This is the kind of game which I'd love to see an animated movie of ! :D

About Shuanshuan and Shuanyuan: He signs the drawing of Yi that he made as Shuanyuan, so there are more obvious parallels here.

You pronounce it as "Pengali" through the entire video, but it's actually called "Penglai"

17:05 I think that line is a reference to "Nobody is wrong we just have different believes".

This video is a gem where nine sols content is very less

Nine Sols is more Metal Gear Rising than Sekiro.

Fine work. I enjoyed the overview of the mythological ties.

39:57 what do you mean by that? Coco just wanted to prove that Custas is a victim and not a criminal. Also not everything that Custas has done was justified. He was about to straight up murder Tartah if Coco hadn't stopped him. Custas has calmed down a little bit by now, but he really needs some therapy.

Never had a game leave me utterly hollow at the credits. It's fantasic. Having to accept your species just...isn't meant to last anymore despite all the promises you made to your people and family. And having to make the decision to put them all to rest. God, that's just soul wrenching for me. Even though the ending was hopeful for the humans. I was too devastated at the loss of Yi's entire species to process. Even now I'm still shaken up by it. What a game

I love your analysis, especially how you include the story's connotations to traditional Asian mythology as that seemed you be a founding force of this game. This is one of the few games out there which deserve to be reviewed and analyzed like good literature. Here are some notes I wanted to include from my own analysis of the story: I just finished the True Ending in Nine Sols, and I just wanted to share a quick thought which is that in the end Yi is fighting himself when he fights Eigong at the end of the game. There are a lot of parallels between Eigong and Yi, especially if we look at Yi in the beginning of the game. They both share similar ideologies; they both believe that science and technology have been unjustly shunned by Solarians, and both believe that Science and technology is the only answer for Solarians survival. In a way, they both start out almost believing in science as a religion (though don't over think that). They also both believed that Solarian survival was to be held above the survival of all intelligent live, which is how they end up condoning the farming of the apemen. As the game continues onwards Yi begins to depart from this path as he gains new appreciation and respect or the apemen and the Tao, something that Eigong doesn't have. However, there are different but nonetheless sticking similarities between Yi and Eigong in their fight against each other. First, similar to Yi, Eigong relies mostly on basic melee attacks just as Yi tends to do. Eigong is one of very few bosses which doesn't really have projectile attacks despite being an advanced enemy. Instead she fights similar to Yi: up close and personal with a lot of fancy leaping and dashing to get the job done. Another interesting similarity is that Eigong is the only other character in the game besides Yi who can use a Talisman. So they are both very ideologically similar (especially at the start of the story) and their fighting styles are similar, but the most interesting thing about all this is the themes used in the fight. Each boss has their own theme song, and so does Eigong... at least for the first two rounds. During the first two round Eigong's theme My Will is Our Truth plays, but this changes in the third round where YI's theme plays: The Path for Us All. The third round becomes Yi's boss fight. The last thing he must do to complete his character arch is defeat his old self and become a new person, and of course this only happens in the True Ending where the third round takes place and Yi's Theme plays. (not even to mention that Eigongs and Yi's theme are very similar musically.) So finally Yi is reborn, and can destroy New Kunlun. Bringing the Solarian species to an end, and yet giving new life and hope to the apemen. Yi was the real boss all along, and defeating him was the game's true objective.

im just now starting the manga, i will def come back to this when im done. haikyuu is currently my favorite story oat.

Great video!

6:14 Yimpy mentioned! :)

Honestly, if there's anyone who has my exact same thoughts on Curly, it's Slimecicle: "It's become worse because I've been him, and I know who he is. This is kinda fucked up to say, but I feel like before my brain just registered it as a frightening thing physically, and now I feel I'm registering it as like, "Oh god, that's a human being that I used to talk to and interact with and who was a friend", and now they are like... A writhing, pained mass, every day of their existence. That's fucking terrible."

Omg i just realized...yi and heng as opposite personalities and their names are close to yin and yang..that just clicked in for me😅

Anna is a shitty nurse they had an iv bag and probably had syringes but they still used the oxy orally on curly. Could have streched the painkillers for way longer if they ived it. Wouldnt have to force feed them either.

If Jimmy is derived from James, & James is derived from Jacob, then Jimmy being the 1 to speak of ladders is a reference to Jacob’s ladder…

bro it's hard listening to you butcher every name :( i'm gonna have to leave this one three minutes in

Yay Jimmy

Amazing video analysis! I love this game

21:33 I saw a video that was basically saying that saving Curly was the only way Jimmy could find “redemption” for himself. Obviously not the case, but in his own deluded worldview, the only action he committed that he was willing to admit fault to was when he crashed the ship and hurt Curly.

I think Daisuke's name is Die Skay and Swansea's name is pronounced Swon See. Anyone else bothered by how the narrator is pronouncing the two characters' names?

my apologies for having to discuss Jimbology. also holy shit one of my favorite gamedev channels made a video abt Mouthwashing

Why is it nobody is able to pronounce swansea? Swan-sea

Curly seems like a good guy in the flashbacks because they're from his perspective. He is also an unreliable narrator, not in the same way as Jimmy where he creates actual lies to justify his actions. But in the sense that he still sees his actions (or inaction) in the best light possible, he's mouthwashing the severity of his indifference.

For Swansea’s death I definitely think that Jimmy had gone off his rocker. He made a story up in his head about him having to escape and fend off Swansea and eventually being able to subdue him, but in reality he just walked up to Swansea in the break room and shot him. Swansea isn’t tied up in his monologue and the imagery behind them is probably eluding to the broken sunset in the break room. Also, just a bit of constructive criticism, using the standard 1kHz bleep can be pretty grating on the ears for headphone users, maybe try using static or some other noise instead.

i’m sorry, i tried, but i canttttt. who tf is Swansa?? and i can’t listen to another person pronounce it ‘die-su-kay’ ugh

It's pronounced "Swan-Sea", not "Swansa"

The ladder sequence and such makes me think of deliberately avoiding the warning signs - the Ladders representing a literal descent into madness or about how he just needs to keep going, to climb the corporate ladder and be away from it all

It seems we meet again old friend!

neat analysis. id say that anya being the only woman on the ship just means a lot and that all of the men - daisuke, curly, and swansea - didn't care for her. none of them cared to intervene, even with jimmy walking around. curly enabled his 'friend's' behavior completly too :[

I love Curly but I do think he is partially at fault for what happened He was a coward

Interesting detail about Pony Express, is how it goes under, due to it's inability to compete with companies, that don't rely on human crews. A lot of the problems in the story stem from the company cutting costs, and the characters occasionally refer to how things used to be better. So the big bad company that has a great control over the fates of our characters, in the end has no control over it's own, due to it being tied to people like our characters.

We do *NOT* fw J*mmy

I'm so glad to finally find a video essay that goes into the mythology of the analysis. There are waaaay to many video essayists that do the bs of "well idk the philosophy/culture so I'll ignore it" lazy way out. One of the other small interpretations possible [albeit very political] is the fact the company is a Taiwanese company, a country constantly in a philosophical battle for its own independence on the international stage.

Great video! :)

thank you youtube algorithm for this gold, keep this up <3

I don't know tbh i found the story quite mid. Wayyyy too much talking that didn't amount to anything, like all the gift items. Also just a ridiculous amount of logs that say nothing at all. Things like water filtration running at x percent due to Y reason. I didn't skip any dialogues because i'm a completionist but it became very tiring after a while.

I have not had time to watch the full video, but i had to mention my absolutely favorite thing about this game, and it's the growth of Yi as a person. He is actually incredibly relatable as a character for myself, primarily in terms of his view on science throughout the story. I do think that, for myself, at least, it's important to hold science and objective facts close to my mind. But, it's also important to recognize that theres simply some things that, while can be explained with pure luck, faith is important to humans. I dont believe in a religion, but i wouldn't describe myself as an atheist for many reasons. But believing in something, whether it's a necklace of wood or someone in your life, gives us the courage to push through the obstacles in our lives. I think Yi is a perfect character that shows growth. Being a game inspired by games directed by Myiasaki, it has a lot of themes of accepting our end when it's time, naturally. And i think Yi especially grows in that regard. The acceptance he has in the true ending is something i would consider beautiful and is obviously in stark contrast to the other ending.

it was hard for me to play this game, mostly because i agree 100% with the villains, superstitious religions and anything that falls outside the realm of logic must be discarded without a second thought as it holds absolutelly no value at all and is in fact an anchor slowing progress down

17:27 I believe Heng’s response about not being at fault is in line with Taoist principles. They both acted in ways true to themselves and followed their own nature. There’s no “fault” in that there is no need for guilt. Lear makes a similar comment regarding his actions in life. Heng is second most attune to Taoist principles only behind Lear in the game, so it makes sense that she would take a similar point of view.

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Which MF programmed Eigong the visualisation isn't masterpiece it the biggest trash i've ever seen. This looks like gaming in the 90's amd she is 10 times fasterb then Isshin the swordsaint

The manga is so beautiful

This is one of my favourite mangas and the author too is an amazing person, her twitter is one thing that doesnt make me log out forever

Good vid

This is a great breakdown of the series. Well done.

You can also find Lady Ethereal's soulscape design took inspiration from Tao Yuanming's folklore "The Peach Blossom Spring 桃花源記". The story follows a fisherman stumbled upon a mysterious otherworldly village in a peach blossom forest, where everyone lives happily and respectfully. He then discovered that the village had been actively isolating themselves for centuries to stay away from war. After he left, the village vanished and was forgotten ever since.

Masterpiece, true.