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Forspoken demo coming tonight on PSN

GymWolf

Member
I finished the demo just now.

It's too late now, but someone should have introduced the designers to inFAMOUS: Second Son. If they had taken the same approach to the pacing and design of combat while merely providing a simple, rapid way to cast various support spells, the game play would feel miles better. Because the combat plays very similarly, just worse.

As it is, the combat feels unfinished - too slow, too clunky, and requires too much input for little results. The combat in this game, in many ways, feels like some early pre-alpha ideas from inFAMOUS that would be later ironed out and improved vastly by release.
Too slow?

I tought it was way more fast paced and acrobatic than any infamous tbh.

I don't understand the too much input to low result thing, you do exactly what you do in infamous, dodge with 0, magic run with the same button if you hold to easily escape bad situations, one button combo melee combat, one button to aim, one to fire, hold the fire button for a bigger effect like the smoke shotgun in infamous 3, pressing 2 buttons together for the super move, you don't even need to search for a source of neon or video to change set of power because you can just sweep on the touchpad or press the dpad, so way easier than infamous.

What exatly is too much effort? I think it plays like a more acrobatic and fast paced infamous with a lock on feature if you wanna focus on a single enemy.

What was the last time you played infamous 3? (Arguably the one with the best combat in the saga)
 
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Drizzlehell

Banned
Combat seems fun and fairly unique but it presents zero challenge on normal difficulty. I reached the end where you can fight the so-called "challenging enemy" and he was just a damage sponge but at no point did I feel like I'm even remotely in danger. It's a nice looking maelstrom of particle effects but unless full game presents a more meaty challenge then it's gonna be a supremely dull game.

I really dislike the art style though. It's like they went out of their way to make the open world look as dull as possible. It's just grey stone covered with green moss, and the oversaturated lighting is straight up ugly. It's the kind of game that feels like it should be more vibrant and feature jaw-dropping vistas, but instead it looks like a plain ass basic bitch meadow with zero artistic flare to it.
 

BadBurger

Is 'That Pure Potato'
I think I read somewhere that there is an option to make the game lets you automatically use a spell that’s not on a cooldown in the options.

I read there are a few options that should’ve probably been default.

I'll have to fire up the demo again and look for these settings - that automatic spell cast sounds like it could have made the experience better for me.
 

GymWolf

Member
Combat seems fun and fairly unique but it presents zero challenge on normal difficulty. I reached the end where you can fight the so-called "challenging enemy" and he was just a damage sponge but at no point did I feel like I'm even remotely in danger. It's a nice looking maelstrom of particle effects but unless full game presents a more meaty challenge then it's gonna be a supremely dull game.

I really dislike the art style though. It's like they went out of their way to make the open world look as dull as possible. It's just grey stone covered with green moss, and the oversaturated lighting is straight up ugly. It's the kind of game that feels like it should be more vibrant and feature jaw-dropping vistas, but instead it looks like a plain ass basic bitch meadow with zero artistic flare to it.
Yeah, the game being easy is his major fault, the game only put up a challenge on hard when you are literally swarmed by enemies, there was a point where i had like 20 crocodiles on me, i thought it was a bug because the biggest group i fought before was like 3 crocs.

This one has the same problem of ANY game with super fast traversal like spidey, infamous e etc. You can just move way faster than the enemies and get out of any dangerous situation in the bat of an eye, even more here where the magic run is just stupidly fast.

Usually i just play aggressively to mitigate this, if you play with pot shots from safe distance the game is not fun at all (like the other games i named) and obviously not the way is meant to be played.
Also sometimes the enemies are resistant to ranged attacks so you have to get close with melee.

Hopefully the final game is gonna be more challenging because yeah the sense of progression goes to shit if enemies put up zero challenge.
 
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Drizzlehell

Banned
I thought the dialogue felt so off because of the story honestly. The main chick was teleported from modern New York to whatever fantasy world this is, and it just never came together. The forced "coolness" didn't help, but it seemed strange right from the start.
Only a hack hollywood writer could come up with a shitty story like this.

Exactly how many movies that featured this same exact plot did we have throughout 80s and 90s? And almost none of them were good either so congrats to Square. Top notch creative decision making.
 

GymWolf

Member
I'll have to fire up the demo again and look for these settings - that automatic spell cast sounds like it could have made the experience better for me.
I posted the options you have to change to make the game better in the this very topic, page 2-3 or 4 i think.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Yeah, the game being easy is his major fault, the game only put up a challenge on hard when you are literally swarmed by enemies, there was a point where i had like 20 crocodiles on me.

This one has the same problem of ANY game with super fast traversal like spidey, infamous e etc. You can just move way faster than enemies and go out of any dangerous situation in the bat of an eye.

Usually i just play aggressively to mitigate this, if you play with pot shots from safe distance the game is not fun at all (like the other games i named) and obviously not the way is meant to be played.
Also sometimes the enemies are resistant to ranged attacks so you have to get close with melee.

Hopefully the final game is gonna be more challenging.
Honestly I haven't even noticed this through the visual chaos. It mostly felt like button mashing and a lot of the stuff that was in games like Spidey are missing. I.e. enemies with special abilities that force you to switch tactics because you can't defeat them just by mashing square button.

Forspoken's combat is like 99% testing how much abuse the right trigger can take before it snaps, lol.
 

GymWolf

Member
Honestly I haven't even noticed this through the visual chaos. It mostly felt like button mashing and a lot of the stuff that was in games like Spidey are missing. I.e. enemies with special abilities that force you to switch tactics because you can't defeat them just by mashing square button.

Forspoken's combat is like 99% testing how much abuse the right trigger can take before it snaps, lol.
Yeah, some of those games have enemies that can make you switch tactic but honestly? You get out of bad situations in spidey and infamous with just a web swing or 3 sec of neon run in 99,99% of cases and i have 2 runs on both spidey and morales on max difficulty and completed inf3 like 4 times on hard.

It must be an extremely hard task to balance enemies without limiting the movements of the protagonist too much because being fast and nimble is usually one of the selling points of these titles.

P.s. if you haven't noticed the resistance to elements that could be the reason why the enemies were super bullet spongy even on normal, you do very few damage if the enemies resist to that type of attack.
 
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Tams

Member
Honestly, any game's mechanics are likely to be the same as or very similar to something we've seen and played before.

So, so much rides on the world and story being good. And it ain't looking good for this.
 

GymWolf

Member
Do they say anything about the brightness setting? I cant get over how bad the game looks.
Someone fixed the brightness with some change in the ingame settings, i just disabled the hdr and turned on the 120hz option to have max fluidity and my eyes still intact.
 
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Bojji

Member
Game looks like shit on performance mode, really needs something like fsr or temporal upscaling. This engine is not good at all (and it was evident in FFV as well).
 

GymWolf

Member
Game looks like shit on performance mode, really needs something like fsr or temporal upscaling. This engine is not good at all (and it was evident in FFV as well).
If you have a 120hz display turn on the option in the display options and try quality mode, better res and at least 40 frames.

(Game still look pretty meh tho)
 

Bojji

Member
If you have a 120hz display turn on the option in the display options and try quality mode, better res and at least 40 frames.

(Game still look pretty meh tho)

I have to join to 120hz\vrr\hdmi2.1 master race at some point but right now it's not financially possible.

Square can't produce decent image quality in their luminous games, their TAA is shit (just like in FFXV) and even in quality mode it doesn't look very good\stable. Pop in is also very noticable and it's not good for a game about fast traversal.

I wasn't very interested about this game and now my interest is even lower.
 

GymWolf

Member
I have to join to 120hz\vrr\hdmi2.1 master race at some point but right now it's not financially possible.

Square can't produce decent image quality in their luminous games, their TAA is shit (just like in FFXV) and even in quality mode it doesn't look very good\stable. Pop in is also very noticable and it's not good for a game about fast traversal.

I wasn't very interested about this game and now my interest is even lower.
Technically, having a 120hz tv has nothing to do with the mustard race, you just need a modern oled tv. :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

Maybe i have a bad memory but i swear i rememeber ff15 looking better than this one :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

Like the models for the monsters are kinda low quality, i remember decent model for the creatures in ff15 at the very least.
 
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Luipadre

Member
Game looks like shit on performance mode, really needs something like fsr or temporal upscaling. This engine is not good at all (and it was evident in FFV as well).

They said this game will have FSR2.0 What happened to that? performance mode seriously looks like sub 1080 at times. Ugly looking shit
 

GymWolf

Member
They said this game will have FSR2.0 What happened to that? performance mode seriously looks like sub 1080 at times. Ugly looking shit
Maybe fsr2 is gonna be there for release day??

But honestly resolution is kinda the last problem, everything looks mid graphically.
 
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Bartski

Gold Member
so I played the demo for a bit. Magic parkour is fun but that's about it. I guess some people will enjoy this but it's totally not for me
 

Spyxos

Member
Some captures for those interested
UhcQYdI.jpg
cJouzWQ.jpg
lniOsoH.jpg
QZqG9WN.jpg
Hmm, stupid question. How in the picture 3 flowers have colours? But on my screen everything looked dead and colourless.
 

Kagero

Member
I liked it! Hated the controls at first but you get used to it really quickly. Also, love the world. Getting serious Elden ring vibes. What I mean by this is the world looks majestic and you want to see what's beyond the next turn. Performance is complete ass though. Played it in blurry ass mode just to gain those extra framerates :p Now they just need to add some epic random bosses like we see in Elden Ring and I'll be happy.
 

K' Dash

Member
Haven’t read anything here.

I think what bothers me the most is that she seems to float weightless all the time, even when running, looks weird.
 

SilentUser

Member
'I wasn't good at it immediately so I just gave up.'
Of course. Why would I waste my scarce time playing something I disliked its fundaments? 😅 Sadly I barely have free time lately, so it must really catchy to make me play... Forspoken controls are unnecesserily cumbersome, imo.
 

wvnative

Member
Well i spent the entire afternoon with the demo yesterday...and I'm just kinda "eh its alright, kinda fun"

First and foremost, changing the magic wheel to toggle helped me immensely, with my disability, constantly juggling shoulder buttons is highly fatiguing. I do still wish there was either full button remapping or an alternate scheme with attack and support spells on the face buttons, the game pretty much auto aims so you don't really need to use the right stick to direct spells.

The tutorial is the demo's biggest failing, failing to explain everything. Lots of little things like using parkour to mix up your magic moves.

After getting to grips with everything I did have fun, but it's still kind of surface level. Her moves still don't flow together all that well, lock on is still jank like FF15, and the exact mechanics of parkour confuse me still, like sometimes I can get her to fully scale a wall, sometimes she stops despite having stamina left.

The ending boss was when it kind of clicked for me, evading him and figuring out how to lay the smack down quickly and efficiently, on my final run he didn't hit me once and I kinda overwhelmed him. But it still just amounted to "evade and combo with fire rage" so it didn't feel deep or anything. Despite your various options it's still effectively like FF15, flashy with lots of different things you CAN do, but your still just evading/button mashing to wreck shit. with a stamina meter trying to cap your badassery.

The game still suffers in my mind from all the same issues with FF15, so focused on looking cool they forgot to make it feel great to play and it feels unfocused, but it certainly isn't bad and I did have fun, and I want to mess around with it more. I am thinking of buying it but maybe when it's on sale, not sure about full $70

Lots of discussion around the dialogue...I thought the trailers made her insufferable but I really didn't mind her in-game, it's certainly not winning awards lol, but I find the complaints dramatic. Or maybe hollywood has desensitized me to this type of shit lmao.

The HDR is bad and no matter what I could not make it look good, it looks massively blown out. If anyone has suggested gamma/brightness settings I am willing to try them. Running on a Sony X95J.

I hate the UI, I don't know if there is a term for it but it's all tilted like that VR/curved screen display look, and I really don't like it, why does it look like this? Doesn't ruin the game but oof, it'd help a lot if they made it look normal.

PS: Maybe I'm stupid but...how the hell do you restore her healing items?
 

BootsLoader

Banned
I think that the demo is from an inferior build of the game than the one they showed in the latest trailers and gameplays. This looks nothing like what they showed so far. Lets see.
 
Just deleted the demo. Nope this doesn't click with me.
Appreciated they release a demo for people to try.
The cuff voice is really uninteresting btw.
 
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i couldn't finish the demo. Just kinda got sick of it. Firstly its a bad demo. It just tosses you into a scenario with no backstory or cutscene and gives you way too many combat abilities at once to deal with. Not to mention your not in some cool part of the game, but just an open plateau. Its just mobs of random zombies scattered about to kill. And the enemies felt kinda cheap. They just toss a bunch at you because dealing with 3 or less they pose no threat. So the difficulty only comes from the fact that ur dealing with like 7 of them and they are different types. So ur getting hit from the front, hit from above and also something is shooting you. Which in a game like God of War would be fun to deal with. But i didn't find it very satisfying here.
The combat itself is probably the best part of it? Once u wrap ur head around the tons of magic stuff. I like being able to switch magic on the fly as opposed to being locked in with a skill tree or something, or having to go into a menu to switch it. Idk there is some disconnect somewhere because the magic gameplay is good but the enemies aren't. So i know im not having fun but im not sure exactly what it is. Because i also don't believe its just the enemies.

I surprisingly wasn't bothered by the cringey dialogue. It didn't feel forced to me. And unless im having a great time and the game has a great soundtrack i do prefer to hear my character talk instead of nothing. The map seemed bland. The graphics seemed a tad blurry and lacking detail in the face. I need a melee button. I need a double jump or glide.

the parkour i kinda like? but idk i couldn't climb certain things which annoyed me. But i do like how fast the parkour run feels. And how quick combat is when ur dashing around. It can get Bayonetta levels of fast and the speed of combat at least sets it apart from being a god of war with magic clone
 

Markio128

Member
My biggest gripe with the demo is that the enemies seem to get lost too easily in the environment - they just don’t stand out enough. After that, it’s difficult to know what to really feel about the game when the demo just throws you into an area with no context.

I’m also hoping this is an old build because the performance mode needs to look a lot better.

It’s certainly not a day 1 until I have some assurance that the final build is much improved.
 
My biggest gripe with the demo is that the enemies seem to get lost too easily in the environment - they just don’t stand out enough. After that, it’s difficult to know what to really feel about the game when the demo just throws you into an area with no context.

I’m also hoping this is an old build because the performance mode needs to look a lot better.

It’s certainly not a day 1 until I have some assurance that the final build is much improved.
It is really hard to see enemies sometimes. They blend into the background. The highlight options doesn’t seem to help either as it highlights them in white but the game is so bright it ends up making them even harder to see.
 
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Needlecrash

Member
Just deleted the demo. Nope this doesn't click with me.
Appreciated they release a demo for people to try.
The cuff voice is really uninteresting btw.
Same. I gave it a shot. The radial menus were very jarring to me and wasn't a fan. The dialogue was cringe as fuck. The parkour is pretty cool but the world seems pretty barren. Combat took some time to get used to but I personally wasn't a fan, lots of trial and error.

Wasn't a fan personally.
 
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hussar16

Member
They hired three no-name Hollywood losers to write this shit. I can guarantee you that this game would have been 1000% better if they just had the Japanese developers working on this game write the story rather than the craptastic Hollywood writing that plagues every ounce of modern movies and TV shows.
Well there it is. The answer why this is a hot shit mess
 

Fake

Member
There have been much better open worlds than Elden Ring way before Elden Ring so let's not act like we are in some "post-Elden Ring era" where every single thing is now gonna be compared to it

Forspoken can suck without that just fine

IDK if he is saying that, but the way I read, maybe he is saying about the protagonist talking like no end vs silent protagonist?

Many people noted that. After people stop playing games like Elden Ring or BOTW with silent protagonists, others game that really push trashtalk to their limits feels very off.
But I still agree.
 
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hussar16

Member
I want to shit on the game too. Who tf is responsible for the art direction? It's vomit inducing, just looking at it makes me depressed. The whole world looks like shit. It's also pretty empty and just boring to be in. Combat is ok I guess? Sometimes atleast. There's a whole lot of shit going on and with the UI it can be pretty overwhelming. Parkour is alright but doesn't save the game for me.

Also dear god I'm sick and tired of devs thinking that the words "fuck" and "shit" is in any way shape or form cool. When will we move away from this? I was just running along and the girl goes FUCK SHIT FUCK. Come on, man. Maybe it was some sort of bug or something because I was looking for enemies around me and there were none, genuinely can't figure out why she decided to use slurs out of the blue like that.

Yup.
Thts the new woke direction boring dull repetitive
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Never understood the push for all this super bright HDR. Don’t want to feel like I need sunglasses when on the couch.
It's one of those features marketed in TVs and media as if everyone's daily life is walking around in bloomy sunlight with everything around you using the boldest colour palette on Earth.
 

K' Dash

Member
Never understood the push for all this super bright HDR. Don’t want to feel like I need sunglasses when on the couch.

HDR (on Tvs) is a scam that people defend with their lifes because they invest thousands of dollars on a feature that doesn’t even have a standard and need to validate their stupid piece of tech.

That’s why you see that every fucking game has to be calibrated differently, you need to go in, poke around and find the best picture, when you want to play something else you either settle with the settings you have or re-calibrate.

And yes, I’m one of the idiots that fell for the hype. Now I just turned it off.
 

Madflavor

Member
There have been much better open worlds than Elden Ring way before Elden Ring so let's not act like we are in some "post-Elden Ring era" where every single thing is now gonna be compared to it

Forspoken can suck without that just fine

I don't think so. Breath of the Wild is the only open world that measures up to Elden Ring imo. The sense of wonder and discovery in Elden Ring's open world design was nearly unmatched imo, and it resonated with gamers. It wasn't flawless, but allowing players to discover things for themselves instead of filling up the world with markers and telling them where to go, is part of why a lot of people enjoyed it.
 
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