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Woo so a playable demo of Forspoken came out. Playable demos are kinda making a comeback after being so associated with magazine coverdisks as to die with the magazines, but to me there is no better way to assess the quality of a game, since reviewers are idiots and other gamers are idiots. Certainly since the first trailer people have been ragging on the voice acting - which is fine - the graphics - which are fine - and the visuals of the combat - which are fine, so for some reason - probably down to the reuse of the FFXV engine - people have predecided they're not going to like this one, whether it's any good or not. BUT IS IT?
MILD SPOILERS:
So the demo doesn't pick up from the start of the story but from what appears to be the first time you get to the open world. There's a brief tutorial of the main controls, but you need to dig into the menus to get the most out of the game since it's not really well explained that you have two different magic "types" and you can switch between them with left n' right on the dpad. Gameplay involves the usual wandering around, opening chests, picking plants, killing weird zombies and weird alligator zombies. There's a couple of ambush places which got my pulse racing even though I wasn't in any major danger. There's only really one genuinely tricky mini-boss who I *just about* killed on my second attempt.
I'm reminded, combat-wise, of Ratchet and Clank, in that you select different moves by bringing up a pause-wheel, and the emphasis is on staying mobile while a certain amount of aiming is automatic. This works for me though I found the lock-on mode hit and miss. As an aside, I think many modern games misunderstood locking on, since they tend to tie it into R3, meaning when you move the camera it either drops or moves to another baddie. But the whole point of locking on is to be able to keep aiming at one thing regardless of where the camera is pointing. It's not a deal-breaker but it does seem odd to me that so many games make locking on more-or-less pointless.
One of the selling points of the game during dev was magical parkour, and that element is there, in a way reminiscent of the neon power from Infamouses Second Son and First Light. I'm concerned that it's a bit too automated, and I hope in the full game it has more of an enhanced platforming feel, since at the moment it's a case of tap or hold circle until the thing you're trying to do either succeeds or fails. Speaking of Infamous, it looks like you steal or otherwise acquire other people's movesets similar to Second Son. Now to me, that didn't really work in Second Son since most of the powers were redundant or acquired too late in the game to make much difference, so hopefully that's not really true here. I hope the setting varies a bit more, too, as at the moment it's the standard "ruins of a once-great civilisation with dragons" type stuff. Frey comes from New York, so hopefully we get to go there later in the game and kill ghosts outside 8 Hook and Ladder and dragons on top of Trump Tower.
The banter between Frey and "Cuff" - her magical, well, cuff - is amusing and while it does repeat itself a little, that didn't bother me too much, although there was one moment when Frey suggested avoiding an enemy after I'd already started shooting at it. The dynamic between them is reminiscent of Kaine / Weiss from Nier: Replicant, though somewhat toned down. It's certainly not new to have the chalk player accompanied by a cheese support AI, but hopefully the banter will remain entertaining enough. Certainly the bantz in FFXV was one of the few generally praised elements of that game, and that was repetitive as ruddy hell. We're alive! Let's celebrate by eating something dead! Is Ebony really all that good? Clear skies, with the temperature rising. Then lose the jacket. Bit early for camp, isn't it? Hey, I got muscles! You just can't see em. Can't wait to try it! This is just like King's Knight! Talk about back-seat fishing! Sharp erryday! Now it's picture time! Take more pictures of specs. IN THE END I HAD TO CHANGE THE LANGUAGE OF THE AUDIO BEFORE I WENT MAD.
Anyway, the demo is pretty large - I played for well over three hours and didn't explore every last bit - and I had fun the whole time. I can imagine the fun waning if it becomes too much of a repetitive collectathon, but right now I'm definitely going to buy the game, so job done Mr demo.
MILD SPOILERS:
So the demo doesn't pick up from the start of the story but from what appears to be the first time you get to the open world. There's a brief tutorial of the main controls, but you need to dig into the menus to get the most out of the game since it's not really well explained that you have two different magic "types" and you can switch between them with left n' right on the dpad. Gameplay involves the usual wandering around, opening chests, picking plants, killing weird zombies and weird alligator zombies. There's a couple of ambush places which got my pulse racing even though I wasn't in any major danger. There's only really one genuinely tricky mini-boss who I *just about* killed on my second attempt.
I'm reminded, combat-wise, of Ratchet and Clank, in that you select different moves by bringing up a pause-wheel, and the emphasis is on staying mobile while a certain amount of aiming is automatic. This works for me though I found the lock-on mode hit and miss. As an aside, I think many modern games misunderstood locking on, since they tend to tie it into R3, meaning when you move the camera it either drops or moves to another baddie. But the whole point of locking on is to be able to keep aiming at one thing regardless of where the camera is pointing. It's not a deal-breaker but it does seem odd to me that so many games make locking on more-or-less pointless.
One of the selling points of the game during dev was magical parkour, and that element is there, in a way reminiscent of the neon power from Infamouses Second Son and First Light. I'm concerned that it's a bit too automated, and I hope in the full game it has more of an enhanced platforming feel, since at the moment it's a case of tap or hold circle until the thing you're trying to do either succeeds or fails. Speaking of Infamous, it looks like you steal or otherwise acquire other people's movesets similar to Second Son. Now to me, that didn't really work in Second Son since most of the powers were redundant or acquired too late in the game to make much difference, so hopefully that's not really true here. I hope the setting varies a bit more, too, as at the moment it's the standard "ruins of a once-great civilisation with dragons" type stuff. Frey comes from New York, so hopefully we get to go there later in the game and kill ghosts outside 8 Hook and Ladder and dragons on top of Trump Tower.
The banter between Frey and "Cuff" - her magical, well, cuff - is amusing and while it does repeat itself a little, that didn't bother me too much, although there was one moment when Frey suggested avoiding an enemy after I'd already started shooting at it. The dynamic between them is reminiscent of Kaine / Weiss from Nier: Replicant, though somewhat toned down. It's certainly not new to have the chalk player accompanied by a cheese support AI, but hopefully the banter will remain entertaining enough. Certainly the bantz in FFXV was one of the few generally praised elements of that game, and that was repetitive as ruddy hell. We're alive! Let's celebrate by eating something dead! Is Ebony really all that good? Clear skies, with the temperature rising. Then lose the jacket. Bit early for camp, isn't it? Hey, I got muscles! You just can't see em. Can't wait to try it! This is just like King's Knight! Talk about back-seat fishing! Sharp erryday! Now it's picture time! Take more pictures of specs. IN THE END I HAD TO CHANGE THE LANGUAGE OF THE AUDIO BEFORE I WENT MAD.
Anyway, the demo is pretty large - I played for well over three hours and didn't explore every last bit - and I had fun the whole time. I can imagine the fun waning if it becomes too much of a repetitive collectathon, but right now I'm definitely going to buy the game, so job done Mr demo.
