Pretty wild that we don't have a Forspoken Catch All yet! At any rate, reviews are all over the map, which is compelling. Anyone jumping/parkouring in?
I will be first in line - when it drops to $30.
Thanks for making a thread!
I really WANT to like this game based on the trailers and lore, but actually playing the demo left me cold-- I found it too clunky to control. Maybe simmering and patching (or learning powers more gradually?) would be more appealing to me?
Seems like a great game to play when it’s free.
Austin Walker has a good breakdown on his personal response to this dialogue style (which is very much where I land) and the added context of the tone and tenor of the backlash.
Despite my hesitations, I'm probably going to get the game and dig in this week to talk about it on the show.
I played the demo & didn't like how it controlled at all. The reviews hit which the majority of are either lukewarm or negative. I hope you find some fun in it though Harpo, the traversal seems to be the beacon of shining light.
Played the demo. Nothing special. Not even about the money. Not worth the time when there are so many great games out. Like Mass Effect 2 on Steam Deck.
I have to admit, I used some Amazon funny money to order it as soon as I heard that the Received Wisdom was that the dialogue was "cringe" and the protagonist "isn't likeable."
Austin Walker has a good breakdown on his personal response to this dialogue style (which is very much where I land) and the added context of the tone and tenor of the backlash.
Despite my hesitations, I'm probably going to get the game and dig in this week to talk about it on the show.
Cool article -- I like that he added depth to the idea of "cringe", identifying his objection as when the writers (via the characters) cringe at their own worldbuilding.
I don't understand the hate surrounding this game. I thought the demo was fine, but it gave a lot of tools which made it feel overwhelming. I picked it up for the PS5, admittedly with some leftover holiday money. Ninety minutes in, I feel I'm just about to hit the open world and its been pretty standard video game opening so far: lots of tutorials and lots of lore.
Have I been having fun? Yes. Do I want to keep playing? Yes.
I've been vaguely aware of Forespoken for a couple of months, thanks to bits of coverage on Nextlander. Nothing that I heard there sparked my interest. Indeed, I wasn't really clear what kind of game it was.
I've not seen much hate for the game; certainly not here on GwJ. But I can see why it's not a Day-1-Full-Price purchase for many people.
Having seen the review posted by whispa, my biggest take away is that it's just 'another-one-of-those'. The review even compares it to Infamous: Second Son. I didn't play that game, but I did play Infamous (when Sony gave it away for free all those years ago). 3rd person action game, set in an open world, where conventional weapons are replaced by a form of magic (while still being recognizable as pistol, shotgun, rifle, etc.).
These games are pretty long nowadays, so I can understand being reluctant to stick 40 hours into a merely serviceable product. Particularly if you've played one or more of the other major open-world releases this year: Elden Ring; Horizon Forbidden West, or; God of War Ragnarok.
Rurikhan has an initial playthrough of the final build and impressions on gameplay. He's not negative about it, but his chat was, and it really grated on him that so many folks were being negative on the game even when it was not warranted.
The initial playthrough on YouTube was live and uploaded as-is so you can make of it what you will.
From what I watched, the game looked pretty barren, the deuteragonist was pointless, and the protagonist was actually believable as an American teenage girl, which is to say she cusses a lot, and hates everything, often without a clear reason. "Believable" in this sense doesn't mean it's narratively good. I just mean it makes sense. Many teenage protags in game stories are often unnaturally level-headed and emotionally mature. Frey isn't.
To be fair, that's probably true of teens in most places around the world. If you don't like teens, don't pick up the game.
These games are pretty long nowadays, so I can understand being reluctant to stick 40 hours into a merely serviceable product. Particularly if you've played one or more of the other major open-world releases this year: Elden Ring; Horizon Forbidden West, or; God of War Ragnarok.
One thing that surprised me in all the reviews is they said it's less than 20 hours long. Granted these reviewers weren't taking their sweet time, but that seemed to include doing at least some side stuff. Honestly that's the most appealing thing I've heard about the game so far - it doesn't wear out its welcome.
I think there's a lot of different things going on all at once with Forspoken that in aggregate make it a challenging (though important) game to talk about.
-It is definitely a game that is out of time in the sense that it feels like it missed its moment.
-The storytelling and dialogue are not far and away worse than many lauded triple A games.
-The storytelling and dialogue are in a style that has gone out of vogue.
-The storytelling and dialogue undercuts the world building in a way that won't be to many people's taste (see also the Walker article.)
-The protagonist is a female black teenager that feels like she was written by a group of middle-aged white men, and there's a lot to unpack in what is assumed about her, what her circumstances are created as being, and how the story introduces her. (Update - it appears that the room had both men and women in it, thought no POC and was middle-aged in general.)
-The voice artist for the protagonist Frey, Ella Balinska, is doing an impressive job with challenging material.
-White people should read what POC critics are saying about the game before wading into the discourse.
-White critics (and I include myself) need to be extra careful with how they talk about the game, given that a whole lot of the criticism feels rooted in the game having a black female protagonist. This does not mean people are WRONG to bounce off of the dialogue or have issues with the narrative/gameplay/etc. and try and unpack these criticism, but it certainly feels like there are a lot of worthwhile avenues of inquiry and criticism that are being used to launder some pretty toxic/obvious racism. (My instinct is that if the protagonist was a red haired white lady, this game would probably be getting a fraction of the blowback and be disappearing into the 7/10 metacritic zone with little to no fanfare. Callisto Protocol seems a good comparison point. Lots of hype, middling reviews at launch, almost no discourse.)
Some of my initial thoughts...
-This game has all the ingredients of something that shows bad initially but then gets the Order 1886 Treatment (IE, it gets a critical re-evaluation and a lot of people discover a lot to love in it well after its moment in the sun.)
-The demo did the game a disservice by starting so deep in.
-I really wish writers who don't live in New York would check in with people who do. (Hells Kitchen has been quite nice since the aughts! Our courts are not like that at all! Plus, there isn't one in Hell's Kitchen! Despite the fearmongering we don't have a lot of gangs or crime in NYC!)
-I very much wish they would have included the 'e' in the title.
I don’t live in NYC, but the game did give the vibes of a Gunsmith Cats thing, where it SAYS it’s about Chicago, but the entire thing is completely unrecognizable because it’s what Japanese people think the US is in aggregate. I thought this was just the same since it’s a Square Enix game. In fact, I thought it was remarkably good dialogue for a Japanese game, which typically features extremely stilted English.
It didn’t occur to me that it was written by Americans, and if it is, then having a bunch of white folks NOT from NYC writing about this story is all kinds of… interesting. Frey does sound pretty authentic. Kudos to the VA. I did play the heck out of Infamous and Second Son, so I’m interested in getting the game.
Related sidebar - One of my favorite scenes in any movie, as a New Yorker, is in the Baxter. There's a scene where Michael Showalter runs through the city to get a specific plant from Chinatown and then catch up with Michelle Williams's character. The whole sequence is a giant in-joke for people who live in New York because of it goes out of its way to highlight how non-NYC filmmakers/creators think about the spatial relationship of different parts of NYC (as in they don't at all) when they use the city as a setting.
Its brilliant because if you see the film as you New Yorker you 1000000% know its winking at you and giving you a personal feast, while anyone who isn't a New Yorker won't even register that there was a bit AT ALL and take it at face value.
-The protagonist is a female black teenager that feels like she was written by a group of middle-aged white men, and there's a lot to unpack in what is assumed about her, what her circumstances are created as being, and how the story introduces her. (Update - this appears to be the case and is definitely something worth unpacking.)
I thought Amy Hennig was headlining the writing on this. White and middle-aged, to be sure, but not a man.
Looks like you are correct! In the update, I was going off info I found that noted no POC were in the writing room, which appears accurate. (Though the room was half male and half female.)
Sounds like it has a decent set of accessibility options.
I quickly turned on the auto pickup option.
I read several reviews before I bought it, and the one from Ash Parrish that TheHarpoMarxist linked above sold it to me.
Those load times on the PS5 are really nice. We have come a long way from The Legacy of Kain on the PS1, where each time you entered the menu there was a pause to load.
Thanks for taking the time to post such a thoughtful reply, TheHarpoMarxist.
The story you relate about how and when the character was created and written is very interesting. The perils of trying to write in a contemporary voice that is not one's own, perhaps? As we all know, this has become a hot topic in the world of book publishing in the last couple of years.
You may be right about the laundering of racist opinions. How many black female protagonists have there been in major video games? I can't think that it's many.
...
-This game has all the ingredients of something that shows bad initially but then gets the Order 1886 Treatment (IE, it gets a critical re-evaluation and a lot of people discover a lot to love in it well after its moment in the sun.)
...
This was unhelpful though. I'd completely forgotten about 'the Order 1886' until this comment. I now have a copy winging its way to me..
Thanks for the interesting input, TheHarpoMarxist! I have very little to add. But I do want to pick out one little bit:
-The demo did the game a disservice by starting so deep in.
This sentence alone is probably going to bring me around on picking this up. I think I might wait for a first patch, but if the actual game is going to ease me in to movement and systems I found a bit overwhelming, that could make the difference for me.
Thanks all.
Yeah, the more I think about the demo the more I feel like it was a blunder and probably dampened more enthusiasm than it generated.
I'm going to dig into all of this and more on the conference call this weekend when we record, but my opinion of Forspoken rises the more time I put into it.
Thanks for the interesting input, TheHarpoMarxist! I have very little to add. But I do want to pick out one little bit:
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:-The demo did the game a disservice by starting so deep in.
This sentence alone is probably going to bring me around on picking this up. I think I might wait for a first patch, but if the actual game is going to ease me in to movement and systems I found a bit overwhelming, that could make the difference for me.
The game does ease you into the powers. I'm being a completionist, and so with 5 hours in, I still only have one set of magic powers, while in the demo you shuffled between two.
I'm enjoying the game, but what do I know - I thought The Order: 1886 was great (my #10 of 2015).
I’m about 3 and half hours in at this point and have gone from deep sighs in the opening scenes to legit and unbridled joy while playing.
Thanks for the interesting input, TheHarpoMarxist! I have very little to add. But I do want to pick out one little bit:
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:-The demo did the game a disservice by starting so deep in.
This sentence alone is probably going to bring me around on picking this up. I think I might wait for a first patch, but if the actual game is going to ease me in to movement and systems I found a bit overwhelming, that could make the difference for me.
Me too. I loaded the demo yesterday to see if my system can handle the game - it can - but became overwhelmed very quickly with how to switch between powers and movement modes. Changing from m+k to controller mid way through didn't help, either.
Sounds like it has a decent set of accessibility options.
Thanks to the demo settings I learnt that my red/green color blindness is Deuteranomaly, where greens look more red. So I'm already favorably disposed to the game.
I've been hankering for a rpg game for a while. The Witcher 3 just went through a massive patch that broke most of the mods. Living Skyrim 4 is nice, but I'm finding the difficulty curve more of a cliff, so may back burner it. Tempted to give this a go. TheHarpMaxist's comments are very encouraging.
I'm in Chapter 4 and in a proper open world. I'm making a journey to my next destination. Some random thoughts:
Cuff automatically blocks attacks, and can let you get an attack back if you hit the triangle button in time. There is an icon that shows up, but I'm still learning to get it into my rotation.
Fast travel is so fast. So fast.
The game is happy to throw a TON of enemies at you. Fortunately, you can pretty much run away from most encounters on the open world, if things are getting too overwhelming, or if you hit a mini-boss that is just a pain to deal with.
There are definitely places that you are meant to come back to later, but I am still taking my time picking up a lot of stuff and running around in the world. Times like these, it's a great podcast game.
EDIT:
Some suggested settings:
Under "Gameplay," Spell Switching Slowdown. This is a way to pause the game when you are switching spells. Once you get a ton of support spells, this seems necessary.
Under "Accessibility": Automatic Item Gathering. There is a ton to pick up and you won't interrupt your flow. Most annoying avoidance: pressing a button to open a chest and then a button to pick up the item.
Under "Controls": Trigger Effect Intensity." High was just too much for me, and that is the default. There are both "Low" and "Off" options.
I'm about nine hours in and I had one of the most incredible gaming encounters I've ever had.
Approaching a resting place I was suddenly SWARMED with basically a village full of break zombies. Like, I've never seen that many active enemies on the screen all at once in a game ever. Definitely showcasing what the PS5 can handle. It was a wild fight and it felt incredibly bad-ass to be able to take the whole crowd down.
Fast travel is so fast. So fast.
apparently they saved up all the seconds they cut from the fast travel loading screens and put them after each sentence in the cut scenes.
I’m enjoying the game quite a bit and don’t have any serious issues with the content of the dialogue, but the goddamn pacing of the dialogue drives me up the wall to the point where I turned on the subtitles and just skip through it, reading rather than listening.
Yeah, the sound mix (coupled with the smash cuts to the lore book whenever you meet a new person/get a new entry in the journal) kill the pacing during scenes (kudos again to both of the leads though for selling the hell out of it despite the editor mangling their work.)
But man, that gameplay is so so good, especially when everything starts clicking with how the spells play with each other and what tool best solves which problem. Don't sleep on the spellcraft challenges when you unlock that - those are excellent tutorials and when and where to use each spell.
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