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

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She cared so much about that cat. More than a duffel bag of cash. So much so that she gave the cat away in the very next scene. Definitely one of the games ever made.

It’s like the devs wanted her to be this cool relatable character but they have managed the opposite

This game is the obligatory "I can't believe it's not Ubisoft" title of the year.

The first belly laugh for me was the "Just Another Day" chapter headline after she just avoided a severe prison sentence for three felonies.

Leaving the bag of cash in a burning room on purpose is the worst plot point I’ve seen in a while.

Lol when Luke was asking where she got the dirt to throw in the guy's face, all I could think was "Pocket sand!"

120 hours of community service for her third felony 💀

The thing with the money bag to me, is, they didn't HAVE to put it there. They could've said, for example, that she was worried about someone breaking in so she put it in a hidden spot, and then the hidden spot was already on fire. They could've had the flames already reach the foot of her bed and burn it by the time she woke up. They could have done ANYTHING other than literally spawn her in with the option to (fail to) pick up the bag. The developers *chose* to make her a massive idiot for not just grabbing it on her way by. Imo that's just a sign of horrible game design.

Ok I honestly believe that stopping the player from picking up the cash was a deliberate troll by the developers.

The smile on my face when luke starts to complain about the fade to black... Because I already know what lies ahead 🤣

She went like "Haya, pocket sand!"💀 Yep, this is what happens when the writters wanna make a Ryan Reynolds type of a character...

I love how that judge immediately broke herself down from "idk if you'll ever amount to anything" to alright fine community service

Luke: thankyou redbull for the 6 month supply. Redbull: that was supposed to be a 3 year supply….

As usual Luke has sage advice. I really regret all the times I've left a bag full of cash in a burning room when I could've just taken the bag full of cash.

I honestly don't know shit about this game but the part when she continues to be a smart ass when there's a gun in her face I just completely checked out

I like how we don't have to infer motivation or discover anything about a character because they'll just tell us.

Love how gigachad judge just sentenced her without any trial after she pled not guilty lmao the judge doesnt give a fuck

And remember, this game was designed like this, this is what they went for.

The idea that a teenage girl is walking the street of New-York with the pockets full of sands to defend herself "just in case" is hilarious to me. I wish I was this witty.

Frey: "Gotta find Homer first!" Real Cat: **

I love how he’s trying to give the game a chance but it proceeds to trigger back to back nitpicks and unintentional laughter.

Imagine someone said we need to leave the bag of cash in the burning room and not allow the plyer to pick it up. Someone else said but that wouldn't make sense and they said nah it'll be fine they will never see the cash burning coming. Don't you know, everyone just leaves money on the floor when the place is burning even though you can easily grab it while you walk out of the room.

If you're curious, in the Ted Bundy trial the judge told Bundy he could have had a bright future as a lawyer if he went down a different path. Having a judge tell someone "it's a shame you did what you did because you're so smart" isn't that rare

As someone who IS NOT an artist, I find the whole AI generated art thing kind of repulsive because of how hard people work to become skilled artists.

I guess Forspoken should remain Unspoken.

Remember everyone, this is what's considered "next gen" by the industry.

I feel like this game was written by (and for) people who've been raised by fanfic and have very little experience with (or patience with) human life.

These dialogues... writers must have been proud of themselves 🤣

This game feels like it was written by a sixth-grader. This makes me miss the silent protagonist...

One of the things that bothers me is that the performances feel like acting, not like people actually talking.

The thing about the infamous dialogue at 33:55 is that I think it goes wrong when she goes “Yeah this is what I do know.” The stuff beforehand I actually liked caused it would make sense for her to be confused and excited about doing magic but then she just completely ignores cuff’s explanation and goes “Yeah that’s what I do now, this magic is just mine now”. it’s weird and doesn’t sit right with me. Plus Frey ignoring cuff comes back later when he betrays Frey and goes “Your powers? They were never yours!” Like yeah he literally tells that to Frey at the beginning of the game but she just ignored it

The writers actually thought that a character who, constantly breaks the law, has 0 respect, is "sassy", would be likable and acceptable because she's a girl and she was an orphan. Wheres my violin?

Just to point out, the officer in the picture holding her as a baby is wearing the same NYS COURTS uniform as the Court Officers in the court scene... i guess devs just reused the skin and thought nobody would notice a court officer rescuing a baby from the holland tunnel for some reason LMAO

Game lost me as soon as I saw a defendant appear at an arraignment with no one else in the courtroom and allowing the defendant to wear a hat in a courtroom.

FORSPOKEN should be preserved as an example why YOU SHOULD NEVER MIX Japanese game devs with American writers. You will reach unfathomable levels in the uncanny valley.

This was an interesting review to watch, I like your style of interacting with games you review semi-live. Just something I thought I'd mention: my great-grandfather was found abandoned in the snow outside of a catholic children's home/hospital/coven as a baby and because of that, he was given the last name "Blanc", which means white in French. I also know that a more distant ancestor was named "Duchemin" which means "of/from the path/road" because he was found on a dirt road leading out of a small village. These are common naming conventions for abandoned children, at least in my country. You have to give them a name, so usually the people who found them would do it, and especially in older times, they would give these very generic names related to where they were found, and their first name would be either the saint on the calendar date or if it's a monastery or a school dedicated to a saint, the child would be named that way, which is what happened to my great-grandfather. Just thought you might be interested in that tidbit of information!

"Those aren't the sounds those shoes make". Love it, that really did encapsulate the review... lol

15:30 🤣🤣😭🤨 Climbing away from a gun and standing off behind a metal open fence as if bullets can’t still hit you Is undeniably the funniest stupid cinematic scene I’ve ever seen

I cared more about homer (the cat) than any human in the game

I feel like ideas for games/creative things in general are getting bigger and better but the execution is getting worse, and the want for big spectacular set pieces leaves the basic little things forgotten about ruining the entire experience.

I've seen a lot of people say this game feels like it's AI created. And I'm sure 50% of it was.

This is the culmination of writing games for a “modern audience”

Tbh this game should have been about the Cuff finding a clueless young adult and using her for his own goals. Would have been more interesting this way. I really hate the fact she's able to do all the weird crap right out of the box. If you and me ended up in this situation it would take us years to digest it all and find out what needs to be done. But whatever, I always try to appreciate all the effort that went into making games like this, all the artists and devs who spent countless hours building this world. The game DOES work and it is rather beautiful, so if anyone's to blame it's the execs and whoever was in charge of decision-making for going with all the clunky illogical stuff you're referring to. However it does hurt when the game costs three kidneys and a retina and it leaves you with a "meh" aftertaste at best.

The next epoc being "soulslike" is probably the only thing I'm lowkey excited for in gaming for the coming years lol

This sort of flew under my radar, but just based on the cringe opening court scene alone I can't see how it would be very well received. Here, protagonist! Here is a picture of you as a discovered baby that has been put here on the defense's table! This is how court rooms work!

I heard waterboarding is being replaced with making prisoners listen to dialogue from Forspoken.

One thing about the court scene that bugs me, and I’m sure it’s like this in NYC right now IRL is that this chick has been arrested for the same crime like 6 times now and gets community service. Probably actually reality but shouldn’t be. I’ll take up for the apartment because it’s kinda implied that she’s not actually paying for it, that’s why she hides the windows, running power from an extension cord maybe. Edit: you did address this at 24:15.

Game: "everything just looks broken" Reviewers: "Yes."

God, I love these full-stop tutorials to teach how to run away from the bad guys. Oh, you’re being pursued by the gang members (who could’ve shot you through that fence, I want to point out, because you didn’t actually take the gun from her, you just knocked it out of her hand onto the floor) - let’s stand still and teach you how to run and jump. Oh, you’re being pursued by fantasy bears - let’s stand still and teach you how to jump again, but this time it’s higher. Yeah, that totally doesn’t break the flow of gameplay, ruin the immersion, and ignore the fact that it’s instinctual to basically every person who will ever play this game to “run away from the bad guys”. No, we definitely need to halt the player and throw up that full-sized text box for them to read; we can’t just teach that shit on-the-fly with simple tool tips (like we totally did with the sprint tutorial). It’s amazing how much criticism I can draw from literally a couple seconds of the gameplay.

Okay, I just have to say, if there was even a hint that my house might be on fire and I was asleep, my cat would not hide in a corner. He'd yank off my blankets, flip the mattress and slap me awake while screaming "FIRE!"

Luke we both laughed at the same time when she said “im a smart girl with a bright future”, its like we were in the room together lmao

Don’t use AI, commission an artist. A good artist will give you a far superior result than an AI program ever could. Or better yet, learn to do it yourself.

6:42 This is probably the reason why they didn't give you a preview code earlier.

33:33 "because its not as it seems" -- How it seemed was that it was a bear/wolf type creature that was clearly carniverous chowing down on its prey. What was the main character expecting?

I thought that it couldn't be that bad, but after watching this I know that I couldn't even make it through the New York bit.

11:51 Omg, i just realized that the stranger dropping her phone scene was them trying to use a barbed wire baseball bat to beat us over the head with how chill, atruistic, and down-to-earth she is.

That dead eye moment and your response made my day. Audibly lol'ing over here. 🤣

The dialog… This had me scratching my head, who speaks like this & that 100% volume music soon as the gun gets pulled out had me 😂

one positive thing that I can give this game is the cloth and how realistic it looks, I couldn't stop looking at her puffer jacket when she was in court.

Like how elevators and slow crawls mask the loading areas in modern games, the fade to black hides the transition from gameplay assets to cutscene assets. The character models are the most obvious change, and it's more frequent in the Yakuza series.

I think the thing that puzzles me about the judge thing is that they clearly have a history and it also looked like the judge was willing to help her when she gave her the cat, yet she decided not to accept help from the judge. I don't have issue with predictability. If your creation isn't a mystery, being predictable isn't bad, it's all in your execution and what new you can offer than other media with similar story beats.

I was one of the people defending this game before launch...I'm so sorry to everyone I argued with. What a disappointment 🙁 Those constant "fades to black" are rage inducing 🤬

The way he effortlessly predicted the bag of money 😂

I think that Fallout New Vegas was a good example of a really austere post-apocalyptic landscape that you still cared about because of the interesting characters and humans hanging on no matter what. Also you got this feeling of reclaiming what was there from the monsters and not just killing them.

Thanks for playing games i will never even bother with Luke. You are doing us a service

Problem with photorealism (in this case, mainly of the main character) is it doesn't allow for any imperfections. Any wrong detail like the wrong footsteps sound is extra heightened. And it raises the bar so high the whole production gets either impossible, or looks much worse in comparison to the one photorealistic part.

Hot take: this doesn't actually look that bad

I appreciate your take on Forspoken, had my doubts about it from the beginning. Unrelated to gaming, but AI art generators are being protested by artists for stealing art. And in my opinion, cheapening the value of talented artists. I understand a sponsor is a sponsor, but as an artist, it's not something I can ever put money behind. Not coming for you, just needed to say it.

Bruh 6 months of red bull, I don't think they were helping you out, I think they may be trying to kill you 😂

Don't we all need some time to build our relationship with our drug dealer 😩, this character could have been likable with a minimal level of care for the dialogue

that fade to black transition though to “IT DIDNT GET ANY BETTER!” 🤣🤣

I'd say that predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just that when the story beats are predictable, you are more sensitive to elements of the game/movie that are executed poorly. And from the gameplay videos I've seen, forsaken does a lot of things very poorly. All of the characters seem to be suffering from some slight case of andromeda.

"where'd she get this dirt to throw at people" he says just after the character rolled into dirt

I think that one of the major problems that the game has that makes people say that is cringe worthy/the dialogue is cringe is that it falls under a major trapping that many writers are falling nowdays, and is that a character needs to be "relatable". This limits so much the potential of the characters because they always end feeling mundane. A good writer seeks for the characters to be fascinating, interesting; At first glance, it seems like the same goal by a different name, but believe me is a difference that really matters and it shows. Just look at Homelander and Butcher for example, both characters would be truly awful to be around, but their characteristics make them interesting to watch, and at times, relate to in certain circumstances. If the goal would be to make them relatable instead, I can bet you all that they wouldn't be as near as interesting as they are, since they will be limited in what can be explored with them and what situations you can put them, since you can no longer take the risk without alienating the audience who the char is designed to relate to.

Personally, when it comes to video game companions that stay with you for the whole game while also being a sentient object, I can't think of a better example than Grimoire Weiss from Nier Replicant. I remember every time I played the game I was always looking forward to the tiny bits of dialogue between him and Nier while fighting or simply traveling, and never got tired of their conversations or little banter, no matter how little they contributed to the plot or the lore of the world. Grimoire Weiss is one of the best companions I've ever had when playing a game because he just has so much personality that really makes you care about him and get emotionally attached. The bracelet from Forspoken on the other hand... not so much. It was extremely surprising finding out both games were published by Square Enix, because how can a company fail at something they've already achieved perfectly nearly a decade ago? This really baffles me if I'm being honest, but I'm sure the main reason behind said failure when it comes to Forspoken was the scriptwriters trying to be "funny and hip with the genz". Companies should actually start observing their target audience instead of making half-assed attempts at creating what a bunch of people with zero experience in human interactions believe a relatable character to such audience is. Sometimes all you have to do is ask, but I guess companies would rather grab all the cash they can from all the hype, than a game that is actually good in multiple aspects. A real shame, because the game was looking so good from the trailers that the disappointment just came crashing down in the end.

She has that huge apartment because she is a squatter? That makes the most sense for this story.

I thought the city looked okay until the gang members were chasing them. Those ally ways were so bare. Also I'm going to call it, her parents were sucked into the same magical world she's going to be sucked into. Also, you never mentioned if they are ever any people in the game. That's really what I wanted to know. Edit- Spoilers ahead.... it's been about 24 hours and I was right about the parent thing, well half right anyway. Point being that this game was incredibly predictable in all the wrong ways.

Its like they added the break corruptiuon as an excuse to make a mostly barren open world with random zombies. I feel this game would have been good if it was livelier with more towns and cities in the different regions and we can see how the Tantas rule. Each region would have it's own theme as every Tanta has different corrupted values. Something like how the Seed siblings controled their regions in farcry 5. This would be cool.

You know it shocks me that no one has pointed out that the Judge allowed you to in a sense run away, because wouldn't the Judge stop her from leaving? Or maybe report it asap? Just a thought

And when the world needed him most, he delivered! Thanks for the review

The fact that I completely forgot about this game almost *right after* it was announced during a State of Play like last year or whatever... that in and of itself is a massive red flag. And I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one. Even just a few moments ago, I was trying to bring something to my friend's attention, regarding this game. We had talked about it just a few nights ago. And she was "Which game was that? Remind me." 🤣🤣🤣

Listening to this review while playing the game is a unique experience.

Did they add character customisation in the beginning but then decided to remove it completely cause that 7:55 definitely looks like a customisation screen to me

Ok so, I know almost nothing about the game's story before watching this video, but am I the only one who could blatantly see the 'protagonist is actually originally from the fantasy world' twist coming only five minutes in?

There's always something off and weird when a local Japanese developer tries to pull off a completely western style game. It lacks cohesion and proper art direction

This is quick becoming one of my favorite RU-vid channels Cross eyed bit had me creasing

The most baffling part about the money bag in the burning apartment scene, is it could have easily been fixed and made more believable if she just put the bag somewhere else in the apartment, like under a floorboard or on top of a shelf. Then it would make sense that she would have an instinct to find the cat before taking the time to get to the bag of cash. But the game designers purposely put the bag DIRECTLY next to her feet, where she could grab it while running out the door. It's like a seinfeld sketch, its comically stupid.

Thanks mate. I was fearing this but glad you did this. Hope you are doing great. 🙌

Nooo, he missed "happy almost birthday" when the judge was interrupting her from leaving, that shit is hilarious.

It costs close to $85 on Steam in my country, and you have saved me that money. Thank you sir.

Ok I don’t usually comment but I will say this from someone who is also playing the game. In that intro she wasn’t saying she had a bright future etc. the judge was about to say something and she cut her off because she figured the judge was gonna say that stuff about her and why she shouldn’t be in crime etc.

“That’s not the sound those kind of shoes make”😂😂😂😂💀

I would always be interested to see perspectives on new generation games from people playing a videogame for the first time. Maybe they would absolutely adore this game? I don't know since I'm a hardened gamer veteran too. Maybe if this is their first big game this would be amazing and they'll sink hundreds of hours in it.

Thank you Luke for suffering for us so we don't have to

Great video. And boy....that dialogue in the alley scene.

"Is that a Vape pen?!" haha

I also feel like there wasn’t good direction for the voice actors. They aren’t bad it feels like they just needed more direction as to how they should sound.

11:26 Merry Christmas LMAO

"SHA SHA POCKET SAND" 😭😭 on the alleyway scene