Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-07-03 10:29 am
rionaleonhart) wrote2023-07-03 10:29 am
Entry tags:
Is That A Motherfucking Dragon?
Ginger now has a PS5, so I can occasionally invade their room to use it. Therefore, I've bought my first PS5 game!
It's a 2023 Square Enix action RPG, you know, the one everyone's talking about, the one starting with F. Fi... wait, no, sorry, that's not an 'i'. Uh, Forspoken.
I'm really interested to see what I think of this game. I know there were memes about how bad it was, but those memes started well before the game actually came out, which makes me wonder whether there was some sort of 'let's tank this game so developers think games with black/female protagonists don't sell' faction involved.
The last time I saw this level of determination to convince the Internet that a highly anticipated game was an irredeemable failure was with The Last of Us Part II. While there are legitimate reasons not everyone liked that game, I thought the sheer level of vitriol it was met with was undeserved, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it had two female protagonists, one of whom is a lesbian.
Or maybe Forspoken is genuinely bad! Whatever the case, I'm planning to find out firsthand.
I'm only a couple of hours in, but so far it seems fine. I like Frey, our cynical but good-hearted protagonist, and the dialogue is cheesy but fun, which is pretty much what I'd expect from a story about someone from our world going through a magical portal into a fantasy realm. I might need a little more time to get to grips with the battle system, but I'm not finding it frustrating.
The problem with videogame depictions of New York is that, having played Insomniac's excellent Spider-Man games, I just want to start swinging around. I can't believe Frey doesn't have spider powers. This is outrageous.
In an early cutscene, Frey's cat miaowed, and Ginger thought the noise was our actual cat and started trying to soothe him, which delighted me.
I wasn't sure at first about Frey's main companion being a talking bracelet, but then I really thought about it. Given that she can't take the cuff off, and nobody else can hear him speaking to her, Cuff is essentially just an inescapable voice in her head. And I love characters having conflicted relationships with the inescapable voices in their heads. I'm now fully prepared to embrace the talking bracelet, and I hope he and Frey have weird romantic tension.
I also made use of Ginger's PS5 to try out the Final Fantasy XVI demo!
I was a little wary at first, particularly as the trailers had focused so much on spectacle and so little on character. The worldbuilding seemed potentially interesting, but the characters felt slightly generic to me. But then the demo a) gave me a pair of siblings to get emotional about and b) made the protagonist suffer hideously, and I was won over. I'm definitely going to play this game, although I'll probably wait for the price to drop a bit first.
I know a lot of you have been playing Final Fantasy XVI, and I'd be interested to hear your general non-spoilery impressions!
It's a 2023 Square Enix action RPG, you know, the one everyone's talking about, the one starting with F. Fi... wait, no, sorry, that's not an 'i'. Uh, Forspoken.
I'm really interested to see what I think of this game. I know there were memes about how bad it was, but those memes started well before the game actually came out, which makes me wonder whether there was some sort of 'let's tank this game so developers think games with black/female protagonists don't sell' faction involved.
The last time I saw this level of determination to convince the Internet that a highly anticipated game was an irredeemable failure was with The Last of Us Part II. While there are legitimate reasons not everyone liked that game, I thought the sheer level of vitriol it was met with was undeserved, and I don't think it's a coincidence that it had two female protagonists, one of whom is a lesbian.
Or maybe Forspoken is genuinely bad! Whatever the case, I'm planning to find out firsthand.
I'm only a couple of hours in, but so far it seems fine. I like Frey, our cynical but good-hearted protagonist, and the dialogue is cheesy but fun, which is pretty much what I'd expect from a story about someone from our world going through a magical portal into a fantasy realm. I might need a little more time to get to grips with the battle system, but I'm not finding it frustrating.
The problem with videogame depictions of New York is that, having played Insomniac's excellent Spider-Man games, I just want to start swinging around. I can't believe Frey doesn't have spider powers. This is outrageous.
In an early cutscene, Frey's cat miaowed, and Ginger thought the noise was our actual cat and started trying to soothe him, which delighted me.
I wasn't sure at first about Frey's main companion being a talking bracelet, but then I really thought about it. Given that she can't take the cuff off, and nobody else can hear him speaking to her, Cuff is essentially just an inescapable voice in her head. And I love characters having conflicted relationships with the inescapable voices in their heads. I'm now fully prepared to embrace the talking bracelet, and I hope he and Frey have weird romantic tension.
I also made use of Ginger's PS5 to try out the Final Fantasy XVI demo!
I was a little wary at first, particularly as the trailers had focused so much on spectacle and so little on character. The worldbuilding seemed potentially interesting, but the characters felt slightly generic to me. But then the demo a) gave me a pair of siblings to get emotional about and b) made the protagonist suffer hideously, and I was won over. I'm definitely going to play this game, although I'll probably wait for the price to drop a bit first.
I know a lot of you have been playing Final Fantasy XVI, and I'd be interested to hear your general non-spoilery impressions!