Forspoken - 1 Year Later

[@ThatBoyAqua]

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[@Xerom619]

😮

[@zaskiaalsakila7248]

Your sponsored game Kaku looks way better than Forspoken yeah! Looks like a lot of love and attention put into it.

[@roytore5062]

Learn when to use "begging the question" properly

[@JanitorsAssistant]

It's a shame we'll never see what happens in the sequel, Fivespoken.

[@bleakcognitivefuture7913]

The OG Unspoken is a classic Twospoken improved on the gameplay Threespoken is where it all started to fall apart

[@carlosfernando9095]

@@bleakcognitivefuture7913 I remember playing Unspoken, good times, good times.

[@yosar6107]

Not a shame. It's already cliche and boring enough. Orphant with secret heritage? Anyone? One game is enough.

[@vit968]

Yeah. But seriously I want to see more of Ella Balinska

[@rafaeltiburcio6624]

What about the prequel zerospoken

[@thebeatzmoth]

The section about "Being excited for Forspoken because it slightly resembled something close to inFAMOUS" hit WAY too close home 😔

[@jonathandear4914]

fr, we need more games like this to fill that void

[@squallthegriever]

Same. As a matter of fact, I'd argue Frey and Delsin have similar personalities and when i was playing this game I wanted to have Delsin Neon run throw this game with her as a co op.

[@mjay6245]

​​@@squallthegriever The fact that you talked about Delsin and not Cole makes me sad.

[@-pROvAK]

Nothing about it ever resembled inFAMOUS in any way

[@myherobeaste7]

@@-pROvAKthe gameplay dude

[@ikoukuhn]

I hate it when a game does "you have to play XX hours until it gets good" move. Early hours should be the most important factor for people sticking to the game.

[@0potion]

It's the RPG mindset because in a good RPG the first couple of levels will always be slower Gameplay wise. But the things about those games that used to draw people in was they had really great opening stories to draw your attention to get past the lower levels into the fun stuff.

[@thetruestar6348]

It’s bad from start to finish there’s no good part

[@busdrivertedd983]

It's what annoys me about Days Gone. I absolutely love the game after you get to Iron Mike's, but you have to slog through that first part before the game truly starts to get really good

[@SammEater]

Even Red Dead Redemption 2 has this problem, that entire first chapter is unplayable on a second playthrough, it is so freakin boring.

[@Altr3551]

​​​@@0potion It gets good later only works in traditional RPGs where most of the character kit gets unlocked as game progresses though. Doesnt really hit home for action RPGs.

[@AzureRoxe]

My favorite thing about this game is that, as someone who played Final Fantasy XV, they didn't even TRY to hide the fact they reused a ton of stuff from it. Many animations are taken straight from Noctis's moveset, it's also the other game that looks near identical to Forspoken and is also the only other Square Enix title with the same floaty movement and extremely flashy magic. Which REALLY begs the question of why the game requires a NASA supercomputer to run at times when it's so identical to Final Fantasy XV.

[@SomnusLucisCaelum]

I actually looked forward to Forspoken when it was still Project Athia *because* of the FFXV aesthetic and character movements. At some point a group of friends and I started speculating if the devs had salvaged the scrapped DLC and would release it as a separate, $40 expansion, simply because the world map had so much reused stuff you'd think it was the same game. God, they even reused those rock formations that look like horns! Which in hindsight is really cringe 😬 Still looked interesting for a bit then revealed as Forspoken until Frey opened her mouth. The character is unlikeable from start to finish, now I'm mad this travesty of a game was developed from the scraps of XV 😂 that FF game just couldn't catch a break 💀

[@jimmycarburator2012]

@@SomnusLucisCaelum I like to think her being named "Frey" is some sort of jab/provocation at FFXV fans. Like yeah, we COULD have given you a LunaFREYA DLC. But nah, here's Frey running around and doing dumb stuff. Hope you like it suckers!

[@Deepstab1]

Its kinda sad square has the assets to create an excellent and fun, fluid exploration game but keeps finding itself with its foot in its mouth

[@theInfiniteEgg-z8i]

Which animations were “reused”? Specifically? Can you show me? I didn’t see anything directly re/used, maybe updated. Which every developer does for games. Doing otherwise would be stupid and a waste of perfectly good resources. People who complain about “reusing assets” have no idea what they’re talking about 😂

[@1000MilesAway]

Owhh. I haven't played FF XV but I saw videos, and I was wondering why this game looks familiar

[@antonioc.5778]

"Did I just really shut down a studio with my mind?"

[@TheChaosyami]

How's Tango Gameworks holding up? Oh.

[@randomkriegsman8444]

XD

[@nemesisundead83]

It was the cuff sheesh lol

[@Apt23-v8u]

Fuck cush, the worst antagonist ever for the worst protagonist ever for the worst game ever

[@phoenixsplash135]

"Yeah okay, that is something I do now"

[@owamidlamini9681]

Another thing I wish they could have perhaps experimented with was the idea that Frey wanted to leave, not because she's a stubborn douche, but because it's all she knows and it terrifies her being in a new world, being overcome with such huge responsibility. Her overcoming that fear and ending with her embracing her role and her new home

[@SundayMatinee]

It says a lot when a random KZbin comment can make a better theme for a game than "professional" game writers.

[@skunkyemerson809]

That is literally exactly what the theme is

[@andremasters1]

one funny thing is that the team behind Forspoken approached Brandon Sanderson (a very famous fantasy writer) to see if he was interested in working with them. Offer that he had to say no to due to already being involved with another video game (Moonbreaker) and being busy with his own projects so in an alternative world the writing of the game or at least the construction of the world could have been so much better

[@nathandavis435]

I don't know how much his contribution would have fully shone through in a writer's room, but I think he would certainly have been a good compass for the rest of the team to consider and follow, likely having some knock-on effects, especially on the beginning. I know this is a matter of opinion as much as anything else, but I really do feel that Sanderson can really write a rock solid beginning, which would have guided people to the mid and end game where the writers already attached seem to be a little stronger.

[@heretic124]

Didn't know that. Have they approached him about Forspoken or possibly about Mistborn video game? Because I can easily see how Forspoken's gameplay could be easily modified to fit Mistborn lore.

[@MetastaticMaladies]

It really wouldn’t have mattered, you can still have a shit story and a good game. The gameplay of Forspoken is just boring and shallow.

[@lancearnedo7837]

​@@MetastaticMaladieswhat? The only thing people have praised about forspoken is it's gameplay but if you mean what you do in the game instead of the combat system then I guess you're right

[@MetastaticMaladies]

@@lancearnedo7837 I haven’t seen many praise the gameplay, but I’ve played it and it’s boring af. The skills are very limited and there’s little variation between them, not particularly fun to use either. The only fun thing about gameplay is the “parkour” but it gets old after a while. I thought there’d be more spells/skills based on the skill tree but it’s pretty lackluster. Also the enemies aren’t fun to fight either, except maybe the dragon.

[@AzarakiDragon]

I think there is something to say about judging the game off of the trailer moment though. Games spend a LOT of money in marketing, trailers are very deliberate, and it's hard to write that off with "Well, they included this in the trailer because it was the most finished part" because companies usually pick specific moments of the game to polish much earlier in the process in order to get it ready to feature in a trailer long before the game comes out. The Forspoken team decided that, to put their best foot foward, the moment they wanted to polish up and show to be representative of their entire game was the "Did I just do that?" moment. This is the first impression they want to give the world, so if the team thought that this was the best their game had to offer, then I think people are pretty correct in going yikes-mode out of there after seeing it; after all if the marketing team is doing it correctly, the rest of the game will be on-par with or worse than the trailer. So it's hard for me to say that writing the game off based on the trailer is unfair, it's literally just how trailers work; If the game is much better than the trailer lets on, then it's not the consumer's fault, it's the fault of whoever decided the trailer's content.

[@Rurike]

Seems like too many marketing teams these days only serve to make the product their showing look worse

[@amharbinger]

Forspoken has some incredible presentation but the story was just all over the place. You had brief moments where the narrative was good like the illusion world where Frey has to deal with those "ending" thoughts. Or when she opens up to Cuff about how she was adopted by a loving person. That person ended up marrying someone and having a kid but Frey says she abandoned her and never touched on it again. Did that woman abandon her or did Frey run away? They could've run with things like that to highlight why she doesn't trust people, how she's lost the will to live, or simply doesn't want to kill. To me what's worse was the narrative was predictable. Like how Frey is immune to the break or how Cuff was actually using her. In fact, that was another point that could've been used. Frey doesn't want to kill Cuff and you can hear it from her dialogue, have the same with Cuff. Give him the upper hand in the finale and have it that he can't do it. Have him question his purpose that he was told to hate the Tantas but after being with her he doesn't know what to believe. And yeah, the father part was just laughable. It's a lot of what could've been but at the end this is what it is.

[@8thgaterocklee]

I think a lot of that would've been explored more in a sequel. Even in the post game where you have some different dialogue in the dungeons and such, Cuff already seems more unsure about his job. I think the final boss fight was actually really well done in terms of ideal vs ideal. Susurrus was created for a specific purpose, and his whole life was spent believing his path was righteous and true. Frey lived most of her life without purpose, and originally spent a ton of time running away from any large responsibility. Through their journey together, Cuff helped Frey come to terms with her responsibilities (even if it was for selfish purposes), while Frey helped Cuff loosen up a bit in terms of sticking to a predestined fate. How this resolve would've shown itself, again, would've been shown more in the sequel we might never get :/

[@lam9090]

what was that about my mom?!

[@joshuahicks7798]

Ikr? 🤭

[@ThatBoyAqua]

I said she’s a very sweet lady 🫣

[@NeonSuperNovas]

Right! I was like "Mm yes, the castle. Wait what 😯??" Lmao

[@BrickfilmPictures]

i feel so bad for ella balinska, she is a good actress that is just getting trash role after trash role, first that terrible charlies angles film, then that awful resident evil show, and now forspoken. she deserves alot better

[@ThePresidentofMars]

She needs a new agent

[@StateBlaze1989]

Forspoken is one of those games where any positives it has are pushed out the window by having a badly written protagonist. Why would I want to engage with any of the potentially good gameplay if I can't stand the character I am going to be controlling for the entirety of it?

[@AzureRoxe]

Even the devs knew people would hate it cause there's a way to lower, and outright remove, the constant conversations with Cuff as you play.

[@hihihi1q23]

The protagonist isn't really 'badly written.' She's just generic.

[@Vaguer_Weevil]

​@@AzureRoxe You know it's bad when you're stepping into the shoes of Bubsy. They also had a speech slider, and they weren't even set at maximum by default.

[@Kaimax61]

@@hihihi1q23 No, that's badly written. Generic is Cole Mcgrath levels.

[@SundayMatinee]

@@hihihi1q23 Not generic. Obnoxious, entitled, selfish, and generally miserable. Most people aren't this bad. And if they are, I avoid them like the plague.

[@goodtaste2185]

My favorite part is when John Forspoken shows up and says "I'm walkin here!"

[@enigma7385]

And after that theres the scene where she says "It's Forspokin' time" and then she Forspokened over all the bad guys.

[@ThatBoyAqua]

She for on my spoken till I say did I just do that?

[@fusionwarrior52]

@@ThatBoyAqua [EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER]

[@sebastiansochanski]

👌

[@mckinleyostvig7135]

Probably would have been a better character moment than anything actually in this game.

[@Ruush_]

Caught me off guard lol 22:27. Great video as always

[@VongolaXZax]

Same lol😂

[@XPSGames]

It's extra funny because That Boy Aqua is super wholesome

[@mattappl3119]

The dude just threw out a sick mama joke without missing a beat

[@IronKore]

I came to comments specifically at this moment

[@IcE-_-Kidd]

😭

[@LizardKingRequiem]

Ill be honest… i firmly believe that a faulty start is better than a game falling off towards the end and disappointing me. But i guess i am one of the few who feels that way

[@hazelcrisp]

I kinda agree with this. If a game starts off rough or kinda ass but gets better it's kinda rewarding. Much better than a game starting strong or decent then going downhill at the midway point.

[@NotSpecialDude]

The problem is that people can only get refunds on Steam if they played under 2 hours. So if your game gives a TERRIBLE impression during that timeframe, your more than likely going to refund the game before sticking through it. Especially when there's no guarantee you'll like the game when "it gets good."

[@luckymark571]

Same but people have tiktok brain nowadays and don't have patience to play a couple of hours which are usually tutorial stuff

[@Left4Coragem]

The problem with forspoken is that you can't ask people to keep playing if the gameplay only kicks in 5 hours in, or if the character acts like garbage until 12 hours in the game. That's ludicrous. Could you imagine? "Oh, this series of movies gets good in the 4th entry", "this book gets going in the 300th page" or "This tv series gets good in the 8th episode". Ok, what it is doing then until it gets good besides wasting the time of the people engaging with it? Any media, be a book, movie, videogame, needs to put its best content first, because the creator of that media needs to prove to the audience that his work is worth their time. When a creator put the worst part first, it's his own fault that the audience walked away. The internet making fun of it is a minor point because most people don't watch internet critics, they just want a good game, and if they go to youtube to see gameplay, and the first 2 hours is a garbage character, throwing rocks at zombies, in a game that runs terribly, of course nobody is going to buy it.

[@SageLorenz]

If you are that far in before it becomes good, did it really become good or did you just finally develop Stockholm syndrome for it?

[@HalfBrainGamers]

I will concede that there are a couple of moments where Frey isn't entirely unlikable (in Visoria, after Prav fight) But then she goes right back into being incredibly bitter and selfish, it's like the game forgot they were attempting to give her an arc. The more you think about her actions, the worse the narrative gets.

[@luissan5764]

Sounds like one piece.

[@Vaguer_Weevil]

Bet it kicks in sooner if you purchase the XP boosts, battle passes and enough Shark Cards to buy the motorbike that's powered entirely on swear words. I don't even know if this game has an in-game store page but I wouldn't be surprised.

[@kevinseraphin5456]

I'd even argue that it's way easier to push through a boring tv show or movie compared to a game where both the gameplay AND the story suck for the first 10 hours.

[@bacon6364]

I can NOT agree with the sentiment of "Forspoken deserved a fair shot" when the game costs 80 bucks. Fuck that. If you charge a premium, you get premium standards and if you fall an inch short of those you will get shit on.

[@Raycevick]

6:28 - Hey, that's me!

[@alsaiduq4363]

BROOKLYN BACKSHOTS BABY

[@silenthilll_]

Please explain what the fuck this means 😊

[@Therius]

@@silenthilll_ Simple. 1. Go to Brooklyn 2. Receive them backshots

[@BDGon]

@@silenthilll_ BROOKLYN BACKSHOTS BABY

[@foxyelpirata6698]

53:48 I was literally watching that part when I read the comment 😂

[@pocketinfinity6733]

@@silenthilll_ its a sex thing

[@bryanortega7469]

Damn, the "because I love games" is really how I approach every game. There's very few games that I had truly got to despise, but for most of them I really can get SOMETHING out of every one of them.

[@jmoneyplayz8395]

Same. With kane and lynch 2 I can admit the games it not good but damn the story and characters is good

[@latima123ify]

Lol im the same. There really hasnt been a game I have disliked , yeah there are aspects that I don't or think suck but I have never really thought a gamd was bad and I have played alot of games at this point.

[@llmalex4176]

For me, there are games i dislike. But for forspoken i really had a good time. Is it peak? No. But it had some really good moments and made my dopamine skyrocket when moving about

[@adoggred]

I'm going to be honest here man, the price point of games now and days are how I judge how much it's worth for me. If Forspoken charged $40 or something then I don't think it would have gotten nearly as much flak as it has. But being a $70 raises expectations to the roof. The flintlock game that's releasing soon I wrote off the second I saw it since I assumed it was another generic $70 overpriced game, but after learning they're charging $40 I'm actually going to roll the dice and give it a shot. Game publishers serious just needs to stop spending $100+ million dollars on games and start letting their big studios work on smaller more experimental projects. People want to pay games, people just don't want to break the bank and find the game they brought turns out to be mediocre at best.

[@8thgaterocklee]

The $70 price point definitely didn't help. Square Enix has jumped all in on increasing prices for games across the board. Luckily this game goes on sale a LOT, and people have said that getting it at $20-30 is a great deal. (I bought it at $70 and still got a ton of fun out of it but I'm definitely an outlier)

[@lek1223]

70 dollars? you guys were lucky! it is 80 euro

[@riuuit8437]

In my country the game is even more expensive than 70$; it's 100 euros, which is approx. 125$. I live in a country where we make some 1/5th to 1/10th the money the average american does. So for me the price is more like 125$*10=1250$ for ONE game.

[@lek1223]

@@riuuit8437 absolutely ridiculous pricing indeed!

[@_..--]

First why are you dishonest most of the time that you have to quantify being honest this time? The assumption is that you are disingenuous. Though that game you rolled the dice on has less players than likes you got on your comment and that's entertaining to me.

[@gamerboy6787]

Like most people, I laughed at this game for all its failures and shortcomings. But you provided a very nuanced take, a deep dive. Thank you. Appreciate your insights. Is it just me, or does it seem like substantial chunks of the story were cut? Maybe that's why things feel so disjointed, and plot points seem to come out of nowhere, and characters pivot their stances so abruptly at certain points. I think I'll pick this game up when it's on a deep, deep sale, just out of my own morbid curiosity.

[@1Katakana]

It's a bit funny listening to the characters talk about all these "Tanta" characters, when "Tanta" is how you say "Aunty" in Norwegian 😆

[@Apt23-v8u]

They re literally wacko aunts

[@frostreaper1607]

Lol, in dutch the word 'tante' means aunt, and I was thinking the same.

[@riuuit8437]

tanta also sounds like a work in Romanian: toanto meaning you dumb ass woman (or tontule if you want: you dumb ass man)

[@krayozmines]

Yes same in Indonesian too. I also keep thinking about aunt😂😂😂

[@nanig805]

Well i mean they are her aunts ironically in a sense. Since her mom is one

[@chaosmlg]

I got this game due to a buy 1 get one sale at game stop, so I bought like a dragon ishin and forspoken because it was the only thing that I was curious about from that sale. Forspoken went from "welp got it for free I'll play it after ishin" to me beating forspoken before finishing ishin. I enjoyed the gameplay, lot of neat stuff with the whole magic system and I enjoyed leveling up the abilities via challenges. Story is for sure meh at a lot of points, but i turned my brain off and did a lot of battles that kept me enjoying the game since the gameplay was all I cared about and was fun for me. I will say the tanta cats are cute as heck, best part of the game.

[@christophermoore6110]

One thing about this game that I can’t ignore is that she only cared about the destruction of the world when she found out she was from there which to me is ridiculous, she didn’t grow up there so why would it matter?

[@kaidorade1317]

I don’t even feel like the world itself is memorable. It just looks so bland and empty

[@tyleroutland435]

You are wrong

[@roonkolos]

​@@tyleroutland435people are allowed to disagree, you know

[@stealthbrawler]

Nah you. I played it and dropped it after a day because while the gameplay can be cool, the world is so fucken bland​@@tyleroutland435

[@AdminAbuse]

@@tyleroutland435 you're a consoomer

[@tyleroutland435]

@@AdminAbuse what do you mean

[@dedsecx2215]

This dude has to be one of the most fair,honest, thoughtful game reviewers on YT. It’s super refreshing to not just hear a youtuber stomp all over a game.

[@crimsonking122]

And even a lot of their negative point is because square badly ports games and then proceeds to bad mouth console gamers. Look I have both and it’s always best to play console games on console than a port. It’s just naive at this time to be surprised by this.

[@Knight1029]

I am glad people like you exist. Your channel is a constant reminder that you can be fair towards a game. You can be negative and positive when needed. When it is right to be either on. And not when its convenient or beneficial to be.

[@kclink1579]

1 year??? I thought it was at least 3

[@daggern15]

It just feels that way sometimes.

[@elenvrag_1690]

it has actually been 1.5 years

[@nyx8823]

More like Forgotten: 1 year later

[@tyleroutland435]

Oh be quiet 🤫

[@J-leaf]

​@@tyleroutland435 No u

[@iamarabicandiloveamericanp7137]

​​@@tyleroutland435No, no I don't think I will

[@majimasimp]

I legitimately forgot this game existed lmao

[@Layla-j6s]

Its so forgotten everyone still talks about it lol

[@neroheart34]

This video is why I enjoy Aqua's content, he doesn't exactly jump on the game, calling it bad or cringe, he gives the game a chance, something most people don't do, and is the type of criticism i enjoy, for a example in my case, I really don't like DMC2, but I enjoy my time, and the ideas are good, but everything else is bad Yes, the good is overshadowed by the bad, but the bad shouldn't make your decision, sometimes, even a bad game is good, and a good game is bad, the question is, how much can you handle it? Just because a line upsets you, doesn't exactly make the game bad objectively, a line is 1% of a game, not 100% of it, something Aqua remember and this video and game is the example, it is flawed, but even a flaw game has a silver lining

[@roonkolos]

True But even so, the sad truth is "it's so bad it's good" doesn't cut it anymore. Games have gotten way too expensive unfortunately and every choosing has to matter. Yeah refunds can be done but sadly the limits on such are VERY strict so that reduces it as well That and 1 bad moment actually can ruin an entire experience just as one good moment can sometimes save it Forspoken isn't bad. It's just boring which if you ask me, is far worse

[@neroheart34]

@@roonkolos and that is something I agree, no matter how you slice it, that is bad, especially with games being expensive, I always say, especially in this generation, wait for a deal I feel bad for forspoken and how it was treated unfairly because of a single line, a line i see no problem, especially in terms of writing, but of course, people hate it A game should be fun, and I assume that's what you want, and probably many others, but I also think that even if a game doesn't drive you much, I say, give it a try if there is a demo

[@Arirezz]

Dmc 2 as in the ps2 game or do you mean dmc 5?

[@minecraftgravityguy]

Wtf are you on about? This game sucks ass and even games journos could see it from a mile away despite there usual cantrarian opinion towards anything that gamers enjoy. Nobody liked it. This is just being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. Annoying.

[@AD3SPG]

​@@Arirezz assuming yes DMC 2 I played through that game after 3 and damn it was a difference.

[@JamieJGJ]

Square Enix even owns the Nier series and doesn't look towards Weiss and Nier for their interactions when this game could've been so much better for it

[@usonohoshi6165]

Not them. NieR is a softy. The interaction they should have looked at was Weiss and Kaine. Especially when they want Frey to cuss like a sailor. Zero is also a good choice especially with her interactions with her sisters.

[@Apt23-v8u]

Interaction between shitty people is only good when they hate themselves for exist

[@turbogeschwindigkeit6180]

There have been a lot of games that had very uncharitable starts with most people trying it out to shit on it, but ended up having people rapidly turn around their impressions once they actually get their hands on the game. Heck, one example is a fellow square published game- Stranger of Paradise. That game was a laughingstock from its first trailer and lots of people were looking to hate it. They turned around very quickly after playing and now that game has its own dedicated following and is a certified cult classic. Attention is attention. Even when people are looking at a game to shit on it, that's still eyes on the game and its totally easy to prove people wrong. The equivalent of "when it gets good" for Stranger of Paradise is so fast, its literally the first boss. You can reach him in less than an hour but even then his dungeon is also plenty interesting to traverse in isolation. The "it gets good x hours in" argument generally also doesn't work on most people because they subconsciously know that the odds of them finding another game that they would have enjoyed by the end of the game's run but also gets better much faster than the game being argued for is never that hard to find.

[@marielcarey4288]

Forsaken intrigues me in a way no game I actually like does

[@LyrisTheCat]

also i beg you to actually SEE the GDC talk about the game's tech, a ton of stuff they created for the game was not even reused on ff16 and it shows they had huge ambitions for this but got squandered due to square poor focus. what people also don't notice, is how 90% of the vfx in the game is literally 3d, its not transparency cards its legitemally low poly meshes in droves thats why the vfx looks absurdly good but also gets heavy af on the more fuller screens. ALSO MY GOD FINALLY SOMEONE MENTIONED HOW YOU CAN DO CHARGE ATKS PROPER WITHOUT JUST HOLDING THE BUTTON, YOU ARE THE FIRST PERSON I SEE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT IT YOU CLEARLY GODDAMN UNDERSTOOD THE GAME!!!!

[@SimplyBoring]

Now that you mention Infamous, I can’t unsee the resemblances in terms of gameplay and movement. I think the philosophies for both are incredibly similar especially in presentation and visuals. The thing is, that’s not a compliment when that series is fairly old relatively speaking. Infamous holds up fairly..okay, don’t get me wrong. But the difference is, I can probably get every installment of Infamous for half the price. And at least for Second Son? The graphics are exceptional, run smoothly, and give an overall good experience. At the time of these games releasing? It was a niche that was incredibly intriguing and it genuinely inspired my own creative endeavors. If it were a much less ambitious project, smaller in scale, price tag, etc. People’s expectations wouldn’t have been nearly as high and the reviews wouldn’t be so intense. You have a background in Square Enix, those high expectations, all the marketing and push and everything that spells potential for something remarkable. But, when the result is an average game? It’s a letdown. Not everything is terrible, but it’s not remarkable. People will remember this game for not hitting that mark. They tried…and if that’s the takeaway then yikes. It’s bleak, but is that not unwarranted for a AAA game? Forspoken is a victim in some aspects, but at the end of the day? It’s also a product no matter how you look at it. And if the product doesn’t look appealing enough to buy, does that mean that I failed as a consumer to recognize the potential? I mean, maybe! But I don’t think that’s the takeaway we should have. I hope the developers will find other projects, better ones even where their talents are utilized to the fullest. I hope corporations get their act together and start focusing on our entertainment and pushing boundaries instead of prioritizing live service monetization. I hope audiences can form actual opinions for themselves instead of relying on others to make it for them. But, the reality is the product. And, in this case, the product genuinely speaks for itself. Optimistically, I think this game is just going to be another stepping stone for the actual game that can hit the mark. A 70$ investment, you could even say lololol. But, at face value, it’s a high priced average experience. There’s plenty of room for average experiences and I don’t mind an average experience every so often. FNAF Security Breach proved to me that even a poorly designed game can be SO entertaining and fun that it earns the price tag through its uniquely..interesting experience alone. But, this one doesn’t strike me as that. Subjectively, it’s null because we all have our tastes and preferences. It’s silly to argue that, so I won’t. To close, ahem. I can move shit with my freaking mind!

[@Evanz111]

Pog! I get that reference at the end 😮 In all seriousness, yeah the infamous second son comparison is the most accurate, just more RPG-ified with damage numbers and equipment.

[@Rollerrot]

29:40 I have to refute this point about difficulty, my issue was there was too many options to see balance in difficulty for me. You could disable/enable aim assist, spell swap bullet time, auto evasion, auto heal, auto support spell switching. You could increase/decrease how long an enemy stayed knockdown or how much damage you receive. Also how quickly your stamina regens. So no, it isn't as simple "turning up the difficulty only raises their health amount." However you do a really good job explaining how varied combat can be, and the pitfalls you can trap yourself into early on.

[@cursedex80]

This review is pretty accurate to the Forspoken experience as you describe it: You say the game only gets good after like 4 or 5 hours in (way past the grace period for refunds on Steam); and the most important part of the issue, that that the barrier of entry to "see for yourself if you enjoy it" is $70 bucks bucks in the post COVID economy, is left at the final 10 minutes of this 72 minute long post mortem.

[@mangomation3945]

I feel like this game DEFINITELY was in large part a victim of general backlash to 'marvel humour' or 'whedon humour' or whatever else you wanna call it, the game just happened to run afoul of that wider distaste imo. A general perception that movies and some games too had become irony-poisoned and filled with jokes that sort of insecurely tried to position themselves as above the goofiness of their premise by going 'lol look how stupid and dumb and unrealistic this is, we're self-aware and ironic about it!!'. So that trailer, filled with that dialogue, especially the one segment that was seen as similar to the infamous 'They fly now!' bit from Star Wars everyone hated and so on and so forth, I think you're right it killed the game's hype. Especially as the trend had begun of chatty hold-the-player's-hand dialogue in games, I think a lot of people assumed it was going to be nonstop ironic quips and were instantly soured on the game from there on out.

[@mjay6245]

This isn't any one thing. It's everything.

[@mangomation3945]

@@mjay6245 Sorry, can you clarify what you're saying? I don't follow. I know it's got more problems than that if that's what you're saying, obviously of course, was more talking about how that's what caused people to mostly give up on it even before the release or reviews hit.

[@wgnd1614]

you didn't watch a single marvel movie then because the humour there is not shitty like this at all even in the abomination named love and thunder

[@mangomation3945]

@@wgnd1614 There's a reason it was in quotes - I was referring to how many people perceive it and call it, rightly or wrongly. I personally don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on marvel movies.

[@CompSomAnichi]

Well said

[@RonaldoLuizPedroso]

You are VEEEEERY generous with the story analysis. 😂😂😂

[@MousaThe14]

That straight faced unprompted mother joke threw me for a loop, I am impressed by the delivery as I am by your analysis in all your works.

[@sneakydeekie5472]

The problem here and with most games that this happens to is that it is absolutely not acceptable to expect players to suffer through a shitty opening to a game with the promise that it gets better later on! Especially when the “opening” shitty part is several hours long.

[@duobizarrobizarro]

The thing about Forspoken dialogue isn't just 2 bad lines; it's insanely corny from the very start, way before she gets transported to that world. Istg it's so bad that you end up finding the talking bracelet more relatable than the main character. And SPOILERS: The f*cking bracelet is the villain, so it can't be on purpose.

[@dylhas1]

“The trailer didn’t bother me but…” it bothered 99% of people. Even in comments on positive videos of the game people were ridiculing it. It didn’t look good and that’s ignoring the dialogue, except for some of the visual effects. And it wasn’t that one line that made it a laughing stock but all of the dialogue in the trailer. It set such an awful tone that people didn’t like. That one line was representative of the tone set by the trailers that had other lines of dialogue like “freakin dragons!!!” That one line wasn’t the only thing and I never saw it out of context, but usually the entire sentence, but I wouldn’t doubt if it went viral on Twitter with that one line. But that one line did adequately represent the trailer and other lines were arguably worse.

[@shannonmiller1754]

so happy to see you finally posted this video, will be watching after work

[@ThatBoyAqua]

Have a good shift :)

[@shannonmiller1754]

@@ThatBoyAqua thanks i did

[@Dzzy123]

I know the developers denied it, but the Agni's Philosophy tech demo for the Luminous engine looked like such a cool concept and I think Forspoken was once that.

[@villings]

"tanta cinta"? so much tape (in spanish) that sounds funny too

[@villings]

great video, by the way _!!_

[@Luguya]

As a consumer, its not my responsibility to check back on a game if the first impression failed. If it was already terrible, that's it. I'm not gonna brigade against it, I just won't care. I also don't care if a game "gets good 12 hrs in". That's also 11 hrs too late.

[@MaraJade-id2]

I was so excited for this game… a game with just magic as the weapon? A new IP. The character traversal looked great; it flows, it’s quick, and it allows vertical movement. The visuals on the trailer with the magic being used was great. I don’t have twitter so I wasn’t watching negative hate hype. I will say that because I don’t have a lot of free income, I did watch gameplay. 1. My computer (we just bought) isn’t good enough to run this game… 2. The cuff didn’t stop talking, ever. While some of the dialogue was silly, that didn’t really bother me, the constant chatter did. The other thing that I saw as I watched gameplay was that it didn’t seem like exploration did anything for the player other than show off pretty environments. So, if I could play this game, I would have waited to pick it up on sale. I think this game was set up to fail.

[@theblackoutexplorer2658]

As someone who likes magic yea i immediately heard the words magic saw a fire ball and was like OOO. Then I saw the actual trailer with the character talking and I was already done from there. Then the gameplay came out the world did kinda just look empty I do have social media and saw all the hate but honestly eh it was more entertainment then i would of gotten out of the game

[@tweda4]

Yeah, kind of same here on most respects, but in my case I tried playing the demo on my PS5. The demo didn't run very well, the combat was rather boring, and the world in the demo wasn't very visually interesting. Plus of course, Frey's dialogue in and after combat was very frequent, and frequently rude. Like, not to sound silly, but she just came across as an asshole in half the dialogue, and the game even seemed aware of that, but apparently thought it was supposed to be funny? I really don't know what the writers were doing with Forspoken.

[@richstoehr3247]

I got Forspoken as a Christmas gift and didn't play it for months, mostly due to the poor reviews it had gotten. Once I finally did sit down and devote some time to it, I found a game that felt rough in places but was also surprisingly fun in others, especially as you progressed through it. I didn't like the overly-chatty dialogue or some of the more obvious story beats, but I loved that you could just go around and take pictures if you wanted, or go find a bunch of weird cats - and finding ALL the weird cats resulted in a moment of genuine surprise. And surfing over water through a magical surfboard (once you learned that ability) felt amazing - almost as good as Spider-Man swinging through NYC. Forspoken is definitely not a masterpiece, and that's a bummer considering all the work and talent that went into it. But it can be fun if you let it be.

[@MrOverHeels]

This game, for me, is just like Batman V. Superman movie. If only this game doesn't have the "I can move shit" line, and Batman v. Superman doesn't have that "Martha" scene, both would've been better received.

[@ilytyypa]

I’m glad KZbin content creators are now comfortable using sonic unleashed OST’s😀😀! One of the best OST’s for a Sonic game

[@kurisuastralum4244]

Pausing at 11 minutes in just to say that you in fact do not need to finish a game to figure out that it's simply not good. If you aren't enjoying the game and it's been bad for the first half of it then it's pretty safe to say the second half isn't going to be much better. Could it be an absolute homerun of a second half? Sure it COULD be, but normal people aren't going to stick with it and waste the small amount of free time that they have, they'll simply drop it and play something more enjoyable.

[@majorgear1021]

I agree 100% . I work hard to have time to play games, so I’m not going to play one that is a waste of my time.

[@JMPants]

So I was one that fell for the marketing. I pre-ordered, then it got a delay and my pre-order was refunded. I did not re order. I am glad.

[@jackmprestonjr]

I chalked her attitude up to being on point for her age.

[@personmens]

The ending sums up perfectly why not only this channel is one of my favorites on KZbin, you're also one of my favorite creators to follow. While recognizing your biases and what will make you look positively or negatively at things, you also try hard to give games a fair chance, and to be fair and complete in your reviews. I just find it lovely. That's something I find awesome with your content, and it gives me a more human and personal look at a game than someone like Whitelight might usually give (I fucking love Whitelight as well y'all are the goats).

[@lucylu3342]

"When she finds a mysterious cuff" You left out the part where she got it from robbing a place.

[@mack4-_.]

You know even if the protagonist wasn't awful, It wouldn't have mattered because the REST of the characters also weren't that great and the setting was boring, generic, and lifeless

[@stinklinethegoblin5952]

The only exposure I have to this game is the Oneyplays play though a while ago

[@trika91]

Loved how Oneyplays went fully Rifftrax/Mystery Science Theater 3000 with them predicting the cliche dialogue and writing and being disappointingly dumbfounded at how accurate they were. It started as a joke, but as it kept happening they were growing concerned and wanted to predict wrong for once.

[@NewiarkNevermore]

​@trika91 isn't Oney the guy that had a fit when Arin Hanson said Newgrounds wasn't as good as he remembered it and spread a rumor that Arin almost drove Ding Dong to the edge out of revenge?

[@LukasJampen]

Another thing I belief holds back the game is that the second set of maguc comes way to late. People already used 1 magic for quite a bit and most likely got to used to using one at a time instead of getting another quickly and using them in tandem. Also I'm not sure if the game incentivices people enough to mix magic instead of just spamming what enemies are vulnerable to.

[@AsaadDC]

🗣️ VIEWFINDER AND GRAVITY RUSH REFERENCED IN THE SAME VIDEO also boy aqua is there ANY chance we are getting nier games videos :) i have a feeling you gonna love em and also interested in your thoughts.

[@ThatBoyAqua]

I loved the games but I don’t feel properly equipped to analyse it. I’m not sure why, but I just feel like I don’t fully understand the games

[@mack4-_.]

@@ThatBoyAqua Since you already talked about the second Gravity Rush maybe you should do a video on the first one as well. That and another video on the second one because you gained more of an audience since you posted it and it would be lovely if the series got more attention

[@yungrose6338]

We are so back

[@JWulfrick]

The endgame for Forespoken is definitely better than the early game. I think it would have helped if they did something like Prototype where you get all of Alex Mercer's powers at the start, then get flashbacked to where you're weaker and have to build your power up. There were a few moments where they really could have made Frey start to connect with Athia several times throughout the story only to make her go right back to "this isn't my problem" making me dislike her even more whenever I think I might start to like her.

[@mravg79]

I disagree on the bad trailer being the reason for failure. Multiple reasons, they could do more trailers to at least try to remedy this. They released a demo which was not so well received (this is the second nail this game got) and finally a lot of people were on the fence but when reviews drop the game writing was heavily (and imo rightfully) criticized this caused a lot of people to either wait for sale or completely ignore this game and move on. Let’s be honest the main principle of writing should be “make the world and characters in it believable” it does not matter if it is fantasy like the witcher, or a futuristic setting. And here just one quote of how ridiculous the writing was in this game “I got to find Homer first”.

[@stevesays1]

yeh the demo was what stopped me buying the game tbh

[@danielnolan8848]

No one deserves a sequel for their preformance, you neep to earn it with your performance

[@Sketch2nd]

NAH, "Brooklyn Backshots" is WILD 💀53:46

[@kenpachinozarashi4005]

I remember playing the demo, and noticing how empty the world felt. Combat, nor traversal felt good. And completing the demo felt like a whole task lol

[@hendrex8285]

49:27 to be fair, if YOU got teleported to some mysterious magical world you knew nothing about, wouldn't you just wanna go back home? Even if your home situation is bad, familiarity is better than mystery

[@danielpeckham5520]

No Game No Life is an anime where the main character is super happy to end up in another world.

[@JettSchnapp]

I'm just now finding this video but you know what!! That line about we the player not needing to play or treat games like a critic is so true! I think games can just be "OK" and not amaze me, if I had fun playing it I had fun playing it!

[@DarthAscension]

Far too many games out there to be ok with bad to “meh” games.

[@WeskAlber]

You may have gotten a comment about this, but I am pretty sure your comment about Junoon's backside (and the boss enemy) being locked until post-game is wrong. The Visoria entrance should work no matter what.

[@dani3po]

If Assassin's Creed had been released today, we would never have had ACII. The hatred that some games get is insane.

[@LevityRhodes]

brooklyn backshot is now permanently lodged into my vernacular, this may affect my work life later down the line. Thank you for the best summary of events at 53:15. Most average New York experience

[@alsaiduq4363]

This is some good shit.

[@parisefone]

My only hope is that Forspoken will come in PlayStation plus catalog and people will try it out off curiosity and maybe realize it wasn’t so bad

[@Pedroftr859]

And that just happened, let's see if people will give the game a chance

[@denesk2794]

I played the demo and that's what killed it for me. The constant "chatter" was annoying, the controls felt wrong and the gameplay was easy, pointless and boring. It is all subjective. I wasn't inspired by anyone to hate on it, I just did not like it, so did not buy it. Same with Starfield. I bought that. Kept hearing how good it would get at 10-ish hours. It did not. I am not going to waste 20 hours to see if it will get any better. I understand that some games have a "lead in" time, but if it's 10 hours or half way in ... there is something wrong ... Just my 2c

[@CRAgamer]

I wish I could see the dev tools for the luminous engine. The engine was the main source of problems for FFXV and forespoken. It impacted both games DRAMATICALLY. Like what kind of tools were they fighting against just to barely pull out 2 games from it?

[@kurosaki-kageyoshi3164]

The gravity rush scene😭 u made me sad bc I know there will never be a 3rd game😔also did u make a vid about gravity rush?

[@Wandermidget]

I feel one way they could have had Frey's attitude meld better with the narrative is if she really did treat this world as a video game. As a playground. She should have seen it as pure escapism, to have and experience the things she couldn't in her New York life. I'd also change it so that she wants to stick around in the world, but views it as her personal playground. She' standoffish around people because she views them as NPCs in a video game or background characters in a story. Keep her dumb, cringe quips, and "level up" exclamations. It could also lead into a commentary about how "random bumpkins from other worlds are saviors" in media and it could lead to a moment where someone like Cuff insists she starts saving people, and she blows his request away because she wants to "collect 20 bear asses" for a cool ring or something. But the 20 Bear Ass quest leads to the devastation of a city/village and lots of important people dying. She then runs away again (maybe even attempting to go back to New York) because people are now pissed off and looking for her, and this is when Cuff really calls out her behavior. That she's a selfish, entitled brat that refuses to accept the consequences of her actions and never takes anything seriously. That she thinks the world owes her everything when she is unwilling to contribute back. Then it hits her that all she's doing is running away. That she was finally given the ability and power to make a true difference in her life and others, and still refused to do so. This is when her character will take a turn for the better and she severely lessens or stops the quips all together.

[@nicodinisi]

“sus”-erus is a bit on the nose for a villain name 😂

[@collapsiblechair9112]

This video could be about Dragon Age : The Veilguard

[@aersla1731]

This review brings to light some of the issues gamers have as a whole, very well put together. Something you didn't mention is that it's not just money investment but also time investment. Games have just gotten too big.

[@markpula91]

Love to see your work.

[@redfin382]

I don't think the dialogue in the demo were bad. If a 16 yr old got a magic cuff would they be like " this power that's bestowed upon me is near limitlessness and blah blah" No, they would be like " holy shit did I just fly?" Fuck I would react like that.

[@hazelcrisp]

Yeah there are literally other superhero media which have their characters do the same thing.

[@Sondi]

The very first scene she's making joke while getting beat up. It's shown quickly it's a coping mechanism for stressful situations. Especially when she's alone and Introspective.

[@owenlindkvist5355]

@@Sondi Stop writing for the writers, mate. It's shit, and you know it.

[@tweda4]

Quite literally - That's just *your* opinion man~ Most people really didn't like the dialogue, and fair or not, when you're designing a product that you intend to sell, you've got to please the majority. That means, you cut the cringe.

[@GetBodiedSon]

even with the shit writing I really want to try this game. I love mobility and love the idea of doing combos with spells.

[@zuulmeister8409]

I didn't mind the dialogue. I played with the Japanese dub. What I couldn't deal with was the unbearably empty world. Who thought it would be a good idea to make a world where you turn into a zombie if you step outside the wall?

[@ThatBoyAqua]

I don’t speak Japanese but I’m curious, is the dialogue more tolerable in terms of delivery in the Japanese dub?

[@zuulmeister8409]

@@ThatBoyAqua Well, Japanese dub with English subtitles. To me, the dialogue was more tolerable. Worst case, I could skim over the subtitles while hearing a Japanese sentence I didn't understand.

[@SomeGuy-mt4hq]

It feels perhaps inaccurate to say you didn't mind the dialogue when you experienced it in such a deliberately skewed way

[@TheXeropax]

"...much like your mother, the beauty lies on the backside... " bro, i had to rewind back to double check I heard it right xD. Nicely done!

[@sasuto27]

Dude, I just found your channel and feel so represented. I haven't played this game yet, but I feel exactly the same as you about that whole "love or hate" thing. And I feel really represented when you said you like this game just because you just....like videogames. Nice video, nice line of thought, can't wait to see your next videos. Good job!

[@DrnMontemayor]

The problem when combat devolves to things like 3 lights>heavy is because there isn't a single enemy in the game that requires you to do anything else. This is an issue with games like Wukong recently, that has such a primitive combat system and dumb ai that it doesn't matter as long as big number comes out. It's the enemies that make the combat bad, not the isolated mechanics.

[@hazelcrisp]

It's one of those games where you don't HAVE to engage with the depth cus there is no need. Buuut you can if you want and it would look cool if you did.

[@Omega-EP]

"Forspoken legit could be game of the year for me if IT IS ideas are executed well enough" Now I know why GeneralSam makes fun of you, Aqua.

[@vvitch-mist20]

He's not wrong. The story, with all of it's holes, is pretty solid, and the idea incredibly unique, and if done well could be GOTY material. The problem is that they released the game too soon, and it changed numerous times during production.

[@Omega-EP]

@@vvitch-mist20 Are you illiterate?

[@AzureRoxe]

@@vvitch-mist20 If you think the story is solid, you legit have a mental disability.

[@fbafoundationalbuck-broken6011]

@@Omega-EP You've got serious self-esteem issues.

[@llmalex4176]

​@@Omega-EPwhat part of that comment makes you think they're illiterate?

[@bombyo3634]

If this game had a new game plus I'd play it from beginning to end because i enjoyed it. The exploration and getting manna to level up made get stronger so much easier. The running and jumping and feeling like a super sayin was dope

[@BramTheDemon]

I'll say Forspoken is not the worst game of this generation, but damn does it feel like wasted potential. For one, Frey is supremely unlikeable. I get she was an orphan and grew up on the streets, so she would be a bit more hardened. And I get that she has a problem with authority figures (even though it's all her fault for being a criminal), but by the midpoint of the game I expect some development. In fact, close to the final stretch they show her starting to warm up to everyone, only to regress her development and return her back to her whiny self. And as for the story, it is nothing more than generic isekai crap that's been done many times in the past, and better. Frey's a human from another world who can wield magic and absorb the powers of the Tantas, and at the very end she has to beat a big bad demon who just go happened to be Cuff. I verbally groaned when that was revealed, because I knew it was coming, yet I held out hope that maybe they would try something more unique; maybe instead of Cuff, her lesbian lover was the real villain who wanted to use her to gather the powers of the Tantas for her own gain or something different. Again, the gameplay is fine. I played it on the PS5 because God knows new PC parts is stupid expensive nowadays and that was the only thing I knew could run it well. But it's the story that really dragged it down for me. And the worst part is, apparently the story was completely different when it was first revealed years ago. Maybe if they had stuck with whatever story they had going then it wouldn't have been lambasted with negativity.

[@BlackStar-gv1wl]

Bro I feel you I thought this game was gonna be crazy

[@IFinishedAVideoGame]

This was absolutely great - personally I found this game fascinating because there just aren't that many games that sit in this same "it's terrible but actually it's quite good" zone. The combat and navigation look great, the world building super interesting - but yikes some of those other design decisions. Beyond that - super interesting thoughts about people needing everything to either be amazing or terrible and then having no desire to go away and find out for themselves. I genuinely believe there is a whole host of people out in the world who primarily view games as content to be viewed through the lens of streamers or KZbin channels. It's a strange thought because it literally pays my bills but does so much damage to the way "we" engage with art. How have we arrived at a situation where people write off a very large and complex game based on just a few seconds of dialogue? Also I couldn't shake the feeling that Square Enix would have made so much more money if they just released Forspoken as a YA novel. It seems like it would perfectly hit that Hunger Games / Lightlark audience and likely would have cost a hell of a lot less to make!

[@HeartPotionJohnny]

This was my first video I watched on your channel and I've been convinced to try the game out eventually (and subscribe).

[@petrock4041]

Great video! The way you communicated your points was very well executed.

[@maxtopliss1552]

I’m always tempted to get this every time it goes on sale. An open world game with fun looking combat and ignore the story with a podcast or audiobook on - but I’ve never taken the plunge

[@vnshngpnt]

I liked the game. It’s near not the worst game of the recent years.

[@Evanz111]

It’s a shame it came out when it did, as that year had some of the *actual* worst games to come out in a long time. People reacted way too strongly, and so many people called the game bad just because of the cringe marketing or because their favourite streamer said it was bad and clickbaited exaggerated videos.

[@Killerboyh]

It was trash

[@KiomonDuck]

The lines on 5:37 didnt kill the game the bad story and bad main character did. If the game was truely good the lines in the clip would have only been remembered as something funny about the game. Sometimes a game is just bad and this is one of those games.