Seven years after this video was released, Soulstorm came out, aaaaand... yep, it's awful. Everything this video complains about still applies. The game adds an inventory system, crafting, tower defense mechanics, etc, but jumping from point A to point B is still unreliable.

Video still rings true, Matt

Woah. Dude I've watched lots of tLou part 2 Critiques but I think this was one of the lowest quality ones. Good job. You already wasted half of the video with gameplay nitpicks no one cares about but didnt understand the story or character motivations to begin with for the other half you had to rush through.

Really glad this passed 1 Mil. This video was the reason I finished DMD mode without items and it showed me how this game was meticulously designed with the difficulty in mind. This and 3 are still my favorites in the series despite their age and I wish more people would show DMC 1 as much love as you have.

Why is he yelling?

Don't know if it means anything to you, but watching this video to the end has convinced me to try and finish demon's souls. Now it's the first FromSoftware/Souls game I've ever beaten, thank you.

Finished the original, PS3 version of Demon's Souls just today after having previously played Dark Souls 1, 2, 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. While I can say that I'm glad I experienced it I'm much less likely to replay it than any of the games mentioned prior (except Dark Souls 2), just because those games are both better made and more fun than Demon's Souls. Demon's Souls is more fun to analyze, look back on and admire for its experimentation than it is to play. Continuously making the game harder for a player dying is just not good game design no matter how you try to spin it, and the Tendency system is a soundly failed experiment and if you play the game offline, which I choose to do for all the Souls games my first time through, it might as well not exist because there's no way to raise your World Tendency towards White if you're offline after you've killed all the bosses. You functionally only have one ring slot because the Cling Ring is simply too good to not use, since if you die while Human your World Tendency goes Black, so you want to be in Soul form as much as possible. It's a mess. It might sound like I hated the experience, but I really didn't, I enjoyed myself quite a bit. But I just really don't subscribe to the "different always equals good" mentality, if removing game design problems removes "complexity" then so be it. If I ever do replay the game, it'll be as a female magic-user because way more armor in the game is Female Only than Male Only, including the extremely useful Silver Bracelet which increases Souls gained, but also because most of the Demon Souls can ONLY be made into spells or miracles, lol.

Stopped watching after your braindead explanation about not using items because "they are finite". Classical darksouls elitist slop

Ueda: “design by subtraction” Miyazaki (post ds1): “design by addition” He needs to replay ICO

gimme dat 666k views when it says 6 years ago plssss

One thing that's nice about Majora's Mask that you didn't mention was how Skull Kid is such a nice antagonist compared to Ganon IMO. Ganon just kinda a bad guy usurper type who wants power because he's evil, which is totally fine for the type of game OoT is. Skull Kid is a sad and lonely kid who is a bit misguided, and seems to be taken advantage of by Majora. The whole game is about Link helping others and getting some empathy for them, and this applies to Skull Kid as well. It's all very simple but it circles around the themes of the game really well.

In an unusual moment I really disagree with you. This game made me really root for Abby and against Ellie. The final fight felt wrong because I felt like I was playing the wrong character

I have watched this video a long with your other commentaries all at least 3 times. I love how in each one you always manage to find a new angle to explain things in an interesting way. You have given me so much entertainment over the years and I am grateful for that.

Tetris is also perfect in that risk-reward is inherent to it's extremely simple game mechanics and doesn't need additional systems tacked on that bog down the experience. Think about it: success is measured via how many lines you clear, or put differently: decreasing the height of the structures you create is good. On the other hand, the game's loss state is reached when you maximize the height of that same structure. But more importantly: In order to clear lines, pieces must first be piled up, always getting you ever so slightly closer to that loss condition. Lesser games may require some external system to achieve even this basic level of depth -think miss/hit/crit rolls in RPGs and wargames. This is not only less elegant, but it also brings a good host of problems, such as punishing players for making good choices and viceversa. Besides, Tetris has no level design. All of the situations one could encounter in it emerge organically from it's inherent systems. This is common in board games (such as games of cards), but rarely seen in videogames. And even the board games that this applies to tend to suffer from problems that Tetris just doesn't have - such as the general unfairness and lack of depth in UNO. This is to say: Tetris is so perfect, it's mechanics are self-sufficient. And while Matthew did make that point in this very video, I thought it could be useful to expand upon it.

Play Touhou 9.

I've been waiting for this video to finally break 1 million views. Absolutely Deserved. Congrats.

This review is the epitome of the phrase "rose colored glasses". The original was gritty and dark and cool because of crt's and the functional limits of the cd-rom. This is like saying Grateful Dead was better on a tapedeck in an old chevy than live in the Vegas Sphere. You really just sound like a pretentious, mewling cry baby because the designers took full advatage of the platforms capabilities and its pretty clear you just want to sound like the worlds most ineffectual nerd who _wanted_ to not like the game, so that you have a precious little lofty opinion everyone should hear, and you hate that they dare touch your precious memory. The advertisement rant at 9:00 is especially hilarious when 1 minute later it cuts to an in-game cutscene from the original with.... and I'm not kidding.... the _exact_ brightly lit ads you were just complaining about that would "never be in the universe" which tells me everything I need to know about you and your smug opinion of yourself

Man, Elden ring nightreign, the alleged Sony acquisition of fromsoft, this video has aged so well

why is he yelling in this one lol

It is legitimately depressing to contrast your respect and admiration for this game, and how seriously it takes itself, with the haphazard slop that FromSoft is pumping out (Nightreign, et al). I really wish the smart, caring, deliberate team behind the Demon's Souls and Dark Souls would have been allowed to improve on their original works. I am grateful for the two outstanding games we got though.

Congrats on the 1 million views! This video taught me a lot about what would eventually become one of my favorite games of all time. It's still a gem worth returning to, both the game and this commentary. I believe this video respresents a shift in quality for your channel, starting the streak of your best work.

I just want FS to make something that's completely different. **Not a souls-like**. I'm sick and tired of it. Instead, I want them to make a new game on a new IP that puts souls-likes on top of its head the same way Demon's Souls did for the RPG games of its time. I'm hoping that there's still some semblance of that subversive, innovative spirit in FS but with each new release I gotta admit that I'm slowly losing faith in this studio.

This comment section (and myself) have long been clammering for Fromsoft to do something drastically new, and while Nightreign isn't quite it, it's looking to be at least structurally different in some interesting ways. Yet, of course the first people to whine about a game that isn't out yet are the people here. And for what?Nothing excludes an "asset-flip" game from being at least good, and despite feeling that the dark souls crossover looks really out of place ,if the end product is good, I don't really care if some relatively low budget, small scope spin-off game has recycled content. If the game turns out bad, then of course this crowd will cheer (and it'll complain if not, obviously) but in the case where it does genuinely turn out terrible, then, at best, we can expect Fromsoft to learn from some mistakes for their future endeavours. At worst, people will hate it on it so much it might just discourage FS from radically experimenting with future titles, which is just fucking ironic at this point isn't it. It's clear to me from interviews that Miyazaki hasn't exactly been working on his passion projects since the company needs to stay afloat (paraphrasing his words), but then, when he finally gives new blood in the company a chance to do something different, something the director himself told he personally was passionate about, we blindly jump at FS and say "NONONO, go back to the other thing!" People here will blame Miyazaki, even if all he did was greenlight an idea. People here will blame Fromsoft for a mobile game even if its development is out of their control. Matthew's video is great. In fact, it was so great it led to this comment section turning into an endless "This aged like fine wine!!" echo chamber. Dissimilarly, something Matthew understood is that it was never worth dwelling on these things. For all we know, he might've enjoyed Elden Ring, but if not, then, unlike amost all of the commenters here, he didn't bother whining about it again and again, he moved on.

We are so back Kamiya bros

Like cheese and wine

HAHAHA I remember thinking how From had gone to the dogs with Elden Ring. Now they announce Nightreign. Jesus Christ. I suppose all that's left at this point is a Soulsbourne/Elden Ring crossover fighting game or MOBA. What an undignified end to this series.

44:59 This rings true even more now with Elden Ring Nightreign including Dark Souls pandering

If you only knew how bad things really are

like fine wine edit: And i'm not saying nightreign will be garbage, FROM making a spinoff game that heavily reuses assets is nothing new and reusing assets is something more game devs should be doing. My problem with it is so far the premise of the game sounds bland. "Co-op Elden Ring but there's preset hero characters that auto level ups and you run around the lands between before a battle royale shrinking circle gets you while fighting enemies across the Soulsborne games." This type of game I guess is "new" from FROM but it's retreading the same archetype of game we've seen pumped out for the past several years now.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, Matthew was right again

I hope night reign ends up being good but stuff like removing character building and fall damage makes me worried about not just it but also future fromsoft games. Fromsoft is currently my favorite aaa studio but have streamlined and flanderized their games so much it's ridiculous

Lol

Anyone here after they announced night reign hero multi-player elden ring... Damn

bros...

Soooo, Elden RIng Gacha everyone?

Prophetic

time just keeps proving him right

I never really understood this video until Shadows of the Erdtree. I'm finally getting bored of just learning roll times and punish windows.

I don't think raiden is supposed to represent the player, the player is one more thing he doesn't understand that controls him. That's why, in the ending cutscene, when he chooses to be free and live his own life, he grabs the dogtag that we created and tosses it away.

I think the fact that the "souls" games have gone from: >Death immediately halves your HP. >Repeated deaths make the world harder. >Can be invaded at any time while human. To: >Recharging estus, mimic tear, curse doesn't even lower HP, etc. >Death has no punishment beyond soul/rune loss. >Can only be invaded in co-op. really says all it needs to about these games and who they're intended for. (Hint: not fans of the original games)

If anything the main menu song in the original gave me the dark depressing oppressive feeling that abes oddysee has and that alone is what makes me feel like abes oddysee is the darkest game in the oddworld series!

Saying the n word? Denying Bioshock is a masterpiece?! This man has a brass pair!

@matthew Do you plan on reviewing SoulStorm? I really liked your new n tasty review and would like to see one for SoulStorm.

if Wind Waker had a proper overworld map it probably would be my favorite in the series. The ocean really holds it back.

Finally tried this game but, unfortunately, I found the controls and camera too clunky and I put it aside after beating the two first colossi. Maybe I'll give it another shot someday. I did appreciate the minimalism, which is apparent even in the beginning. It's a quality that few games have anymore.

One thing you neglected to mention is that the increase in context sensitivity in recent years is partly due to the push for realism. In your example footage showing how BotW is a quintessential game that minimizes context sensitivity, you can ironically see that Nintendo ended up making a concession in favor of context sensitivity. Link's animation for putting grass on fire using a torch is different from him striking the air with the torch, that done in the interest of realism, unlike in 2D Zelda where both actions are identical. You have already thoroughly discussed the kinds of issues that inconsistency in actions leads to. Likewise, your example of Spiderman as the peak of context sensitivity actually shows the opposite. Although I understand that the massive button prompts to use your webs are undeniable evidence supporting your position, I would argue that in some sense the game having you open doors using your web shooters is an instance of context insensitivity because, as ridiculous as it looks, as you have noted, the game is nonetheless trying to stick to its ruleset instead of assigning a new button and creating tailor-made animations just for opening doors.

+ easy to understand + you are your own opponent + infinity replayable

I just started the OG Tomb Raiders and I'm shocked with how much I'm clicking with tank control platforming. The camera can do whatever the hell it wants, I'm still in full control, and provided I have the bare minimum context I can make a jump without even looking where I'm going. The controls do benefit from a slower pace than other 3D platformers so they probably limit the kinds of games you can make with them but I am a bit sad that they seem to have been abandoned completely. I came back to this video, completely forgetting how much you talked about the camera in 3D games, because I noticed how good, tangible and consequential the platforming/climbing/traversal in Tomb Raider feels and I identified the main reason as the context insensitivity of Lara's movement options. You don't just grab a ledge, you make the grabbing input and try to collide with a ledge in that state. It's slower, more methodical and laborious but so satisfying to make a single jump or scale a single story. The Assassin's Creeds, Uncharteds and Reboot Raider have flashier, faster, smoother, and more accessible traversal thanks in large part to a reliance on context sensitivity, and you lose something in the "feel" of navigating a space as a result. You feel less responsible, and consequently traversal is less rewarding. I would love for there to be more games that capture what Tomb Raider was able to achieve with the feeling of its traversal but I'm not aware of many. Funnily enough the only game that feels applicable is Death Stranding of all things.

It's funny hearing about devs having to work with n64 hardware limitations 10 years later, after watching some of Kaze Emanuar's videos.

On the bit about subtlety, I think we value experience over propositional logic. Understanding gained through reading a situation or a facial expression feels more authentic somehow. May be it's due to our evolutionary history, where interpreting subtle cues was crucial for survival.