I thought something was wrong with me, when I hated this game but everybody else loved it. Then I remembered how I also hated Hogwarts Legacy and everything made sense.

I agree with many of the things you said. One problem though... Rain World was originally published by Adult Swim Games. So yes, they did have a big publisher behind them.

45:00 I don't know about you but I got all this form the game (I'm talking about the character motivations and back stories)

I've been considering playing this game for the past few years. I like how even in the dialogue scenes, the NPCs don't stare directly into the camera, they stare at Aloy. I've played some games with terrible writing and dialogue (coughkingdomheartscough) because the gameplay was fun and soothing. I've played open-world games that don't feel real or lived-in (coughbotwtotkcough) because it was fun to goof off and explore anyway. I've played protagonists with no noteworthy flaws and virtually no character arcs because, well, let's be real, that's been kind of a recent development in the grand scope of Video Game Protagonists. But I've not done that in a game that wants to be story-driven and yet also feels like it has to hold your hand the whole time. Who knows, maybe I'll try it and enjoy it anyway. Maybe knowing about these pitfalls in advance will make the irritation more bearable because I knew someone out there was irked by it, too.

I'm inclined to agree that if you can't get (at least most?) of the intended experience of a game by playing that game - if it requires an internet connection, supplemental and peripheral works, completely separate works to "understand the author", and just a buttload of wiki-reading - then yeah, I don't think that game is doing its job, either. Supplemental materials and online features - like cryptic messages from other players' game-overs and life-gifting - can be neat, but ffs don't hide your story in them... At least the music slaps, indeed.

I thought Aloy’s perfection was fine. My issue is how males are portrayed. Every male is basically…what’s the word I’m looking for…a pussy.

I just quit playing the game during route b. I do not want to finish the game anymore. I'm bored. I got lured into playing this game because it would contain deep philosophical insights. I have not yet encountered these in the game. I must say, however, that I hold a Bachelor in Philosophy, so it might be that these themes are new and profound for other people. But I have not yet seen it. Now let me watch this video and see what I have missed by not finishing the game. Edit: finished the video today. Seems like I did not miss a lot after quitting the game. And it feels good to not be alone in my opinion that this is, indeed, not the best game ever made.

Maybe there is a disconnect between what you have been presented and what you want. Zero (1?) characters in this game are human, which is what makes "consciousness/human-ness" an important construct in this game. How is it that a machine without emotion can feel something? Can androids? You show a scene of Eve falling into madness. Why did Eve want to kill everything and everyone when he's a machine? Because his "brother", the only one he "cared" for was "killed" by the androids. I don't know if nuance or complexity in the writing is required to make this distinction without adding convolution. Funny enough, you might be very similar to 9S.

As a Brazil's Brazilian, actually Brazil don't speak for all of us. Dave the Diver is fun 1:56

I'm just shocked how bad this game is, and it gets 8, 9's and 10's??? Have they not noticed all the woke feminism bullshit in this game. Not to mention how dragged out and clunky it is to play.

Jin Sakai in Ghost of Tsushima has everything that Aloy lacks!

I agree, this game is shit! Such a waste of time

Sorry to necro, I've been going through these for...personal reasons, but I do want to say, Dark Souls 1 does NOT feel like a finished game to me, with an emphasis on the lava level that was...weird and empty.

I was actually concerned that my controller would malfunction with all the button pressing for picking up things, not only that but they all looked too " National Geographic" for my taste

Also...the fact that there's an achievement for looking up 2B's dress, is insane to me. Best achievement I've never gotten.

Before I even finish listening to this...I wanna say thank you. I thought it was just me that couldn't see the "brilliance" of nier: automata after beating it...but the game slams you over the head with the robots not being bad, SO HARD that it's not even questionable. I also believe that Nier: replicant, and stellar blade told this story better.

I was just thinking, in the mind "transfer", about Simon waking other Simon and asking if he wants to be switched off or not. But then there's no need. I'm Simon, too. so I already know what he would want. So whatever decision I make, is the one he would make anyway. So I switched him off. I was also disappointed in the end where Simon gets so pissed off about something that's already happened to him once, he should have understood what was going to happen, especially with the quite emotive experience he'd been through, doing it the first time. Still, there's a happy ending, for Simon if not for Simon.

I fucking love cats and I thought stray was the most generic, uncharted ass game I’ve played.

5:11 so when I first played SOMA, at this section of the game, I was in the mindset that this reality was somehow inconsequential, so not only did I laugh hysterically at the robot (Mark, I believe?) I say for a good few minutes in the hangar just laughing uncontrollably at the echoing cries of his anguish. By the time I got to Brandon Wan, I had to stop for a few minutes to consider the implications of killing him, especially after forcing his revival and manipulating information out of him with deception. By the time I got to Sarah at the end, I was really having a hard time deciding what the "right" thing to do was, despite her pleas for release. Of course I granted it to her, but.. it still felt.. uncomfortable. And the fact that they give you the survey of your experience of the world at the two points that it's presented, really makes me think that it's the combination of the whole game's atmosphere and experiences are literally just a platform for that survey. It really is a game that makes you think and ask yourself some deep questions. I would absolutely recommend this not just as a great game, but an important experience to be had. Especially in a world where A.I development is moving the way it has been.

if I was to replay this game id keep the first copy of Simon alive so when the transfer happenes at the end ill have myself to hangout with and the last human and the girl under the water and Catherine.

you are amazing , you speek exactly what's in my mind , I hated the game so much for the exact same reasons you've mentioned, I was so frustrated after I finished the game and wanted to hear some honest and well rounded opinion on it , and then I come across your video, which has relieved my frustration, you are a genius

I actually really love this game and it’s really not generic, as the lore was able to interest me someone with a short ass attention span as a game and not many games can do that

You should try Nikke.Dispite being a gacha game and more sexualized.The characters have more personalities and I don't think there are many sues like Hz dawn.

your thesis was truly poetic. a true masterpiece. great job!

The gaps you've highlighted are things I'd sorely love to see. Modern AAA games don't appeal to me any more, I'm looking for different experiences and I'm not even a woman. Thankfully, indie developers sometimes manage to fill the gap with more different and distinctive games, but I'd love to see major studios trying to do something a bit more innovative. Here's hoping that they'll do the research that's needed to uncover what could work.

I've tried this game 3 times now, including the remaster that just came out. Think I just need to accept it's not working for me. I can't see how anyone can withstand how annoying Aloy is. I also played Forbidden West for 5+ hours, but quit because Aloy wouldn't shut up.

After completing the game I kept gaslighting myself that I actually liked the game but it really felt weird. One of the first nitpicks were how the game spends more time on the depressing bits, the sad stuff where characters suffer a tragic fate instead of actually making the players connect to the characters and then killing them off. The boss fights or just the fights are not memorable AT ALL. The only memorable fights were the one goliath on the ocean and Eve with his million phases. The game becomes tedious half way through which clearly is shown by the sheer amount of the same machines thrown at you rather than actually difficult boss. On the same note, the difficulty system is SO TERRIBLE! Normal mode is trivial and Hard mode is just bullshit. There could easily have been a middle ground among these but guess we will never know. The second playthrough got me excited and the fact that controlling machines is possible also helped it but after I found out its literally the same quests with sometimes 9S exclusive stuff going on, I got underwhelmed. However I was excited for A2 playthrough, I wanted to learn more about her past and how a Wanted Yorha playthough would be like (I thought A2 wont have access to Pods, Resistance member shops and even the Transport vending machine) cuz she is a wanted model after all but NO its all the same but with more DPS than 2B and a Cool looking Dash. I personally liked A2 the most cuz of her short but heartwarming growth towards machines in Pascel's village oh.. and the ending to Pascel's questline struck a needling on my heart. It was the only time that made me sad and emotionally uneasy. And in the end it all ended like that... Here was me waiting to get wowed till the end or may perhaps be blown away by a sort of twist which there was and it was decent but still didnt change my overall experience. I really appreciate the sound track and the credit minigame kinda made me Wow finally just not the place I was expecting to be. Also thank you for creating this video and making me sure what I wanted to believe. Your effort in truly amazing!! near hour long video with that quality is phenomenal!! Only if people would be willing to listen to critiques cuz this video deserves a million views!!

33:37 Animal Well has a publisher. (just like many "indie" hits) It's not indie then?

When I give a game 10 hours to earn my interest and it not only fails but I feel cheated out of my time and money because the main character is unlikeable and annoying, the story isn't good, and the "gameplay" seems like it was designed to force you to "interact" in the thinest sense of the word ... when that is the case, I call it a bad game

The first impression I got with this game was when I was running through the tutorial and listening to the dialogue as I tried settling into this world. About 40 minutes in, around when you fight the two giant sawblade robots, I was fiddling with the controls and getting acquainted with the dodge mechanic when I died to a stray sawblade. I believe I was playing on normal mode, not easy or hard. This in itself would be no big deal, but the game sent me all the way back to the beginning of the tutorial, nearly an hour of my time wasted. The tutorial was not skippable, and progressed in a heavily scripted way that made my input have little impact on how long it would take to get back to the place I was. This left such a bad impression I immediately shelved the game and, after looking up and making sure there was no way to get back without sitting for another 40 minutes, never touching it since. I'm glad to see the way the game treats players' time wasn't misrepresented, and I honestly think I dodged a bullet for not having played it. A friend of mine later told me how one-note the storytelling felt and how shallowly-grimdark it felt.

Most of the story beats you say are necessary to understand the characters ARE in the game. At least you admit it's because you didn't put in the effort. Most importantly - the fact that machines are sentient is *not* the main twist of the game. The fact that it is glaringly obvious is entirely intentional. It's just a setup. The theme has already been explored in fiction to exhaustion and Yoko Taro expects the player to already be familiar with it, so it's not introduced with nuance because the goal there is not to surprise you, but to have you recognize a context. The point is not that machines are alive, but to make you wonder where the story goes from there. This is because the actual main story twist is that the war you're fighting is actually completely orchestrated from above by machines, in the name of evolution. The machines had won the war and lost their purpose so they kept enough androids alive to keep the conflict going on and let their new models evolve randomly (which created weird, sometimes peaceful machines like Pascal). This is the humanist tale you often hear being praised. All of the struggle, all of the suffering we experience, the desperate search for meaning, ultimately it all boils down to a cruel joke of nature, evolution - what God would inflict this upon its creatures? Can we find meaning or are we destined to play an irrelevant part in a process outside of our control? This is the first phrase in the game: "Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle… and wonder if we’ll ever get the chance to kill him" And this is the last one: "Future is not given to you, it is something you must take for yourself"

There’s little struggle that Aloy face in terms of story. No villains that you hate to the bones, no charming sidekicks, no cute robot pets to add some spice to the game. The game is soft and watered down as if everything were processed by an auditor. There’s also some girl boss / savage moment that came out of nowhere. i don’t know if any players really need to see these moments, and they don’t really add up to the saviour hero personality they wish to portrait. And the NPCs…they talk way too “modern”. It’s like talking to casual Americans from the West coast playing dress up, when they’re supposed to be a tribal generation with no knowledge of the past. The dialogues with them are just unfitting and boring.

If lethal company doesn't win indie game of the year or at least a fair competitor I'm going to go insane

Yes! Can cross the “straight white men bad” off my bingo card again

I love how SOMA takes advantage of the medium of interactive gaming to emphasize the themes. When you switch to Simon3, you really feel like Simon2 is YOU because you just played for hours as him. I feel like recreating this in book or film would not hit as hard. What a game.

I was a raving fan for Dave the Diver when I first started it, and your critiques were exactly what my gripes became for the second half of the game. With the farming mechanics and other features that allow you to skip past a lot of the main gameplay, the game stopped feeling like the game I fell in love with the further I progressed into it

"I'm starting to think the only way Yoko Taro knows how to convey hardship is to make his characters literally go crazy and murder everything." You took the words straight out of my mouth, I've said damn near this exact thing to a few different people. Love him or hate him, Taro is a bit of a one-trick pony, and I always felt like I was going a little crazy being the only person I knew pointing this out. I think the only time I thought this critique was a little harsh was towards the start, saying the acting is kinda bad. I think the actors did a good job, they were just channeling kinda bog standard Japanese material.

I'm surprised we didn't get any Outer Wilds in this video, but nice examples and great points.

Regarding the narrative ambitions of this game, Guerrilla hired one of the lead writers of Fallout: New Vegas, so they definitely don't get a pass for the lazy writing just because they really wanted to make a game with fun to kill giant robots.

Actually no. F*ck this game. The idea is good. VERY GOOD. But the execution is just horrible: exploration game =doesn't let you explore what you want and you're trapped on the same path=no replayability value ; the graphics are beautiful at the beginning ,until the 5th minute mark when you start to wonder : if it was going to be a walking simulatir where you just walk and NOTHING ELSE ->>WHY COULDN'T MAKE IT SHORTER AND BETTER?? Or at least even cheaper? No , as much as I would try to respect the game for what is trying to do , there's just not enough to justify all the rest.

There's an uncanny valley look to all of the characters, like I'm talking to an endless procession of shiny, plastic mannequins. It severely detracts from the game when I'm trying to suspend my disbelief at the terrible, badly textured people I'm interacting with. They really needed to look closely into how to create skin textures before releasing this game. The character designs don't help, either, often looking completely ridiculous. As an afterthought, Ubisoft get a lot of grief for churning out their annual Assassin's Creed games, yet AC: Odyssey is more engaging than Horizon ZD, with luscious greenery, impressive architecture, and people who actually look like people. The character models are far more lifelike, and the missions more creative and engaging. AC: Black Flag has terrible controls, but a far more enjoyable story and overall experience. Then there's AC: Syndicate, which has a brilliant Victorian London to explore, and which is great fun to simply walk around. AC: Syndicate is actually a superb game. Next to the best half dozen Assassin's Creeds, HZD is almost a complete disaster, being glossy yet amateurish and badly designed in numerous ways. Just writing about those much maligned Assassin's Creed games is making me want to go and play them. Horizon: Zero Dawn actually repels me with its botched character designs, idiotic side quests and its laughable dialogue. Finally, in the sequel, Aloy has become a square jawed man in a wig. Obviously.

Congrats on Horizon for somehow making a game about robot dinosaurs boring

I... agree with nothing in the video. I genuinely consider the game a masterpiece, and do not consider the writing to be bad. And I've read the comments invalidating the "you shouldn't play the side quests to understand the game!". To put it simply, the game isn't for you. I don't want to come off as rude, but the game is a Yoko Taro game. His games / stories aren't meant to be simple, much less being understandable if you don't do everything. He specifically makes his games confusing and hard. Heck, the whole origin of nier, was locked behind a secret ending in Drakengard. Which needed you to collect every weapon in the game to get. What makes Nier, in this case Automata special, is the world. It's a world were every big event already happened. Humans, gone. The whole replicant / gestalt dilemma, long forgotten. It's a story about what's left, and how they find meaning in their lives. Yes, 2B and 9S say certain phrases often, "Lets kill it!" or "machines have no emotions", but that's because the androids are, well, androids. They don't know any better. They were created to protect humanity, no questions asked. That's what makes 9S special, because his model is naturally curious, due to him being a scanner model. His "one dimensional" transformation is a reaction of losing his ONE anchor to the world, 2B. If you go to the flooded city, you'll find 2B's ship. There you find 2B's last message to 9S, saying her time with him was pure light. 2B is "emotionless" because she's acting. In reality she loves 9S, but she can't do anything about it because her role is to kill him. You get more hints of this in the side quest were you meet an executioner model android, where 9S calls her pretty, which makes 2B jealous. The game rewards players that play the game and pay attention. The story is special because you have to earn it. Yes, it makes it less obvious, but it's a rewarding experience. This is coming from a guy who doesn't write vg essays or works making content. Imagine what people who's more qualified could find.

Yes. Yes. And yes. Finally someone with standards.

You know what I love about this game? It does everything I felt that the original Nier did great completely wrong. Yoko taro games are a weird niche to begin with and making automata the very surface level examination of the themes it barely touches with absolutely zero subtlety did not help matters at all. Having said that, I would never recommened Nier to someone. Mans games are a hard sell to someone not already familiar with his works and for a damn good reason. I like that I played drakengard 1, Nier, and Drakengard 3, I like the stories they told and the memories I have with them. I also know suggesting anyone go play them all and try to form a narrative out of all of then would lose me friendships.

I’ve never felt such a disconnect between my own experience and general critical feedback. It’s not like, say, Last of Us, where I didnt like it but can easily see it’s a high quality product. NA was lacking in so many areas it’s baffling to me why its rated so highly. I’m off on a hunt through “Why Nier A is amazing” videos to see what I missed, but this video is pretty much my take on the game too.

I had to search for this viedo to find at least ONE person that found this game enjoyable. I understanf=d what you mean now. Maybe I was a bit harsh... Anyways thank you for the essay. I liked , I subscribed and I hope you will still make videos

I often hear people mentioning how Catherine lied or mislead Simon, but I genuinely disprove of that notion. Humans are... Soo very complicated. Nuances within their reason and actions. People forget that Catherine is a person with a strong resolve to keep humanity's existence going. A determination to see her project through to the end; The Ark, a simulated virtual world where last of humankind can live in a world that once was, born anew with hope for what humanity is left. She's a researcher, a scientist, and someone who they show struggles with conveying her emotions and socializing with the others in her group. (she might have some form of aspergers) Catherine never lies to you. She tells you exactly what she wants to do, you agree to help. Both her and Simon are soo caught up in this goal that they forget to really debrief what exactly each other know/understand, and (for Simon) he either can't comprehend (or refuses to accept) what key information Catherine tells him, leading him to ultimately feel betrayed by her in the end, even tho she never purposely tried to mislead him.

Amazing video! A lot of things I've been saying for some time. The AAA industry is ruined, but I'm living one of my best gaming moments, playing some JRPGs, indie games and old titles. Unfortunately, I can't imagine the majority of gamers doing the same thing. We'll see.

Great video. I hope that Ninja's success allows them to remaster or remake Heavenly Sword. Or make a sequel to Enslaved. Whatever their future is, I hope it's what they wish to make.