Forespoken Demo Impressions - Forget it

meiam

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I'm guessing Square will keep making mistakes until FFXIV can no longer pay for them.
The blizzard effect or something. Or maybe pokemon is a better example. Any company with a successful enough property that they can stay afloat on minimum effort will only provide minimum effort for every title.
 

BrawlMan

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I'm a little surprised that's the actual dissonance right now. I don't care personally, because I stopped giving a rat's ass about gaming review dissonance years ago. I take it this isn't a joke and this is actually happening? As for these so-called supporters, you better start buying copies of that game and playing it and putting up positive review scores. And not just going to metacritic and throwing up 8s, 9s, and 10s. Otherwise, screw off.
 

Dalisclock

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It seems like it's all the side studios that are fumbling messes for Square. Because their important teams are back to doing great work, FF14, FF7R, The Dragonquest team, like the main shit is in good shape. But these side hussles and oddball games are just...sloppy.
Some of their smaller projects did pretty good. Triangle Strategy is a solid TRPG that's well reviewed and sold over a million copies(which ain't bad for a niche game). Live a Live sold 500K and a lot of people liked it.

SE can do some things right in their smaller studios. Just probably not nearly enough to support the parts of the company that are shitting the bed routinely.
 
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BrawlMan

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Some of their smaller projects did pretty good. Triangle Strategy is a solid TRPG that's well reviewed and sold over a million copies(which ain't bad for a niche game). Live a Live sold 500K and a lot of people liked it.

SE can do some things right in their smaller studios. Just probably not nearly enough to support the parts of the company that are shitting the bed routinely.
I still remember back in the mid 2010s where Square Enix was surprised Bravely Default sold well. This is still partially the era where "traditional RPGs are no longer affordable or are dead!", Them in certain other publishers were selling. The same single players are dead or need to sell over a hundred million plus copies and make money exactly like Call Of Duty.
 
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CriticalGaming

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I'm a little surprised that's the actual dissonance right now. I don't care personally, because I stopped giving a rat's ass about gaming review dissonance years ago. I take it this isn't a joke and this is actually happening? As for these so-called supporters, you better start buying copies of that game and playing it and putting up positive review scores. And not just going to metacritic and throwing up 8s, 9s, and 10s. Otherwise, screw off.
This is kind of the summary of what I've seen. People are like, "Well i like it so reviewers are just stupid." Or talk about people just being racists because the MC is a black girl. It's all nonsense talk tbh.

I mean if you buy the game and you like it, the great, but it doesn't mean the reviewers are wrong.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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The reason that part of me is suspecting some of the feedback is that the reviews are kind of mediocre but the reaction is so harsh, while Sonic and Pokemon regularly release low quality crap and they are popular.

While some might be the black girl thing, I think more might actually be the lack of franchise thing. Folks are investing in Pokemon being good and will it to be so. No one cares about Forspoken girl 'cause she's new.
No wonder franchises can't die and it's so much remakes/prequels/sequels 4ever.
 

Specter Von Baren

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Some of their smaller projects did pretty good. Triangle Strategy is a solid TRPG that's well reviewed and sold over a million copies(which ain't bad for a niche game). Live a Live sold 500K and a lot of people liked it.

SE can do some things right in their smaller studios. Just probably not nearly enough to support the parts of the company that are shitting the bed routinely.
They seem to do best with side stuff when it's not meant to be high profile.
 
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Casual Shinji

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I've already seen a bunch of reactionaries pounce on this release with what little they can find in terms of gaming press sticking up for this title. Because hey, a game starring a female character of color + game isn't very good/well liked = content for days. Just typing in 'forspoken' on youtube and the Yellowflash and Youngrippa videos start bleeding out of the cracks.
 

Specter Von Baren

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And since today is release day you have twitter full of people buying it and claiming it's amazing and that people only hate it because black girl. I think I'm done with twitter today.
I'll admit that people jump on calling some things "woke" even when they aren't, but in this case, at least with the discourse over the last week, I can't think of anywhere I saw more than a handful of people claiming this game was. You have to be really searching hard to find that kind of reception, the game is just too bland and poor on its own to need that as a mark against it.
 

Casual Shinji

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Oh, and that main female character sure is disliked, huh?

...

Anyone wanna take bets on what the actress' twitter feed is going to be like for the next few days? 😞
 

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You have to be really searching hard to find that kind of reception, the game is just too bland and poor on its own to need that as a mark against it.
Yet as seen in @Casual Shinji's post, The usual suspects are already pouncing on it and thinking they're accomplishing something. When in reality they are not and just being their usual, miserable, insecure douchebag selves. I know you already gave his comment a like, so you get the point.

Because hey, a game starring a female character of color + game isn't very good/well liked = content for days. Just typing in 'forspoken' on youtube and the Yellowflash and Youngrippa videos start bleeding out of the cracks.
This goes to show how pathetic and hypocritical these asshats are. I'm grateful for this, but I'm surprised none of these douchebags ever went after Streets of Rage. That Series has been multicultural and gender inclusive since day one. Since it's a legacy franchise, I guess "it doesn't count" for them. Or they know they're going to get a lot of backlash for even attempting from the actual gamers that are sane and have a sense of decency.
 
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Casual Shinji

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This goes to show how pathetic and hypocritical these asshats are. I'm grateful for this, but I'm surprised none of these douchebags ever went after Streets of Rage. That Series has been multicultural and gender inclusive since day one. Since it's a legacy franchise, I guess "it doesn't count" for them. Or they know they're going to get a lot of backlash for even attempting from the actual gamers that are sane and have a sense of decency.
They never go after the actually quality movies/shows/games, or those that are well received. Notice how Horizon: Forbidden West 's 'Aloy ugly on purpose' outrage died almost the minute the game released. Reactionaries looooove hiding under the blanket of general discontent to spew their weird bigoted bile, but if that cover isn't there they'll typically scatter to something else.
 

BrawlMan

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They never go after the actually quality movies/shows/games, or those that are well received. Notice how Horizon: Forbidden West 's 'Aloy ugly on purpose' outrage died almost the minute the game released. Reactionaries looooove hiding under the blanket of general discontent to spew their weird bigoted bile, but if that cover isn't there they'll typically scatter to something else.
Good to know it only further proves the possible scenario I was presenting.
 

meiam

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Well using a combination of me being stupid and pre ordering this game cause it was on discount and unemployment so I have lots of time to kill, I was able to sink about 8 hours into it.

First impression, its not bad. It's kinda like SE attempt at making a horizon dawn type of open world game. The world is massive and there's a lot to find in it, and most of it is thankfully not marked on the map, only the big landmark are. Sadly the loot is really boring, its mostly just crafting mats to give yourself small bonus. Traversing the world is nice because the movement is pretty fluid (although annoyingly enough you have to keep holding down the run button the entire time). The world colour pallet is kinda on the bleak/beige side so its not that good looking sadly, even though it has plenty of nice vista and location. Although the architecture and cloths is pretty nice, sorta victorian style (kinda like deus ex human revolution).

Optimization is god awful, I'm playing on a 6650 XT, which is pretty recent and supposedly equivalent to nvidia 3060 or so. Yet the game on medium graphic stutter a lot and has a hard time keeping 60 FPS. And it's not like the game is amazingly details, the graphic are good but not the most impressive ever.

Character is really where the game stumble bad, the main character is just an obnoxious ***** who's just rude to everyone because...? In great boon to representation she's a black women! So of course the literal first two things we learn about her is that she's a petty criminal and her parent abandoned her... The game start with a fairly well done sequence in new york, except it last like 5 minutes, in typical SE fashion they must have wasted months making all these asset which ultimately serves no purpose. The game would have flat out been better if it just stared a no voice custom character that was just generated in fantasy land, they'd have saved a tons of man hours too.

The entire game the main character talks to her magical wristband and he's actually kinda fun, which just makes it annoying that she's an asshole to him the entire time even when all he does is help her. Also he can't interact with anyone outside of her, so he can't even take over from the protag during cutscene.

The story is standard "the world is doomed, do X to save it", except the ***** of a main character always refuse and instead does it for revenge (which feel flat for me cause I was cheering when the character that send her down the revenge path gets killed). But the world building is nice, this isn't just standard tolkien-esque fantasy world, its maybe a bit closer to something like nier automata in some ways.

Combat is pretty good, there's a tons of spell and the skill tree actually opens up a bunch more which is nice since its not tiny bonus. You can also take tasks for every magic you have which gives you small stat buff once completed, so it gives you a reason to use a large variety of spell as you play trough the game rather than stick to the same one the entire game. Overall its pretty fluid, despite the so so control. Magic are big and flashy and pulling off the big screen wipe attack is nice. Playing on hard the challenge is good, although there's a couple of high level enemy in low level area that I wasted a lot of time trying to kill.

Overall it just feel like really good game trapped in a pretty mediocre one, and the sad part is that just making the good game would have required a lot less work for the dev.
 
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Gordon_4

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I'm gonna download the demo. I'm a fuckin' weirdo that usually ends up liking what most people hate BUT I'm also kind of curious to see how my rig handles it since the two other most modern games I have - Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy VII Remake - get eaten for breakfast by it (ray tracing off though).

So yeah this equal parts genuine interest, in spite of mounting evidence I shouldn't have any, and technical curiosity.