Current Events > That Forspoken demo wasn't very good

(+) Yeah! (+)

It might just be a bad impression because there is some potential. I can see the combat being fun if you understand it properly. The spells are pretty varied.

But for the most part it wasn't a good first impression at all. I have never played a PS5 game that has made me dislike resistant triggers this much. Why put so much combat on the triggers and do that? I turned it off immediately. Holding circle for magic sprint doesn't feel all that good either.

The constant banter for old very fast. Can't believe they thought it was a good idea. Like they clearly put in effort to trigger a variety of dialogue but it's just obnoxious.

The open world in this demo as far as I can tell didn't have anything all that interesting to find. I found a big deer boss on top of the final one. I found a shrine that had the exciting objective of ..clearing enemies off a bridge. Basically all you do in the demo is either clear an area of enemies or fight a boss.

Can't help but think this is sorta like when Square-Enix tried to make a Gears of War clone. Except this time it's a PlayStation open world game. It's like there's something fundamental they don't get.

Maybe they're holding a lot back but it's not looking promising.

How long is the demo and is it one of those things where you need tier 3 PS+?

The game looks very questionable to me, but I'd give it a go.

DeadBankerDream posted...

How long is the demo and is it one of those things where you need tier 3 PS+?

The game looks very questionable to me, but I'd give it a go.

It took me about half an hour but I mostly mainlined it other than one optional boss. The game gives you five objectives to complete and I didn't find anything that seemed to differ from those main five so didn't bother. The open world itself is pretty big so I reckon you could spend an hour or two with it if you wanted. I found a house where you could craft things but I didn't have any context for why I'd bother with it for example.

I'm on basic tier PS+ but no idea if that was needed.

The dialogue is pretty much the biggest glaring criticism from what I've heard. My wife played it, and it's apparently worse than the trailer from a couple of months ago was. Everything else is just kind of "eh".

People seem to be starting to turn on the quippy, irreverent dialogue that's been the norm in recent years.

You can actually remove the dialogue from everything except story scenes in the demo's settings. But obviously it's still an issue that the game was designed with the expectation of it being there, because what you're left with is some insanely grating monotonous background music designed to appeal to the teeniest of teenagers and otherwise near silence while you boringly explore this giant open world.

Punished_Blinx posted...

constant banter

Hayame_Zero posted...

dialogue is pretty much the biggest glaring criticism

Sobbing emoji

Hayame_Zero posted...

The dialogue is pretty much the biggest glaring criticism from what I've heard. My wife played it, and it's apparently worse than the trailer from a couple of months ago was. Everything else is just kind of "eh".

People seem to be starting to turn on the quippy, irreverent dialogue that's been the norm in recent years.

The thing is I think a lot of criticisms about quippy dialogue is exaggerated. Forspoken is like "what if we made a game where all of those criticisms were spot on the money."

Even in the most talky game like God of War Ragnarok they know to limit the battle dialogue to single lines to tell you information. There's a reason "You're on fire Kratos! But you already knew that..." is a bit of a meme because that's one of the lines players hear the most. But it serves its purpose. It communicates to the player that you're on fire and it's overall succinct. Battle dialogue like this goes back quite a long ways.

Forspoken misunderstands that and adds conversational banter about having low health. I think pretty much everything in the game is a back and forth between the protagonist and her bangle. It's like "What if we recorded 10 different conversations that can play during battle when the player has low health" without realizing why games don't go for that.

Oh crap, I forgot about the demo being out. I'll have to check that out. The game actually looks really fun to me.

There's a setting that turns banter off so moot point

Another winner from Squeenix.

This company never knows WTF they're doing with non-weeb games.

Northlane posted...

There's a setting that turns banter off so moot point

Not really because;

DeadBankerDream posted...

You can actually remove the dialogue from everything except story scenes in the demo's settings. But obviously it's still an issue that the game was designed with the expectation of it being there, because what you're left with is some insanely grating monotonous background music designed to appeal to the teeniest of teenagers and otherwise near silence while you boringly explore this giant open world.

and also the element that if they can't get the banter right for the cinematic open world game what does that mean for the rest of the game?

Ill wait for the sequel, Fiveshouted

Punished_Blinx posted...

and also the element that if they can't get the banter right for the cinematic open world game what does that mean for the rest of the game?

Nothing unless you think the writers are also the same people in charge of combat, graphics, AI, world design, etc.

GATTJT posted...

Nothing unless you think the writers are also the same people in charge of combat, graphics, AI, world design, etc.

All of which also don't show a lot of promise in the demo for their own reasons. The entire demo is a bunch of little things feeling wrong. Which is concerning since the inspiration are games that tend to get the little things right.

If anything an interesting main quest is the biggest hope for a saving grace for the game.

I only saw Maximillian_Dood play this game and one of the biggest things I noticed was that the game lacks any kind of "hit stun" letting you know if you're getting hurt or if you're hitting the enemy.

Prestoff posted...

I only saw Maximillian_Dood play this game and one of the biggest things I noticed was that the game lacks any kind of "hit stun" letting you know if you're getting hurt or if you're hitting the enemy.

That's a bit of a red flag. Lack of hit stop in an action game can really make you lose track of things.

Punished_Blinx posted...

It took me about half an hour but I mostly mainlined it other than one optional boss. The game gives you five objectives to complete and I didn't find anything that seemed to differ from those main five so didn't bother. The open world itself is pretty big so I reckon you could spend an hour or two with it if you wanted. I found a house where you could craft things but I didn't have any context for why I'd bother with it for example.

I'm on basic tier PS+ but no idea if that was needed.

You don't need ps+ at all to play the demo. I'm not subbed and could play it fine. However it looked great and the combat was fun but the controls are extremely weird. Hate having to hold down O to do magic parkour. It's just uncomfortable. Same with having the attack on the trigger. The banter is just annoying.

The controls are baffling and awful.

The shoulder buttons need to be swapped, obviously. Attacks should be R1, not R2.

Sprint needs to be square, not circle, so you can jump easy. Mario figured this out decades ago. Decades. I mean its pretty fucking logical. It doesn't take a god damn rocket scientist to understand the concept.

Other than that, too much info and abilities presented all at once in the demo. I assume the full game will gradually introduce them to you, which is how these games are supposed to work.

The worst kind of open world. What makes something like Witcher 3 amazing is all the little narrative stories you come across in the world as you explore. In this game, you go from point a to point b and either kill dudes or push a button.

I actually didn't mind the banter. Felt like I had a Jarvis in my head. Im a bit surprised its gotten so much criticism.

Oh and one last thing, why would any game maker in the year 2022 of our lord and savior make 30 fps high res mode the default over 60 fps performance mode? I groaned in disgust when the game first came on.

It was all right the only thing I hated were the controls it's super awkward trying to dash with circle and traverse around with x as jump.

the magic effects seem to be a visual mess to me in a way that reminds me of Jump Force, lol.

does it play like the infamous games

Ratchetrockon posted...

does it play like the infamous games

Not one bit

Nirvanas_Nox posted...

Not one bit

damn that sucks or maybe not. i just watched a vid. it reminds me of uhh an actual hack n slash action game and not a 3rd person shooter w/ powers instead of guns.

https://youtu.be/6cSihnm8zfM

Ratchetrockon posted...

damn that sucks or maybe not. i just watched a vid. it reminds me of uhh an actual hack n slash action game and not a 3rd person shooter w/ powers wtf

I'm glad it's not like infamous. It was a little clunky. I mean I like the action in this it's just the controls I don't like.