Games so bad, they made Redfall look honorable. Yeesh.
Forspoken's horrible writing makes it come across as an instant turn-off for so many, despite its fantastic traversal and passable combat.
It feels like an example of having to many cooks in the Kitchen as there was 4 writers for this alone and it's sad because Amy Hennig was one of them who has a great track record for female characters or writing in general.
i cant believe people are still pretending or being willfully ignorant about why forspoken failed and it hasnt anything to do with storyline bad gameplay or performance issues like some would try to assert. ive seen so many games get lauded for being amazing while having terrible storylines and having terrible performance issues that i know quite a lot of gamers encounters but theyll be quiet because the games were highly praised by reviewers. i think forspoken is a very good game.
To name some
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Soul Reaver 2
Jak 3
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
@silverhawk
Good point. I didnt think Forspoken was a bad game by any means and I see what you mean about how strangely inconsistent and chaotic people are in general with their expectations. I call it the “They Live” phenomena, in which people will wear the shades that show the “flaws” with games they dont want to like, but take the shades off when looking at things that they want to like.
One of my favorite games in the last few years is Star Ocean: The Divine force. The story and it's main male character are absolutely trash and far worse than this game by miles . But I still like the game because I love the crafting and combat system.
Not all games need to have a great story. I actually prefer gameplay over story any day. Forspoken also has an excellent combat system which is what sells it for me.
People will enjoy this game if they’re open minded. Character and writing isn’t bad at all. The marketing was kind of bad but honestly give it a shot and see how you like it.
I guess I get to be the "ACKSHUALLY" guy, so here goes. Amy Henning is only credited as a "consultant" and there were actually *more* than 4 writers credited for Forspoken's story.
https://www.imdb.com/title/...
But there's also more to it. On a Kinda Funny Podcast episode after Forspoken's release, Gary Whitta (Rogue One, Book of Eli) talked about the strange situation Square Enix & the main developer set up for him. According to him, he and a few others (maybe Henning too?) were paid to discuss various concepts and lore background together in a writer's room. The idea was to iron out the grander historical details of Forspoken's Wonderland while in a dialogue with the developer about the gameplay mechanics. It's essentially paid-for workshopping which then gets turned over to another group of writers to write dialogue, quest descriptions, etc.
Your overarching point about too many cooks is still correct, but the details are more nuanced. And there seems to be a growing cottage industry of different storytelling layers to most AAA games. One potential cluster of people are paid to essentially write a spec script, another group writes the game's screenplay & storyboards, and then maybe another group are sensitivity readers who filter through it and make their own notes about problematic content. There's no way it's sustainable in the long run.
has it rly been two years already?
i wonder if they had to stick to a certain narrative instead of just write good characters.
Or... A quick fix would be to do a crossover and reskin the character to look like eve from steller Blade! Boobs, behind and all! Boom! Instant sales spike!
A surface level joke that ignores the mediocre gameplay, samey open world that lacked a strong identity, and an annoying pair of main characters that had no chemistry whatsoever.
But sure, blame it all on people not gooning for her hard enough.
i wouldnt say incompetence.
id say its more lack of understanding what makes a good conversation between chsracters ha.
if it's your job to write for a game and you can't write good conversations between characters, that's a prime example of incompetence
The writing is bad like 99% of games. The trick is to figure out how sh%& it is in a sea of sh&%. Seems like a waste of rescues to explore this, but content is content.
Writing is definitely horrible across the board and just like how you have people who act like every movie needs to be Oscar worthy to be viewable.
You have a ton of people who believe writing in games is phenomenal because a few do it well. None of the devil may cry or bayonetta games have comprehensible story or even makes a lick of sense. All souls games are literally find the story in the items which no one but devotes do.
Gaming being arbitrarily judge on writing as if the reason we are playing it is for dialogue. We are playing for core mechanics, engaging power ups gorgeous graphics and THEN we look for the narrative. Most narratives ALWAYS are last on the list because regardless how great a story is, if the game is boring you won’t get the story.
But even if a game story is trash if it’s fun literally makes a world of difference.
The devil may cry games have simple stories...if you can't tell what's going on in those games then you can't tell what's going on in any story.
Kingdom hearts is a better example.
Every movie that costs millions to make should be Oscar worthy and to accept anything less sets a low bar. For the money they demand, the people who work on these projects are supposed to be the top of the creative food chain. Accepting less is rewarding expensive mediocrity.
Some of the visual novels I've experienced have some of the best writing I've ever seen in any medium so I guess that's the 1%, lol
Were you expecting the script to change? A lot of games lack in the story department but don’t get the same criticism
Wonder why 🤔. Smh. I beat the game and it was good. Just like I'll be doing with Intergalactic.
Yes people have an absurd obsession with beating down on black female leads in videogames. You can't really get them to admit it or even acknowledge it. There is zero self awareness and there is a clear effort to censor them from existing.
No. They won't admit it. But woke folks know what it is. 👀. Using that ^ with its intended meaning. If you know, you know.
Its kinda fun but open world missing the npc’s is bland and her standing in one spot talking to her arm annoying why cant we move?. But for free its definably worth it gameplay fantastic.
I'm sure this says more about us than the game but I totally agree with you on the talking in place issue. In FF7: R I noticed that there are a lot of intentional pauses where you can't move, run or enter certain menus at points in the game. I find it really annoying. Am I trally that impatient or is it bad design?
After being criticized for using unpaid volunteers on The Day Before, Fntastic is hosting an unpaid contest for players to make its new game instead.
Learn about the latest updates from the developers of The Day Before game. Find out why their new Kickstarter for 'Escape Factory' was unsuccessful.
Switch Forspoken with Redfall.
It can be an unfortunate trend in our industry to lump games people were looking forward to that didn't end up meeting their expectations and were just okay (Forspoken) with games that are broken (Gollum) or little more than asset flips (The Day Before). If expectations (and price) had been set appropriately, Forspoken wouldn't even be that bad.