Image: Square Enix
The quippy dialogue in Forspoken’s new trailer has become an instant meme online.
Square Enix tweeted out a new trailer for its upcoming fantasy-RPG Forspoken yesterday, and the game has been getting the wrong kind of attention ever since. The trailer has Forspoken’s protagonist Frey introducing players to the setting of her new adventure in a series of zingy quips, which Twitter users are now making fun of relentlessly.
Frey says in the trailer:
So, let me get this straight. I’m somewhere that’s not what I would call Earth… I’m seeing freaking dragons, and… oh yeah, I’m talking to a cuff. Yeah, okay, that is something I do now. I do magic, kill jacked-up beasts – I’ll probably fly next.
It’s not the most well-written trailer in the world, largely due to the quirky ‘You’re probably wondering how I got here’-like tone that it’s going for. The trailer even drew enough comparisons to Joss Whedon’s quip-filled writing that the writer started trending on Twitter, despite having nothing to do with the game.
This could have just been a harmless marketing flop, if Twitter users hadn’t immediately picked it up and started parodying Frey’s over-the-top voiceover to describe other videogames. The best one borne out of this meme thus far has been Bloodborne:
But there are other great ones too, like this one for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater making clever use of the game’s iconic soundtrack:
Undertale:
Metal Gear Solid – although, to be fair, you could describe the plot of any of these games with a straight face and still come off rather silly:
God of War:
This cursed Yakuza tweet:
You get the idea. We can’t imagine Square Enix had memes on the brain when this trailer got its stamp of approval, but here we are. The main issue with this trailer isn’t the game itself – Forspoken actually looks like a pretty interesting action-RPG that plays on the Isekai genre that’s all the rage in anime and manga right now, following a protagonist who has been ripped from the modern world and tossed into a magical, medieval fantasy land.
The problem is that the trailer’s voiceover feels amateurish for a game of this scale, both in its delivery and writing. Game protagonists who constantly voice out everything that happens to them during gameplay are nothing new, but there’s a difference between doing that and saying you’re, “talking to a cuff,” and, “seeing FREAKING dragons!”
Forspoken was recently delayed to a January 2023 release, but you know what could have also used a delay? This trailer. The game will launch on PlayStation 5 and PC.
