I played 'FORSPOKEN' to see if it's THAT bad...

this video is sponsored by Wonder forespoken has not been received super well but surely it can't be as bad as some reviewers are saying right like surely they're exaggerating some stuff I don't know if you've been keeping up with this but for spoken has had a really weird week or so where they didn't send out review codes to reviewers on time or not at all in fact the copy of the game I'm going to be playing today was provided to me by Square Enix but it was provided to me two to three hours after the worldwide launch which doesn't really make it a review code at that point I mean either way I I appreciate it and I am thankful for them sending the code but it it's weird and naturally when a game publisher doesn't send review codes out to Major reviewers it starts to get a little concerning maybe they're aware that it's not going to be received super well and perhaps they're trying to like hide something and this creates a distrust among lots of Gamers they look at this game very skeptically and even cynically and they just don't want to give it a fair shot so I decided today in this this video I would give it the fair shot so that you don't have to and you know what if the game ends up being really really good then you'll find that out in this video and you can then go spend your hard-earned dollars on it but on the other side if it happens to suck donkey balls then you'll find out that it does and not spend your money on it so let's break this down piece by piece and figure out whether or not forespoken is actually as bad as the critics say it is but before we get into all of that a huge thank you to our sponsor wonder is the app that turns words into digital art I'll be honest I've always had like visions of art pieces and weird scenery and things in my head like straight out of a hideo Kojima game but I'm not an artist I can't draw I can't paint and so I've never been able to really see those imaginings realized but now with tools such as wonder you can do just that from your phone I've actually had a ton of fun messing around with wonder over the last few months and so when they reached out to me and were like hey would you like to sponsor you I was like hell yeah I love this stuff basically how it works is there's just a simple app let's say we want to see an old cat sitting on top of a skyscraper overlooking a dystopian world I can't type there we go then with premium we can select whichever aspect ratio we want and we can select which style we want and basically this is like asking for different types of painters or different styles of art to better match whatever you have in your mind's eye in terms of the art style and what you'd like it to look like in this case I really like the Cinematic look so I'm going to select that and then tap create and it'll start chugging away and you'll see it slowly starts creating it and realizing it right before your very eyes in real time in this case we actually get a couple of drafts to look at and we can flick through them how cool is that and if we don't like the particular turnout that we had we can just refresh and then it will try again and give us another draft to check out oh there's a good boy look at that oh that's so cute or this one overlooking the huge City oh that's pretty cool well let's try something like really obscure and vague the last octopus on Earth dot let's do like a one by one and in terms of style I don't know what do you guys think I know you're not actually here but maybe um let's try it steampunk let's see what that looks like the last octopus on Earth in a steampunk style okay let's see what it does I mean honestly that's that's way better than I was expecting that's actually that's pretty good the fact that it's a steampunk octopus so it even has like the little goggles and everything oh that's great but you see if you have ideas like this and you want to get them onto paper I guess or on the screen and actually see them come to life for a lot of us who aren't artistically inclined we could never do that before but with the assistance of tools like Wonder it's literally never been easier if you want to try out Wonder for yourself click the link in the description box or the pinned comment to give the free trial a chance and I'm just gonna say it if you guys create anything really interesting and fun you should totally share it on our Discord which I'll also have linked below so that we can all share are various Creations because I know a lot of you have let's just say wacky ideas again check them out at the link in the description box below or in the pinned comment okay thank you past Luke let's get back into it from there let's just jump right into it with new game let's see what we got [Music] [Applause] music kind of slaps it's it was initially weird to me but I kind of like this opening music so like difficulty level this won't affect how the story unfolds you'll also be able to change it at any time you like except for during events and battles via the settings menu and as you would expect a dedicated story mode explore the open world mode take part in challenging battles or the default which just balances everything out I I guess so I would guess that this is like super super easy this is easy this is maybe their hard difficulty and this is normal I don't know it's weird that it's ordered like this but we'll do default we'll go default just because they recommend that and then they prompt you to choose which option so you don't even need to do it in the menus uh beforehand let's select quality mode and just so you know as we go through this video I will be experimenting with different settings so you can see what they're like but I will let you know every time that I do that so so it's not just changing randomly I'll let you know when I shake it up and swapped Ray tracing or performance okay we're starting though with quality mode and let's just Jump Right In what do we got everyone has something they're willing to fight for could be family friends your beliefs believe your home doesn't matter who you are there's just some things you have to protect okay but what do you do when the world fights back that's not the sound those kinds foreign but I was not ready to hear it okay already I will say the audio is kind of bugging me there's a huge amount of Reverb on her voice which I guess she's like thinking to herself so maybe that's what it is her Hollow mind the sound bouncing around and then also like that she's wearing rubber sold sneakers those don't make a click clack on tile or Granite floors like it's such a stupid thing to be upset about but it just kind of annoys me okay anyway moving on now free home defendant charge would attempt to grand larceny howdy plead not guilty your honor I see so angry officer please remove her cuffs now before we begin perhaps you should reacquaint yourself with your many previous encounters with the law okay read the document on the left middle or right okay so we're going to select I don't think this is our origin story this is just I guess Exposition Maybe Hudson pier high school I've seen this in a while and okay you can't skip it you just have to watch it slowly pan okay female age 25 11 grand larceny okay [Music] you know weren't found near Holland Tunnel is that why her last name is shut down memory lane okay hold on her last name is Holland and she was found in the Holland Tunnel really no it's just I needed the cash for for drugs never mind no okay sooner or later you're going to have to start taking accountability for your actions okay okay and the Fade to Black okay one thing you're gonna notice time and time again I know I'm pausing it again I personally cannot stand constant Fade to blacks it's a pet peeve so I do want to be completely clear and transparent on this a game isn't bad if it has Fade to blacks a film or a play is not bad if it has Fade to blacks I personally cannot stand it as an artistic choice because it's like the laziest possible Choice how do we transition this scene oh Fade to Black not even a cut which is like you're saying something with that cut to Black no you're slowly fading and then fading back in like and this wasn't even a scene change this was just a fade to black to a different camera angle like it's infuriating and I know it's stupid but whatever I'm pressing the wrong buttons I'm getting so heated on it ah are you familiar with the persistent felony offender law also known as the three strikes law wait you can't do that I never hurt anyone just yourself you have two previous felony thefts and with this new one your grand total will be three this could put you away that's why they pay her the big bucks so much potential as a judge one two three I can do so much more with my life I'm a smart girl with a bright future I was going to say you have so much anger and resentment in you I'm not sure you'll ever amount to anything at all who tells somebody they have a bright future but you guys need to subscribe to this channel I have such a bright future do it now holiday spirit I'm going to give you an early present oh try not to piss it away okay I'm going to release you under the condition you serve 120 hours of community service okay that sounds nice okay you won't regret it next time you end up in front of me I will not be as lenient we clear yeah good okay free to go thank you thank you I'm sorry I'm so sorry that's why I have one sip of Red Bull and I'm like ready to go by the way thank you Red Bull for sending me like a six month supply of Red Bull I appreciate it it's not too late to start using your gifts to help others [Music] Fade to Black okay love it I don't care chapter one attachments okay I know so far we're kind of being turds about this but some amazing games have kind of clunky starts so let's I mean it's not to discount it let's see how they take this story and really Captivate you next [Applause] no worries happens to all of us you saved my life seriously happy holidays um happy holidays I'm sorry the eyes are just a little dead it's and the her eyes are like ever so slightly crossed it's just slightly up it's like oh you dropped your phone it's okay it happens to all of us Merry Christmas it's just so stupid okay I'm sorry I've made such a turd okay I said we're gonna give this a fair shot just because it's really really funny to me it doesn't mean that we can be dicks about it okay continuing on Square Enix is like why the hell did we send this guy a game code oh my God okay oh my goodness I do love cats praise Journey just another day okay is my okay I just can't control you okay open Journal I can't move until I press these buttons okay uh head back to your apartment the judge may have had a point but it's not like I can just change who I am and if I get caught one more time my life is over which is why I gotta get the hell out of town yeah it's not time to behave it's time to leave that makes sense I need to go straight home okay so uh Much Ado has been made about the graphics in this game and I do want to say I I don't think this game looks as good as Final Fantasy XV Jacob if you can put on screens some clips of Final Fantasy 15 that game was made in the same engine as this game and it released years and years ago I believe the original release was in 2015 the PC release was like 2018 I think and it looks far better than this game even just in the The Outdoor sections with the skin shading the subsurface scattering all sorts of weird stuff the indirect lighting the ambient occlusion I think it looks way way better than this game and I don't like I don't understand that because this game not only is coming out years and years after when they've had the chance to make improvements but it's also releasing on current gen like next gen Hardware on the PlayStation 5 and PC it has every benefit of Modern Hardware and yet it still runs like crap and it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense okay cutscene let's see hey thought we wouldn't find you hey uh okay what kind of mugger is dressed like this Lisa Lisa really [Music] ah so you don't really look like Elisa where is it it's not funny there were complications it's very serious I wanted to get caught stealing the car but here we are we don't like complications I can tell you're running out of chances yeah I've been hearing that one a lot today get the car it's not that easy it's been impounded I'm not so special about this car anyway it's none of your damn business our boss Mr Gigan is very unhappy so unless you get it back one of us is gonna be in a lot of pain do I get to pick whoa the music immediately starts [ __ ] Ali and I promise you okay just tell your boss instead of chicken wigging Gigan all right quick get kicking quick King I just tell him I I need some more time but but for now here's some collateral oh yeah okay this this is what happens when writers and narrative directors want people to like basically riff like Ryan Reynolds and they just can't do it like the actors maybe aren't good at improvising or the character just isn't written in a way where it makes sense and it just comes off as cringy which is what this does okay escape from gang members if you don't move past the game will catch up to you you can run using L3 and jump using X try to give your pursuers the slip okay and we'll just we'll just run I guess no turning back now where is he getting this dirt to throw at people like is she just running with Fists Full of dirt and dust she didn't pick any up she just had a fistful of dirt okay okay run run there's also just a weird lack of responsiveness with this game like I don't I can't put my finger on it but there's just something where you press buttons and it doesn't kick in right when you think it should the left stick the response curve is a little off there's just something weird about it I'm not sure what it is but it doesn't feel good to control it feels like those old school Assassin's Creed games you know where characters don't really do what you think they're gonna do it's like that I do like how like the global indicator of being broke is lighting most of your room with Christmas lights I I find it relatable because my all of my college bedrooms were like covered in Christmas lights so that actually is something that I I will have in common with this character because I did this as well but I do find it funny like if you start to look at any piece of like modern media if the character's poor they have Christmas lights hung all over their house even though it's not probably Christmas time it's just funny to me okay the archive records the details of any event or any I can't read of any written materials you find people you meet and a host of other useful things you can access it from the main menu okay open the archive we open the archive and characters World tutorials statistics all sorts of stuff okay okay it is Christmas time though I'll give them credit it's it's Christmas time maybe that's why she's got Christmas trees not because she's broke because she's just feeling festive that's all I have oh she's so broke she has to give her cat regular cat food okay is that a vape pen no it's a flashlight okay I was like I swear to God if they have a vape pen in this I'm gonna lose it it's a book you're sir and curious sir cried Alice how precarious how peculiar I wish I could find that rabbit hole and Tumble away to Wonderland [Music] you realize Alice in Wonderland is basically just a journal of a guy tripping on LSD right like that's pretty much all it is kitty cat kitty cat [Music] where you is I don't know so I will say so far quality mode it's not really doing it for me I don't think the Shadows look that great I don't think the lighting looks that great let's try shaking it up and going to Performance mode and see what that's like if we back out now we're closer to 60 looks like oh she has sneakers okay my favorite kicks Holland Tunnel Alfrey Alpha the Holland Tunnel side of my folks great disappearing act okay who leaves a newborn baby on the street well at least it wasn't the Queen's Midtown Tunnel that would have been an awful last name Escape Plan get enough cash take care of Gigan [ __ ] One Last Time food and carrier for home or buy to get Penn Station and then on 12 23 which is tomorrow we leave she's bugging out I will also say I I follow like some of those accounts on Tick Tock that show like different real estate and apartments one of which was in New York City and for New York City this apartment's pretty freaking huge even in this condition like this this is still probably thousands upon thousands of dollars a month like what is she doing here like it doesn't make up a ton of sense it's like friends you know like how did they have that crazy nice apartment with the money they're making like it doesn't make sense or new girl is probably the best indication or best example of a TV show like this where they're not making good money but they live in like a multi-million dollar studio apartment like it just doesn't make any sense that's what this is likely I hate to be that guy but this place is actually quite expensive no wonder she's broken Homer away from the [ __ ] the garbage the cops I it's just enough to get us started you realize cops are everywhere right I promise we'll go somewhere that loves cats even ones like you we're gonna go to the farm [Music] ER chases no more cops no more fights it's the second time she's referenced the cops okay I'm sensing someone has a problem with the popo I you know what I am judging on that I don't care how much of a shoe person you are or a kicks person sleeping in your shoes is just nasty I said it okay now when do we get to use the magic and then fade to fire [ __ ] the Homer girl come on we gotta go foreign gotta find Homer first you can't pick up the bag of cash gotta find Homer first gotta find Homer first gotta find Homer first okay I'm just gonna be real okay guys if you're ever in this situation where your apartment's burning down and you have a gigantic Satchel full of cash which burns when ignited with fire uh just put it over your shoulder as you walk out the room to get your cat I would guess she's probably gonna leave this here and this is gonna burn up and then she'll be devastated and have to start with nothing all over again that's my prediction let's let's walk out even though she totally could grab that Palmer Homer Mao is the baby in the fridge baby cat that was not a baby sound that was a cat oh we gotta get I need more Red Bull grab the cash no no no [ __ ] the bag window it is you know we talk about predictability in stories sometimes um and we some people might be confused as to why predictability is a bad thing you know if you can call major story beats every step of the way what what's the actual problem with that well the problem is it removes all stakes and tension like you can notice I'm not really captivated by this story because it's already painfully predictable what they're doing it's it's just everything wrong with Marvel in this game but like done poorly that like that's what this game is so far and no wonder like it's not captivating at all door's no good okay yeah walk even slower okay [ __ ] they lit it on fire okay like they want so they want a car back like this is attempted murder not just of one person okay to be fair you guys know I just referenced and said that this apartment looked really expensive they did just say it was in an abandoned building which would explain why you know she was in there not because she could afford it and was paying rent but because she was squatting in someone else's building that was abandoned so that does make sense I'll give them that that's not actually a plot hole I'll give them that okay almost harmed in the fire except the money suspects I at Large honestly she looks pretty good for being homeless for two days what happened to you look like hell wait is that the judge what to cats why are you just sitting out the court steps oh I love cats are you in trouble good [Music] she likes wet food the flaky kind not pate she needs a warm place to sleep maybe I'll laugh every once in a while [Music] and she needs a bath but good luck with that pray what's going on her name is Homer promise me you'll look after her promise don't even tell me the judge is gonna take the cat [Music] what are you doing free the right thing oh my God I need some time to to sort some stuff out but I'll come back for her it just might take a while I need some time to rebuild my relationship with my drug dealer happy holidays all right Homer's safe okay like I'm so baffled who goes before a judge for like a serious offense is given like one last chance at life by the judge and then they decide to squat outside the judge's place of work to try and give them a cat that you don't want anymore like what stupid it's something stupid oh no it's Christmas happy birthday to me yeah no sad day Christmas is supposed to be happy okay well I'm better than that no I'm gonna fix things okay I'll get Homer back finally get out of good magical powers print around an open world okay that was loud [Music] okay investigate the weird light okay seriously who would just leave this well I guess I have to uh to pause the recording of this video for a little bit so that uh the download can catch up so I guess I'll be back in a second and okay we are back back to it we're gonna pick up the cuff thing and see what's up I mean wow it was just was just weird did that music come out of like nowhere like the timing on this stuff is weird hmm [Music] attachments what the actual Papa oh dude [Music] wait wait wait wait wait wait wait stop stop [ __ ] [ __ ] oh no come on now we're in the magical land okay so I mean obviously the clear inspiration is Alice in Wonderland that's clearly what they're they're referencing here um a moment of personal distress and concern you just want a way out of it and then you all of a sudden are rescued and go on this acid trip I do like how in Alice in Wonderland the clear implication is that she's dreaming you know she's sleeping by the base of the tree and then she dreams up this escape to sort of sort through her problems and figure out what she's gonna do in this case I think it's more akin to just a total mental breakdown by having your life fall apart but you know what I like the story of Alice in Wonderland I'm not opposed to it I think it's interesting okay uh right off the bat this performance mode I can see what digital Foundry was saying it is blurry in those big spanning shots oh now the bracelet's talking Show Yourself show myself I've Shannon I'm showing I can't get more showed show my 17s where are you right here at the end of your arm the thing that you said fruitlessly trying to remove okay enemies little combat encounter what what I'm guessing yeah remember what I said about predictable okay that's cool [Music] that's cool other than that that's badass and we should leave this place as well there I'm sure the creature is far away by now besides what you won't last long without anything to eat so let's talk about this real quick the cuff and the dialogue in general has gotten a lot of hate online since the demo went up and frankly since the trailer started dropping here and I I think that the reason this is worth noting and is important to reference is because in a game like this you are going to be navigating the world for anywhere from 10 to 35 hours depending on which reviewer you're looking at who finished the game most people it seems to be around 15 to 20 hours and you have the cuff on your forearm the entire game and it really in in many ways it's the only companion you have to bounce dialogue off of the main character and to figure out what's going on and to sort of sort through ideas so it's very very important that they figure this out and that it's not at the very least it's not annoying because if you have a companion who's super annoying you're not gonna really enjoy enjoy exploring with them you're gonna try to shed them but the difference between this and a lot of like open world RPGs where you can choose companions is that you cannot get rid of this cuff I mean it's going to be on you for the whole game so you better get used to it my understanding is that we can go into settings and yes you can customize the frequency with which Frey and cuff speak to each other so you can set it to high default or low or minimal so lots of options whenever you see something like this it usually to me indicates that there were perhaps some play testers that didn't find it super likable and so wanted an option to turn it down it was a similar thing in high on life where the constant chatter between the player character and the guns got really annoying for some people so they built in an option to turn it down and in this case it seems that they're doing the exact same thing where you can tweak it I'm going to leave it on default for the sake of this video and this playthrough just so I can experience it how the developers think you should but understand and know that you can change it if you want another sequence I really it just feels so out of date like going back to 20 17 I mean 2018 with Red Dead 2 really made it standard I think most of these open world AAA games have had the clean camera shifting from gameplay to cut scene and back to gameplay and so this just feels super outdated the constant fade blacks to go in and out of the cinematics it just doesn't feel good it feels really out of place but this looks cool whoa look at this guy because it's not as it seems you told me that now that was weird well don't just stand there [Music] okay what the don't stop panicking now okay did I just do that well oh and here's that dialogue that went viral I did not just do that we did let's just sit back and I just move [ __ ] with my mind perhaps our connection has somehow awoken some abilities I just moved [ __ ] with my mind I just keep hearing I I I just move [ __ ] with my freaking mind yeah okay that is something I do now I do magic talk to sentient cuffs kill jacked upbeats you know what I'll probably fly next now he's just being ridiculous oh that's too far good to know there's a line if you could just Master these new abilities with my help of course um did you not just see me take out that gnarly Beast oh bring it you mangled monsters okay well yeah that's it's pretty bad it's not helped by the fact that the lip syncing is also just a little off and it just doesn't it doesn't look quite right and you know I heard somebody say on Twitter they said all of the dialogue in this really starts to feel as though it's built on a relationship that we don't get to know so Frey and cuff are talking to each other like they're old friends and they're giving each other crap and roasting each other constantly but they just met like they have no reason to be this chummy with each other which is why it feels so off like they should be acquaintances but they're talking in this chummy way which makes it just come off as hostile because when acquaintances talk this way it's usually just aggressive like I have friends from high school that all joke around and be like you suck when we play games and stuff together but it's not serious and that's built on like a decade of friendship they met five minutes ago and are already doing this stuff and so it just comes off as like really uncomfortable and and odd it just doesn't sit right with a player I would also say I don't know if it's coming through on the the video recording but we're getting some pretty significant frame dips this is running on performance mode and you can tell again it might not be coming through in the the recording that's gonna come through at HD uh levels but this is downscaling pretty aggressively and as a result the whole thing looks just a little blurry and even still it's not locked at 60 frames which for a game that doesn't look very good to begin with is it's just not a great look because it just screams lack of Polish later in this video we'll take a quick peek at the PC version of the game I want to see what the performance is like with that but until then I will just say I'm not super impressed nothing but ruins okay looks like no one's been here for a while yeah it's really weird you can't move when she's doing this dialogue like you'd think I could walk forward while she's doing this but you can't you just have to sit there and take it it's just odd like there's a bunch of little stuff like that that really does not matter like let's be real it really is not that big of a deal to not be able to move during dialogue but when there's like 50 things on that level that are a little Annoying it just adds up and makes things really start to feel clunky and and like they're actively fighting the player it's just odd I will also say we give games a lot of crap over on Luke Stevens live my second Channel where we stream games every Monday Wednesday Friday which you should totally come out and say hi and I just look up Luke Stevens live in the search bar we have a really good time but we give games a lot of crap because there's sort of like a meta that happens every four to five years where there's a new thing that every game is trying to do so after The Witcher 3 for the next like five years every game wanted to be an open world action RPG kind of thing with narrative side quests and stuff so every game even franchises that really didn't need to go that route decided to try to throw in big open worlds and that type of thing now it were in what I would call like the fortnite epoch which is everything is covered in purple gems and jewels everything from Far cry's latest DLC to forespoken coming out with these gigantic purple gems everywhere and it's it's just a little weird you'll start to see it everywhere you look now that I've mentioned it you won't be able to see it and I'm really curious what the next Epoch is going to be my guess is probably Elden ring every game's gonna try to put in big boss fights and stuff and cause people to like go crazy with the difficulty options but I guess we'll just have to wait and see let me know what you think the next Epoch is going to be what's the next meta I'm intrigued okay surge Magic voila okay I'm just flinging rocks killer blows okay finisher there we go okay well that was a thing okay now we have the skill tree this flow will allow us to basically complete parkour nice [Music] and not bad thanks Professor thank you Professor sure cuff okay sure I mean it just starts to get so annoying like you just want to skip through all the dialogue which whenever the player wants to skip something that's bad I'm sure I don't need to tell you that but that's bad when you put something in your game that you've been working on for years and the player wants to just find a way to get around it or mute it because it's so annoying not a good sign not not a good sign at all and the dialogue being such a major part of this game so far the fact that I think most players are probably going to want to tune it out is a little bit of a bummer but you know what we're starting to get access to some abilities to actually start moving around and do stuff so maybe the game is about to to kind of kick off let's see okay now they're going to give us access to exploration of this little city as we navigate to The Point again you notice the fortnite crystals all over the place again you won't be able to unsee them now that you've had them pointed out like they're everywhere it's really really funny what I will say like first glance this is something that a lot of like post-apocalyptic style games have a problem with even like death stranding had this problem when you create a world that has been ravaged by some sort of overarching force or major power that you have to overthrow there becomes a problem where players won't feel that the world is worth saving because it's so empty and dead and that's what you see here like the whole city is very very Bland and so is the world and they justify that blandness by saying that well in the story The World Is Bland and lifeless because it's suffered under this infestation of whatever magical power or whatever or in the case of death stranding you know the death stranding causes all of this destruction and misery that's why the world feels empty and dead and you have to save it but you shouldn't be upset when the player doesn't feel like the world is worth saving when you present something like this like this world doesn't seem worth saving because frankly it looks too far gone you have to give players a real reason to work for hours and hours and hours to overthrow this and that's usually something that's done narratively where we see what should be saved or what could be saved and hopefully in this next area we're going to see exactly what that is and take a peek at it I will say visually so far this city is pretty underwhelming I don't feel like this is a PS5 grade title it feels really really outdated but I mean again maybe that's just me maybe you look at this and you think it looks great but to me this looks really really rough for a title exclusive to what are now current gen consoles I just don't see this as acceptable frankly that sucks sorry guys let's just move on past and then here we have a building and I think we're gonna meet some people let's see what's up well this place is fun I imagine it was once happy smiling faces on every corner no I could picture it now damn everything just looks broken not exactly the most poetic of descriptions but yeah suppose it does for sure the break the world Fray finds herself stranded in a seemingly devoid of people building stand ruined and vicious monsters roam ravaged land for a christensen's the strange phenomenon that seems to be the cause of all these problems as the break so nowhere that's not like broken by this [ __ ] okay I suppose there might be somewhere and there's no people we just have to keep going okay well I mean again they're setting the stage maybe it gets better what I will say is like some people who reviewed this game I did see they said that it gets better as it goes on so I'm gonna give this a fair shot and I'm gonna keep going and uh try to give it as Fair a shake as I possibly can because that's one of the things I kind of pride myself on is that we don't just dismiss games fully we try to give them a fair shot and if they impress us great if they don't I'll be honest about that uh but I'm not gonna lie to you and say the game is terrible when I think it's actually kind of decent and I'm not gonna lie to you and say the game is amazing when it's absolutely horrible based on you know whatever the current trend is on Twitter or Reddit so I'm going to be playing this game over the course of today giving it a fair shot it's apparently not too long so I'm gonna blast through this and we're going to try and get as far as we can if not finish this game by tomorrow morning at 10 A.M which is when this video will go live for all of you should be plenty of time it's going to be a late night but I think we can do it so let's uh let's just keep blasting through the next time you see me is going to be in a few hours time once I put in a little bit more time in the game and we're going to pop back and I'm gonna see if the game gets any better so with that said I will be back shortly and hopefully when you see me in just a moment I will be all the more impressed with the game so I'll see you in a second it didn't get any better not seriously seriously I did spend a handful more hours playing this really I'll I mean really trying I'm trying here and there's just there's not much reason to continue go I mean it's just insufferable really so I mean just to give you a quick rundown of where we are after giving this game even more time I've done a few like big boss fights I don't know how far I am exactly in the story uh I I don't really care to to know exactly I don't like having that kind of thing spoiled for me but I will say I mean at this point I've acquired some new skills new parkour abilities I can now go up and uh like Zip Line to things which is new it's like if I want to jump to that I can actually use this like zipline ability that I've gotten um and I can zip and then spin around and take off and then I can zip between points like this zip around and in theory you can really get around the map pretty quickly with this I don't love that you have to aim it by holding square and then like aiming with your left stick I I can't stand trying to do fine movements with my left stick that sounded sexual but yeah I mean you know what I mean I was just I'm not used to that as for everything else like the levels now are not purple gems they're like red ones so I guess that's something and I've also unlocked some more spells I know there's going to be a lot more than this but this is something you'll recognize from the demo if you played uh it's a spell set that is all too familiar if you played a lot of that so I mean I'm I'm not opposed to this it's fine it's fine but this being a full 70. 95 if you buy the deluxe I just cannot fathom how you justify that price with what they have here not only is it graphically far behind the curve of where it should be I mean this thing is being sold as a PS5 console exclusive and it's going out on PC which will look at the performance and reviews of that in just a second but no part of this looks like it's current gen or as they're pitching it next Generation graphically it's really really lackluster textures are bland and repeated all over the place the world density is minimal and honestly what is here isn't that interesting and if you look off in the distance you can see some pretty severe popping you see those rocks on that Cliff Edge as I run back they'll probably disappear yep right above right above my head and then I run closer and they'll pop back in it's aggressive popping and it's all over the place here and the world itself just isn't really interesting to explore and it's all bookended and tied up in a nasty uncharismatic bow with a protagonist that is extremely unlikable and the cuff which never freaking shuts up and that's even once you change the frequency of the dialogue down to minimal it's still too much like it's just not it's just not good I mean across the board it's just stupid decision after stupid decision after stupid decision and while the combat system is like a little flashy definitely early on a couple spells are a little op to the point where there's no reason to really use other spells and abilities I don't think that combat system is anywhere near robust enough to carry this game through all of the other stuff that just really really sucks I mean I'm a firm believer that I I don't think I mean there's almost no games I would say that are never touch like that are just not at no point worth touching because even terrible games are sometimes worth playing just for the memes ride to Hell retribution or ET they're horrible games but for like 50 cents I think they're worth getting and just like messing around with and having a jolly old time memeing on this horrible horrible game in this game I I think it's no different you know just because it's got a lot of problems doesn't mean it's not eventually worth trying but it's seventy dollars this is ridiculous it's far behind this game feels like a 2013 to 14 game in terms of design in terms of graphical quality it's certainly more in line with a PlayStation 4 slim uh game and in terms of tech itself I mean we're doing Dynamic resolution scaling to hit a smooth 60 and it still drops down into the 30s regularly sometimes even into the 20s it's just poorly optimized uh and it's it's just not it's not good it's just not good but I mean how bad could the PC Port be well the answer is not great if we look at these reviews on Steam there's nothing on Metacritic because bear in mind they didn't send out PC codes for review like I said I got my review code for this game on launch day in fact hours after it launched so across the board there was something really really weird with this and if we look at these Steam Reviews um you can see the Common Thread is that it is extremely unoptimized across the board um check back after a few patches it needs more time to cook I cringed more in the first 30 minutes than my whole life hashtag Rip but the Common Thread with all these also is that the game is extremely boring I think I'd rather watch paint dry than play this game uh has potential but needs I already read that one I got the game for free and I still feel like I've been robbed it's extremely unoptimized voice acting is terrible so terrible that you could tell it's voice acted they've even voice acted the cat if they did in fact have a human voice act the cat that's that's hilarious why would you voice act a cat's meow if you even look at a moving object it will drop FPS by a large quantity but in a still setting it will be completely fine I recommend having next year's GPU which would most likely be a 50 Series card because even 40 series aren't cutting it um optimization is an issue the story isn't anything special I don't care about any of the characters the dialogue feels very out of place feeling like a gen Z trying to speak to someone at a Renaissance Fair well even without the optimization issues it's still very average uh game and not worth full price uh it's no surprise I mean at the end of the day it's just it's not a surprise the game focuses on all of the worst tropes of modern open world design which is just that they sprinkle in a bunch of nonsense and expect you to find it captivating they treat collect-a-thons as though that's exclusive content and on top of all of this it's so poorly optimized that it's quite difficult to play on even the PlayStation 5 where it's most well optimized and apparently on PC it's just a disaster so I can confirm forespoken is in fact as bad as everybody is saying and has been saying and as bad as most of us suspected because there were a lot of red flags for this game uh before it came out which caused much concern many many red flags but like I said I think there is eventually a point where this game makes sense and I I mean honestly for me I'd say that that price point is probably down by twenty dollars I I really just find it that boring and lackluster those who find the parkour are really really interesting and engaging the combat satisfying and the very very repetitive boss fights interesting for those people maybe you're you're more willing to get it at 40 bucks but honestly I would expect this game to go on deep deep sale like 50 off plus within the next three to four months because they're gonna need to recuperate development costs somehow and with all of the bad press that this game has been getting from day one I don't I mean I'll be honest I really don't see how they could possibly uh recoup their Dev costs on day one sales alone so it's gonna take a while and they're gonna have to get pretty generous with the the giveaways and it's just a bummer because this game looked really really interesting back in the day a few years ago when they showed it off at I believe it was originally shown off at the announcement of the PlayStation 5 as like project Athea or whatever and a lot of people were really interested I mean look at this trailer off Jacob put up the the trailer right now it looked compelling and unique and a little different it wasn't clear what exactly this game would be but it was interesting and it was different and then to see that over the last three years they've just time and again made visual downgrades cuts and cuts and cuts and then to find out that the writing is so utterly horrible and that the voice acting is Bland and uninteresting and they tried to have people riff off of each other in just a cringy way it's just a perfect example of how a couple things going wrong can tank the potential of an entire video game and it's really really unfortunate but you know what this happens and perhaps the lesson to be learned from all of this is that sometimes your intuitions are correct a lot of you guys in the comments section and over on Luke Stevens live when we were streaming and checking this game out before it came out a lot of you guys were saying that there was something off here and that it just didn't sit with you right it seemed suspicious there was something weird about it and it turns out you guys were right um and I think a lot of us were right who found a lot of the things around this game concerning so it's a bummer first big game of 2023 is utterly lackluster and borderline terrible at parts and it's really unfortunate if you want to hear me give a full critique of this game and give it the full treatment let me know and I will continue playing and I will finish it but let me know in the comments section below uh so that I know it's actually worth my time doing otherwise I'm gonna be putting the controller down and not messing with it after this because frankly I find this really really unenjoyable there is zero dopamine flowing to my brain when I play this game and so I'll do it for you guys if you really want me to but if you're not interested then I think we'll all be better served if we just move on and forget about it but you know what I think that's gonna do it for me I'm gonna do something that makes me feel happy play some chess maybe just so that my brain stops rotting uh from this game so I'm gonna go do that thank you for watching follow all of my social media that I have down there if you haven't already and join our Discord also linked in the link tree below if you want to join a phenomenal Community I give away games all the time if a publisher sends me an extra copy which happens all the time and we also just hang out chat you can ask me questions I can ask you questions it's awesome and the community is unbelievable like you guys are just every day you humble me greatly so if you want to join a phenomenal Gaming Community meet some new friends head over to that Discord we would love to have you but until next time thanks for watching I love you all very very much and I'll see you in the next video hugs and kisses bye bye come by and see me on Luke Stevens live search in the search bar Luke Stevens live I'll see you over there I'm live streaming right now when this video goes up thanks for watching bye I'm Batman outros yay

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 469,980

Keywords: luke stephens, luke stephens critique, luke stephens forspoken, forspoken critique, i tried forspoken, forspoken cringe, square enix, ps5

Id: V0jKZO4QpWw

Length: 55min 53sec (3353 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2023