A Plague Tale: Requiem (Zero Punctuation)

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This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews A Plague Tale: Requiem.
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[@theescapist]

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[@todddavis2985]

When and what is your next audio book??

[@NN010]

@@RuleroftheSandcastle without wishing to spoil the video, I don’t think you have much to worry about yet…

[@simple-commentator-not-rea7345]

"The protagonists best course of action would be to fucking STOP." Ironically, one of the final bossfights literally requires you to give up

[@based7465]

I love how yahtzee talks about how much his children changed his life and how he loves them only to make it clear how much he hates the fictional child

[@mackielunkey2205]

Kind of implies that he has great kids.

[@AkkhanElzra]

He is completely right though, having a kid changes your perception of all kids. The child screaming in the grocery store elicits feelings of pity and a desire to comfort or assist the parents rather than frustration or anger for the noise and display of behavior.

[@chielbakker2726]

@@AkkhanElzra So you're saying you only develop empathy after having kids?

[@johnwrath3612]

@@mackielunkey2205 his kids are both under 3-4 years old. At that age they’re basically sticky, shrieking, squirmy demons. If it wasn’t for oxytocin forcing us to love them our species would have died out years ago due to mass infanticide.

[@kristonparris4045]

I cried when I delivered that punchline...

[@Norrikan]

_"She resolves the plot by doing the thing I've been yelling at her to do since the beginning."_ - Powerbombing her brother down a concrete stairwell?

[@zachflag6506]

One can only hope. Fuck knows I’m not playing the game to find out

[@wurmsrus2]

spoilers below havent' actually played it myself but did some googling and after he fully merges with the macula (which I guess is the thingy that let's him summon the rats?) he tells her she has to kill him to stop the plague and either she does with a sling or if you wait too long current pet npc (Lucas) kills him with a crossbow

[@MrJamieRose]

@@wurmsrus2 you got it pretty much right. I did play the game. (I liked it a lot. music and art was beautiful. story was a little annoying for the parts mentioned in the review, but I appreciate the direction and writing the developers made. but the game overarching narrative was more about the growth of the bond between Amicia and Hugo.) Hugo thought Amicia was killed, so he embraced the Macula because he felt alone and threatened (shocker). she wasn't actually dead, and she tries to rescue him. they realize they were too late and that Hugo was destined to die. everybody knew it, but Amicia wasn't ready to believe it. Amicia must kill her brother, the most important thing to her, in order to save the world. Which begs the question, can you love someone enough to sacrifice them? was her entire journey for nothing? was life meaningless to begin with? this followed by more generic existential questions, and an absolute terrible pixie cut, along with an unsatisfying epilogue, and a teaser for a game that will never come out.

[@rjfaber1991]

@@MrJamieRose It's the "We're going to take you on this whole merry ride with the plot, but ultimately you know as well as we do that you'll lose it all at the end" thing that so many games now seem to follow because Red Dead Redemption 2 did it. I'm kind of here for it, so it'll probably take a while before it'll get old for me, but I entirely understand that people who want their efforts in a game to lead to some kind of glorious conclusion are currently yelling at game developers to just stop it and go back to writing less profound (or quasi-profound) plots.

[@MrJamieRose]

@@rjfaber1991 the trope of tragedy has been around far longer than RDR2.

[@seanjenkins5505]

"FIND ANOTHER 6 YEAR OLD THIS ONE'S BROKE" should be the tagline on every copy.

[@seanjenkins5505]

@@mitchhamilton64 i think the line is funny. I don't care about this franchise. i didn't even know it existed until the sequel. I rarely watch yahtzee for game recommendations. I watch him because hes funny.

[@adamcetinkent]

See also: The Devil's Hour

[@simple-commentator-not-rea7345]

Wow. I realise it's kind of a given that game companies have no idea how to write kid characters (with some exceptions, cough , Clementine) but is Hugo really THAT badly written?

[@shankypanky8879]

This whole video is Yahtzee dancing around the bush and explaining why he hates Hugo, the pied piper kid and not telling the real reason. Hugo is French.

[@ZxiferKatsura]

Oh no...

[@BetaJackMaxis]

Given how he moved from England and never looked back and also shits on the place whenever he brings it up, doubtful.

[@mattevans4377]

@@BetaJackMaxis You can take the man out of England, but you can't take the England out of the man.

[@Ioun267]

@@BetaJackMaxis Hating the French is a tradition across the the Anglophonic sphere.

[@BetaJackMaxis]

@@Ioun267 Why? The French aren't the cause of double digit amounts of Imdependence Days.

[@Green815]

At least the game at the end actually lampshades how stupid Amicia is being. Even Hugo is like "Seriously? You've been clinging to all these magic birds and possible ways to save me, but you know, and have always known that it was going to lead to me dying. Stop being stubborn, do what you're supposed to and fucking kill me!". Buuuut Amicia's biggest flaw is that she has serious attachment issues, and it's implied in the lore that the Protector has an absurd level of attachment to the Carrier, almost as if the Protector is actually part of the Macula itself.

[@rocko7711]

Congrats for continuing this show for 15 years It’s impressive you have been at it for this long Yahtzee

[@andrewt9128]

amen to that

[@RookieREX]

amen to that indeed, *lays nice flowers on a clearly very well kept grave to the good times we had, and the good times ahead ey Yahtz? Yahtz: "i'd rather be at home having a wank tbh"

[@conor-smith572]

So. Funny story...

[@vincentrose8725]

The fact Yahtzee lives down his previous statements by going "fuck you people change now get off my back" is the most Yahtzee thing ever.

[@troperhghar9898]

Yahtzee's child is one day going to watch his dad's videos and blow the other school kids minds because he knows all the swear words

[@IHaveAVeryCommonName]

Her* He's mentioned two daughters on streams.

[@troperhghar9898]

@@IHaveAVeryCommonName oh, thank you

[@juliantapia1407]

@@IHaveAVeryCommonName I'm honestly surprised he's at 2 now. I remember when he only had one

[@GodOfOrphans]

They'll fit right in with the Navy brats, they don't call it Sailor's Mouth for nothing.

[@donaldderrickii5405]

Not just knowing all the swear words but the creative and interesting ways to tie them together hahaha

[@mythologymaniac500]

For anyone wondering, the sign in French at 1:28 roughly translates to "please update this sign every hundred years"

[@michalesferra7826]

I just now realized the mickey mouse hat was because the kid controlled mice

[@ShadowWolfRising]

How the fuck did I miss that?

[@jesselangham]

"breathy urgent whispers" had me in stiches.

[@Evil.Overlord]

4:18 For anyone playing this, skill upgrades aren't as ingenious as he's describing it here: what matters isn't *how* you kill enemies, but *how many* per encounter. 70% you get a combat boost, in-between you get an alchemy boost. So if you never get spotted but still stealth kill all the enemies, you'll get a combat boost instead of a stealth one.

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

Oh no not this low chaos high chaos bs again...

[@InfiniteDarkMass]

That sounds like it makes even less sense...

[@formorian5]

@@PancakemonsterFO4 I will die on this hill. Dishonored is the only game I've ever played that did a moral choice system right. I remember playing a high chaos run after my low chaos, no kill first playthrough. I thought, this is so much easier and fun! Then I got to to the later stages, with higher security and more rats than last time, and it hit me. This is the consequences of my actions. The evil solution is the quicker, more convenient solution that appeals to someone with weak will that doesn't realize how this will have consequences in the future. The good option is harder, but ultimately leads to a better future. It's hard to be good, but being evil will have consequences. Dishonored brings that across in both story and gameplay.

[@PancakemonsterFO4]

@@formorian5 for me, first run straight up sucked, both in finding/choosing upgrade tokens and getting through the game undetected, like i wouldn't even bother hiding the bodies properly. I still tried to avoid massacres instead of creating bloodbaths everywhere i go, it was my first stealth/thief game after all and i had alot more fun on the next run after learning the best ways to get through, especially on the cursed bridge checkpoint with the gang members and the tesla coil or at the party where i got upset and backstabbed the first boyle i saw (wich somehow was the right one). Also i stopped killing the criers that might have been responsible for still getting bad ratings despite doing ok, silly me thinking they were dumb zombies

[@melancholyman369]

@@formorian5 no no your right

[@pickledparsleyparty]

This game really should have been about Amicia grappling with conflicting urges: 1. She loves her brother more than anything and feels a strong need to protect him 2. Bubonic Rat Boy needs to die, though It's so obvious that Hugo has to die. Needs to die. For the good of the world. Macula carriers just need to die. The rats go away IMMEDIATELY if that happens. And if it doesn't happen, literally anyone Rat Boy ever sees will be eaten by rats. It's a no-brainer that could have been made interesting by Amicia's irrational need to protect him, if she had ever even contemplated it. As written, the characters and even the plot are nonsense. And Arnauld and Sophia are the most pointless characters in all of fiction.

[@atomic747]

They tease that that macula is still around even in our time..but at the point we can easily combat it with our tech..so that pretty silly.

[@Green815]

To be fair, Hugo (after having surrendered to the Macula) basically says this to Amicia at the end of the game. He basically says "You should kill me. You should have killed me ages ago but you were too busy clinging to fantasies and a way out, when you know what the real way out is, but are too pigheaded to see it".

[@pickledparsleyparty]

@@Green815 yeah but I think it's lame that he had to lecture her before she gets it. And then she isn't shown to pay any kind of price for her pigheadedness. Does she even care that Hugo wiped out almost all of civilized France? The consequence of all that is that I spent the entire game thinking Amicia was a moron. And that makes a story feel really dumb.

[@mb7290]

Can you recommend me some good story driven games with good characters? Only you appear to be an expert in writing and there are only two games that have ever made me feel strong emotions for characters and its this and RDR2.

[@pickledparsleyparty]

@@mb7290 Soma made me feel a lot for Simon and Catherine. Amnesia Rebirth was also great. All about main character Tasi grappling with miscarriage PTSD. Layers of Fear also super good. Husband and wife share a severe hatred for each other.

[@huwguyver4208]

The final straw in the first game for me was that little sh*t randomly deciding to run off, and my in-game character saying we need to go find him while all I wanted to do was skip off joyfully in the opposite direction.

[@huwguyver4208]

@@mitchhamilton64 that's the thing. She wanted to help her little brother. I didn't. You can't just throw a child character in there and expect people to care. You have to make them likeable and seem to have some interest in self-preservation. Clementine from Telltale's The Walking Dead would never have run off like an idiot the way What's His Name (idc) from Plague's Tale did. He was already starting to annoy me before that- running off was just the final straw. And incidentally, you want to lecture me about maturity, yet here you are making personal attacks on someone for not liking a game that you liked. Might want to have a think about that one.

[@Sad_Elf]

@@mitchhamilton64 first grade literacy skills be like

[@jarreldoomis3502]

@@mitchhamilton64 room temp iq on display

[@alexahegao842]

​@@mitchhamilton64 was probably that one annoying little brother you have to deal with, that's why he sympathise with him so much

[@gingerinajacket8519]

L + Ratio + snubbing a snob

[@Argosh]

I hate when I accidentally trigger a grey goo scenario.

[@mackielunkey2205]

You know what would solve that? A surfboard.

[@lindsaycooper3213]

Yahtzee wrote a book about a grey goo scenario. The hero in the end was the sensible, angry game developer...

[@OzixiThrill]

I too hate accidentally starting a grey goo scenario. I want to trigger that thing at the most opportune moment for my personal gain, thank you very much.

[@Seydaschu]

My goo is a different color, should I be worried?

[@mackielunkey2205]

@@Seydaschu Hey! Phrasing!

[@nirast2561]

Let's hope Dad of Boy 2 has better parenting than this.

[@lnsflare1]

Correction: Dad of *BOI* 2

[@camwyn256]

Lol. I've been calling it Dad of War. Dad of Boi is better. :)

[@hollandscottthomas]

PRESS X TO FATHER

[@camwyn256]

@@mitchhamilton64 a good game with well written characters can still have bad parenting. In fact, that could be a motivating factor

[@Kris-wo4pj]

@@magmos6346 is he David Cage level of disaster writing? those are the only games i cant even get through without cringing cuz its so bad at least other game writers if theyre bad at it is atleast funny or entertaining in a different way. not David Cage tho cant stand the fake pretentiousness as he goes on about how his games dont have a meaning to it when being called out on the obvious meaning to the game that he was just really bad at writing about.

[@samwill7259]

Yahtzee has to be one of the best dads, has to be Even if that poor girl is gonna be able to strip the paint off a battleship by the time she learns to talk

[@samparker9631]

Eh, it worked for latchkey kids raised by bugs bunny

[@thedudewhoeatspianos]

I'm a new father experiencing the rush of emotions and oxytocin you get from constantly cuddling a tiny human so it doesn't die. The only thing that's made me reconsider spawning is the chance my kid might end up like Hugo or François or whatever his name is. I wouldn't want to have to keep playing catch next to the interstate to resolve that problem.

[@drbarnack1885]

I misread that as “emotions and OxyContin” and wondered where I can get a baby for this weekend

[@thedudewhoeatspianos]

@@mitchhamilton64 he's an undercharacterized little shit for whom I'm supposed to feel emotion but who does nothing to elicit it. He's not sweet, or clever, or useful, or funny, or cute. His mere presence is not enough to make me feel a semi-paternal attachment.

[@tretretre1111]

@@mitchhamilton64 It seems like you don't understand why he hates him.

[@Kris-wo4pj]

@@mitchhamilton64 i was starting to hate the kid by the end of the first one. he reminded me of when my little brother was that age so he was annoying but it was nostalgic by the end i was fine with something bad happening to him but he turned it around alittle in the end when he realized he was being a shitty person to his sister who was trying to help him. so i get why yahtzee hates him just from that game. Hugo makes everyone without kids go never having them just in case and every parent im glad thats not my kid. we've all meet that one kid that we instinctually think that about and hugo is a fictional version of that. also Atreus from god of war 2016 wanted to smack that kid so much in the middle of it.

[@aqueelkadri8371]

5:17 "You've orphaned about 5000 of the fuckers" made me chuckle and made me sad at the same time 🥲

[@bird3713]

I can really relate to Yahtzee's changing perspectives after having kids - admittedly though, I still don't think that babies are very cute, except for mine. No one else's. No, not yours either. Just mine.

[@nickg131]

Exactly opposite perspective here. Wife and I don't want kids, but generally like all our friends kids. They're better at being pleasant in small bursts, we can just watch cartoons and play video games with them without the worry about if I'm teaching them to read and shit in the toilet. And if they DO piss me off, I can wave my magic wandphone and make them go home. Lol

[@rocksnrolls]

Dog babies. They're perfectly adorable

[@justcommenting4981]

I went to see your baby. Nobody knew you.

[@Kaefer1973]

My "Well I guess they are kinda cute" meter now starts with toddlers, even if parental feelings and familial love stacked for each child seen, it would never reach the state in which I could view a baby as anything but an ugly roughly human shaped wrinkle worm.

[@darkdragoness5]

@@nickg131 I always view kids as like pet parrots. I don't mind them when other people have them, sometimes I love them and their antics, but I don't want one of my own (I have seen way too many screechers to ever want one)

[@pieoverlord]

I just want confirmation of how often Gabe rubs it in that he told Yahtzee he'll change on kids. I still remember, dammit.

[@Summoned-Nightmare]

God, I remember the days when Yahtz would bemoan having kids and how he's 'so lonely' (not often, and usually for a joke) and now seeing him with his own family...

[@pieoverlord]

@@DiegoTan66 Nah, it's got be be closer to a decade ago than not, on one of their Let's Drown Outs.

[@chaolinpescain]

Fuck man, it's been a long time but I remember now, was barely a kid in school and now I'm graduating college, life's better but I miss that duo's rambling, it really opened me up to a lot of new things, will have to rewatch them now

[@subtlewhatssubtle]

It's fascinating how quickly 'yeet' entered Yahtzee's review vocabulary.

[@jasonwismer2670]

For a comedian I can't think of a better word to add!

[@ryanbarham8464]

Yeet has been a thing since 2015. Dude took his sweet time, if you ask me.

[@Rush2201]

@@ryanbarham8464 And I still don't accept it. 'Tis a stupid word.

[@jasonshannon7768]

"Boy I hope my kids don't rewatch all of these when they're teenagers" I can't wait for the slew of teenager jokes Yahtzee will definitely make in 14 or 15 years and for his kids to realize how... let's say 'passionate' their dad is about the games industry

[@pokemonmanic3595]

Yeah especially the Bowsers inside story where he said he wished all pregnant women’s fetuses would pop out and fly away 😅

[@stevenneiman1554]

I did once see a story where a character was willing to do things for their children that make you think "wow, that's fucked up" even though they're doing it for love of family and it worked, but that was because the story actually made a point of showing that the character in question was psychologically fucked up and obsessed with doing right by his kids no matter what it cost anyone else, including him. It kinda sounds like Plague Tale missed the part where they justify or acknowledge that. For anyone wondering, it's a briefly important subplot in a webnovel called The Zombie Knight Saga. Which is overall really good if you don't mind that it's super dark and also on hiatus in the middle of a dramatic scene.

[@Julia-zv8tv]

Personally I think it does work in Plague Tale if you like Hugo and approach Amicia as a character in her own right instead of a player stand-in. There comes a point where even Hugo (the six-year-old) is trying to gently tell Amicia to do the thing she ultimately does, and by the way she responds, it's clear that her motivation throughout the game is more about going mindless with desperation and terror than it is anything based in reason. And she's called out about this by multiple characters who point out with varying degrees of explicitness that she's going too far and chasing solutions that aren't really there.

[@regywells3281]

@@Julia-zv8tv onee san can you help me with my homework

[@armelior4610]

To be fair "14th century France" and "current understanding of science" means running away from doctors is the most sensible thing to do by far, unless you really like leeches

[@UNION_JACK_THE_RIPPER]

I mean we still use leeches in modern medicine

[@John-Adams]

Safe and Effective vaccines give you myocarditis.

[@bobsickle2336]

​@@UNION_JACK_THE_RIPPER Not to "Balance the humours" though. Leeching and other bloodletting most likely killed more people than those doctors ever saved. Also, when we use leeches or maggots (for eating dead flesh) we have specially bred specimens that are kept in sterile conditions.

[@bjhale]

I don't know. I kinda think you could make a cool video game mechanic based on the four humors of Galenic medicine.

[@rjfaber1991]

@@bobsickle2336 They did have cauterisation though, which prevented a lot of deaths from infections. And they practiced quarantine, albeit also for some diseases that actually aren't contagious. Medieval European medicine was very much a mixed bag.

[@zoroark101]

I never felt like we were supposed to agree with Amicia. It seemed pretty clear to me throughout the game that she was clutching at straws and ignoring rationality because she just wanted Hugo to be happy for once, but it just wasn't meant to be. I mean, at one point HUGO was telling her that it would be better for him to die than keep on causing rat invasions.

[@-Sparagmos-]

Yeah that was literally the whole point of the game and he somehow didn’t get it.

[@zoroark101]

@@stupidhand15 He's her little brother. She survived hardship and loss alongside him, so how can you say her motivation is shallow? She loves him, and she's just a young teenager. I'd absolutely expect her to do what she did, rationalizing that she can stop him from hurting anyone else because she can't bear to lose yet another person. She didn't want to sacrifice one thing for another, she wanted to try and have everything. Good stories don't have main characters that engage in perfectly rational and carefully calculated behavior, because that would result in a boring and uneventful story, even though - or rather, because - they made all the right choices. Good stories have flawed, realistic people that make mistakes and eventually learn from them. In my opinion, Amicia's behavior is entirely believable, and it sets up the heartbreak at the end very well, because you start to see more and more how futile her wishes are. By the end, she finally faces her fear of loss and ends things herself. She learns to accept that loss is inevitable, instead of vainly trying to cling to what she loves even as it destroys her and everything else. That's a good story.

[@saamo1423]

@@zoroark101 bruh

[@hunterking572]

Being a new father does change you. It makes the introductory joke way funnier.

[@benwood96]

The return of "I said earhole!" joke from the Littlebigplanet review

[@moistnar]

The entire intro sticks the "fuck this kid" joke landing like an Olympic gymnast

[@lexslate2476]

I'm a little reminded of the whole mutants thing in Marvel comics. Like okay, do an extended allegory for various actual groups in society who get treated unreasonably badly, but if there's a minority that randomly shoots radioactive lasers from their nipples, maybe being scared of them is perfectly reasonable.

[@christianstonecipher1547]

I think there an added layer of irony about refusing to isolate someone who is a danger to others in a game with "plague" in the name.

[@Wolfrover]

Clarification: The doctor wanted to lock the child away for the rest of his short life without his family or friends. Not only is this a bit much for a small child to endure, this was also what they did to the previous bearer of the power. The previous bearer fell into despair and unleashed the plague, so it's hard to see how locking up another one would have been an improvement.

[@lmao_nope]

Then just give him a nice meal, a nice room, some friends, a puppy... and then, once the drugs in the food have taken effect, stab him in the cranium repeatedly.

[@jcace13]

I will forever be hyper-aware of characters who talk exclusively in breathy whispers from now on.

[@heribob117]

Fun fact: now I notice the credits, and just noticed that Yaht is named Ben 🤣 always figured Yaht was his real name. That aside, I enjoyed his hatred of the twerp. Enjoyable review. Many thanks for all your good work.

[@MayaPosch]

The incessant loud whispering during 'stealth' sessions totally got on my nerves too. There's something utterly psychotic and disturbing about it. The contrived story and plot further just adds to what is in the end something that would have been resolved so much faster if a certain 6-year old had 'accidentally' drowned or been killed by the bandits in the opening sequence. That Yahtzee compares this game with TLoU #2 ought to say enough.

[@megakiller999]

I remember watching Yahtzee's original assassin's creed review... wow, time is a thing

[@deepfriedsalt567]

"find another bloody six year old, this one's broke!" That's going on my list of favourite yahtzee quotes.

[@zekiezay]

“…This one’s broke!” 🤣🤣🤣

[@cjg1029]

First time I completely agreed with a Zero Punctuation. She really did seem to keep making matters worse. Also why was the dude in this forbidden area anyway. It's like they didn't want to wait too long to introduce the rats so they kept putting her in increasingly dumb situations to force the issue

[@sportsjefe]

@bannerman The problems in this case are almost identical if Amicia is Andre, though.

[@cjg1029]

@@sportsjefe yeah the story is pretty unisex. A tale of 2 sons basically except the older sibling is learning maturity instead of the younger one.

[@davidfuchs845]

Eh, that's the point. She's trying to keep Hugo safe, and she's right that basically if it weren't for all the shit rulers doing shit things around them, things would have been fine-if they'd gotten Hugo to that isolated mountain cabin, it would have worked out. Hugo's a kid, it's not his fault he's got a malevolent plague entity in his blood. But they live in France during the Hundred Years War-there was really never going to be that chance for peace in a brutal, war-torn world where people keep trying to play with fire because they think it'll burn everyone but themselves. The entire journey and the point of the final looping encounter is that Amicia had to finally realize that things were too far gone and killing Hugo was the only option. Obviously with the benefit of hindsight she could have saved everyone a lot of grief by doing it earlier, but that's not really how human beings work, especially when their family is involved. The game has issues (I think the thin characterizations of everyone outside of Amicia and Hugo being the main one, and I agree with Yahtzee that it was overlong) but the fact that it ends on a down ending where the protagonist loses isn't I think a valid criticism.

[@greenshot1584]

to be fair she is 14th century so listening to strange dreams is so par on course that it becomes strange her alchemist mother is not on board with it

[@Darth360NoSc0pe]

Moreover, the 'scientific observation & experimentation' that Order guy was doing reset another rat infestation. Who wouldn't take a shot at Hugo's recurring dreams over that?

[@ryleeguy2763]

Hey, Yahtzee! I just picked up a copy of your book, Will Save the Universe for Food, at books a million. Cant wait to read it, your utterly unique comedic word play is the most impressive Iv ever heard. Iv been witching zero for like 10 years or something (had to go check, yeah like 2012) and am starting to step away from drawing to write myself. I come to your videos to find such colorful dialogue examples. Your a real talent at being you and I appreciate it. You have helped my motivation and inspiration. 👍🏻

[@averywisemantle3785]

Congratulations on your children! Its really wholesome to see my favorite cuss artist finding a place in his heart for something other than Silent Hill 2 or psychonauts

[@Kaefer1973]

Well there's so many other things, Paper Mario, Prince of Persia, Portal, Papers Please, Persona 4 & 5 and even some that don't start with P like Return of the Obra Dinn, Stardew Valley, and maybe that one 8-16 bit era JRPG I can't remember the title of. He likes a lot of things aside his chosen family.

[@Slash0mega]

@@Kaefer1973 was that string of "p" deliberate or did you list up a bunch and realized what you had?

[@Kaefer1973]

@@Slash0mega The latter, I edited the comment when noticing while writing it. Since then I could think of three more overall, Monkey Island 2, Spec Ops: The Line and Undertale, which still leaves it a little skewed.

[@brianmckee2267]

@@Kaefer1973 earthbound! (And/or chrono trigger)

[@Kaefer1973]

@@brianmckee2267 Right Earthbound was what I was thinking about, but Chrono Trigger is another one.

[@Inkdisc]

glad to see im not the only one who had a bad time with the game. a third of the way in i was like 'if this doesnt end with him dying im calling bs'. and even then the game tried to make it seem like a noble sacrifice when nothing would have changed if theyd listened to the mom, outside of certain characters still being alive. and half the supposed reveals were amicia pulling things out her ass and being treated like she suddenly knew more than people who had been studying the plague for over 300 years

[@atomic747]

Yeah, amicia really sucks in this one and then at the end trying to go and help other carriers? uhh yeah..despite her sucking protecting her carrier.

[@Caerulean]

I think the story was doing it on purpose: Amicia was clinging to a hope that she could save her little brother, but his death, given the circumstances, was inevitable, and it was a tragedy she hoped would never come. Nothing they did really saved Hugo in the end, but perhaps their experience could at least help the future Carrier and Protector.

[@melancholyentertainment]

If there's one thing to be said for criticism of the subtitle approach to naming your game franchise, it's that I scrolled past this video twice before now thinking I'd already seen it before. Or hell, for all I know one of them was the old video!

[@wesleythomas7125]

Emicia: "I smoke crack now." Mum: "Took yer long enough. Give us a gram, there's a luv."

[@lastsinnersa8002]

There's understanding that teens will inevitably make some hare-brained decisions and then there's been so stubborn and making every worst decision possible. How the heck are we meant to be remotely sympathetic when the protagonist has no regard for literally anyone else but themselves and the vortex to heck?

[@shawklan27]

Feels like how most people would react in this scenario to be honest

[@kiljadaen]

I think your giving people too much credit for caring beyond themselves and loved ones after everyone to the Inquisition want your entire family dead, or brainwashed to serve their cause. Toss in psychos and greedy bastards and shit man I just want this damn thing out of my brothers head and want to go live in the fucking mountains. And I think that's the point right? Its a tragedy cause in the end everything was for naught. Leave him with the order would cause another massive plague anyway. Only solution is pillow over the face and they didn't want to accept that possibility till it was too late and everything was already fucked. I feel like Yahtzee is downplaying some of the fucked up stuff a 15 and 6 year old went through that would warp your ideas and thoughts for comedy. Story is definitely not perfect and I agree with alot of his points but damn alot of people seem to want to hate that literal children made the wrong decisions dealing with some eldritch infection that wants to eat the sun.

[@vojnov9885]

You probably don't have a younger sibling then.

[@user-lh7mt7zo7l]

@@shawklan27 Yeah people are selfish like that.

[@user-lh7mt7zo7l]

@@vojnov9885 I do but if they were a rat controller I'd have us live somewhere isolated where they don't cause issues.

[@rolfstalker2986]

For someone who became a father a mere month ago that intro was fantastic! Also great to finally see someone else yelling "read another fucking book!" to the Harry Potter fandom!

[@MackRangerPower]

1) good to know things never change 2) I also have miso so it’s nice to see someone else is just as crazy when it comes to mouth noises 3) gonna be a hard pass for me

[@Fordddyyy]

Misophonia too. Bad.

[@youngthinker1]

Would of been more fun if her brother was one of many who control small animals. They engage in massive hoard battles between territories and she has to help by altering the terrain, rallying peasants, or stealth killing the other leader. This leads into a final battle where her brother is abducted by aliens who gifts powers to children as part of a tv show, and the winner is turned into a sentient computer to keep all the pest animals away from their cities via hypnotic control and messing with his brain. She can choose to fight the aliens or let her brother go. (Of course I was thrown out of the building. No one listens to my illness induced psychotic stories that live on the edge and destroy tension with a nonsensical ending.)

[@thevgmlover]

Oh oh. Am I about to get thrown out of a building next? Because I liked the gameplay idea here. 😶

[@adamloga3788]

I'd play it.

[@youngthinker1]

@@thevgmlover Chad yes

[@thevgmlover]

@@youngthinker1 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

[@adamcetinkent]

Weird Pokemon sequel

[@GretgorPooper]

Yahtzee being a dad is one of the most adorable things that happened in recent years. Deep inside, he's a kind and lovable grumpy Britishman.

[@gus.smedstad]

4:31 - this is pretty much my main problem with the entire Elder Scrolls series. More than anything else, the reason I like their Fallout games so much more is that you can assign your skill points to whatever I want, rather than them being auto-assigned to whatever I've been doing a lot. Not to mention how boring it is to grind up craft skills like Blacksmith or Alchemy in the learn-by-doing RPG model.

[@foomp]

I very much agree with Yahtzee about the game. I still quite enjoyed playing it though. The talent behind the voice actors is superb. Better than what you would expect of most AAA games, and this ain't a AAA game. Like it's legit not a bad game, although the first game probably felt better due to how strong those upgrades were.

[@cathallynch8269]

3:02 Thank you for highlighting misophonia. The whispering in this game was ridiculous for me.

[@vladimirlestrad3120]

1:30 “Veuillez mettre a jour ce signe tous les cent ans” means “Please update this sign every hundred years.” Roughly. You’re welcome.

[@ookazi1000]

@5:09 yes, I'm painfully aware of those people.

[@grantcutler2367]

last couple of weeks have been the best in a while.

[@Beastly_Chariot]

"I said earhole!" - holy shit I fucking lost it at that, perfect delivery 🤣😂🤣😂

[@nolanlemmon8180]

This is the only ZP review that has made me feel genuine disdain about the reviewed game. Bravo!

[@angeldeb82]

LOL! So very funny... and that "Hagrid died"? Dang it, now it reminds me of Robbie Coltrane as well! And I'm amazed that you have not just a daughter but a son as well! Nice! LOLed at the "because question mark" running gag! XD

[@thed3m0n0id9]

As both my sons(21 - has a kid of his own now - and 19) LOVE your channel....your kids are gonna watch every last one of these and then quiz you xD just prepare yourself now, pops Sincerely, a grandpa that's way too young for the title

[@axelprino]

I'm pretty much in the opposite camp when it comes to babies, I've always found them adorable but I definitely don't want one of my own.

[@addex1236]

Same I love kids love them to death the problem is I'm not responsible enough of a human being to have that responsibility plus I value my Independence too much and when someone has a kid that becomes their life oh at least when good people have kids I've seen plenty of people abandon their children it's disgusting

[@Darkgun231]

I was hoping to play as Rat-Boy this time. I didn't want Amecia the Loon to be the main character because her arc was resolved in the first game, it was time to let her brother have the spot light. Playing as someone who can control swarms of rats would have been amazing. Much better than the gunk they gave us here.

[@Ishpeck]

The comment @5:45 earned my "like" and also this bit of engagement.

[@Nerdnumberone]

I don't think it would work for a videogame, but in the Tabletop RPG "Delta Green" they have an interesting mechanic. Whenever you attempt and *fail* a skill check the first time in an adventure (session?) you mark it. At the end of the adventure or session, you get to increase all of the marked skills. This way you are more likely to improve skills that you attempt, but are bad at. As it is a cooperative game, this also helps characters that are bad at important skill catch up to more competent characters. You still have to attempt the skill and live with whatever consequences failure entails (with the risk of critical failure as well). This probably won't work with a videogame, since it would be easy to abuse the system, something that a human GM would put a stop to in a tabletop setting.

[@addex1236]

The problem is that's bad design there's nothing wrong with a character not being able to do something at all in fact it's bad if your character can do everything because that just creates vanilla encounters

[@drdca8263]

@@addex1236 I’m not following your reasoning. They aren’t saying the character is good at everything. They are saying that the things the character gets better at, are the overlap between (what the player would like the player to get better at) with (what the player attempted as the character). Like, for story/realism reasons, it makes sense that one gets more skilled at something with practice, so it only counts things that were attempted, and for gameplay reasons, unless you want to soft-force the player to stick to one set of character-competencies, without requiring that they manually spend skill-points on their desired skills,.. Well, I really don’t see your point. Edit: though, maybe one could make it so one only gets xp at a skill if one both succeeds in some attempt using the skill and fails in another separate attempt using the same skill?

[@Nerdnumberone]

@@addex1236 it is a percentile system and you only gain 1d4 points, so skill progression is SLOW. It's also a Call of Cthulhu offshoot, so characters tend to die or retire regularly enough that character progression is limited. If you are bad at a skill, this mechanic will only get you to average after multiple adventures. You also only learn if you attempt the skill and in a horror game you don't want to go out of your way to do things that you are bad at. Say you have a 30% skill with firearms. You can try to shoot the monster or use that time to run or some other action. If you do shoot and fail, your firearms skill next adventur will be 31-34%... if you survive that long. If you wanted to hit the 60% skill of a federal agent, you'd need to increase the skill an average of 12 times and someone with a 60% is likely to miss every so often too.

[@sunman2099]

2:25 in and Yahtzee you old dog having a Flash Gordon reference. Nice 🎉

[@cozymonk]

I just looked misophonia up. It's a condition that certain sounds initiate your fight or flight response. That's totally how I feel when someone whispers in my ear. The impulse is strong. Or that I want to punch whomever is whispering (not consciously, just that feeling). Learn something new every day.

[@petrarcheleven8816]

Got a giggle out of playing the first bits of two ZP videos back to back. Going from: "One of the many things I have in common with Captain Picard is that I'm not good with children. Maybe it's because, being a video gamer, the mainstream media tends to group me with them...but I really wish they'd all fuck off." to "I've got kids now."

[@uncleflansy5621]

Wait, so the spoiler to the first one is that the kid was subconsciously summoning all the rats that were attacking them? I've never played it, but now I kind of want to.

[@chester1882]

Yahtzee “both camp are valid feelings because one is a video game and the other is irl” Croshaw

[@LOEKASH]

This is such a wholesome example of character development.

[@feiorn]

Does anyone know the music at the very beginning during the Escapist Patreon ad?

[@Tyler-gg6xt]

All this makes me wonder how people decide what gets a sequel...

[@porkchops.]

if it makes enough money to please the hungry overlords so it gets a sequel

[@E1craZ4life]

In the case of indie developers, I’d imagine it’s because they feel the story should be continued.

[@paulrus-keaton439]

Suspiciously wealthy furries usually. Or oligarchs. There is certainly an overlap.

[@kiljadaen]

Cause a lot of people liked the first game?

[@lemmingrad]

@@porkchops. Makes me think of Mega64’s comedy skit about Sakaguchi being contractually forced to make sequels to Final Fantasy despite it not making any sense.

[@mekman4]

I watched some of this game on IGN and it looks nuts! Plague Rats as a force of nature! It’s more terrifying than Bioshock Infinite and more disgusting than anything in Mortal Kombat! Great Stuff, as always!

[@blackdragonxtra]

Thank you for introducing me to the word Misophonia. In recompense, let me whisper it breathily into your ear.

[@realLagMaster]

Congrads Yatz!

[@sanchez2673]

thank you. ever since finishing the game i was looking forward to this review. wholeheartedly agree on all points.

[@physe8052]

In case anyone hasn't already looked into it, Yahtzee ran "Please update this sign every hundred years," through google translate.

[@ProcrastPerfection]

I really love this review.

[@RustoKomuska]

maybe im just looking a little too into this, but that bit in the beginning where yahtzee's eyes are just less than half closed just adds that slightly more tired feeling to the expression. crazy what you can do with such a small change to a face made of simple shapes. good editing skillz speaking of that beginning segment talking about babies, that was real as hell. not that i have babies, but that one got my empathy gears turning. i just like babies. in other news hey this youtube ui update is ugly as hell

[@stanard_bearer]

Oh good, I thought I was the only one who hated the new ui. The video seems to bleed into the title, is that a thing for everone else?

[@user-bf5sc8pn8x]

The last one was already so bad that I didn't notice

[@RustoKomuska]

@@stanard_bearer bleeds into the whole background on desktop. I hate all these rounded corners they feel the need to put on everything

[@sportsjefe]

@@stanard_bearer They call it "Ambient Mode" and it's probably worth turning off ASAP.

[@Dru_Stephan]

The only thing good about this game (plot-wise) is that Hugo seems to have grown a sense of self-preservation. In the last one, he willfully endangered everyone so much that it would only be seen as purposefully malicious without context. He's still a breathing liability, but at least he's not trying to indirectly kill everyone this time.

[@mkm7251]

Yahtz, your feelings about the ending of this game sound pretty similar to my feelings at the end of Jedi: Fallen Order, which I finished recently. All the effort to get this supposedly important holocron to attempt to revive the Jedi Order only at the last second to have Cal give a massive middle finger to the audience and say “Oh, we’ll just leave their fate to the Force”. I’m sorry, what?! What the hell did I just go through all that for if you were just going to immediately turn around and chuck it all in the bin? Makes me feel like I wasted all that time. I understand that the devs probably didn’t want to tease a sequel since there’s guarantee that there will be one, but come on, guys. My goodness.

[@pieines7299]

Well, he thought they could revive the order, and that they were able to stand a chance to the inquisitors. Vador and the nightmares made it pretty clear that he would not be able to hide and train them with success, so the holocron was important not because they could do something with it, but because the empire would.

[@robnlarie]

Sounds like if you just kill the horrible child, then you save thousands. Why is this even a question? *In context of this game, from watching this video, without playing it*

[@sportsjefe]

The rat to Hugo link isn't that direct and the only entity who wanted to exploit it (an old priest thinking he can use Hugo's power as some sort of immortality) is killed by Hugo at the end of game one. I don't think the kid is the source of the plague as much as the plague has some level of control over the kid and might have that same effect on others out in the world.

[@underbossgamingdunce7018]

The first sentences in this review very much relate too me also, considering I've been here pretty much every week since The Darkness Demo review lol oh how we change Yahtz

[@nicklager1666]

What is that Skippy? The fastalking gaming journalist Yahtzee have gotten kids. What great news.

[@sprite9849]

Another Yahtzee? Praise be!

[@LeafseasonMagbag]

Why… *Why can’t you just play the child?* Playing the little boy on his own is so much of a compelling story! It lets you have fun actually _using_ plague rat powers, his investment into his own life is obvious, there are way better survival tropes to showcase!

[@manavsridharan3811]

Lol when I saw the other review on this channel, I was wondering how long it would take for Yahtz to start picking it apart.

[@Wouldyoukindly4545]

My first kid was born about a year before I started watching this channel.

[@ravipathak4614]

Yahtzee ain't taking any prisoners

[@lemonlordminecraft]

I can’t believe when Hugo shat himself in Engadine McDonald’s he unleashed a plague of rats on the entire town.

[@isuckatgaming1182]

Jimminy mock throat🤣🤣💀

[@Chris-jw8vm]

lol does she really yeet him down a flight of stairs or something like that by the end.

[@theonetruemoe5744]

0:35 , Well Yathzee did once say he was a banana.

[@Jhrickgamer]

the soothing song at the start of the video is really jarring you guys should switch for a metal version of the patreon bit

[@azuarc]

I love how Yahtzee just says "spoiler" without any warning and proceeds into telling us what happens at the end, as if none of us might ever play this game or something.

[@BeaglzRok1]

Every time I see this "small child with world-ending powers" scenario, I'm reminded of that episode of The Twilight Zone where no one can think to put a sniper rifle to the child that can telepathically Death Note people whenever he's anything but happy, and literally every adult faffs about saying it's wrong to blame the child for how they're born despite the fact there is already a double-digit death toll of people you already cared about. Give the Star Wars prequels some credit, "he's too dangerous to be left alive" is a very valid concern, even and especially for small children that haven't learn rationality or empathy yet, and there's next to no way to actually teach and sculpt them into a decent human being that COULD use their powers for good once they learn the murders they already did were wrong.

[@MandleRoss]

Amy isn't gonna be happy with you, Ben.

[@MrSlug-ki9jl]

Try the Faith series, the horror and story makes up for the fact that it looks like it was made in MS Paint.

[@SwordsmanRyan]

It’s always a trip to think that CGP Grey wouldn’t be doing stick figures if he hadn’t been inspired by Yahtzee.