For me chai being a poser is a good thing because throughout the adventure he did things that were amazing and had some self discovery with his friends. And once the adventure is over he decides to actually learn to play the guitar as a way to show that he is truly serious about being a rockstar. I just wonder if peppermint made a 'how to play a guitar for dummies' for chai lol.
Something I didn't notice until pointed out is that Chai probably couldn't learn the guitar because of his disabled arm before getting a prosthetic. I guess that's why he wrote "future" rockstar, he was expecting to become one after getting a functional arm.
@@shub125 I think something admirable about Chai is that, in a weird way, he didn't let his disability affect his personality. Despite his disabled arm he was always cheery and peppy even at the start of the game. When Peppermint calls him out for being a slacker, even with his disabled arm it still hits him hard because he considered it a personal failing instead of blaming his disability. He probably knew that if he worked hard, he could've been successful in life even with his disabled arm. He's a college dropout without a job after all, and there have been plenty of disabled people who have been the opposite. So by the end of the story , yeah he has his new arm, but the growth of hard work was more important.
Hi-Fi rush is a good example at how "formulaic" storytelling doesn't have to be a bad thing. The story beats and characters are fairly trope-y and predictable, but never feel forced. the game knows what it is and doesn't try to hide it. It's a celebration of that PS2 era of gaming, while still keeping its own identity.
Korsica joining the crew was literally predicted by a friend of mine the second she popped on screen. The fun and interesting part then became how she joined the group.
One detail I want to bring up that was confirmed by the games director on twitter… Chai’s arm wasn’t broken. Chai had a disability that made his right arm unable to function properly. Aka, he was never able to learn how to play guitar on his own.
lol the irony is that forspoken tries so fucking hard to be about muh representation, whereas hi-fi rush does it infinitely better while being completely subtle with it. not to mention it's a freaking smaller game than forspoken, yet hi-fi rush displayed more fucking representation than flopspoken ever did.
Lil bit late but if you watch the opening again, there’s a quick scene when Chai has to let go of his music player, and he uses both hands to place it down.
Ohhhhhg That actually explains why he wanted to get thw robot arm That confused me alot cus I thought hed just let it heal or maybe he wanted to be some sorta cyborg rockstar Thats actually way cooler
Another difference is how they are both treated by the characters in their world. Everyone treats Chai like he is an idiot. Everyone treats Frey like she is the chosen savior. HiFi-Rush‘s story would be similarly criticized if Peppermint treated Chai like Frey is treated in Forspoken.
The difference is easy to see. Chai is just simply passionate. He has something that he likes and cares for a lot, which explains his thought process. Understanding a persons mentality and seeing them being passionate are inherently likable traits in people, even if the person is weird otherwise. When he speaks it’s clear that he tries to verbalize a weird and unfamiliar feeling, which again might be cheesy but it lets us understand his mentality and he is opening himself up socially, so that the audience can get as comfortable with him as a person as he is with us. While Frey has multiple problems. When he is in disbelief about what happened, she drags it out for way too long. We don’t see one or two “I can’t believe this” lines but more like four or five, which just drags the pacing and makes people think “I got it, move on!”. And then the very next thing is her just being full of herself and bragging to no one, however since we are the audience and hear her every word, it feels like she is addressing it to us, which makes her come of as an asshole. Made even worse by how dismissive of her magic armlet she is. The armlet is trying to be helpful and have her understand that they can only do this together and she immediately ignores him. This tells us that she is dismissive of constructive criticism, which is again immediately hatable.
Chai's dialogue isn't bad or cringe because *everyone* talks like that in the world. We have a walking talking JoJo pose, a WWE heel, the literal wolf of wallstreet and Handsome Jack but he takes himself seriously. It's not a world of grimy realism or dark fantasy, no one thinks or acts like it is.
@@marcusaaronliaogo9158 I don't find him cringe, honestly. He's honestly my favorite of the bosses. If I had to rank them in tiers, it'd be as follows: S Tier: Zanzo, Kale A Tier: Rekka, Korsica B Tier: Roquefort C Tier: Mimosa
@@LloydTheZephyrian I mean, the only people who call out his cringe are Peppermint and Kale, and to a lesser extent Macaron and CNMN. Peppermint and Macaron are the most normal people in the whole thing, and Kale just believed his hype too much.
@@frescopino7866 And Korsica. I think Rekka was just absolutely livid rather than calling him cringe, and Mimosa and Roquefort seem more frustrated with him for messing with them.
Basically, it comes down to self-awareness. Hi fi rush knows it's cringy and embraces this in the universe and video game, whereas Forsaken isn't aware of its cringiness and they try too hard to be cool and edgy.
@@linear1224 I think that's the main thing in the writing that makes hifi good. Velmas writing has other confounding factors that make it different from Hifi, the most relevant being that it seems to loathe its viewers. This doesn't necessarily make it more cringe (although that can be argued) but it just makes people who watch it more pissed off. The equivalent of that would be hifi turning around and calling gamers neckbeards the whole way through. While hifi does poke fun at video games sometimes, it's light hearted and not pervasive, compared to Velma that seems to bask in the hate.
Forspoken: Main character supposed to be "Relatable to Modern Audience" Hi Fi Rush: Main character supposed to be laughed at in the wacky world he lived in Simple as that lmao
What I wanna know is, when exactly did the aspect of “relatable to modern audience” come to mean “self-righteous asshole born on the wrong side of the bed”? One of the biggest draws for Chai as a character is that, at his worst, he’s just egotistical and overconfident. But that’s it. He’s not trying to act or sound smarter than he thinks he is, he doesn’t have to be a douchebag to be funny or charming, and he’s clearly out of his depth a lot of the time, but he’s still having an absolute blast. People wanna see characters not be insufferable, who knew~? XD
Chai's an idiot but he's not the butt of every joke either, he's simply likeable, the dude's having fun with his new powers, making friends, growing as a person...
I think a factor you didn't bring up is just the delivery of the lines from both characters from their VAs, chai's VA is way more experienced than Freya's
@@theempireeofficial3935 and has an absolute mountain of rolls under under his belt: Happy Chaos Goro Akechi Prompto Argentum River Ward Kayn Megumi Fushiguro and even the good old web head a few times and this is just scraping the surface of rolls he's had
hey all i wouldnt blame the actress at all if anything blame her agent, apparently she's been casted in *three* bad things in a row (i dont know the other one, but she was also in netflix's resident evil)
@@giloguy101 I never would've connected 3 of my favorite character voice deliveries (Goro Akechi, Prompto Argentum, and River Ward) as being the same person, I never even thought to look up the VA. That's fucking awesome, thanks for sharing!
"it's not cringey, it's cheesy" is such a good way to summarize it also i had to skip the forespoken clip because yikes couldnt handle the secondhand embarrassment
@@MasterMemo i definitely do NOT relate to chai but i find the entire cast endearing because the world of hi fi rush is similar to old children cartoons like kids next door so i think like... "relatable" is not really a good way to gauge what makes something likable
I honestly despise Chai’s dialogue in the tutorial for HFR. Until “anyone seen who did this”, all his dialogue just sounds… wrong. Maybe with the exception of the figuring the mechanics shot, though it makes him look really perceptive, and then he lacks that perceptiveness for rest of this half of the story. And let’s be honest, as cringe as the “figuring out the powers” dialogue in Forspoken is, it’s how any one of us would react at first. Though the actual delivery is sub-par.
The time when everyone goes "Wow main protagonist you're so cool and smart and confident and the best leader ever to save the world and beat the big bad" is a dream for Chai, explicitly called out by this obviously being not real, and then the twin peaks snapping and 808 dancing cementing it being a dream before he wakes up, caught, and apparently fell asleep multiple times. In Forspoken, the goodygoody saviour keeps going "I moved shit... with my mind!" or some such line, and repeats it. Not to mention, who the fuck talks like Frey? Frey is meant to be like a real person, but who the fuck would say that instead of "Holy shit I just did magic, that's magic, magic is real? What even was that thing, some fucked up bear?" not "I do magic, kill jacked up beasts" it's just such a disconnect. And the cuff doesn't even call her a socially stunted defect. And Chai's rundown feels more natural. Colloquially summarized, "Thing, pretty sure that's not correct. It's doing this, and it's making this happen... And it feels like I'm on a stage" and it leans into him being a 25yo wannabe rockstar who can't even play guitar, he has daydreams where he blacks out and imagines being on a stage. *And the robots look at him like he's an idiot.* He's abrasively stupid but matures with friends and roadblocks, whereas Frey keeps on doing marvel-tier dialog. Chai is an upbeat guy in an upbeat cartoon world. Frey is trying to be an MCU hero in a gritty dark fantasy world that wants to be taken seriously and edgy, but it's got this disconnect. Hell, the juxtaposition of upbeat world and sudden dark edginess was a JOKE with the room going dark and Peppermint giving Chai a *death* glare. And that was a one time gag, not a main facet where every time they needed a juxtaposition they did the same gimmick.
Also, by the end of the adventure Chai actually earns the right to be praised. Frey just is the best and apparently always has been. That's fine for a character like Superman, who's not meant to be relatable in the same way as a character like Frey should be.
@@TheBlackAntagonist True. I would like to add that superman works because he's a simple straightforward character. He's just a nice farmer dude with superpowers trying to do good, sometimes he success, sometimes he failed. Even when you don't relate to him you can at least understand him. If Clark is real I can easily imagine people getting along well with the guy. Same with Chai, he a simple yet charismatic dude with ambition. You can easily imagine a person like that in real life. The protagonist of Forspoken however, is just a mess of a human person. I can't imagine any real people would behave like her in real life despite her design and voice was literally taken from a real human. And if she was real, I cannot imagine anyone would even want to interact with her. She's just that bad.
@@tranngockha6562 You say mess, I say an amalgamation of all the people who unironically act/talk that way. She's a combination of all the worst kinds of people on the internet, save for the ones not on the political side of the obvious narrative's obvious political leanings. Not to bring that stuff into the convo. Meanwhile, Chai's not busy being relevant. He's just being himself and that in a way is relevant because no matter who you are, you could relate to it.
Hi-Fi Rush feels like something you would have seen back in the GameCube era, in fact it kind of reminds of a game I played back then from Capcom called Viewtiful Joe, Both having a cartoony cell shaded artstyle and the protagonist being a loveable dork. Forspoken by comparison looks and feels like every single big budget triple A game of the past decade. That's the main difference between these games, one of them has silly writing by design because it's setting up a general tone and the other has silly writing because it's trying to check every single box in a long list of tropes and cliches of market trends to sell as many copies as possible. ...Guess which game is which.
You're not wrong. Hi-Fi Rush is a massive throwback to stylized linear action games from the 2000s. And its success proves that the genre isn't outdated as long as the developers have a unique passion for making them.
Fun fact! Viewtiful Joe was made by Clover Studio, and one of the guys in that studio was Shinji Mikami, who was the executive producer for this game at Tango Softworks.
I think comparing those 2 clips is an excellent study of character. With context, how it's being delivered is also really important Forspoken char is even called out by the cuff because all of her statements are "I, I, I, I" when she actively has someone who is helping her and trying to engage with her. The only time the cuff is acknowledged in that scene is when he criticizes her and then she immediately ignores him again. Where as in hi-fi rush, he's internalizing the situation in his own head through his passion/wants, then we see how other people see him doing so and that further frames the character. We learn about both as characters, just one comes off as a bad person and the other comes off as a character
While not in the comparison I would also compare the Forspoken scene to Mega Man ZX when Vent/Aile gets Model X. In that scene they remark on what power they gained but never treat it as inherently their own until X tells them he's just giving a helping hand.
I think another main thing that makes Frey so unlikable is that we SEE her be nice in the first couple minutes after the court scene. She helps that lady by returning her phone. But when she's in the other world she's so hateful to everyone instead of just concerned because she wants to get back to Homer. And it's such tonal whiplash that it puts me off of her as a character and she never recovered except at the very end...
It's also weird characterization? It's suppose to show the player that Frey is more than just a thief, and is a nice person as she doesn't steal the phone, but at the same time, she's clearly desperate for cash and has been caught stealing multiple times? Like, that bag of cash clearly did not come about from Frey sticking around from the straight and narrow. So what's her deal? Is she strapped for cash or not? If she is strapped for cash, then what set this person apart from all the other times she's stolen? If I redid the scene, I would show her helping out someone similarly on the down and out like her, someone homeless or clearly struggling to make ends meet. Not randomly giving a stranger their phone back. It would show that even though Frey is acerbic and scathing to those she believes are well-off, she has compassion for those in similar situations as her. Which neatly sets up Frey's initial aloofness and single minded focus on getting back to her world when she initially sees this grand city and their inhabitants, and then her coming around to help them once she sees the actual danger and devastation the city goes through when attacked.
Great video! Though I want to say that the Director of the game confirmed that Chai's arm isn't just broken, he was disabled prior to the start of Hi-Fi Rush (he said that Chai doesn't have 'full functionality of his arm'). It makes Chai's character way more in depth without the use of any angsty dialogue, just implications which I think is cool!
Also take note how Chai is trying to piece together and figure out what's going on, and slowly gets more and more excited as he realizes that the situation is basically his dream coming true. While Frey is just repeating what we saw out loud in the most Joss Whedon way possible.
I think the same thing is happening with Frey and it's not inherently terrible; more diverse dialogue would have helped really sell her excitement. Her repeating the same phrase again and again unintentionally lets the line sit in the player's brain and they realize, "Wow, that wasn't a good line, and she's STILL saying it!" If she had said something like "This is incredible!" or "This is amazing!" or practically anything else, I don't think it would be considered as bad. It also doesn't help that the bracelet emphasizes that she sounds like a narcissist, which adds on to the player not liking her, but she's fine with being hyped about her powers.
Small correction: he went to the vandeley corporation for the arm. Project armstrong is the name of the project, where they treat dissabilities with prosthetics.
I also have not played either game, but I've seen a fair amount of clips of Hi-Fi Rush. Another important point to mention is the dialogue Chai says are clearly added with a point: 1. "Music player in my chest. I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to be there." - A quick recap of the past few minutes and also explains the source of Chai's Powers. 2. "It's powering up my new robot arm." - Explains the effect the power source has on Chai, and ultimately the player. 3. "It's making everything sync up to the beat" - Gives players a clue on how to 'unlock' the power. Most people probably go into Hi-Fi knowing its a rhythm game, but for those that decide to go in blind it would be useful 4. "... It feels like I'm on a stage!" - informs players what sort of headspace they should be in while playing, they're not just some action hero. They're ultimately a performer trying to entertain an audience.
It's also a great segue into the tutorial because "okay I think this is how my power works" leading into a voice in his head actively explaining it is a nice seamless way to do it
What's fantastic about Hi-fi Rush, is that the devs understood how to make a proper...huh, how the fuck am I going to call that- Character action game ? Style them up...? Just- Stylish Hack and Slash, let's call it that. Anyway, the devs knew that for a good Stylish Hack and Slash, you need a GOOD protagonist...and the protag of the game is perfect for that, he's fun, he's a poser, he's passionate what he's doing, and he's just an overall nice dude you'd want to hang out with. That's a good protagonist, so you're more inclined to have fun playing them in their wacky world...thing is to do that, you need to put passion in your work. Which Forspoken lacks of.
Chai, from the 30 seconds I've seen of him, has himbo/golden retriever energy: low on brains, high on loyalty. He seems like, with the right people surrounding him, he can learn to get wiser or smarter on how to reach his dream Frey might be a good person in idea, but the writing of her character is all over the place. On the one hand, she's grateful, or able to successfully pretend to be so, then she gets Isekai'd, and she reverts/becomes/wears down, and her dialogue becomes 100% snark with a side dash of How Do You Do Fellow Kids. And another thing: that money scene when her hideout is burning down is the most contrived scenario this side of a soap opera written by drunk squirrels
HiFi Rush dialogue: reminding you of those late 90s early 2000s protagonists who clearly were full of shit in the most amusing and endearing ways and you couldn't help just liking them Forspoken dialogue: reminding you how Zoomers and Millennials desperate to sound young talk on social media sites that restrict their ability to think to 280 characters
The main difference in character in my opinion is that Frey seems just forcefully dropped down in the plot and is needlessly sarcastic and bullheaded most of the time, whereas Chai genuinely loves life and how it throws lemons at him. He makes friends not because they need him to be relevant to the plot, but as a person that gives them new perspectives. He's generally just an overall fun guy to hang out with.
At the end, it comes down to the intent the devs had making the characters, having in mind the tone of the game. The tone of HFR is cartoonish, silly, wacky, and that's why Chai doesn't comes by as annoying. His personality matches the tone of the game as a protag. Forespoken's instead, hardly has a tone, imo. It feels the devs just wanted to make a fantasy game with a "cool, edgy" protag that could be "relatable."
Awesome writing analysis and writing tip! "Cringey vs Cheesy" will be on my mind now whenever I come across some dialogue that doesnt hit when I watch or write. Also you got all of these awesome videos and you just got a few views and subs? Time for me to binge!
Hi-Fi Rush is super charming and I couldnt put it down, it was super fun. It gives me old school action platformer vibes but has a ton of charm and polish. Great writing all already.
Part of what makes Hi Fi Rush's script so good is the talented actors, and voice directing behind it. While good acting cant always save a script it can bring out the best in it, Robbie Daymond (Chai's actor) is getting to be a pretty big name with a little over 10 years of experience, voicing some iconic characters and even winning a few awards for his work, the directors knew who to get, how to point them in the right direction and the actors did a great job The acting in Forspoken isnt bad, but its clear to me that the directors werent giving them enough to go off, and so the actors didnt give their lines the same kind of love and power and that brings out the worst in Forspoken's script A good example is how many slow dragged out "I cant believe this"' we get, the scene with Frey and the cuff is shorter yet it feels longer because the actors are dragging out their lines, their acting isnt bad but the directing and the script sure are. Chai is much more faced paced, the scene is longer but feels shorter with the camera cuts paired with the, much faster and more natural, line readings Im not sure if Im making sense, but good directing, and acting is just as important as a good script and Hi Fi Rush nails all three
I think it is hilarious how those clipped moments were the characters essentially doing the same thing, yet Chai is an endearing goof and Frey just sounds cringe.
The fact that even though Chai will be your big dreamer dumb MC like Fry from Futurama he's also kind and very perceptive of his team when he needs to be, not all the time but when it matters. When they got the 2nd to last key and are about to hunt down Kale everyone is nervous and Chai does a vibe check. Making sure Maccron takes deep breaths and talks to him about his worries and sees to the rest of the team like Pepermint's doubts and Korsia's what-ifs. I really liked that he didn't just give them one big speech off the bat to get them moving. He confided and checked on them treating his team as each person.
I think that the major difference between the writing is the sincerity behind the words. Especially with the meta humor. With Foresaken, it feels like kicking down at the genre it is in and has disdain against those who would enjoy it. The meta commentary that the Hi-Fi Rush characters take part in don't feel spiteful at all. They point out the weird things that are happening, but there is no ugly feelings behind those words. The game has fun with the players instead of making fun of them. That is the difference in vibes between the two games, I feel.
Ironically, Hi-Fi Rush isn't devoid of politics. (Spoiler Warning): Kale's motivation behind SPECTRA is driven by his malaise of trying to find new innovations to help the public like his mother. He would rather have the company invest in making the people mindless buying whatever he kicks out, no matter how useless or lazy it is. And in the midst of corporate takeover, well meaning people who keep the company running are either pushed or casted aside for those who are fueled by profits (Roquefort), vanity (Mimosa), or ego (JJBA fan boy). While Hi-Fi Rush put the story in a brighter, cartoony coat of paint, it's still an allegory for the corruption of big pharma as you mentioned. The writers, unlike Forspoken, weren't ham-fisted with the allegory to forget about the story and its characters.
Yeah I agree with you there, and I could've made that point better. Hi-Fi Rush does have politics in it, but the difference is that it handles it in the same way that FFX and MGS2 did. Like, no matter what political opinions people have, we can all agree that the CEO of a major corporation mind controlling people, the government controlling the flow of information on the internet, and a religion that controls it's people with an iron fist by using forbidden machines, are all bad things.
HiFi Rush also isn't particularly aggressive in its allegory. Yeah, the setup is there, but there's no ironclad obvious push to have you adopt a point of view that tracks 1-to-1 with an IRL political viewpoint. You are allowed to maintain your own point of view as you consider what the game has to offer politically, if you even decide to, because the game does not force you to jive with it's politics to enjoy it. If it makes you think, great, if not, have fun anyways because the game is never going to interrupt that and slap you out of your immersion just to remind you that SPECTRA is really just allegory for Exxon-Mobile or Tesla. Meanwhile, much of what people complain about in Forspoken can be directly attributed to the game's implicit politics. Frey is abrasive and rude to people who only help her, an unrepentant criminal, a shameless materialist despite being destitute, and simultaneously both victimized and empowered as is socially convenient, because this mirrors the IRL views on gender and racial politics that the staff were clearly interested in exploring; if you aren't interested in being a flaming cunt who shoplifts stuff she doesn't really need as a statement of black female empowerment, you won't fully enjoy Forspoken. It's that simple. Most people looking for an escape from politics in games are not looking to escape from politics within real life; we are perfectly capable of holding political opinions and are often highly receptive to fair and interesting political commentary. We just want an hour of the day where we are not being told what to think by ideological busybodies. Escaping from our shitty IRL politics into a more functional discourse can only really be ironic if you deliberately ignore the entire point of escapism as a behavior. CGeHD can't really be blamed for that level of bad faith.
The way I see it Chai never deny his childish and ignorant attitude while he himself always outgrown it and become a better person while Frey always reject other people concern because she is badass. That's a character development and Chai nails it, Frey however doesn't.
I think what I like about Hifi rush besides the amazing gameplay (which was hindered by xbox cloud gaming but that's a hardware issue, not a game issue) is that all the characters are natural. They aren't workshopped to death to play up some exaggeration of inclusion to the point of being exclusive to everyone. Everyone has a personality that might not be for everyone and that's what's perfect. Not every character has to be automatically liked or hated. This reminds me of the Ahsoka vs Rey debate and a certian quote I heard that I think can be applied here. (So replacing Ahsoka with Hifi and Rey with Forspoke) "Ahsoka is a female CHARACTER while Rey is a FEMALE character". The protagonist in Hifi is a character with certian traits while the other one is a bunch of traits connected to a character.
Part of what makes Chai work while Frey does not is not just how they act, but how the world they interact with responds to them. Chai is basically a cartoon character interacting with other equally cartoonish characters, so all of his snappy over the top one liners is met with equally fitting dialoug from characters who work of his personality well. Frey though feels like a quipy overly facetious character right out of the MCU, that's been dropped into the Lord of the Rings. Her dialoug feels bad because it feels out of place with the world she's been placed in. And yes i get thats the point as its basically an Isekai plot but when your character that's been transported is also a massive douche, the whole thing falls flat.
It's certainly not out of place in an isekai plot for the character to not immediately "fit in", but that should never be a hurdle to getting to "the interesting part" where they do. You can juxtapose a character's personality with the world around them without it feeling discordant within the story. Make them feel out of place in the _world_ and the setting, never the narrative.
@@michaelcheng9987 make them feel out of place in the new world though. When you start with a bad caricature of a real life person, there's no 'fish out of water' effect, because there was never any water for the fish to come out of. One of the main points of an Isekai is to ground your fictional world with the perspective of a regular human. Your main character can then act as a comedic straight man and foil all of the fantastical elements. When your 'regular human' is a skit character from Wildin' Out that nobody can connect with, you lose that right off the bat.
@@ultraman5168 But that's exactly what I'm talking about; Frey isn't a believable character, and so our investment in the isekai aspect of the plot cannot be established. My point was simply that the 'fish out of water' effect is what I see most isekai stories aim for, but that it's rarely to the detriment of the story itself. However with Forspoken, it *was* to its detriment because the character was just not realistic enough to drive that home. And because the protagonist isn't believable, this sense of "out of place"-ness is not directed at the character's relationship to the new fantastical otherworld, but to their relationship to the actual story they're in.
I difference is in aesthetic. Only looking at the cover, HiFi rush feels like a high energy game that meant to be Fun, Forspoken looks completely serious. Both are fine but Forspoken's dialogue clashes with its design.
Agreed here. I play mainly with Series X (and PS4 for exclusives) but a person looking in perspective is always good with no stupid console war bias involved.
This reminds me of the Devil May Cry vs DmC issue. DmC tried to be edgy and took itself way too seriously, whereas the Devil May Cry series leaned hard into its campy hamminess and never expected to be taken seriously by the player.
I think Hi Fi rush's overstylyzation makes a big difference. You kinda expect things to be way over the top the second you see the title screen. Forspoken looks too "realistic" to pull that kind of dialogue off without it being awkward. I mean imagine Skyrim like dialogue in Hi Fi rush, that would be awkward as hell as well because it just doesn't fit in there
I completely agree with your point but man your video is bad. 'Here's a clip of Frey being unlikable.' 'You see how unlikable she is? Yikes!' 'Now here's a clip of Chai being likable.' 'You see how likable he is? Damn!' 'Well thanks for watching. Bye' Bro, I could've pieced that one together myself. These videos are supposed to tell me shit about *why* things are the way they are and not just *observe* that they are the way they are.
Frey repeats the same sentence about one ability in a neutral background. Chai lists the different abilities he just discovered, with fun visuals of a list, starts daydreaming about being a rockstar. I'll say forspoken flaw is to take itself too seriously and fails to convey the excitement of the protagonist. Frey should've had a DMC3-type cutscene where she's having fun with her abilities, to really convey that feeling.
With Forspoken you could also compare this scene at 2:59 to Mega Man ZX when Vent/Aile gets Model X and how while in Forspoken Frey is drunk on power in Mega Man ZX Vent and Aile think of the ramifications of the obvious artifact that gave them the abilities they now hold.
God, I really need to get back into blasting through those MegaMan legacy collections. Cause they're pretty fun. I only beat the classic NES games and MegaMan Zero 1.
For me, the difference is how the games present these characters. Forspoken is like "Look! She said something nice! Applaud her or something!" Or "Oh no, she's in trouble! This is serious!" when is usually the complete opposite to us. The game is unaware of how we treat this. Hi-Fi Rush is aware Chai is just a small time troublemaker turned unlikely hero but even if they are a poser, they are likable straight out the gate by being dorkly charming. At least I can be happy for him getting a prosthetic to actually be able to play the guitar sometime! At least I can relate to their love for music since is hard to find somebody who doesn't. Heck, Chai at least attributes his newfound power to the prosthetic and MP3 player that was given to him while Frey just ignored Cuff altogether.
@@chakatRiversand never thought I'd find myself agreeing with a chakat but yeah bro, thems the breaks. Sorry, we don't make the rules, we just report on them.
Bro really said “I have access to 0.1% of all currently available video games and emulators for older games, on a machine that won’t receive any more releases after a certain, inevitable date” 😂 Console vs PC has always been a stupid argument lmao. PC just wins, straight up.
I watched a french let's play on forspoken and some walk-through in English. I feel that the dialogues were better in French, and it may be because of the VA, that had better delivery and sounded more into character in French (especially the gauntlet, I may be biased but I really like his French voice) and the translation might have made the dialogues sound better. It was still far from being perfect but at least it sounded less cringy.
The thing is with both of these games, is that Forspoken is forcing jokes and comedy in a setting that doesn’t fit it, while HI-FI Rush’s setting allows for more slapstick and humor since the setting is made for it
The battle between the two games shows the 2000's have truly given way to the 2010's and the 2020's In the really early 2000's Forspoken would've been given a free pass due to it's abundance of goth points and the edgy bird protagonist. High-Fi Rush would've failed back then because audiences would've hated; the cartoonyness, the bright colours and the fact that it's two "dead" genres in one (rhythm action and 3D platformer). But what do I know? I was born in the 1990's.
You mentioned how Forspoken was all about identity politics, and that brings up something I consider important. The good stories are more subtle about their messages. Or at least, they present them in an interesting way or with a good story and gameplay that we're willing to accept the heavy-handedness. Games like Forspoken, however, are as subtle as an anvil to the face. It's not about presenting us with a political message we may or may not agree with; it's about doing their best to shove their message in our faces and order us to agree with them. People instinctively don't like being forced to do something. The more someone tries to make us agree with them without giving an actually good reason, the more we're likely to turn away from them.
Exactly. I was watching Chris Rock's last Comedy special on Netflix a few months ago, and even though I don't agree with some of his politics I was laughing my ass off because of how he cleverly setup his jokes. If you're able to present something in an interesting way then it doesn't matter if you necessarily agree with the message or not. Unfortunately Forspoken is cliche.
2:21 its not that games shouldnt have a political message, theres a difference between a game exploring a political theme, like metal gear, bioshock, call of duty or more recently atomic heart, and another thing is the creators thinking their way of thinking is better and shoving their beliefs down your throat, theres a diference between exploring political topics and just plainly puting a line of dialogue telling you "this is how you should think"
I think part of this is how the visuals help cement the tone. Hi Fi Rush being cartoonish in style and premise is only enhanced with the corny dialogue, given every opportunity to let its writing and gags play off that atmosphere. Forspoken by comparison, while I hardly know anything about it (it doesn’t appeal to me and I've never seen a single trailer) is a hyper realistic styled fantasy game, and that is about the last place I expect an idiot protagonist that shouts cringy or corny lines. Even for an Isekai premise, the artstyle is everything towards establishing tone.
4:29 thats the key of Chai the world doesnt bend over to forgive Chai cringiness, robots constantly eye roll at his behavior and Peppermint calls him out the frist time they meet each other. Chai comes across as loveable because he keeps his antics without caring how dumb it looks to other but is able to recognize when he fucks up. Contrast the "I did this and that" scene in forrespoken where she talk over her companion with how silently awkward Chai becomes when Peppermint calls him out for not playing a guitar, depsite calling himself a rockstar, and only being able to escape thanks to her guidance. At same time Peppermint doesnt go overboard to make herself look unlikeable she just does enought to ground Chai to the ground. Also like other mention, Chais antics dont clash with the tone of the world where the WWE heel is in charge of the robotic upgrades.
I've tried forspoken and it's not bad imo, but majority speaks for it I guess. I may have bad taste, but hey, at least there's something I can enjoy while others won't 😅
I didn't like the story or the dialogue, but from what I hear the gameplay is totally okay. Since Steam Proton 8.0 allows Forspoken to be playable on Linux, I might play through the game just to see what the gameplay is like.
The reason for me on why politics works is because it only revolves around the story's world and we get to explore what goes on in there. The problem with how it doesn't, politics are played trying to be reflective to the real world.
I think the reason Chai's dialogue is so funny is because people call him out on it. He looks and acts like a dumb asshole, but he isn't put on a pedestal and made to look cool.
Forespoken's story is supposed to take on a serious tone with the tragic backstory and whatnot which is why it makes no sense for Freye to always be joking. Hi Fi Rush knows that it's silly and embraces it with a character like Chai. One takes the player out of the world and the other fits right in it.
I initially dislike Chai because he is quite ignorant & cocky, but then oh boi, i did not expect a goofy cartoon game has put in so much effort in character development
Chai reminds people of Soka and the dragon prince. Forspoken reminds people of Velma... Me I just just lament the supporting irish lass and british butler don't get more voice lines.
i feel like im the only one who likes what ive seen from both of these games ngl not that ive been able to play either but id probs buy hi fi rush for the design cause it reminds me of how popular cellshaded games use to be
I’m not sure if chai is a doofus because of the gameplay making you feel like one at first, or the gameplay was centered around his personality, but personally I think it’s a great decision.
If they gave Frey a personality people might have resonated with more but they gave her "everyman" personality making her feel super unrealistic for the story they tried to tell
Hi fi rush is invested in its universe. It cares about the story it's trying to tell. Forspoken is too cynical to be invested in its narrative or its meta narrative for that matter.
Agree. Frey feels more like a walking checkbox and a political statement rather than a character that you can relate to. She's mean, unlikable, and an asshole because that's how modern writers think what a strong woman is supposed to be in this age.
She's very capital 'B' ideologically Black; rude, arrogant, self-centered, an unrepentant criminal, obsessed with materialist kitsch despite ostensibly being destitute. Being polite, responsible, and unironically kind are hallmarks of White Supremacy to these people. Expecting them to not act like stereotypical hoodlums is racist.
@@CollectedG ua-cam.com/video/TW91Lncqrwk/v-deo.html Look at this god damn bad take they are trying so hard to defend a game thats not even worth their time
"female lead" "rebel chick" "girlboss" Man, I totally agree with your video but why do you have to sound like if the only woman on your life was your mom 💀
I mean I disagree, Hi Fi rush is 1000% an anti capitalism story. The difference is Hi Fi Rush is cheesy while Forspoken is cringe. Theres a difference. Cheese can be endearing, Cringe cannot. Which I am aware you point out in the video but yeah. Thats the core tenat. Cheese vs cringe.
Ehh. Idk. From what you showcased, Chai still sounds cringey to me despite the setting and tone. However that's probably because I don't really enjoy dumb plucky characters in general, but especially not as primary protagonists.
"I don't need to play the game to make a fair assessment" - disagree there, even if I agree that forspoken is hot garbage and hifi rush is GOTY, you should play a game first to have a legitimate opinion on it
1:00 I never said that Forspoken was hot garbage, just the story, characters, and dialogue which you don't need to buy the game in order to experience. But since the steam spring sale is happening rn, I went ahead and bought Forspoken. I actually beat Hi-Fi Rush a few weeks ago and it's my personal goty so far. I guess I'll find out how the gameplay of Forspoken is soon.
@@chrispeacock915 you dont need to play a game to judge its story and dialogue, in that regard you get the same experience watching cutscenes and walkthroughs, I get that hearing dialogue while playing is a different experience than watching a video but still, you don't need to actually play the game to hear the dialogue and watch the story.
@@ginogatash4030 dialogue and story may as well make up half the game, sure it can be consumed second hand but it's not the same as when you're actually in the moment. It's a much more narrow (sometimes even biased) view of the picture if you haven't played it yourself
Oh! Despite Forspoken being cringey and stuff, complaining about identity politics vs politics just does sound like "women bad." Even if this video has a point, it's hard to get past that general vibe. Also Vandalay absolutely is a criticism of capitalism, and other company stuff. It's not even subtle
Trust me, I'm not one of those "women bad" people. I like female protagonists in video games as much as I do male ones. As long as they're both written well. As for the second part of your comment, I could've explained that better. I was trying to say that nothing in the plot of Hi-Fi Rush was trying to be pretentious. Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X had political undertones in it, but it wasn't beating you over the head with it's message like Forspoken was.
The only way you could gather that from this incredibly mild take is if any criticism of current year female portrayal just sounds like 'women bad' to you. Most people are actually pretty sick of the most blatantly shitty examples, it's a fully mainstream sentiment. Hi-Fi Rush's take on business isn't particularly pointed either. They obviously want you to think about the idea of corruption in business but it's a far cry from Das Kapital. Free business is still portrayed as essential to peoples' lives. It's not anyone's political cudgel.
@@CollectedG I think you messed up by going into that rant without even showing any evidence to showcase how the game's political undertones, while also missing the obvious critique of tech corporations like Apple, that while it's played for laughs, still isn't particularly subtle. I also genuinely haven't seen much politics in Forespoken, at least from my admittedly limited 2nd hand experience of it, like it's pretty much your standard MCU wannabe story mixed with Dark Souls wannabe esthetics, it would've helped clearing up your point if you showed examples of the story's political undertones. Not to mention that you can't really make politics neutral, people will always find issues with ideas they fundamentally disaprove of, or even go out of their way to extrapolate politics they disaprove of whete there isn't any actual intent to make something political, or even twisting something that's pretty clearly portraying their ideology negatively into somehow being supportive of it, what matters is that whatever you do works with the story instead of being an awkward add on that doesn't really contribute to the themes of the story, and that you trust the audience enough to pick up on what your message is without needing to spoon-feed it to them, cause even the most uncontroversial statements can get annoying when executed horribly.
For me chai being a poser is a good thing because throughout the adventure he did things that were amazing and had some self discovery with his friends. And once the adventure is over he decides to actually learn to play the guitar as a way to show that he is truly serious about being a rockstar. I just wonder if peppermint made a 'how to play a guitar for dummies' for chai lol.
Something I didn't notice until pointed out is that Chai probably couldn't learn the guitar because of his disabled arm before getting a prosthetic. I guess that's why he wrote "future" rockstar, he was expecting to become one after getting a functional arm.
@@night1952 that makes a lot of sense too :) i thought he faked it just to get a robot arm
The man also has music sheets near his sofa
@@shub125
I think something admirable about Chai is that, in a weird way, he didn't let his disability affect his personality.
Despite his disabled arm he was always cheery and peppy even at the start of the game. When Peppermint calls him out for being a slacker, even with his disabled arm it still hits him hard because he considered it a personal failing instead of blaming his disability. He probably knew that if he worked hard, he could've been successful in life even with his disabled arm. He's a college dropout without a job after all, and there have been plenty of disabled people who have been the opposite.
So by the end of the story , yeah he has his new arm, but the growth of hard work was more important.
@@ES21007 true
Hi-Fi rush is a good example at how "formulaic" storytelling doesn't have to be a bad thing. The story beats and characters are fairly trope-y and predictable, but never feel forced. the game knows what it is and doesn't try to hide it. It's a celebration of that PS2 era of gaming, while still keeping its own identity.
Korsica joining the crew was literally predicted by a friend of mine the second she popped on screen. The fun and interesting part then became how she joined the group.
As TVTropes reminds us....Tropes are not good or bad, they're tools. And honestly they're tropes because they work so well.
Honestly it subverted or transformed enough tropes to be original.
@@kokirij0167 “We literally revived her”
One detail I want to bring up that was confirmed by the games director on twitter…
Chai’s arm wasn’t broken.
Chai had a disability that made his right arm unable to function properly.
Aka, he was never able to learn how to play guitar on his own.
lol the irony is that forspoken tries so fucking hard to be about muh representation, whereas hi-fi rush does it infinitely better while being completely subtle with it. not to mention it's a freaking smaller game than forspoken, yet hi-fi rush displayed more fucking representation than flopspoken ever did.
That makes way more sense. Thank you for the context
Lil bit late but if you watch the opening again, there’s a quick scene when Chai has to let go of his music player, and he uses both hands to place it down.
@@hyperblue3137 Yes.
I said "function properly"
I never said it didn't "work"
The director confirmed this.
Ohhhhhg
That actually explains why he wanted to get thw robot arm
That confused me alot cus I thought hed just let it heal or maybe he wanted to be some sorta cyborg rockstar
Thats actually way cooler
Another difference is how they are both treated by the characters in their world.
Everyone treats Chai like he is an idiot.
Everyone treats Frey like she is the chosen savior.
HiFi-Rush‘s story would be similarly criticized if Peppermint treated Chai like Frey is treated in Forspoken.
Or treated like in his dreams, hell even in his dreams we learn he is masking his self-doubt and insecurities.
If you want both, play MediEvil. The citizens treat Daniel like the chosen one while the knights constantly take the piss out of him.
I mean you can be an idiot and the chosen savior
@@MasterMemo yeah it's just been done to death and back from being rezed as a zombie and killed again.
I mean there's a gag about this coupled with a twin peaks reference
The difference is easy to see.
Chai is just simply passionate.
He has something that he likes and cares for a lot, which explains his thought process.
Understanding a persons mentality and seeing them being passionate are inherently likable traits in people, even if the person is weird otherwise.
When he speaks it’s clear that he tries to verbalize a weird and unfamiliar feeling, which again might be cheesy but it lets us understand his mentality and he is opening himself up socially, so that the audience can get as comfortable with him as a person as he is with us.
While Frey has multiple problems.
When he is in disbelief about what happened, she drags it out for way too long.
We don’t see one or two “I can’t believe this” lines but more like four or five, which just drags the pacing and makes people think “I got it, move on!”.
And then the very next thing is her just being full of herself and bragging to no one, however since we are the audience and hear her every word, it feels like she is addressing it to us, which makes her come of as an asshole.
Made even worse by how dismissive of her magic armlet she is.
The armlet is trying to be helpful and have her understand that they can only do this together and she immediately ignores him.
This tells us that she is dismissive of constructive criticism, which is again immediately hatable.
spoilers, but the cuff turns into a villain at the end, because who wouldn't when you have to deal with a person like frey,
Chai's dialogue isn't bad or cringe because *everyone* talks like that in the world.
We have a walking talking JoJo pose, a WWE heel, the literal wolf of wallstreet and Handsome Jack but he takes himself seriously. It's not a world of grimy realism or dark fantasy, no one thinks or acts like it is.
I wouldn't say that because everyone typically cringes at Chai rather than everyone being weird.
@@LloydTheZephyrian Ye, but nobody could out cringe zanzo.
@@marcusaaronliaogo9158 I don't find him cringe, honestly. He's honestly my favorite of the bosses. If I had to rank them in tiers, it'd be as follows:
S Tier: Zanzo, Kale
A Tier: Rekka, Korsica
B Tier: Roquefort
C Tier: Mimosa
@@LloydTheZephyrian I mean, the only people who call out his cringe are Peppermint and Kale, and to a lesser extent Macaron and CNMN. Peppermint and Macaron are the most normal people in the whole thing, and Kale just believed his hype too much.
@@frescopino7866 And Korsica. I think Rekka was just absolutely livid rather than calling him cringe, and Mimosa and Roquefort seem more frustrated with him for messing with them.
Basically, it comes down to self-awareness. Hi fi rush knows it's cringy and embraces this in the universe and video game, whereas Forsaken isn't aware of its cringiness and they try too hard to be cool and edgy.
Yea you don't need a 7 minute video to say this.
Exaclty,Hi fi rush doesn't try to be serious,the game embrace that cartoon personality in every single way.
Yeah but if that's all it needed to do, be self-aware then we would just have Velma but as a video game.
@@hero3bash sure, but, content :]
@@linear1224 I think that's the main thing in the writing that makes hifi good.
Velmas writing has other confounding factors that make it different from Hifi, the most relevant being that it seems to loathe its viewers. This doesn't necessarily make it more cringe (although that can be argued) but it just makes people who watch it more pissed off.
The equivalent of that would be hifi turning around and calling gamers neckbeards the whole way through. While hifi does poke fun at video games sometimes, it's light hearted and not pervasive, compared to Velma that seems to bask in the hate.
Forspoken: Main character supposed to be "Relatable to Modern Audience"
Hi Fi Rush: Main character supposed to be laughed at in the wacky world he lived in
Simple as that lmao
What I wanna know is, when exactly did the aspect of “relatable to modern audience” come to mean “self-righteous asshole born on the wrong side of the bed”? One of the biggest draws for Chai as a character is that, at his worst, he’s just egotistical and overconfident. But that’s it. He’s not trying to act or sound smarter than he thinks he is, he doesn’t have to be a douchebag to be funny or charming, and he’s clearly out of his depth a lot of the time, but he’s still having an absolute blast. People wanna see characters not be insufferable, who knew~? XD
Chai's an idiot but he's not the butt of every joke either, he's simply likeable, the dude's having fun with his new powers, making friends, growing as a person...
@@night1952 i dont think he is very likeable
@@jameztheartist3893 that's valid but it's better than being terribly written
@@tde4438 Hollywood
Look at Star Wars new trilogy and Monster Hunter Movie main character
Look at She Hulk and Velma show
I think a factor you didn't bring up is just the delivery of the lines from both characters from their VAs, chai's VA is way more experienced than Freya's
Robbie Daymond apparently has in active since in 1995 according to Wikipedia.
@@theempireeofficial3935 and has an absolute mountain of rolls under under his belt:
Happy Chaos
Goro Akechi
Prompto Argentum
River Ward
Kayn
Megumi Fushiguro
and even the good old web head a few times
and this is just scraping the surface of rolls he's had
@@giloguy101Hubert from Fire Emblem Three Houses
Alan Sylvasta from BNA
hey all i wouldnt blame the actress at all
if anything blame her agent, apparently she's been casted in *three* bad things in a row (i dont know the other one, but she was also in netflix's resident evil)
@@giloguy101 I never would've connected 3 of my favorite character voice deliveries (Goro Akechi, Prompto Argentum, and River Ward) as being the same person, I never even thought to look up the VA. That's fucking awesome, thanks for sharing!
"it's not cringey, it's cheesy" is such a good way to summarize it
also i had to skip the forespoken clip because yikes couldnt handle the secondhand embarrassment
i only watched few clips and stuff, but i feel more connected with Homer the cat then with protagonist
The difference between cringey and cheesy is just how much you personally relate to it.
@@MasterMemo i definitely do NOT relate to chai but i find the entire cast endearing because the world of hi fi rush is similar to old children cartoons like kids next door
so i think like... "relatable" is not really a good way to gauge what makes something likable
I honestly despise Chai’s dialogue in the tutorial for HFR. Until “anyone seen who did this”, all his dialogue just sounds… wrong. Maybe with the exception of the figuring the mechanics shot, though it makes him look really perceptive, and then he lacks that perceptiveness for rest of this half of the story.
And let’s be honest, as cringe as the “figuring out the powers” dialogue in Forspoken is, it’s how any one of us would react at first. Though the actual delivery is sub-par.
@@emberthecatgirl8796 yeah I figure bad delivery at this point is a direction issue.
The time when everyone goes "Wow main protagonist you're so cool and smart and confident and the best leader ever to save the world and beat the big bad" is a dream for Chai, explicitly called out by this obviously being not real, and then the twin peaks snapping and 808 dancing cementing it being a dream before he wakes up, caught, and apparently fell asleep multiple times.
In Forspoken, the goodygoody saviour keeps going "I moved shit... with my mind!" or some such line, and repeats it. Not to mention, who the fuck talks like Frey? Frey is meant to be like a real person, but who the fuck would say that instead of "Holy shit I just did magic, that's magic, magic is real? What even was that thing, some fucked up bear?" not "I do magic, kill jacked up beasts" it's just such a disconnect. And the cuff doesn't even call her a socially stunted defect.
And Chai's rundown feels more natural. Colloquially summarized, "Thing, pretty sure that's not correct. It's doing this, and it's making this happen... And it feels like I'm on a stage" and it leans into him being a 25yo wannabe rockstar who can't even play guitar, he has daydreams where he blacks out and imagines being on a stage. *And the robots look at him like he's an idiot.* He's abrasively stupid but matures with friends and roadblocks, whereas Frey keeps on doing marvel-tier dialog.
Chai is an upbeat guy in an upbeat cartoon world. Frey is trying to be an MCU hero in a gritty dark fantasy world that wants to be taken seriously and edgy, but it's got this disconnect.
Hell, the juxtaposition of upbeat world and sudden dark edginess was a JOKE with the room going dark and Peppermint giving Chai a *death* glare. And that was a one time gag, not a main facet where every time they needed a juxtaposition they did the same gimmick.
Also, by the end of the adventure Chai actually earns the right to be praised.
Frey just is the best and apparently always has been. That's fine for a character like Superman, who's not meant to be relatable in the same way as a character like Frey should be.
@@TheBlackAntagonist True.
I would like to add that superman works because he's a simple straightforward character. He's just a nice farmer dude with superpowers trying to do good, sometimes he success, sometimes he failed. Even when you don't relate to him you can at least understand him. If Clark is real I can easily imagine people getting along well with the guy.
Same with Chai, he a simple yet charismatic dude with ambition. You can easily imagine a person like that in real life.
The protagonist of Forspoken however, is just a mess of a human person. I can't imagine any real people would behave like her in real life despite her design and voice was literally taken from a real human. And if she was real, I cannot imagine anyone would even want to interact with her. She's just that bad.
@@tranngockha6562 You say mess, I say an amalgamation of all the people who unironically act/talk that way. She's a combination of all the worst kinds of people on the internet, save for the ones not on the political side of the obvious narrative's obvious political leanings. Not to bring that stuff into the convo.
Meanwhile, Chai's not busy being relevant. He's just being himself and that in a way is relevant because no matter who you are, you could relate to it.
Hi-Fi Rush feels like something you would have seen back in the GameCube era, in fact it kind of reminds of a game I played back then from Capcom called Viewtiful Joe, Both having a cartoony cell shaded artstyle and the protagonist being a loveable dork.
Forspoken by comparison looks and feels like every single big budget triple A game of the past decade.
That's the main difference between these games, one of them has silly writing by design because it's setting up a general tone and the other has silly writing because it's trying to check every single box in a long list of tropes and cliches of market trends to sell as many copies as possible.
...Guess which game is which.
You're not wrong. Hi-Fi Rush is a massive throwback to stylized linear action games from the 2000s. And its success proves that the genre isn't outdated as long as the developers have a unique passion for making them.
Fun fact! Viewtiful Joe was made by Clover Studio, and one of the guys in that studio was Shinji Mikami, who was the executive producer for this game at Tango Softworks.
It's God Hand spiritual successor in the jokes and cartoony feelings in the game.
I think comparing those 2 clips is an excellent study of character. With context, how it's being delivered is also really important
Forspoken char is even called out by the cuff because all of her statements are "I, I, I, I" when she actively has someone who is helping her and trying to engage with her. The only time the cuff is acknowledged in that scene is when he criticizes her and then she immediately ignores him again.
Where as in hi-fi rush, he's internalizing the situation in his own head through his passion/wants, then we see how other people see him doing so and that further frames the character.
We learn about both as characters, just one comes off as a bad person and the other comes off as a character
While not in the comparison I would also compare the Forspoken scene to Mega Man ZX when Vent/Aile gets Model X. In that scene they remark on what power they gained but never treat it as inherently their own until X tells them he's just giving a helping hand.
I think another main thing that makes Frey so unlikable is that we SEE her be nice in the first couple minutes after the court scene. She helps that lady by returning her phone. But when she's in the other world she's so hateful to everyone instead of just concerned because she wants to get back to Homer. And it's such tonal whiplash that it puts me off of her as a character and she never recovered except at the very end...
It's also weird characterization? It's suppose to show the player that Frey is more than just a thief, and is a nice person as she doesn't steal the phone, but at the same time, she's clearly desperate for cash and has been caught stealing multiple times? Like, that bag of cash clearly did not come about from Frey sticking around from the straight and narrow. So what's her deal? Is she strapped for cash or not? If she is strapped for cash, then what set this person apart from all the other times she's stolen?
If I redid the scene, I would show her helping out someone similarly on the down and out like her, someone homeless or clearly struggling to make ends meet. Not randomly giving a stranger their phone back. It would show that even though Frey is acerbic and scathing to those she believes are well-off, she has compassion for those in similar situations as her. Which neatly sets up Frey's initial aloofness and single minded focus on getting back to her world when she initially sees this grand city and their inhabitants, and then her coming around to help them once she sees the actual danger and devastation the city goes through when attacked.
Great video! Though I want to say that the Director of the game confirmed that Chai's arm isn't just broken, he was disabled prior to the start of Hi-Fi Rush (he said that Chai doesn't have 'full functionality of his arm'). It makes Chai's character way more in depth without the use of any angsty dialogue, just implications which I think is cool!
Also take note how Chai is trying to piece together and figure out what's going on, and slowly gets more and more excited as he realizes that the situation is basically his dream coming true. While Frey is just repeating what we saw out loud in the most Joss Whedon way possible.
I think the same thing is happening with Frey and it's not inherently terrible; more diverse dialogue would have helped really sell her excitement. Her repeating the same phrase again and again unintentionally lets the line sit in the player's brain and they realize, "Wow, that wasn't a good line, and she's STILL saying it!" If she had said something like "This is incredible!" or "This is amazing!" or practically anything else, I don't think it would be considered as bad. It also doesn't help that the bracelet emphasizes that she sounds like a narcissist, which adds on to the player not liking her, but she's fine with being hyped about her powers.
Small correction: he went to the vandeley corporation for the arm. Project armstrong is the name of the project, where they treat dissabilities with prosthetics.
I also have not played either game, but I've seen a fair amount of clips of Hi-Fi Rush. Another important point to mention is the dialogue Chai says are clearly added with a point:
1. "Music player in my chest. I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to be there." - A quick recap of the past few minutes and also explains the source of Chai's Powers.
2. "It's powering up my new robot arm." - Explains the effect the power source has on Chai, and ultimately the player.
3. "It's making everything sync up to the beat" - Gives players a clue on how to 'unlock' the power. Most people probably go into Hi-Fi knowing its a rhythm game, but for those that decide to go in blind it would be useful
4. "... It feels like I'm on a stage!" - informs players what sort of headspace they should be in while playing, they're not just some action hero. They're ultimately a performer trying to entertain an audience.
It's also a great segue into the tutorial because "okay I think this is how my power works" leading into a voice in his head actively explaining it is a nice seamless way to do it
I can’t express how beautiful Hi Fi Rush is and how Chai was developed so damn well just in a span of 8 hours (or 12 if you are really bad like me).
Lol it took me 12ish hours to beat it too. I hope it gets a sequel cause there's so many things they could do with the rythym mechanics.
i heard someone beating the game in 15hours... i dont know if he's on hard mode tho so... probably?
What's fantastic about Hi-fi Rush, is that the devs understood how to make a proper...huh, how the fuck am I going to call that- Character action game ? Style them up...? Just- Stylish Hack and Slash, let's call it that.
Anyway, the devs knew that for a good Stylish Hack and Slash, you need a GOOD protagonist...and the protag of the game is perfect for that, he's fun, he's a poser, he's passionate what he's doing, and he's just an overall nice dude you'd want to hang out with.
That's a good protagonist, so you're more inclined to have fun playing them in their wacky world...thing is to do that, you need to put passion in your work.
Which Forspoken lacks of.
Dude, it's a Spectacle Fighter.
Chai, from the 30 seconds I've seen of him, has himbo/golden retriever energy: low on brains, high on loyalty. He seems like, with the right people surrounding him, he can learn to get wiser or smarter on how to reach his dream
Frey might be a good person in idea, but the writing of her character is all over the place. On the one hand, she's grateful, or able to successfully pretend to be so, then she gets Isekai'd, and she reverts/becomes/wears down, and her dialogue becomes 100% snark with a side dash of How Do You Do Fellow Kids.
And another thing: that money scene when her hideout is burning down is the most contrived scenario this side of a soap opera written by drunk squirrels
HiFi Rush dialogue: reminding you of those late 90s early 2000s protagonists who clearly were full of shit in the most amusing and endearing ways and you couldn't help just liking them
Forspoken dialogue: reminding you how Zoomers and Millennials desperate to sound young talk on social media sites that restrict their ability to think to 280 characters
It has Jojo's References... For me is an automatic GOTY
Same. I'm about 8 hours in so far and it's a masterpiece imo.
It’s gonna get dogged on by RE4 Remake.
@@kansplixtzz1384 hey, it’s still fun nonetheless
@@kansplixtzz1384 dont think so.
@@SeaNBlack It will, Resident Evil 4 is one of the best games to ever exist. The remake is improving upon the original.
The main difference in character in my opinion is that Frey seems just forcefully dropped down in the plot and is needlessly sarcastic and bullheaded most of the time, whereas Chai genuinely loves life and how it throws lemons at him. He makes friends not because they need him to be relevant to the plot, but as a person that gives them new perspectives. He's generally just an overall fun guy to hang out with.
At the end, it comes down to the intent the devs had making the characters, having in mind the tone of the game.
The tone of HFR is cartoonish, silly, wacky, and that's why Chai doesn't comes by as annoying. His personality matches the tone of the game as a protag.
Forespoken's instead, hardly has a tone, imo. It feels the devs just wanted to make a fantasy game with a "cool, edgy" protag that could be "relatable."
Awesome writing analysis and writing tip! "Cringey vs Cheesy" will be on my mind now whenever I come across some dialogue that doesnt hit when I watch or write.
Also you got all of these awesome videos and you just got a few views and subs? Time for me to binge!
Chai is wholesome while Frey shoehorns f*ck into her dialogue as much as possible.
Hi-Fi Rush is super charming and I couldnt put it down, it was super fun. It gives me old school action platformer vibes but has a ton of charm and polish. Great writing all already.
Same here. I beat it like a week or 2 after it came out because it was so fun. It's my goty so far.
@@CollectedG definitely a gem! Great video!
@@kyledabearsfan tysm
Part of what makes Hi Fi Rush's script so good is the talented actors, and voice directing behind it. While good acting cant always save a script it can bring out the best in it, Robbie Daymond (Chai's actor) is getting to be a pretty big name with a little over 10 years of experience, voicing some iconic characters and even winning a few awards for his work, the directors knew who to get, how to point them in the right direction and the actors did a great job
The acting in Forspoken isnt bad, but its clear to me that the directors werent giving them enough to go off, and so the actors didnt give their lines the same kind of love and power and that brings out the worst in Forspoken's script
A good example is how many slow dragged out "I cant believe this"' we get, the scene with Frey and the cuff is shorter yet it feels longer because the actors are dragging out their lines, their acting isnt bad but the directing and the script sure are. Chai is much more faced paced, the scene is longer but feels shorter with the camera cuts paired with the, much faster and more natural, line readings
Im not sure if Im making sense, but good directing, and acting is just as important as a good script and Hi Fi Rush nails all three
I think the difference is you're not expected to take Hi-Fi Rush seriously meanwhile Forspoken expects you to.
I just destroyed a game studio WITH MY MIND
Love that meme
I think it is hilarious how those clipped moments were the characters essentially doing the same thing, yet Chai is an endearing goof and Frey just sounds cringe.
mhm, it's all about how the world treats the character. Chai is treated like the idiot he is, while Frey is treated like a hero
The fact that even though Chai will be your big dreamer dumb MC like Fry from Futurama he's also kind and very perceptive of his team when he needs to be, not all the time but when it matters. When they got the 2nd to last key and are about to hunt down Kale everyone is nervous and Chai does a vibe check.
Making sure Maccron takes deep breaths and talks to him about his worries and sees to the rest of the team like Pepermint's doubts and Korsia's what-ifs.
I really liked that he didn't just give them one big speech off the bat to get them moving. He confided and checked on them treating his team as each person.
I think that the major difference between the writing is the sincerity behind the words. Especially with the meta humor. With Foresaken, it feels like kicking down at the genre it is in and has disdain against those who would enjoy it. The meta commentary that the Hi-Fi Rush characters take part in don't feel spiteful at all. They point out the weird things that are happening, but there is no ugly feelings behind those words.
The game has fun with the players instead of making fun of them. That is the difference in vibes between the two games, I feel.
Ironically, Hi-Fi Rush isn't devoid of politics. (Spoiler Warning):
Kale's motivation behind SPECTRA is driven by his malaise of trying to find new innovations to help the public like his mother. He would rather have the company invest in making the people mindless buying whatever he kicks out, no matter how useless or lazy it is. And in the midst of corporate takeover, well meaning people who keep the company running are either pushed or casted aside for those who are fueled by profits (Roquefort), vanity (Mimosa), or ego (JJBA fan boy).
While Hi-Fi Rush put the story in a brighter, cartoony coat of paint, it's still an allegory for the corruption of big pharma as you mentioned. The writers, unlike Forspoken, weren't ham-fisted with the allegory to forget about the story and its characters.
Yeah I agree with you there, and I could've made that point better. Hi-Fi Rush does have politics in it, but the difference is that it handles it in the same way that FFX and MGS2 did.
Like, no matter what political opinions people have, we can all agree that the CEO of a major corporation mind controlling people, the government controlling the flow of information on the internet, and a religion that controls it's people with an iron fist by using forbidden machines, are all bad things.
HiFi Rush also isn't particularly aggressive in its allegory. Yeah, the setup is there, but there's no ironclad obvious push to have you adopt a point of view that tracks 1-to-1 with an IRL political viewpoint. You are allowed to maintain your own point of view as you consider what the game has to offer politically, if you even decide to, because the game does not force you to jive with it's politics to enjoy it. If it makes you think, great, if not, have fun anyways because the game is never going to interrupt that and slap you out of your immersion just to remind you that SPECTRA is really just allegory for Exxon-Mobile or Tesla.
Meanwhile, much of what people complain about in Forspoken can be directly attributed to the game's implicit politics. Frey is abrasive and rude to people who only help her, an unrepentant criminal, a shameless materialist despite being destitute, and simultaneously both victimized and empowered as is socially convenient, because this mirrors the IRL views on gender and racial politics that the staff were clearly interested in exploring; if you aren't interested in being a flaming cunt who shoplifts stuff she doesn't really need as a statement of black female empowerment, you won't fully enjoy Forspoken. It's that simple.
Most people looking for an escape from politics in games are not looking to escape from politics within real life; we are perfectly capable of holding political opinions and are often highly receptive to fair and interesting political commentary. We just want an hour of the day where we are not being told what to think by ideological busybodies.
Escaping from our shitty IRL politics into a more functional discourse can only really be ironic if you deliberately ignore the entire point of escapism as a behavior. CGeHD can't really be blamed for that level of bad faith.
The way I see it Chai never deny his childish and ignorant attitude while he himself always outgrown it and become a better person while Frey always reject other people concern because she is badass. That's a character development and Chai nails it, Frey however doesn't.
Forespoken tries to be cool, hifi rush, is cool simple difference that makes it all
I think what I like about Hifi rush besides the amazing gameplay (which was hindered by xbox cloud gaming but that's a hardware issue, not a game issue) is that all the characters are natural. They aren't workshopped to death to play up some exaggeration of inclusion to the point of being exclusive to everyone. Everyone has a personality that might not be for everyone and that's what's perfect. Not every character has to be automatically liked or hated.
This reminds me of the Ahsoka vs Rey debate and a certian quote I heard that I think can be applied here. (So replacing Ahsoka with Hifi and Rey with Forspoke)
"Ahsoka is a female CHARACTER while Rey is a FEMALE character".
The protagonist in Hifi is a character with certian traits while the other one is a bunch of traits connected to a character.
Couldn't agree more
Part of what makes Chai work while Frey does not is not just how they act, but how the world they interact with responds to them.
Chai is basically a cartoon character interacting with other equally cartoonish characters, so all of his snappy over the top one liners is met with equally fitting dialoug from characters who work of his personality well.
Frey though feels like a quipy overly facetious character right out of the MCU, that's been dropped into the Lord of the Rings. Her dialoug feels bad because it feels out of place with the world she's been placed in. And yes i get thats the point as its basically an Isekai plot but when your character that's been transported is also a massive douche, the whole thing falls flat.
It's certainly not out of place in an isekai plot for the character to not immediately "fit in", but that should never be a hurdle to getting to "the interesting part" where they do. You can juxtapose a character's personality with the world around them without it feeling discordant within the story.
Make them feel out of place in the _world_ and the setting, never the narrative.
@@michaelcheng9987 make them feel out of place in the new world though. When you start with a bad caricature of a real life person, there's no 'fish out of water' effect, because there was never any water for the fish to come out of.
One of the main points of an Isekai is to ground your fictional world with the perspective of a regular human. Your main character can then act as a comedic straight man and foil all of the fantastical elements. When your 'regular human' is a skit character from Wildin' Out that nobody can connect with, you lose that right off the bat.
@@ultraman5168 But that's exactly what I'm talking about; Frey isn't a believable character, and so our investment in the isekai aspect of the plot cannot be established. My point was simply that the 'fish out of water' effect is what I see most isekai stories aim for, but that it's rarely to the detriment of the story itself.
However with Forspoken, it *was* to its detriment because the character was just not realistic enough to drive that home. And because the protagonist isn't believable, this sense of "out of place"-ness is not directed at the character's relationship to the new fantastical otherworld, but to their relationship to the actual story they're in.
I difference is in aesthetic. Only looking at the cover, HiFi rush feels like a high energy game that meant to be Fun, Forspoken looks completely serious. Both are fine but Forspoken's dialogue clashes with its design.
Your PC loyalty actually makes you ideal for coming at both of those games; no console war bullshit~
Agreed here. I play mainly with Series X (and PS4 for exclusives) but a person looking in perspective is always good with no stupid console war bias involved.
This reminds me of the Devil May Cry vs DmC issue. DmC tried to be edgy and took itself way too seriously, whereas the Devil May Cry series leaned hard into its campy hamminess and never expected to be taken seriously by the player.
Yep, you're not wrong. I even remember diehard fans trying to damage control the characters and tone of DmC, saying that critics can't accept change.
I think Hi Fi rush's overstylyzation makes a big difference. You kinda expect things to be way over the top the second you see the title screen. Forspoken looks too "realistic" to pull that kind of dialogue off without it being awkward. I mean imagine Skyrim like dialogue in Hi Fi rush, that would be awkward as hell as well because it just doesn't fit in there
Can only recommend the game I have beaten it once so far and it was incredible fun. Last chapter is the best one.
I beat the story a week ago and I couldn't agree more.
@@CollectedG I fucking love the music in the last part
@@belaschmidt1770 Same. The devs had good taste for including Nine inch nails for the beginning and ending boss fights.
I completely agree with your point but man your video is bad.
'Here's a clip of Frey being unlikable.'
'You see how unlikable she is? Yikes!'
'Now here's a clip of Chai being likable.'
'You see how likable he is? Damn!'
'Well thanks for watching. Bye'
Bro, I could've pieced that one together myself. These videos are supposed to tell me shit about *why* things are the way they are and not just *observe* that they are the way they are.
Frey repeats the same sentence about one ability in a neutral background.
Chai lists the different abilities he just discovered, with fun visuals of a list, starts daydreaming about being a rockstar.
I'll say forspoken flaw is to take itself too seriously and fails to convey the excitement of the protagonist.
Frey should've had a DMC3-type cutscene where she's having fun with her abilities, to really convey that feeling.
She needs to have cool abilities at the start to warrant that. Sadly, she does not until way way later into the game...
With Forspoken you could also compare this scene at 2:59 to Mega Man ZX when Vent/Aile gets Model X and how while in Forspoken Frey is drunk on power in Mega Man ZX Vent and Aile think of the ramifications of the obvious artifact that gave them the abilities they now hold.
God, I really need to get back into blasting through those MegaMan legacy collections. Cause they're pretty fun.
I only beat the classic NES games and MegaMan Zero 1.
@@CollectedG oh it's good. Just beware Mega Man ZX Advent has rather funny dialogue due to the fact the English dub is the same crew of Mega Man X7.
For me, the difference is how the games present these characters. Forspoken is like "Look! She said something nice! Applaud her or something!" Or "Oh no, she's in trouble! This is serious!" when is usually the complete opposite to us. The game is unaware of how we treat this. Hi-Fi Rush is aware Chai is just a small time troublemaker turned unlikely hero but even if they are a poser, they are likable straight out the gate by being dorkly charming. At least I can be happy for him getting a prosthetic to actually be able to play the guitar sometime! At least I can relate to their love for music since is hard to find somebody who doesn't.
Heck, Chai at least attributes his newfound power to the prosthetic and MP3 player that was given to him while Frey just ignored Cuff altogether.
Bro really said PC master race in the beginning 😂
It's true. Where do you think console games are made? On PC.
@@chakatRiversand never thought I'd find myself agreeing with a chakat but yeah bro, thems the breaks. Sorry, we don't make the rules, we just report on them.
Bro really said “I have access to 0.1% of all currently available video games and emulators for older games, on a machine that won’t receive any more releases after a certain, inevitable date” 😂
Console vs PC has always been a stupid argument lmao. PC just wins, straight up.
I watched a french let's play on forspoken and some walk-through in English. I feel that the dialogues were better in French, and it may be because of the VA, that had better delivery and sounded more into character in French (especially the gauntlet, I may be biased but I really like his French voice) and the translation might have made the dialogues sound better. It was still far from being perfect but at least it sounded less cringy.
The thing is with both of these games, is that Forspoken is forcing jokes and comedy in a setting that doesn’t fit it, while HI-FI Rush’s setting allows for more slapstick and humor since the setting is made for it
Frey’s dialogue reeks of marvel humor and trying to be cool
Chai’s dialogue can be hilarious at times
The battle between the two games shows the 2000's have truly given way to the 2010's and the 2020's
In the really early 2000's Forspoken would've been given a free pass due to it's abundance of goth points and the edgy bird protagonist.
High-Fi Rush would've failed back then because audiences would've hated; the cartoonyness, the bright colours and the fact that it's two "dead" genres in one (rhythm action and 3D platformer).
But what do I know? I was born in the 1990's.
You mentioned how Forspoken was all about identity politics, and that brings up something I consider important. The good stories are more subtle about their messages. Or at least, they present them in an interesting way or with a good story and gameplay that we're willing to accept the heavy-handedness. Games like Forspoken, however, are as subtle as an anvil to the face. It's not about presenting us with a political message we may or may not agree with; it's about doing their best to shove their message in our faces and order us to agree with them.
People instinctively don't like being forced to do something. The more someone tries to make us agree with them without giving an actually good reason, the more we're likely to turn away from them.
Exactly. I was watching Chris Rock's last Comedy special on Netflix a few months ago, and even though I don't agree with some of his politics I was laughing my ass off because of how he cleverly setup his jokes.
If you're able to present something in an interesting way then it doesn't matter if you necessarily agree with the message or not. Unfortunately Forspoken is cliche.
People really need to see the difference between cheesy dialogues and cringey dialogues instead of associating both as if they're the same.
2:21 its not that games shouldnt have a political message, theres a difference between a game exploring a political theme, like metal gear, bioshock, call of duty or more recently atomic heart, and another thing is the creators thinking their way of thinking is better and shoving their beliefs down your throat, theres a diference between exploring political topics and just plainly puting a line of dialogue telling you "this is how you should think"
Exactly. It's like The Party always has to put its message front and center
Know thy audience. 'Nuff said.
I think part of this is how the visuals help cement the tone. Hi Fi Rush being cartoonish in style and premise is only enhanced with the corny dialogue, given every opportunity to let its writing and gags play off that atmosphere. Forspoken by comparison, while I hardly know anything about it (it doesn’t appeal to me and I've never seen a single trailer) is a hyper realistic styled fantasy game, and that is about the last place I expect an idiot protagonist that shouts cringy or corny lines. Even for an Isekai premise, the artstyle is everything towards establishing tone.
Hey, does mean produce game looks realistic makes everyone's mix sense positive and negative than cartoon video game looks more attractive popularity?
Tfw mean produce game looks realistic.
@@CollectedG yeah. Game look like actual persons without mix element toon
I guess he meant realistic-looking game
@@tommywinata2795 Yeah you're probably right
Forspoken’s dialogue isn’t cringey it’s dreadful!
Hoestly chai just from the first min head litter caught my eye and I instantly like him lol but I think it just his personality I love
“Bro, I have an MP3 in my chest! There’s like, an actual MP3 in my chest! That’s insane! Wow!”
4:29 thats the key of Chai the world doesnt bend over to forgive Chai cringiness, robots constantly eye roll at his behavior and Peppermint calls him out the frist time they meet each other.
Chai comes across as loveable because he keeps his antics without caring how dumb it looks to other but is able to recognize when he fucks up.
Contrast the "I did this and that" scene in forrespoken where she talk over her companion with how silently awkward Chai becomes when Peppermint calls him out for not playing a guitar, depsite calling himself a rockstar, and only being able to escape thanks to her guidance. At same time Peppermint doesnt go overboard to make herself look unlikeable she just does enought to ground Chai to the ground.
Also like other mention, Chais antics dont clash with the tone of the world where the WWE heel is in charge of the robotic upgrades.
I've tried forspoken and it's not bad imo, but majority speaks for it I guess. I may have bad taste, but hey, at least there's something I can enjoy while others won't 😅
I didn't like the story or the dialogue, but from what I hear the gameplay is totally okay.
Since Steam Proton 8.0 allows Forspoken to be playable on Linux, I might play through the game just to see what the gameplay is like.
The reason for me on why politics works is because it only revolves around the story's world and we get to explore what goes on in there. The problem with how it doesn't, politics are played trying to be reflective to the real world.
I like forespoken wanted to have a mimir type companion.
I wanted to see people discuss this without starting with some Sony Pony middle school bullshit.
Yup, don't we all.
I think the reason Chai's dialogue is so funny is because people call him out on it. He looks and acts like a dumb asshole, but he isn't put on a pedestal and made to look cool.
Forespoken's story is supposed to take on a serious tone with the tragic backstory and whatnot which is why it makes no sense for Freye to always be joking. Hi Fi Rush knows that it's silly and embraces it with a character like Chai. One takes the player out of the world and the other fits right in it.
I initially dislike Chai because he is quite ignorant & cocky, but then oh boi, i did not expect a goofy cartoon game has put in so much effort in character development
Chai works because he's acknowledged to be a little bit cringe but grows out of it slowly throughout the game.
Chai reminds people of Soka and the dragon prince.
Forspoken reminds people of Velma...
Me I just just lament the supporting irish lass and british butler don't get more voice lines.
i feel like im the only one who likes what ive seen from both of these games ngl not that ive been able to play either but id probs buy hi fi rush for the design cause it reminds me of how popular cellshaded games use to be
I’m not sure if chai is a doofus because of the gameplay making you feel like one at first, or the gameplay was centered around his personality, but personally I think it’s a great decision.
If they gave Frey a personality people might have resonated with more but they gave her "everyman" personality making her feel super unrealistic for the story they tried to tell
0:32
Based
Cringe dialogue works in a cartoony setting instead of a realistic fantasy medieval world, that's the summary
if you want an unlikable cringy dude done right,go play as Scout in TF2
The difference between Chai and Frey is Chai actually has character development where as Frey not so much.
Hi-Fi Rush dialogue is miles better than should not be spoken.
Hi fi rush is invested in its universe. It cares about the story it's trying to tell. Forspoken is too cynical to be invested in its narrative or its meta narrative for that matter.
Not forspoken but forgotten. The game also uses a overused idea thats bad which is why the game is horrible
But what about fire emblem engage dialouge
Agree. Frey feels more like a walking checkbox and a political statement rather than a character that you can relate to. She's mean, unlikable, and an asshole because that's how modern writers think what a strong woman is supposed to be in this age.
She's very capital 'B' ideologically Black; rude, arrogant, self-centered, an unrepentant criminal, obsessed with materialist kitsch despite ostensibly being destitute. Being polite, responsible, and unironically kind are hallmarks of White Supremacy to these people. Expecting them to not act like stereotypical hoodlums is racist.
The last of us ps3 original has better graphics then forwoken a ps5 game
You're not wrong. The facial animations for the in-game cutscenes are outdated by a decade. Even Final Fantasy XV looks better.
@@CollectedG ua-cam.com/video/TW91Lncqrwk/v-deo.html
Look at this god damn bad take they are trying so hard to defend a game thats not even worth their time
@@CollectedG luminous was built for particle effects so obviously it'll be decent at them. Everything else looks 10-15 years old.
Hi fi feels like it was made with passion but Forspoken feels like they tried to copy deadpool...
About Fairness.....nowadays "Game Journalists" dunk on games after playing less than a 1% of the game.
What separates Cheesy from Cringy?
Cheesy is a tone, Cringy is unintentional.
Don’t expect any bias for Xbox or PlayStation.
I think they both suck equally
"female lead"
"rebel chick"
"girlboss"
Man, I totally agree with your video but why do you have to sound like if the only woman on your life was your mom 💀
Triggered
I mean I disagree, Hi Fi rush is 1000% an anti capitalism story. The difference is Hi Fi Rush is cheesy while Forspoken is cringe. Theres a difference. Cheese can be endearing, Cringe cannot. Which I am aware you point out in the video but yeah. Thats the core tenat. Cheese vs cringe.
What genre is Forspoken?
3rd person action adventure.
@@nstar674 thank you
Wait, the dialogue in Hi Fi Is cringe?
According to idiots on the internet, yes!
Ok
Ehh. Idk.
From what you showcased, Chai still sounds cringey to me despite the setting and tone. However that's probably because I don't really enjoy dumb plucky characters in general, but especially not as primary protagonists.
"I don't need to play the game to make a fair assessment" - disagree there, even if I agree that forspoken is hot garbage and hifi rush is GOTY, you should play a game first to have a legitimate opinion on it
Also wtf play Hifi Rush it's awesome
1:00 I never said that Forspoken was hot garbage, just the story, characters, and dialogue which you don't need to buy the game in order to experience. But since the steam spring sale is happening rn, I went ahead and bought Forspoken.
I actually beat Hi-Fi Rush a few weeks ago and it's my personal goty so far. I guess I'll find out how the gameplay of Forspoken is soon.
@@CollectedG I know you didn't say that but I still think it is, congrats on beating hifi rush tho
@@chrispeacock915 you dont need to play a game to judge its story and dialogue, in that regard you get the same experience watching cutscenes and walkthroughs, I get that hearing dialogue while playing is a different experience than watching a video but still, you don't need to actually play the game to hear the dialogue and watch the story.
@@ginogatash4030 dialogue and story may as well make up half the game, sure it can be consumed second hand but it's not the same as when you're actually in the moment. It's a much more narrow (sometimes even biased) view of the picture if you haven't played it yourself
Yep. Woke identity politics is cringe, and not nearly on the same level as Metal Gear Solid's politics. I'm sick of woke-scolds making that argument
I was about to give you a fair shake, but when you mentioned not playing the other game, but you're going to make a comparison video, you lost me.
Oh! Despite Forspoken being cringey and stuff, complaining about identity politics vs politics just does sound like "women bad." Even if this video has a point, it's hard to get past that general vibe.
Also Vandalay absolutely is a criticism of capitalism, and other company stuff. It's not even subtle
Trust me, I'm not one of those "women bad" people. I like female protagonists in video games as much as I do male ones. As long as they're both written well.
As for the second part of your comment, I could've explained that better. I was trying to say that nothing in the plot of Hi-Fi Rush was trying to be pretentious. Metal Gear Solid 2 and Final Fantasy X had political undertones in it, but it wasn't beating you over the head with it's message like Forspoken was.
The only way you could gather that from this incredibly mild take is if any criticism of current year female portrayal just sounds like 'women bad' to you. Most people are actually pretty sick of the most blatantly shitty examples, it's a fully mainstream sentiment.
Hi-Fi Rush's take on business isn't particularly pointed either. They obviously want you to think about the idea of corruption in business but it's a far cry from Das Kapital. Free business is still portrayed as essential to peoples' lives. It's not anyone's political cudgel.
@@CollectedG I think you messed up by going into that rant without even showing any evidence to showcase how the game's political undertones, while also missing the obvious critique of tech corporations like Apple, that while it's played for laughs, still isn't particularly subtle.
I also genuinely haven't seen much politics in Forespoken, at least from my admittedly limited 2nd hand experience of it, like it's pretty much your standard MCU wannabe story mixed with Dark Souls wannabe esthetics, it would've helped clearing up your point if you showed examples of the story's political undertones.
Not to mention that you can't really make politics neutral, people will always find issues with ideas they fundamentally disaprove of, or even go out of their way to extrapolate politics they disaprove of whete there isn't any actual intent to make something political, or even twisting something that's pretty clearly portraying their ideology negatively into somehow being supportive of it, what matters is that whatever you do works with the story instead of being an awkward add on that doesn't really contribute to the themes of the story, and that you trust the audience enough to pick up on what your message is without needing to spoon-feed it to them, cause even the most uncontroversial statements can get annoying when executed horribly.
They the same.
Only if you're a clinical depressive incapable of true joy?