mods that silence the dialogue, fixes the horrendous UI and goes on $10-$15 sale I MIGHT get it lol
It may get mods if enough of the mod community thinks its worth the time. UI redesign isnt necessarily super hard but it is time consuming cause you have to change all of the widget coding as well. The amount of menus and whatnot else, would take awhile.
Dragon's Dogma had the perfect amount of hand holding. You get pass the Hydra and you can basically ignore the story for a long time. I even like they don't really teach you anything THE PAWNS do like how the Cuff should be in the game. They give little nuggets of knowledge due to them learning as you learn.
Something DD did that was really great was the character's relation to the world around them. Every NPC had a name and unique (to some degree) situation. After any major event, you can clearly see how the NPCs change to reflect the situation.
While the bigger story wasn't told very well, the world felt real.
I had heard nothing about this game until the embargo lifted today. What in the world is this? David Cage-esque action RPG?
I was pretty happy your first bone of contention focused on the smarmy quippy dialogue because that has to be one of my biggest pet peeves in triple A games. It seems like it's finally on the downswing thank god but stuff like this still creeps in. Nothing pulls me out of an experience I'm supposed to take seriously like terribly written characters and dialogue. Considering I can't even stand it in Uncharted games and that's like relatively well-done, I think I'll be avoiding this game. Although the story of a very lonely person only having their cat to talk to might actually hit me pretty hard. Too bad it's surrounded by so much other junk.
Yeah if you can’t take Uncharted than this is gonna make you tear off your own ears.
I'm 10 days late to the discussion but I had Aiden Pearce Syndrome with Frey and Cuff. The unlikable nature of their writing is baffling.
Reminds me of the "good after the first 10 hours" of PS1 JRPGs.