Viral Clip From 'Forspoken' Sparks Debate On What Constitutes 'Bad' Video Game Dialogue
It's been just over five months since the first trailer for Square Enix's new video game Forspoken hit the internet and quickly became a meme for its over-the-top, quippy, Marvel-esque narration. The game officially comes out today, which means it's time for the internet to see if the cringe in the trailer made its way into the final product.
As reviews and reactions for it ramp up today, one viral clip tweeted by user @G27Status has been at the forefront of the dialogue discourse:
The scene finds the protagonist Frey chatting with her magical Cuff. Cuff waxes poetic on the nature of destruction and corruption and Frey needles it for its pretentiousness. @G27Status held it up as an example of cringeworthy dialogue in Forspoken, but unlike the unanimous pile-on that occurred after the trailer dropped, this clip proved more divisive.
As @G27Status' tweet racked up 7,900 quote-tweets in just a day, many argued that they were being too harsh and the dialogue in the clip was pretty decent, not unlike something you'd hear in an Uncharted or Spider-Man game.
the dialogue in that #Forspoken clip going around isn't any worse than the vast majority of dialogue in like Uncharted or Spider-Man or Horizon.Y'all have already decided to hate this game and are just making up reasons to support that.
— vincent (@halfbloodvince) January 22, 2023
Others were less charitable, saying it reminded them of commonly reviled dialogue tropes, particularly those associated with Joss Whedon.
From the Joss whedon and James gunn school of TV comedy dialogue… https://t.co/IpEKVQ8bWE
— Carlos The Prophet Digital (@BobDigi69) January 24, 2023
Seeing people defend this as "realistic dialogue" and "actually if you were transported to a fantasy world, you'd be making sarcastic quips all the time," and I'm convinced people think Marvel movie dialogue is real.No it isn't. Have you talked with a person before? https://t.co/Hz60DIcqS5
— Gravantus (@Gravantus) January 24, 2023
This reminds me so much of YiiK, where any chance at clever dialogue is murdered because they get through points that only need one sentence in entire paragraphs. https://t.co/vXEdovHG0i
— Almighty (TAL) Bundy-Chu (@bundy_chu) January 24, 2023
While reactions to the clip seem fairly split, it's possible Forspoken may mark a turning point for video game writers to move away from light-hearted, quippy dialogue, particularly voiced by teen characters.
As several commenters pointed out, the highlighted clip isn't remarkably different in tone from many popular franchises, particularly Marvel's Spider-Man. It's also likely the case that Forspoken's script was completed well before the backlash to its style was in full force, making it the scapegoat for the public's recent distaste.
It's also worth noting that if you really dislike the in-game dialogue, you can also turn down some of it through a custom option in the game's settings menu that offers a slider for banter frequency.
in forspoken there is indeed a “high” setting for banter. are you brave enough https://t.co/mAliudiywa pic.twitter.com/h0mqKp8Gqo
— Gene Park (@GenePark) January 24, 2023
Discussions about Forspoken's dialogue aside, there's also a bit of backlash going around during its release about the PC requirements for hardware, which are pretty astonishing to many users. Since being shared online, memes and other reactions to it have been quite negative for the game's high-end settings.
When you're still rocking a Voodoo 2500 graphics accelerator and you see the Forspoken PC requirements: pic.twitter.com/2HVV6Y1ntX
— Darryn Bonthuys (@Darrangedd) January 17, 2023
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MCC1701
I think there's something(s) about this game that rub people the wrong way and they are latching onto any issue as an attempt to explain why they feel this way; I know this is the case for me. This dialogue is cringe but I can't reasonably say that's why I'm turned off by the game.
I will say that the dialogue also feels very forced. I'm finally getting into Nier Replicant and you have a similar dynamic with the Protag and a magical floating book you find. Your protag is young, naïve, and optimistic while the book is uptight and condescending. Still, as two strangers fate forced together you have a level of mutual respect I feel is really lacking here. There's also a light stiltedness which comes from not knowing the other particularly well, vs forespoken where at least the protag acts like she's talking with a close friend of eight years.
Still, I can't say that alone is what turns me off, maybe just everything together makes the protag insufferable and I simply don't want to play that for hours on end.
Gumshoe
I don't know much else about this game, or really the context of this clip, but I think the reason it comes off as annoying to me anyway is that it just seems way too verbose and lengthy, and it's not really even a joke. Even calling it "quippy" doesnt' really describe it. The thing with Whedon dialogue or other game characters like Spiderman/Nathan Drake is that they are "quippy", which means that while the jokes are supposed to break tension and add some comedic irony (like in this clip), the reality they're usually just a quick one-liner or comment that gets moved on from fairly fast. This one, by contrast, really gets dragged out and seems to want to draw attention to itself.
MCC1701
I've liked Josh from Firefly/Serenity and liked the Avengers, but agree the formula in Marvel films is tiresome. I just checked IMDB since I never usually pay attention, and the only Marvel movies he did was Avengers 1 and 2, which honestly I thought were Good.
I think the issue is a lot less with Josh's style, and more of other writers being told "do that" when they don't have the skill to pull it off.
Gumshoe
Yeah tbh, Whedon hasn't personally directed/written that much stuff, so it was never really about his work specifically, and a lot more about a style that he pionneered, became very successful, and then spawned a lot of imitations. Aaron Sorkin kind of gets a similar bad rep sometimes because he also had a distinctive elevated style of dialogue where characters tend to talk fast and make lots of snappy remarks, which is entertaining in the right places but can be tiresome of its overdone.
MeansOfReproduction
I have been shitting on Joss Whedon before it was cool.
Phhase
In a way, it really shows you the power of branding. Many love Marvel stuff, but what if it wasn't your favorite superheros? What if it was just…someone? Would it be different?
Three Words Maximum
It's pretty cringe.
Jellopy
The first dialogue I saw was pretty bad (I'm moving things with my fricking mind!) but the one about corruption was pretty funny, it's pretty alright for a back-and-forth.
Nitpicker
Honestly I think that's why people hate it – it's an effect kind of similar to Death of the Author. The joke by itself is fine, but because it's coming from a game which is trying way too hard to be funny (which people determined after seeing the trailer), everything from the game is seen as trying too hard to be funny. It's like how it's impossible for Shyamalan to intentionally write realistically awkward dialogue, because people are going to compare it to all the times where his dialogue was trying too hard to be cool and unintentionally coming off as awkward – it's easy to assume that it's more of the same.