The opening is indicative of this: the protagonist has travelled lightyears out of the only place they ever called home, forever removed from anything resembling the comforts and security of their family and friends left behind, knowing full well they can never, ever return. Andromeda regularly stumbles at this with the humour by having our characters present as seemingly unwilling to take a situation serious. As if characters most responsible for these lines, like Garrus and Wrex, are conscious of the actual stakes and actual threat the situation poses, not divorced from the morality or gravity, but genuinely trying to penetrate the seriousness with a joke or observation that allows us to laugh. Where the trilogy is loaded with punchlines and sarcasm, it's regularly presented with a prose and tone of somberness and macabre. I've used this example before, but Mass Effect: Andromeda's worst writing falls victim to this same problem in a way that the Mass Effect trilogy's writing does not. You can't have the character make fun of otherwise dangerous, life threatening situations without the audience being sent the message that they too should make mockery of the scenario. Even with writing structured around this premise, you cannot have the protagonist make condescending mockery of, say, antagonists or villains that in the context of this premise should be terrifying and frightening. And being a fish-out-of-water premise is not an excuse. When the protagonist treats the very premise as something of a joke, or an unbelievable set of events to make mockery of, the audience has no other choice than to feel the same way. It evokes an attitude of condescending apathy towards the game itself in all its form the setting, the characters, the premise, the motivators, the barriers, etc. ![]() ![]() The problem, reactionary or otherwise, with Forspoken's presentation is in the snark. The short version, and why in contrast Hi-Fi Rush works despite the comparison, is in the prose, intend, and delivery. Post-Cringe: Forspoken and the Self-Sabotage of the Smirking Protagonist​ Perhaps Forspoken gets better some several more hours into the game, but I wouldn't know and probably won't ever know. Meannwhile, Hi-Fi Rush starts out the gate with a dude smacking people with a guitar, bumping to music from his chest iPod, and generally just hamming it up in a really fun, colorful setting. When compared to her miserable real-life trappings, you would think she'd be thrilled to be in a fantasy world where she can shoot fucking fireballs, but nope. Worse is that despite being an apparent fan of "other world" stories like Alice in Wonderland, the character just seems miserable and hates her time there. ![]() There's occasional moments of brilliance like the nail polish magic system or the fact that she's traversing the world in sneakers, but there's not much else going on there. Outside of annoying quips, she doesn't get an opportunity to shine and own it and bring her modern sensibilities to this setting. My biggest problem with Forspoken is that it doesn't utilize its fish out of water protagonist well enough to contrast against its generic fantasy setting. Isekai has also blown the fuck up as a genre, so there's a lot of great examples that you can point to of an isekai done right with stronger characters and worlds. ![]() So in that regard the shadow drop did the game a lot of favors, but again, if preview media worked against Forspoken in that manner then I believe that's an advertising problem (or, if it's truly representative of what it's like, then simply a problem with the game's writing/story/setting). On that note, you could make the argument that the Hi-Fi trailer wasn't great and if it was given a year or more to ferment in people's minds before the game released then the preconceptions/biases against Hi-Fi Rush would've been a lot worse. If that isn't representative of the game then it's a failure of marketing as far as I'm concerned. The marketing I've seen for Forspoken pitched the game to me as a serious story with a quippy/snarky protagonist. His personality plays off the contrast to his friends (all of whom have a wealth of dialogue during gameplay). He embodies the 'loser kid with his heart in the right place that gradually endears himself to you' stereotype. Hi-Fi Rush doesn't take itself seriously 99% of the time, and Chai is frequently the punchline of the game's many jokes. The latter is a game written and designed around it's comedic slapstack / 'comic book' elements and the cheesy dialogue tonally fits the setting and story. I can't really speak for Forspoken because I've only seen trailers / a demo video / a few short videos post launch and I have no intention of playing the game at its current price point, but to me the writing/tone doesn't seem similar or even reasonably comparable to Hi-Fi Rush at all.
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