Beautiful video. Reminds me of some of the story beats in Sanabi and how they also play with Romanticism. I'm not going to go into more detail here for spoiler reasons, though.

What is the music that plays at the start of part 1?

hi!! ik this is a bizarre question but i noticed and cant stop wondering, what fps is the gameplay footage in this vid recorded in? it looks sooo much smoother than native 60 but has next to no artifacts from resampling either, it looks great!

Most online game discussion misses the forest for the trees, focusing on surface level mechanics instead of the experience created. If ability gating is really defining then Pokemon is a Metroidvania

I'd watched this video before, but I had to spend days looking for it again when I started playing again. Gonna bookmark it this time.

I think it was interesting that there were 4 real characters witnessing John's artificial reality. That made it a bit more real, as the concept of real could be about if anyone else is witnessing it. As if something actually happens but leaves no trace, its realness is meaningless.

The REAL problem of nostalgia is its presence in politics. Politicians often weaponize it to appeal to older voters to drive their fears of change in an attempt to keep the status quo or worse -to drag us backwards!

Holy shit, This is one hell of a video man! I loved every minute of it <3

Horizon: The player is told where to go by characters that have more than five lines ofdialogue in service of a linear, coherent story. Elden Ring: I'm still playing it. Not to get every item to discern the story -- there isn't one. Picking up audio tapes to understand a game's story is universally known to be odious. Picking up every single item in Elden Ring etc etc? There IS a story. And it is really, really stupid. The Old Man and the Sea: An old man catches a huge shark, and it means a lot to him monetary and otherwise. The Old man uses a small boat, so the shark is tied to the side of the vessel. As the Old Man returns to land, his catch is picked apart until he has nothing to show for his accomplishment. If it takes more than three sentences to convey the skeleton of a story, it's bad. Anyone who wants to argue Miyazaki beats Hemmingway - there's a special place in hell for you, don't think I care.

I don't know how you saying they telling the story terribly.. cuz Faye voice in 2018 was soooooo much Better pictured than Ragnarok when we spent time with her! maybe you didn't understand the stoty the way it was! i lost my mother about a month before game release date and me and my father never been on good side! so when it was out i was living that story! the story is that journey! a god calling his child (boy) to a man calling his child (son) from a man to a god to learning to become a man again! I don't know you played last games or not but half of this games effect comes from the greek saga..then you understand the redemption arc of a god-killer monster to a teacher and father!

I felt the same with Elden Ring. While I still love it and has addicted me to explore every corner of it's world, the first time I started I was like "Ok, I am in a big open area with plains and nature where I can just go through all directions, what to do now?". it felt very generic contrary to Dark Souls very strict design, that is not linear but it's not full open either. It's semi-open with soft/hard blocks, and while it's a big interconnected world, everything is so tightly designed and so memorable that this worlds stays with you. Every area stayed in my mind with it's traps, enemy placements, strategies to take over, ptsd points where I kept dying, items and places of rest. It's hard to explain because one could say Elden Ring also has some of these elements. But there is something in video games that cannot be easily explained and quantified, two games might have the same exact elements on paper, but one is doing something different than the other that I can't put my finger to. It's of course what you said about emotion, but it's very subtle, I wouldn't even know how to properly reproduce it if I was task to design a game that has the same exact good elements that made game A successful. DS1 for me a masterpiece, everything else after still good (even DS2) but not being able to reach the og. Simiarly, when one tries to mimic the success of classics. The classics have their own soul and cannot easily be reproduced.

Are you alive?!🥲

Souls games have never been remotely like metroidvanias outside of DS1. I guess Souls games have been dead since DS2 and Bloodborne.

You are onto something ngl

I love Gothic horror 💀👻🖤🧛🌹⚰

I just see this video now and now it completes the puzzle in my head why new god of war was kind of a miss for me. Seems like many people miss the point about GoW and Kratos it that he is a tragic character and I do agree more with original vision of the story and even SolePorpoise's version of how story of norse Kratos could've be and also would made for far better story and made more sense. In my opinion as Kratos being a greek tragedy hero and being who he is, his story cant really co-exist with that fuzzy "heartwarming" father-son story that the game tries to depict with some conflicts just comming from "just because" and not because Kratos is ragnarok level threat and every god knows it and as we have ragnarok game now and that story just stumbles uppon it self even more as all murder of gods is forgiven by their family because of the "plot" and the "message of forgiveness" with no real consequence following up. That just doesnt go hand it hand with og games world and story setup. This god of war is not god of war, its is different game entierly that just have the mask of god of war because as it seems to me that devs didnt wanted to take the risk and make different title, but we get the usual "riding on IP name that is already espablished and loved and probably will be forgiven and still bring on da moneh if we fail". And now that this mumbo jumbo writing got greenlight because "matured" majorities lack of father figure in their life or something and now we wait till the Egypt setup where Kratos becomes an old whitebearded sage dad and Loki will try to please his father and try to be a good boy son, but will fail for no reason and then mingle with nordic afro-american giant self insert from sweet baby inc ceo herself or devs wont get funding for the game. Ah what a time to be alive.

Thanks

Missing you dude, hope all is well with you

Only recently got to the game, and was interested to hear someone elses thoughts on it (after I finished it) it's definitely a very emotional story, I can't say I cried, but it managed to tug on my heart strings harder than I thought it would. it was a great journey that I can recommend to anyone.

Back in the 2010s, people weren’t crybabies over the past

"My wish? Well, I want to replay To The Moon... All over again."

I appreciate that you took the time to create this essay with lots of interesting points and insights but I just have to fundamentally disagree with your definition of exploration. Your definition seems to be very narrow, artificially confined to a very specific risk-reward balance, that just so happens to fit perfectly for metroidvanias but ignores the many facets exploration can take beyond being tied to a particular experience of risk. Imagine the most casual, slice-of-life combat-less type of game, one of those with cozy aesthetics and so forth, with an open, unmapped world. You are, for example, a photographer and your gameplay consists of photographing wildlife and plants in a relaxed way. You have to un- and discover the world and the paths yourself. You are not guided to the animals and plants that you want to photograph but there is zero risk of survival or combat involved. You can’t get stuck like in DS, perhaps it even has mechanics of convenience like fast travel, but you have to explore the world in the literal sense of the word to find your photography targets. Here exploration is not driven by a sense of dread and fear of survival, it is propelled by the opposite emotion: the active joy of discovery and finding things. It is a completely different feeling from DS, yet it makes no sense to me to not call it exploration. It is just exploration with a very different goal and feeling. By defining exploration the way you do, you don’t allow to use it in the literal, “common-sense” sense of the word. You add very specific meanings to the word, that are not intuitive and artificially turn it into a “technical” term that is limited to certain playstyles, beyond what is reasonable in my eyes. It seems like this definition primarily serves your particular point instead of serving the idea of exploration itself. I completely agree that ER feels different from DS. It is also completely understandable to not be a fan of its brand of exploration. But ironically, as much as I love DS and BB, I never felt very connected to their take on exploration, precisely because I felt like I was exploring gameplay levels and not an actual world. I love DS and BB. I love the challenge, I love finding shortcuts, I love the risk and I love fighting my way through enemies to reach that well-deserved safe spot and give my mind a rest. But as I said, it felt like fighting my way through a level. The perception that I am in a level and not in a world is obviously highly subjective. Other players may experience this aspect of the game completely differently. It is not objectively good or bad in any way and it is completely legitimate to enjoy this type of exploration. But it is just that: a type of exploration. Not The One type of exploration. With all its flaws the open world exploration is what I enjoy most in ER because now I feel like I actually explore, well, a world. That is just the type of exploration I in particular enjoy the most. The fact that that I can choose to engage with enemies or not is what makes it feel more “realistic” to me (in the sense of being “in a world”), leading to a much stronger sensation of immersion. With DS and BB, as much as I adored the settings (BB has one of the best game aesthetics I have ever experienced), at some point they started to feel like window-dressings or stage props forming the (stylish) background of my ongoing journey on defined paths (whose order I could often choose but they were still pre-defined) with new enemy hordes to slaughter until I reached the next boss, so that I could continue on one of the paths to fight new enemies to get to a boss and so on. ER feels like a world that is very hostile but I have much more freedom to decide how to engage with it. Do I take it head-on to test myself or do I want to avoid it? Do I want to partake in the aggression or do I want to immerse myself in the scenery, find new spots and landscapes to marvel at? Virtual “sightseeing” is just as much a type of exploration. All in all, it allows for more “roleplaying” and experiencing the world the way you want to. But as I said, this too is just one type of exploration. It is not The One type of exploration either, it is not any more legitimate than the risky exploration of DS. It evokes a different feeling. And it is perfectly ok to not like this feeling. But in my eyes it is not correct to say it is not exploration, only because it is not the same type of exploration as you have in DS. Both games tackle explorations from different angles.

Not sure if someone already pointed this out but the video said "A Scott" but show Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy instead of Montgomery Scott aka Scotty.

No more teleportation! I want to backtrack through a hostile world. This is exactly what I felt was missing from the series since Dark Souls. You touched on it briefly, but I think it's essential to emphasise, that any sort of teleportation, that doesn't come really late and feels well earned, jeopardises the emotional grip these games have on you. Thanks for your work, it's awesome!

REPENT. The end is nigh.

To any person who's reading this, which analysis of bloodborn do you personally prefer? This or the "visceral femininity" video?

Imagine dedicating 2 hours to such a shit video, with such shit arguments lol, what a sad existence

Long-time Soulsborne fan here. I'll be honest - Elden Ring is easily one of my top 3 favorite games of all time, and I bristled a bit at the topic of this video when I first started it. I loved your videos on Bloodborne, though, so I decided to hear you out and give the video a shot. It is difficult to express exactly how many unspoken feelings you hit square on the head for me throughout this discussion. I adore Elden Ring with all my heart, and it has some of the highest highs of all the Soulsborne series. For a time while I was playing it, I genuinely thought it had beaten out Bloodborne as my favorite game of all time - but when I went to replay it, something felt bizarrely off. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was, but something was holding me back from enjoying it quite as much as I did that first time around. It was strange because I've replayed every Souls game at least once (literal dozens of times for DS1), and I've almost felt that subsequent playthroughs are where the games truly shine, giving the player the ability to dance through the world's challenges with newfound expertise that enhances the experience tenfold. However, going back to Elden Ring was different. It felt less fulfilling, and - bizarrely - almost exhausting. What you've said here made everything click for me. The previous games in the series have an unmatched air of replayability because they are, fundamentally, Metroidvanias - games which thrive on learning pathways, sequence-breaking, testing skill, speedrunning, and - overall - attaining mastery. Elden Ring, however, is an Open World game - a game which exists to be explored over a massive period of time, painstakingly and with great care. Trying to blitz through Elden Ring fighting all my favorite bosses like I do with the other games in the series is a recipe for burnout, no matter how much I adore them. The game isn't built to accommodate that playstyle. Thank you for giving me the language to finally put into words what's been bothering me about this game. Again, I adore it with all my heart - that much is beyond question. However, there's been something that's been holding me back from blitzing my way back to Malenia, and I think this may be it.

Goofy ahh long video.

55:54 what remix of f zero mute city is that?

The "key argument" about Metroidvanias have a fundamental flaw, the difference between a simple "key" to open a new area and a new ability to open that same area, is that great developers use this area as a fun place to test this new ability and have new challenges that are more specific for that new ability, i simple key can't do that, for that, at least for me, Dark Soul never feel like a Metroidvania. Ori and the will of the wisp is a good example of and excellent Metroidvania that use this concept.

After playing through the last of us several times and listening to Joseph Andersons thoughts on the ending of the game I don't think it's that complex at all. In fact the more that you think about it the more the ending comes off as kind of ridiculous. The fireflies decide to do surgery on a already unconscious girl who they don't even know does or doesn't have a concussion without her consent. They tell the one person who they for some reason thought would have a problem with extracting her brain who they originally were going to just kill anyways. After joel moes down (or sneaks passed depending on how you play) dozens of armed guards Marlene tries to TALK joel out of saving ellie after he was clearly committed to saving her. She had him at gun point and just didn't carry out the kill because reasons. The ending could only be what it was by the characters willing deciding to make the dumbest decisions they possibly could. I am exempting Joel from this criticism because he had zero agency. Fireflies didn't really give him or ellie a choice. It's this type of story telling thats rampant in tlou2.

I never really clicked with the new God of War story because, as you said, Kratos never truly confronts his past-the story just acts like Kratos literally murdering his wife and child is just another kinda bad thing that he's over now, and isn't really relevant to his OWN NEW CHILD. Honestly, Atreus never learns the full truth of what Kratos did through either this game or the sequel. They almost turn Kratos into a new character who did vaguely bad things, but they never actually confront the totality of what Kratos did.

Why does every video that does not call ER a masterpiece has a disclamer or an apology in it for not doing that?

Yo where's the NieR Video

Summary of my personal argument I take away from this in layman’s terms for my convenience: Your choices can be profound. “We do not have the necessary information to make a decision as big as destroying our creator(s)”

Summary of my personal argument I take away from this in layman’s terms for my convenience: Living out the deconstruction of the human-centric myth through forcing mankind to become like God is not in the best interest of those who wish for themselves and/or mankind to retain their collective humanity, and will either be successful at the cost of that humanity or fail, backfire, and bring the collective spirit of mankind back down to a bestial level.

24:34 your entire "communicate emotion" talk means really nothing up to this point. Because most game, especially modern games, are meant to provoke emotions. And some gamers are brainless brutes that hate emotions. So what?

21:06 Dark Souls is not a Metroidvania because metroidvania is not a genre. Dark Souls = Hack'n slay action RPG. Metroid = Action adventure. Symphony of the Night = mild action RPG.

20:14 So it only gets dumber now. I tell you this: Dark Souls is - genre wise - an action RPG. The action is codified through the classic gameplay elements of hack'n slay. So it is not a metroidvania. It has no simple and delight exploration that feels like a walk in the park on a sunday morning as in Symphony of the Night. It has genuine exploration like in a Metroid game. But what separates Dark Souls from Metroid is that DS is an RPG. Metroid is an adventure. And no those are not the same in any way.

So far the chapter "emotions of metroidvanias" was hilarious and nonsensical to listen to.

12:10 at this point it is hard to follow your video narrative as you jump across different games and genres to make one simple point.

8:18 how credible are you when you consider the term metroidvania a genre?