I Do Not Understand Hotline Miami 2

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“Hotline Miami 2 is a Misunderstood Masterpiece” by Ovandal: • Hotline Miami 2 is a M...
Interview about game’s difficulty: • E3 13: Hotline Miami 2...
The Hotline Miami Story (documentary): • The Hotline Miami Stor...
Visual Media Used: Hotline Miami, Hotline Miami 2, Boomerang X, Slay the Spire, Drive, Thirty Flights of Loving
Music Used (Chronologically- all songs from Hotline Miami 1 & 2 unless otherwise noted): She Swallowed Burning Coals (El Tigr3), Remorse (Scattle), Hydrogen (M.O.O.N.), Horse Steppin’ (Sun Araw), El Huervo feat. Shelby Cinca (Daisuke), Sneaky Driver (Katana Zero), Crystals (M.O.O.N.), Unfathomable (INSIDE), Bloodline (Scattle), Run (iamthekidyouknowwhatimean), Fahkeet (Light Club), Keep Calm (Endless), Coming Down, Silhouette (Katana Zero), You Are The Blood (Castanets)
Thumbnail Credit: / hotcyder

[@JacobGeller]

Hello if you'd like to ask me questions about this vid and hear the answers in a Director's Commentary, or if you simply have too much money, I recommend joining my Patreon! www.patreon.com/JacobGeller

[@AlejandroArch22]

IS your beard painted on??

[@Lacie9]

🙂

[@theforcewithin369]

Is pixel art goddamnit Jacob, a video game, you are overthinking it "If our life lacks brimstone, i.e. constant magic, it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in considerations of their imagined forms instead of being impelled by their force.”

[@barreden712]

Have you ever heard of Presentable Liberty? Fascinating game with a fascinating title that's... well... fascinating. It's quite short (2 hours if I remember correctly), think you'd really enjoy checking it out, and maybe it's predecessor Exoptable Money.

[@halvcyra8888]

@@Lacie9 kmo p p p mom kkkp ln

[@nfadaloo]

My best conclusion is that Hotline Miami asks “what happens when you become completely desensitized to your own violence?” And Hotline Miami 2 says “This. This is what happens.” Everyone dies horrible deaths, loses their identity, sanity, or otherwise, and then the ultimate outcome of violence is a nuke! Great!

[@AbandonedVoid]

That's exactly my takeaway, too. Hotline Miami 2 is about the consequences of indulging in violence, regardless of motivation

[@legion999]

So you're saying you gotta keep the violence fresh and exciting?

[@AbandonedVoid]

@@legion999 I think it's more, "Live by the sword, die by the sword."

[@__bepis____bepis__308]

“Wanna see what happens to Thugs like you?” “See, that’s what happens”

[@The_Vanni]

@@legion999 How do you even come to that conclusion?

[@holdmeclosertinyprancer]

Other people in the comments have talked about the sexual assault in midnight animal being a sensationalized reframing of jacket's relationship with the woman who became his girlfriend, but something that's only now hit me that makes the entire thing sadder is when you retroactively look at that moment he decided to take her back to his apartment and give her a safe place to recover as a parallel to when beard rescued him in Hawaii. Jacket's most humanizing moment of the original game echoes the most important act of kindness anyone ever did for him, and it got turned into something so horribly disgusting by the people who saw him as something they needed to exploit as quickly as possible.

[@Nopalmtreez]

Exactly this

[@rapatacush3]

Please, pretty sure everyone tried to exit the level after killing the fattso only for the game to literally make you save her on their fist run. Also that is not shocking at all.

[@rapatacush3]

@Scott's Precious Little Account the fuck are you talking about

[@logez4558]

@@rapatacush3 honestly you could even take that as a part of the narrative, Jacket immediately going to leave like always then hesitating and going back for the woman.

[@NoNameTV.]

^ This, I’m so tired of people shunning sexual shock value, especially when the intense shock shines a spotlight and critique over practices an entire industry does. Mislead and sensationalize for better consumption.

[@chuck_duck]

I’ve always seen the sexual assault scene’s purpose as to shock, but then make you question why that shocked you when the ruthless violence didn’t. Also to show how much the truth behind Jacket’s story was misunderstood or misinterpreted by the public in-universe.

[@ogeI]

This is easily Jacob gellers worst video, he proceeds to follow the title and not understand hotline miami 2 at all, so he proceeds to make a 30 min video of him not understanding it and misinterpreting every aspect of the game.

[@ogeI]

The only misinterpretations are gellers, yours, and almost everyone in this sad comments section.

[@Retrostar619]

Yeah, I agree. One of the functions of the scene is to make you question why the feelings of moral disgust and transgression aren't also generated when mercing entire rooms full of human beings. I don't think it was 100% successful in getting that message over, and it could have been built on throughout the rest of the game. But it's worth thinking about, and I'm happy the Dev's included it. The media response sort of proved their point, a bit like what happened with the show Brass Eye.

[@chuck_duck]

@@ogeI I’m glad someone agrees with me on this.

[@matthewa6027]

I thought that scene was showing us that even when making a movie of real life mass murders, it still wasnt brutal enough or sexy enough for america.

[@abeldelatorre1382]

I think the first one is "do you like hurting other people?" and the second is "can you deal with the consequences?". The violence jacket started, made every other character to follow him, resulting in the annihilation of all of them, the fact that violence only results in more violence, that is what I think the game is trying to say. And the sex scene is another jab at the player, like "huh, you dismember people, and SA is too much for you?" basically another moment for the player to introspect, now about where they draw the line

[@bignig7223]

Yes lol two different levels in prison you get stabbed for sa not even that deep lol

[@timbomb374]

Love when companies are just like "No. No more sequels. Just play the game again if you want more."

[@Ender11037]

That's fine by me, I can give my money to other companies.

[@aussieseal9979]

I don't think this is related to hotline Miami 2

[@J0kerHecz]

Fine by me, I’ll just buy your game again but on other platforms 😁

[@janefkrbtt]

​@@Ender11037 like even if you're being snide, literally yes.

[@SanctuaryADO]

Give it to the dev of OTXO then ​@Ender11037

[@magnificmango336]

Hotline Miami 2 is about miserable people doing miserable things, trying to convince themselves it isn’t miserable. If the first game is about reaching the realization that you’re a bad person for enjoying the violence, then the second game is about the denial of that truth. The characters who deny this to the end meet horrible fates, while characters like Jacket and Richter, who come to accept that they’re terrible people who have done horrific things, are met with relatively merciful fates, burned away in a brief moment by a nuclear blast. Richter even gets to enjoy a brief period of time where he and his mother escape from all of it. At least, that’s my take.

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

Miserable people doing miserable things and pretending they aren't miserable... So it is about working under capitalism.

[@7fatrats]

Nah i think the HLM series is just about how fucked florida is lmao

[@realMysticRuby]

A pontification on the human condition, if you will.

[@conelybiscuit4985]

i think Tony and Biker are also very important in that context. Tony is pretty openly misanthropic and makes it clear that he's not there to rescue or help anyone, he just likes murdering people - and yet he's the only Fan who never partakes in the Henchman's murder, is the only one who survives Death Wish, and his last words are swearing off violence altogether as he tries to surrender to the police like Jacket did. i can't say if he dies because his surrender was ultimately just a pale imitation of Jacket's genuine repentance, or just because Manny is a dick. Biker is also important because like Richter, he's sworn off violence, but like Tony he was also honest about his actions in HM1; on confronting the Janitors, he's downright disgusted at the idea of killing for a grander goal than simple pleasure, let alone the disingenuous nationalist politics that only end up destroying the US. conversely, Richter is a good man with entirely sympathetic motives, but ultimately he kills scores of people to protect a single one that was important to him, who dies anyway thanks to the nuclear holocaust he himself indirectly facilitated. that earns him a peaceful death, but a death nonetheless. but Biker might not even be dead - he didn't just give up fighting, he left civilization altogether to go live alone in a desert, where he gave up his mind, his youth, and any connection to his previous life. i've always interpreted it as his candor and willing self-exile having earned him a little stay of execution, but maybe that's just because i think Biker is cool.

[@magnificmango336]

@@7fatrats that too lmao

[@LeoVader]

hey nice microphone holding, bro. loving the technique

[@JacobGeller]

LEARNING FROM THE BEST

[@itcouldbelupus2842]

Some of the best boys on KZbin right here.

[@2DayDavid]

I would love to see a Jacob Geller take on Leo Vader’s content. And a Leo Vader’s take on Jacob Geller’s content. All in one video. With no collaboration before hand.

[@jweather66]

@@2DayDavid lol no collaboration beforehand 😂😂

[@danielpirone8028]

Did you need to use a tool like izotope because of handling noise ?

[@davenic2471]

Manny Pardo IS the Miami Mutilator. The guy tied up in his trunk later to be found dead at the end of another lever is the smoking gun but there is a whole bunch of other evidence as well, If you notice every time the coroner is like "This isn't brutal enough to get media attention" the next victim is even more brutalized, and how he keeps encouraging Evan to write about the Miami Mutilator instead of Jacket. And the Colonel in the BEARD segments is likely the founder of 50 blessings, the leopard skin he wears has their symbol carved in it and also the whole inner animal thing and the animal masks, Also as you mention the communication style his team uses.

[@Beaula2]

Very astute, I havent seen anyone else articulate that point I dont think.

[@JFTSwiertz]

He was reading that part from the wiki, it was worded to avoid directly spoiling it.

[@P1utusPaints]

16:40 a serial killer he's investigating ("and *is*" is written below investigating)

[@Medic_main_wanabee]

What? MANNY PARDO?! No, there's no way. He's got skin too thick for that! And he's dashing and handsome! There's no way, man.

[@PizzaRollExpert]

The intro scene made me think about our relationship with fiction. When we first see the sexual assault it's shocking, only for it to turn out to not be real but fictional. But we already knew that it was a fictional sexual assault, because we're playing a fictional game. Why does the assault being meta-fictional instead of fictional change our attitude towards it? Idk if this is intentional but I thought it was interesting nonetheless

[@therandomdickhead5744]

That’s a good point. Why is it a relief that it was meta-fictional? Funny how that works

[@landencarr5443]

@@therandomdickhead5744 like some part of us didnt want the game to stoop that low we were that character at least for a split second and we didnt want to be put into the shoes of a sex offender even in fiction it being fictional fiction was maybe a relief for ourselves as much as we didnt want to think that the game itself was swinging so low making a spectacle out of sexual assault and while it DOES do that the subversion lessens it and while its hard to gleam any sort of moral or meta-narrative we still felt the feelings it gave us and that alone is worth pondering sorry ik i sound pretentious as all hell

[@KonoGufo]

@@therandomdickhead5744 I think it just comes down to people getting attached to characters. The nature of storytelling and getting invested in those stories makes people want to see characters coming out through situations as unscathed as possible, at least more often than not, so seeing something awful happen to them sucks; but if it didn't *really* happen then it isn't so bad. Plus the further of a degree of separation there is, the less uncomfortable it is for our brain to process it. Seeing a real sexual assault could ruin your life, seeing it in fiction could ruin your day, but seeing a fictional portrayal within a fictional portrayal? That might ruin the next few minutes of your life, maybe an hour if it really sticks in your head. Roughly speaking lol

[@ThaetusZain]

Just from this video (I only played the first game), the game has a very "this is what you asked for!" feel. Like it's answering the "How do you even make a sequel" question with "the same way every other sequel is made, bigger with little respect for the original". Everything looks to be about recreating the first events but it's all distorted. And you go play the past which is a more sophisticated version of the first game. You see a title screen for a game that will never happen at the end. It reminds me a bit of Twin Peaks s3.

[@falconJB]

Yes, Hotline Miami is a piece of cake so decadent you know you shouldn't be eating it, Hotline Miami 2 is what happens when you ask for a second piece and get the whole cake force fed to you. The devs saying, What, you want more violence, more difficulty, more bleakness. Fine I'll give you more, how do you like this. Oh is it too hard, too bad. Are you tired of being killed from someone you didn't see, that is what violence looks like, deal with it. It it all to bleak and pointless, well this is what you wanted isn't it. Tired of violence? Then you shouldn't have asked or it! Hotline Miami 2 also seems similar to Paul Hart's game Edmund in that its a disturbing game that is more interested in existing then being played, Hotline Miami 2 is a lot less disturbing, though that first scene really made me think it was going down the Edmund rout.

[@ThaetusZain]

​@Immortal Science of Hauntology I think it's a little more than just that. There's a lot of stuff that was mentioned about the past. A good portion of it was a prequel. It's like making an indulgent sequel about people living an indulgent sequel. Funny, it's a simple comparison but it's hard to talk about it. I guess that's the purpose of art. Doesn't have to be deep but, just direct explanations are hard. So imagery and allegory and emotional manipulations are sometimes better.

[@DanKaschel]

@Immortal Science of Hauntology HM2 may be more elaborate and textured, but it is fragments of an incomplete whole rather than a cohesive narrative.

[@Darluk]

I really enjoy seeing a video where a creator struggles to come to a satisfying conclusion for, in this case, thematic cohesion. I wouldn't mind seeing more videos like this "thinking out-loud" variety.

[@1358Paco]

I always thought the movie scenes were delusions the "actor" had after committing horrible violence, like he would kill someone and then convince himself it was just a movie set so its fine. Something about them definitely had a metaphorical feel to me

[@orangejoe2147]

The movie actually did happen though. There’s a newspaper clipping in the fans hideout that proves it, and when you see richter with his mother in Hawaii, the TV is playing the start of the Martin Browne interview

[@ogeI]

This is easily Jacob gellers worst video, he proceeds to follow the title and not understand hotline miami 2 at all, so he proceeds to make a 30 min video of him not understanding it and misinterpreting every aspect of the game.

[@Jorgee-]

The Metaphor is the Player. "It's just a Movie," is no different than, "It's just a game."

[@OccuredJakub12]

The point of HM1: melancholic nihilism The point of HM2: confused, realistic justifications

[@MrLukieman10]

Hotline Miami 1 is the realization of how quickly indoctrination into patriotic or crusader style violence can happen, and how quickly we as a society can justify it if we put bad guy hats on the dead bodies. The shock after a level is done to force your own realization, as you mentioned in the video. I disagree spectacularly with your take on midnight animal, but I don’t think it’s your fault? I didn’t even realize that you could see the woman in your apartment on my first playthrough of the first game. The second game is not about violence, but the glorification of violence told through our media. That we denounce it, but still glorify it as entertainment and raw entertainment. Midnight Animal took the story of a rampage of a indoctrinated war veteran, and turned it into a slasher film, shot to entertain and shock them. The point on sexual violence is valid, but not the case here, as Jacket removed a abused sex worker from one of his massacres and shortly started what is believed to be a consensual relationship. While “rescuing” someone by killing everyone they know and then expecting them to live with you is problematic, it’s what the game presented as the “human” side of Jacket. But it’s not just midnight animal that glorifies violence. The fans sought out violence as a form of finding their identity, by emulating the guy who “killed the bad guys”. The cop used brutal violence (and other things) as a means of gaining fame that he believed he should have had, by entering a dangerous profession. The henchman had made an extremely lucrative career out of violence and sought it as a means to fund a lifestyle he couldn’t maintain. The recruit to 50 blessings saw violence as a means of enforcing his own will over others and sought power in it. Finally, we have the soldiers who, essentially live out daily violence and being told they are the good guys. But they are just left questioning, why did we have to do these things? why did it matter? Will this actually make the world a better place? Beard just wanted to open a convenience shop, but was instead blown to nuclear ash. But this is after his country sought out violence against a country they knew they could subjugate, instead of seeking peace with the people with nuclear weapons. Even the journalist holds himself differently if you are a pacifist or a barbarian. By letting the violence out, he could be a real man again! But in a world with machine guns, war crimes, and nuclear weapons, our search for meaning is pointless when compared to nuclear devastation. That our views of violence have to remain a power fantasy, a path to meaning, or a form of indulgent entertainment. Because when we see a serial killer, we decide to make a movie out of it, instead of reevaluating our mental health systems and how society managed to bring up a monster. It’s why people pay to watch MMA or football, but won’t see the correlation between a concussion and the suicide that follows years later. The entertainment is worth the pain, as long as it happens to someone else. Because the reality is that our existence would be wiped out in a blink of an eye if we actually saw what we are actually capable of and how we don’t have any way to stop it. I dunno. This will get buried, and no-one will see this, but this is my take.

[@moe7808]

I personally dont think that patriotism has much to do with the first nor the second game, to me it seems like the violence commited by the 50 blessings operatives was related to other elements, (Jacket holding a grudge against Russians for the killing of his friends and squadmates in the war, jake's general xenophobia and assholery, Richter being forced to work for 50 Blessings to protect himself and his mother, Carl being sucidal and using the violence as a way to put himself into harms way while also doing something he might believe in, never clarified really) and the use of 50 blessings in these cases to justify what they are doing, i feel it shows people killing and committing violent acts and excusing it with 50 blessings telling them to, without the scapegoat of 50 Blessings would these people still be doing what they are doing? And why?

[@drakep.5857]

I see your take, and it's simlar to mine in some ways. Hotline miami 2 is one of my most favorite games of all time, and I'm happy to know you appreciate all of the ideas and concepts behind it as well, great game

[@therandomdickhead5744]

Didn’t get buried. It’s definitely an interesting take

[@potatoprist3210]

Im gonna disagre on the conparison whit sports and violence. All thow simalar i would say that. These are forms of intertanament on the individual level its more about getting stonger an agrement betwean two peapole to that extent.

[@abdulazizabdulaziz6304]

@@drakep.5857m

[@echothegecko2875]

What I like about Jacob's content is how humble it all is. With the amount of experience he has with this stuff, he could have easily called it "Hotline Miami 2 makes no sense" but he chose to admit that there is probably something there, he just doesn't get it. That's just something I like to see in content creators, especially those who engage in big brain shit and break it down for people like me.

[@janefkrbtt]

I also don't know what this game is about. But I know that ending makes me FEEL it.

[@minifigamer9898]

A few problems with the fast talking summary of the plot, -Including the intro which has only one enemy who can kill you, martin brown only has two levels. -The only member of the fans that express reservations about the killings is mark and that's only after richard warns him about their fate in death wish. -The son doesn't keep ordering the henchman to go fight the columbians, he orders him to do a hit on a chop shop due to them not giving the mafia their cut. -The henchman doesn't just run from the mafia, he directly asks to no longer work for them, the son accepts it but asks him to do the chop shop hit. -The money the henchman takes is not ordered to be taken by the son, he takes it out of his own volition. -The henchman didn't intend to escape with his girlfriend, he was planning on leaving her to keep the money for himself. -The henchman doesn't return to the mafia, he goes to a drug den and takes the drugs he was given as a parting gift from the son. -Evan doesn't just talk to Manny, he is good friends with Manny. -The son didn't wait until the henchman was dead to start fighting the columbians, the son's first level (seizure) takes place three days before no mercy (the henchman's one and only level) -You completely forgot that the son called the henchman right before his drug fueled rampage as well as the fact that the people who had his phone at that time, the fans, were some of the hallucination monsters. -Jake isn't a white nationalist, he's just a nationalist. -It's not a leopard, it's a panther. Also you forgot that the colonel is the one who started 50 blessings. -Biker who lived through the events of the first game isn't shown to be nuked.

[@Jester4460]

Just a few

[@IBigDickI]

Lol

[@e1420]

“What did you do this weekend?” HORRIBLE INCREDIBLE UNMITIGATED VIOLENCE🎼🎼🎼🎼🎹 Edit: Oh no… is it actually BAD?

[@fistfulloffrogs8781]

Yes but the funny numbers that appear after I bludgeon a mafia goon gives me dopamine

[@thethatone2166]

fuckin' rooster ask me if i like hurting other people i say uhhh yeah

[@calebharwood7277]

Hey I'm glad you made a video on a game that didn't make sense to you. It takes bravery to say "I don't know" to an audience since they expect a profound explanation or concept from you. Keep up the great work Mr Geller. I'll always love deep analysis of whatever you find interesting.

[@jukmifggugghposer]

I can't stop coming back to this video. I find myself in this position a lot with art - confident that there is some satisfying, deeper read to it, but unable to really dig in and pull it out. But a part of me likes that feeling, being surrounded by a whirlwind of ideas and unable to find the center. Just sort of... being taken on a ride, never able to tell where it's going. And this video goes through a lot of those same motions.

[@Firehazerd5444]

I know, it feels crazy. It feels so deep that bringing a new future perspective of myself. like me 5 years in the future would have a completely different perspective. I will get more and understand it more. When a work sticks to you like that, and it continues to be brought up in your life. That is when you know you have something worth talking about.

[@orionargent]

I love watching Jacob talk about games I've never played and probably never will play. There's just so much passion in his work that makes me appreciate these games even though I have 0 interest in them. Stellar work as always!!!

[@AJCherenkov]

This is just a bit of remembered intuition from way back when I first beat the game, but here we go: The only people who would've made out alright (if not for the nukes) were also the only people to apparently find a measure of peace at the end of their arcs were also the only people to successfully WALK AWAY from all the violence. Based on that, present me (perhaps reductively) concludes that the theme of the game is that violence, no matter the method or reason (IE vigilantism, revenge, military, less-lethal, sexual) , consumes all in its path and will eventually destroy the perpetrator as well.

[@henrytrigwell-jones9657]

Katana Zero has gotta be one of my favourite indie games of all time. And clearly so heavily inspired by the hotline Miami series.

[@bajscast]

Katana Zero felt like I was playing the first third of a game. It was like "oh, that's it?", so much stuff was set up but I never felt like oh this is a sequel hook, just, wow, feels like cut content. Amazing gameplay though

[@jonahbradley4593]

@@bajscast Free DLC is coming out but it is being coded by one dude it was going to come out sooner but it kept getting larger to the point of being around half the size of the original game.

[@rinoakirova1548]

I don't know if it was intentional or not, but when you were talking about the difficulty of the game, you mentioned "it felt punishing", and that kinda sounds like it could be the point. A game that doesn't actually want you to engage in the violence, asking how hard are you willing to try and what are you willing to sacrifice to perpetuate this violence. Which in turn would tie thematically into the finale. This is the conclusion to your actions, you took the life of so many and so will yours end. And there's not going to be a Hotline Miami 3 because there's nothing left after everyone is dead. Just like war or the levels of the first game, when you're done and all the thugs are lying down on the ground, there's nothing to do except walk away. Rinse and repeat until you learn to "let go" or become the victim of this endless cycle... Or it could be something completely different.

[@vacantile]

“A game that doesn't actually want you to engage in the violence, asking how hard are you willing to try and what are you willing to sacrifice to perpetuate this violence.” That’s also the exact meaning of the genocide route of Undertale.

[@ummmhelp]

Yes thank you, very wise Mr. Geller, so smart, does anyone else think his beard is painted on?

[@NamelessFacelessWhoa]

Jacob, this has nothing to do with this video in particular, but I want you to know having watched your channel for months, I truly think what you do is art. The readiness with which you vomit your emotions into your videos is really brave, and I commend you showing us a peek into your soul every video. It’s that earnest love for what you do that I can feel in every sentence, bold or strained, and it’s what keeps me coming back. You probably won’t even see this, but I want to tell you that your bold-faced vulnerability has broken through a layer in me that I needed broken, and it’s helped me see parts of myself that I didn’t know I needed or wanted to. It’s helped me *feel.* You’ve also helped me get back into thinking critically about artistic intent, both in scrutinizing that which I love and trying to see the good in… that which I don’t. Your content helps me break my schema when I need it. You made art, in general, better for me! Thank you! I know this whole comment sounds like I’m just sucking up to a stranger, but to be frank I don’t really have any friends. I don’t get to interact with people often. But these things you did for me? That’s what *friends* do. I know it’s one-way, and parasocial, and there’s a less than 1% chance I’ll ever get to shake your hand and tell you this in person, but you’re a friend to me. Thanks for reading, if you did.

[@raptorjesus1360]

I think of it this way; Hotline Miami 1 is a very straightforward and pummeling message: "What is the purpose of violence?" Hotline Miami 2, as I'd like to keep it thematically close in explanation, feels more like this to me: "Why does violence perpetuate?" Sensationalized media, as depicted in hotline Miami 2 as fictional films, inspires violent fantasy. Violent fantasy desensitizes one to real violence, sometimes even viewing it as necessary and glorious. The unplanned repurcussions, unviewed by the many, of being part of that version of violence desensitizes one to unnecessary and inglorious violence. Being part of that version of violence is witnessed by the many, which is used for entertainment and shock, and the cycle repeats. What came first? Where can it end? This is what I think Hotline Miami 2 asks. The actor dies to unnecessary violence, a frayed thread hanging off of the cycle. The henchman, too, is the same. The fans, the son, Richter (depending on hm1 choices)... Beard, too, dies in a nuclear bomb rationalized by another cycle that geographically is located far, far away from the one shown located in Miami.

[@Ashtonyss]

I love this game. Hotline Miami 1 is one of the most perfect games I've ever played. 2 felt like it was deliberately designed to hurt people like me. Yeah you could clear all of the levels in the original with good scores, but in 2 you have to scrape your way by and die over and over. Yeah you could piece together what was going on in the original, here's even more unanswered questions. I must say that I enjoyed the original game more, but 2 is one of the most respectable games I've ever played. The first game asks if we like hurting other people; the second game says "We do, too."

[@forgottnwiththyme6870]

Ive seen it said elsewhere but the plot of the games can be summerized into two parts 1: questioning and understanding your bloodlust 2: what happens when you indulge in violence recreationally or forced

[@rustylankeman7009]

Spoilers ahead, but, like duh. Anybody else notice all the packages on doorsteps in Pardo's last mission? Kinda implies that the violence he's tasked with investigating is something everyone around him is indulging in. Copycats, like the literal Big Cat (Tony) he saw imitating the spree killer from the first game (I mean Jacket, ofc). Considering the characters represent some metatextual themes of the series (such as The Fans being the players who enjoy the thrilling senseless violence from the first game, Evan being players overly invested in the story and worldbuilding to see the broader scope, The Son being the game's struggle to live up to the legacy of the first, even Richter being a self insert for how small-timers have to commit to gruesome tasks to make a means to get by while hiding the cruel reality of the things they do from those closest to them. My reading of Pardo was about how the success of the first game may have influenced the landscape of indie games' developers. Pardo is the Miami Mutilator and is jealous that Evan would rather write about Jacket. I think Pardo is jealous because he believes he's doing something original and isn't being appreciated, even though realistically he's trying to capitalize on the same appeal of shock and violence. He thinks he's different and therefore better than the knock-off wannabe fanatics all trying to imitate the same thing in the same way. But when he might actually be criticized for being the same scum he's spent his career trying to snuff out he becomes paranoid and makes excuses to his superiors and barricades himself in his room. Ironically, the call likely being related to the recent assassinations means he probably squandered the last chance he ever had to actually do his duty to instead curl up in a miserable ball, thinking only of himself. In the end he was just as obsessed with Jacket's spree, but was too arrogant to see this path wasn't the glamour he was hoping for. Just more gore. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is a great sequel because it not only amps up the mechanics, maps, and story as a natural extension from the original, but also in how it stands as a reflective work of art showcasing the skill, experience, and wisdom that the devs developed as a result of the first game's reception and how it affected them and others It is a distillation of how art imitates life imitates art. And it's so fucking rad.

[@thesussysigmacompany3086]

I never thought I'd hear She Swallowed Burning Coals in a video essay before, putting that song in was pretty cool Jacob.

[@LudusVan]

oh boy have I gotta another one for u kzbin.info/www/bejne/gKSxnmWPgdeeaZI

[@Skyehoppers]

This video is like the literary analysis version of publishing a null result in the hard sciences. It can be frustrating, but often just as valuable, to be unable to reach a solid conclusion. Most null results like this never get published, never get written, so it's refreshing to see a brilliant, seasoned analyst like Jacob admit when he's lost and what that feels like.

[@wizard_4194]

The girl in the Midnight Animal movie is supposed to be Jackets girlfriend. You know the one he rescued in the first game? The one that appears in nearly every apartament scene? It wasn't made to have any deeper meaning. It was made to paint Jacket as this monster who kills teenagers and rapes girls, when in reality he SAVED that girl and was killing russians for 50 blessings not only because he "enjoyed the violence" but because the nuke on SF in 86 killed Beard. Thats why he starts getting messages on the 3rd of april (since Beard died on the 3rd of april 1986 because big boom). It was made for shock value too, but not in the way you've explained it. It does serve a pretty important role in the story because it shows how Jacket is portraied by the media, some fucked up dude thats getting imaginary phonecalls that tell him to go and murder kids.

[@sideways5153]

It sounds to me like the first level of the game is meant to call attention to the performance of it all, to continue cleanly from the end of the first game saying “you thought all this had a point?” into the second game starting by saying “none of this is real”. There’s a puzzle design I’ve heard about in tabletop role playing games called the countdown puzzle or something like that. The players enter a room that seals them in, and a clock face starts counting down while a button at the center of the room slowly rises from a depressed state. The room gets scarier as the countdown continues, more and more ominous things happening like lights going out or the temperature dropping. Pressing the button restarts the timer, giving the players more time to assess the problem and try to figure out the solution. The solution, actually, is to let the timer run all the way down, which unlocks the doors out of the room. The point of the puzzle is to set expectations - it’s okay to just see what will happen, the game master isn’t going to just kill you off for solving a puzzle wrong. In a similar way I think the opening of HM2 is probably meant to temper that instinct to see the whole game as deeply meaningful and carrying deep insights into violence or culture or games. A white nationalist is thrilled to be given license to perform violence. An actor finds he enjoys the headspace of a brutal and violent killer. A pair of soldiers find their lives warped by the impact their service has on them. A group of vigilantes die in conflict with the head of an organized crime ring, each feeling justified in their own abuse of violence as a way to leverage power. The game seems like an anthology about violence more than like a single cohesive work meant to be read in the same way as Les Miserables, as a larger than life ensemble piece depicting a broad perspective on the human condition. The first game asked if you liked hurting people. The second game seems to just be showing you why someone might like hurting people, or why they might do it anyway even if they don’t like it. I think that’s enough.

[@jamesbailey6257]

I haven't played HM2 in quite a few years now, so take this all with a grain of salt. but for what it's worth, I really enjoyed it, I think everyone else here already went into how sexual assult did relate to HM1, and the commentary of how Jacket's "girlfriend" isn't really an actual charcter with agency, while we're under the assumption she's there of her own free will, we need to keep in mind that it's viewed through the lens of Jacket, the protaganist, and either way, she serves as little more than effectivly a prize to Jacket.. It importance here, as an example of the increasingly heinous acts someone can commit the more and more detached from real world violence they become, and to suddenly face the repercussions of those actions, being shot 7 times, after multiple where you can barely even tell if you're in a dream or acting on a show or actually doing the actions, serves as sort of a way to comment, that, yes, what you're doing does matter, Rachael's final actions serves, in my opinion, to show that even the perormative assult carried out for media has a real and tangible effect on the victim of it(see Perfect Blue). I also feel like the question of "why does this need to be here" is...sort of the point, why DOES there need to be a graphic and real depiction of sexual assult in a piece of media, what does it add to the game, does it provide value outside of shock, and the game's lack of direct response to that is it's answer in of it's self. No, it doesn't. It's a pretty tough thing to throw at the consumer, but I think it's worth it, after all the intense gore and violence of the first game, with the whole message being "shouldn't you feel bad about this?" just for people to come right back desperate for more, it's a poignant start to the game, "is this real to you now" Beyond that, I think the story and text is just supposed to be more meaningful here, the devs realized there was only so much they could do gameplay wise with such a simple base concept that wouldn't become unfaithful to the source material, the sameyness of the gameplay is sort of serves the same thing it did before, it feels even more pointless and more detached, it's a criticsm of you playing the game just to kill things, just a bit more subtly, I think it's best addressed with the fans. Overall I think the real story going on is worth noting, and there's a lot being said in individual plotlines, the effects of white nationalism, the consequenses of the desensatized actions being performed(both with Rachael firing real bullets as well as the Russian mobs increasingly violent and increasingly pointless war with the columbians after their new leader struggles with the death of his father and the expectations placed upon him), I remember Manny's story really stood out to me in all playthroughs as well and I'm extremely surprised you didn't mention it more, it's a pretty clear criticism on the right to violence the police have, in almost every situation he just barges in and starts shooting(in at least one mission he's even told to wait) rather than seeking any alternative, in the ambient levels you see him increasingly looking for a justifications for these actions, there's a scene where he breaks into the house of a woman he's "investigating" just it...stand there, you can see his decaying mental state, and it's effects on the lives on the people he's supposed to be protecting. what I'm really shocked you missed is that...he IS the Miami mutilator...like, the game very cleary states that, he's framing murders to give himself a reason to keep his position, I forget which mission in particular, but there's one where if you go to the back of his car you see a man with his arms and legs tied struggling to espace. That's the same person you investigate right after as a victim of the mutilator, the one tied up in a small room gutted. one of probably many edits here, I think the gameplay does mean something, there's just more minor variences between levels, in my opinion the levels with Martin are just as genius, I remember on my first playthrough I honestly could not tell if any of the levels were real, I lost track of the fact that he was supposed to be acting, that it was supposed to be a movie, that I wasn't supposed to be having fun, in the exact same way he did, just to have the sudden jump back to reality with the final scene. Manny's levels almost exclusivly serve as playgrounds, easy levels to run in and do what you want. and to walk out with no repercussions, once again serving as a critcism of what the police are allowed to get away with. And the planeness of the Fans, beyond again being meant to showcase the reality of the violence you're commiting and to severe it's ties to the old game, serve as another take on how much the Fans only aim to mirror jacket, they do the same things, but for no reason, and to people who seem not to deserve it, you aren;t having fun because they aren't. The game is hazy, stuttered, disoriented, and emotionless, and that's the point, HM1 was a bright fever trip, an act of pure serotonin to partake in, HM2 is there to show the reality of the world it's set in, you're no longer attached to one singluar persion suffering from delusions and detached from everything around him, you're now being shifted between mulltiple different charcters trying to deal with the city post Jacket, the pointlessness of his conflict with the mob, the copycats he helped create, the police force's inability to to prevent these actions from taking place. Everyone in the game has severe issues they're working through, and it's mirrored in the plot and gameplay Overall I do wish they did some more with the gameplay and there are plots I didn't find as interesting(the journalist and Richter never really spoke to me) but I really, really enjoyed the game, it's not as coherent, I think there's less of a large, overarching point being made, but I think it has a lot to say, despite being a little unfocused

[@RougeEric]

I always read the intro sequence to HM2 as a "You wanted more violence? You wanted us to dial it up to 11?... Really? You guys are sick, how about we just make a good game instead, deal?" I doubt that's the whole story; but I kind of felt that was the general idea behind the scene at least.

[@hayk3000]

It was, Denis said it in an interview.

[@goldsocks9999]

Honestly the storyline of the fans hit me hard. Its entirely about the people that didn't introspect on the first game and played it for the violence and nothing else

[@CykaBlyatAlex]

To me each fan represents a different fan introspect of the first game. There are people like Tony who want nothing but the violence, where as some fans don’t think what jacket did nothing wrong or doing the right thing like Ash and Alex, Mark thinking the whole mask stuff is just cool and probably finds familiarity in jackets routine of kill, grab food, go home, especially since Jacket is also a veteran. Corey who quietly goes along with it without much questioning, basically fans who ignored or didn’t question the purpose of the phone calls until it was revealed in Bikers story.

[@chernobylhobo7793]

I've always had a complicated relationship with Hotline Miami 2. I remember playing the first game when I was in high school and out sick. My condition combined with the stuff I was taking to counter it made the already surreal vibe of the game come off as something so strange unlike anything I'd ever played up to that point. It was something that stuck with me, and while Hotline Miami 2 manages to capture a lot of the same vibe of the first from its aesthetic to its amazing soundtrack I absolutely hated the level design of the game. It felt completely counterintuitive the gameplay flow of the first which designed much of the game around quickly rushing between small rooms incentivizing a quick reactive playstyle. Even the loading screens will tell you that death doesn't matter so you are free to throw yourself at a level over and over instead of slowing down out of a desire to avoid death. This time around there is so many open areas, guys with guns, and tanky enemies that it feels like the game is forcing you to slow down your pace. I can understand what you're saying about the military missions, but it still doesn't change the fact that and most of the game in general feels like a slog to get through. I respect it in some ways like how it gives some nice context to Jacket and Beard from the first game, but it is also a game I never want to play again unlike the original which I've replayed plenty of times. It's a game that I have conflicting feelings on, but not everything is going to evoke a clean positive or negative reaction. Sometimes you just get weird games like this that feel like a bizarre mix of good and bad elements.

[@someguy1865]

This is one of many games that people enjoy despite not understanding it, or enjoy it because they don't understand it. Gameplay sometimes always wins over any other aspect in a game, even if the story, plot, graphics, etc. are overshadowed.

[@llave8662]

I think the devs alluded to your video and others in the recent Noclip documentary! Would be really interesting to have an update, some of the reveals about the ways the games ended up being were really surprising

[@BebehCookieIcecream]

This game never fails to well up feelings of meaningful emptiness.

[@EruveyConB]

"i don't understand hotline Miami" Dennaton: good!

[@itsmecrosby4723]

The first mission in the second game is showing us how jackets actions are demonised beyond the actual events by the media. It takes what he did and makes it even more violent and gruesome for the sake of entertainment and smearing his public appearance to squash the copycat killers and fans, like well, *the fans*

[@ATjfds]

16:51 : Nitpick but the "hallucinated monsters" are just the Fans, that's why they're "bosses" and why the last one is a double headed goose that you fight on the roof. Which ties exactly to the end of the Fans group. Edit : well, I talked too soon lol

[@Hambo325]

What I always thought was so interesting was after a level, when the music stops and everything around you is dead, you tend to loose your way back to the car. You just spent so much time memorizing nearly every corner and enemy placement. Every room, body, door, window, and weapon was the difference between life and death just seconds ago and now that it doesn't matter, you just instantly forget and are left standing there, lost and confused. It's just insane how alien a level can feel on the way out. That paired with the audio droning creates the most unique experience I've ever felt in a video game and I'll never forget it.

[@TheNutshell]

12:18 I believe it's more of a representation on how media distorts events in real life. In the first game, Jacket saves a women who ends up living with him till she's shot by Richter, this is only know by the people involved and even the police isn't really cleared if Jacket or Richter killed her. So for the sake of the movie and selling more when they re tell the events of the first game they picture Jacket as an old fat crazy man who enjoys killing and abusing women. It all adds to the games way of storytelling, of twisting events to exemplify the characters disconnection with the way that the events unfold. (Jacket and Bikers fight having two alternative endings or the drug trip of The Son in which he unknowingly kills The Fans)

[@Rafaelba93]

Damn, when the "you are the blood" song comes up it still gives me chills. I love that ending and the way it simply ends everyone and everything, including whatever the hell was going in your head about where the plot was going.

[@emcee.escher]

two years later and i still replay the section where geller says 'HORRIBLE INCREDIBLE UNMITIGATED VIOLENCE' its such a good segue i love it dearly

[@jeanne4328]

I was literally just listened to carpenter brut and this video pops up into my feed

[@Fluff-gl6yr]

It’s pretty interesting how, despite the incredible complexity of the plot and everything, basically nothing happens. Everything done by everyone is entirely futile, and nothing was worth anything in the end. When you connect all the dots, and peer into every corner, all you’ve really got on your hands is a senseless massacre followed an apocalypse. The old trope of Cthulhu rising from the ocean, and everyone going mad and killing each other comes to mind. The main feeling that I got from the game was a sense of powerlessness and futility, and a kind of disgust at the game, at myself, and at everyone else. Why did I do that? Why did the devs make that? Why is anyone doing this? It was that long walk back through the corpses from your first killing spree to the car in Hotline Miami 1 magnified a hundred times. By the end I felt ready to be sick, just like Jacket after his first kill. I guess we’ve always got a bit more innocence to lose.

[@Idengard]

You know, it was only after a couple of your videos that I understood your channel is about video games. I love your unique take on extraordinary themes

[@SometimesIwonderabtme]

The Hallucinated animal beasts in the Son's drug trip were actually the fans. The drug trip takes place during deathwish.

[@wanda5983]

I did not expect "many pixelated depictions of violence" to be literally pixelart

[@NotBamOrBing]

"Am I just not smart enough to understand what's going on here?" I know THAT feel

[@Lulpe]

My view on the movie midnight animals inside the hotline Miami 2 universe is that it is a allegory to how people that just look hotline Miami 1 from the outside think hotline Miami, a violent game that is violent because it can be, the events of the movie resemble events of the game, like the part jacket rescue the girl is transformed in to the sexual assault scene, the part that jacket invades a police station is transformed into the scene where the actor break in the police station to get the girl again

[@Ryxbar]

More videos like this please. Longform video essays are the goodest, and listening to your thoughts is always a joy

[@juanmccoy3066]

The weird thing is I played the series when it was new. And obsessed over both of them. The second one during the lead up. During the marketing. I even unlocked the DLC for Payday 2 and played the hell out of that. Then I beat the second one. Was blown away. And moved on. That was in 2015. Trump got elected, I got a better job, he got impeached, I got an even better job, he got impeached again, covid hit, I got laid off, a lot happened since then. Then suddenly in 2023 I got the bug to play the game again. Not for the game play but for the story. I went and downloaded it again on my Xbox this time (I originally played on steam) I got the version that has both games and played through both of them just for the story. Then went and replayed to get the high scores and the unlocks. Why? I don't really know. I think I just enjoy killing. I think the thesis of the game is right. And I do think it IS bad. In a way. But it is good too. It's cathartic. Maybe games are the reason I'm not a violent person in real life? Idk. Or maybe I do and I'm just too chicken shit to admit it.

[@borealmarinda4337]

This is a super cathartic video to watch, so I will self-indulge, just to do the algorithm thing. I played both games in quick succession in, I think, 2017 or 2016. Or 2018, maybe, I wouldn't be able to tell. On my shitty old laptop that couldn't play anything, including this game, because it would overheat and just shut down. In a high school dormitory room, small, ancient, cramped, with a crooked, creaky floor, and faulty radiators; it reminded me of pictures from a prison that was near my home town far away. I was surrounded by people who I didn't know and didn't like. I wasn't much bullied, thankfully, but I was shunned for obvious reason. The only other kid as much of a nerdy, asocial weirdo as I was, my roommate, was a fucked up asshole, not much different from me at the time. I spent most of the days sitting, staring, hoping that internet would bring me anything to do until night came and I could finally stop being conscious. I wasn't planning on doing much after high school. And, being unable to play many games, these were a god-send. High octane, low-spec, simple mechanics in the tightest execution. With the first game, I didn't care about the plot; it was a cool mood setting that divulged into metafictional whatever that I had a distaste for. But the second game begs for this setting to be given more attention, and I did try to give it and appreciate it. But all the plot points and characters were just not for me. And some of the messages that I thought I understood, those created the same groany reaction as the metafiction of the previous game. All but for one part: the bomb. As mentioned previously, I wasn't having a good time with life, and you can easily imagine the shitty edginess that would come with a teenager who hates her environment. And since I had nothing better to do, I often just booted up the game and stared on the screen or out of the window beside me, onto cold, dark, autumn trees. The title screen of HM2 features a pulsating, slow-motion moving shot of obscured skyscrapers and palm trees bent in a hurricane. Only by the end it is obvious that this is not from a hurricane, but the atomic bomb. Naturally, as an edgy shithead, I took some glee from the fact that the wonderful ambient Untitled 2 by Green Kingdom that helped get through shitty days was actually paired with the images of annihilation. But chewing on the game which I replayed two times right after, thinking less about what I hate about its story and more about what I loved about its dreary feeling, it came to me that it's more about "Punk ethos" than anything else. Simple, aggressive, ironic, self-deprecating, defiant in meaning, angry at the world, conflicted with the horrors of violence and its own desire to embrace it. And the title screen theme, though obviously not punk, is that simple, understated, but poignant. So examining the details or the episodes that the game goes through became much more digestible when viewed as an exacerbation of those bizarre atmospheric scenes of the first game: as simple in nature, but pointing to a confused, emotional mess of ideas that don't really want to be examined, but want to be expressed. A nightmare of conflict. Pure hardcore punk. It just seemed fitting for the games like nothing else could. And what other grand, angry, and self-denying plotpoint could there be than "everyone dies in an atomic explosion". It may be nihilistic, but the feeling I got from it was just _surrene_ (yes, I am combining "surreal" and "serene" for a self-masturbatory youtube comment; no regrets). And paired with my liking of the main menu screen, it brought something like ego-loss. An unending closure I wanted in the middle of a grueling wait that were my high school years. Of course, I doubt my view on them was """accurate""". And I hope it's obvious that it was a reading based entirely in my own emotions and views at the time, and my inability to process the game. And I hope nobody takes this to mean the "just don't think about it :)" type of anti-analysis sentiment; I don't think these games or anything else warrants it, as close as it may be. And I don't mean to say that this interpretation is anything really relevant or poignant, or that it should bring anyone a great insight into the game. It's just that it was a very impactful part of my life, something I haven't recovered from. And seeing similar confusion about it reminded me of it, and brought out those feelings, both painful and blissful. Green Kingdom is amazing, by the way, as is Expanses, the album which has Untitled 2 in it, available on KZbin and Bandcamp for free! Please, go listen to it instead of reading comments that are too long for their own good.

[@Gummpers]

So much of this game's points are about the way we as people perceive media and I love it so much. Fans being well, obsessive fans of the game, obsessing over every detail effect and aesthetic to the point they believe it condones murder. Pardo being a mixture of people jealous of its success and trying to put themself in the spotlight and make a fangame heavily inspired by the original game on one hand, the other shows people that grossly misinterpreted the game and thought it was trying to say that, gang members groupies thugs and other people that cause harm deserve punishment such as death with a gross vigilante idea forming in Pardo (who's also loosely based on a real serial killer) on the second hand. Martin being the group of people that used the game to vent out their dark twisted feelings, and also portrays them as psychotic for wanting to do so. With all of these characters they show each type of person that liked the first game, it places a barrel of a handgun against your head, and asks you once more. Do you like hurting other people? And based on your answer you're either pulling the trigger or pulling the gun away. Each of these portrayals of people that had a deep infatuation with Jacket and what he did are ultimately shown with so much ignorance. The fans being ignorant to the point that killing is bad. Pardo being ignorant to the point that violence doesn't give a happy ending, and only thirsting for the spotlight is gonna put you in the shadows. Martin being ignorant to that its meant to make you think of why you like these types of ultraviolent media, and ultimately keeps using it for ultraviolent fantasies. Even in his own movie there's a gross ignorance about Jacket. That whole SA scene at the beginning. Its meant to be drawing a parallel to Jacket saving the woman who becomes his girlfriend. His one act of kindness during all of it. In the first game its a coma recap of what actually happened back in Hawaii, with all the added 80s aesthetics and such. That scene is meant to be Beard rescuing Jacket from the Russians. Yet so many people misunderstood this in the original game, it wasn't meant to be anything terrible originally. It was meant to be the one act of empathy this otherwise psychotic person had done in the game. Yet so many people thought of it as kidnapping. That's part of the purpose the SA scene at the start has. It instantly comes out with a bang, shocks the audience, "I thought this was meant to be about Jackets killings? What is this?" instantly floods into your mind. It's the game screaming the entire point of Hotline Miami 2's existence. Tying up loose ends and righting the wrongs the community made in being so blatantly ignorant to what Hotline Miami was all about. And I feel this could also be reasoning for why this game is so much tougher than the original. It doesn't want you to finish the game. It doesn't want more misunderstandings of the original point being made. This game tackles media illiteracy in a way. In such a brutal way. And I love every second of it.

[@greyfox4838]

your beard does look painted on lol, probably because the edges on the border of the beard around your lips are very sharply defined anyways it was fun to watch a video of this nature, don't shy away from doing more of this, videos of this nature normally tends to suck because the people making them are narrow minded about it and they think their perspective is objective, someone like you can tackle a stale video idea like this and do it in a constructive way

[@stuupper]

Agreed!

[@TeejMonstersDen]

I always saw Hotline Miami 2 as a sort of response to the first game by the creators after seeing everyone's reactions. Most of the characters seem to fill the roles of different groups of interpretation and it seems to take a much more inward look on what all the violence meant and why people would react the way they do. It's also a lot more miserable most of the time with characters who glorify, indulge or try to justify their violence dying horribly whilst the one character who actively tries to confront that violence gets a more "happy" ending, which also depends on the player's choices at the end. I won't pretend to fully get what they were going for with it by the finale, and I also can't tell if the game is truly nihilistic or not, but I had a much more meaningful response to Hotline Miami 2 than the first one. It just stuck with me more

[@godribbon]

I love this video. I think it was the first Jacob video I saw, and I recently decided to watch it again. Then I decided to play Hotline Miami 2 again. Then I decided to watch this video again. That back and forth has given me a new perspective on both the game and the video. Whenever you hear David Lynch state why he doesn't explain his films, he says that the limitations of language mean that it would take so many words that it's easier to just show them the film. I always get kind of frustrated when people try to find a specific meaning in a film like Inland Empire because I think it expresses something unexplainable. It expresses a feeling, and I think Hotline Miami 2 does as well. One thing that's different between this and the original is that tonally it's much more sombre. The whole thing feels like a hangover, or a heartbreak. The characters are all so broken. They're either not good enough, living a lie, in someone else's shadow, or traumatised, and they're all doomed. I can't point to something and say "This is what Hotline Miami 2 is about". I can, however, say "This is how Hotline Miami 2 makes me feel", and honestly that's something I value more than meaning.

[@Jolfgard]

10:48 Oh, that's nice that I can skip this depiction of extreme and horrible traumatizing violence so I can get back to the tamer core experience of the game.

[@Sabrina0s]

the begining of the game is about the sensationalisation of violence in general. ITs a movie glorifying jaket's murders and the culture in the game around diefting jacket the director probably put a sexual violence scene because of the woman in the first game and they're just sensationalizing their relationship. the game is clearly about the damage sensationalizing killers does.

[@DwarfLordGeorge]

Yes, thank you wise Mr. Geller, so smart. You have a lovely beard btw.

[@CorpseTornado]

When it got to the nuke scene I felt like it hit me, because it's similar to a thought I had as a kid that changed my perspective. We're evolved in some ways to kill. We have that in us, and we can do all these mental gymnastics around how, why, and what ought we do with it. And many people will embrace it and seek the violence out. Then they get the wake up call that, violence evolved too. It evolved way past what you can do. Being a "warrior" can be useful, but the reality of war now is more like "fighting cancer" which feels more like waiting to see if the bomb will hit you. In the long past violent types were important, now their ancestors wander around a society not meant for them, trying to fight their urges or trying to justify them. In this modern world, there just isn't anywhere else for this part of us to go. So it festers and comes out in the various ways depicted in this game. And since we've failed to understand or regulate this piece of reality, it spirals out of control and the massive ball of violent energy manifests as the unbeatable icon of your violent nature. Created and nurtured by us, much like the Egg of the Perfect World from Berserk, the Nuclear Bomb is the bed we've meticulously made for ourselves. It is the only suitable suite for such a guest on this Earth. Anyway, there's my attempt to imitate you but with my own painted-on-beard stroking. Love your content :D

[@arstotzkanplaguedoctor]

The reason the assault scene is so brief is also because you're not supposed to think about it *that* much, the movie is a retelling of the events of the first game, and much like many fans who simply didn't get the message, it's a display of just how poorly the director understood it, to the point of twisting Jacket rescuing a girl into just something gross, because that's what the parallel there is, that's referencing the girl Jacket saves during one of the missions and ends up getting close with as represented by the beds moving and the apartment getting slightly cleaner and overall nicer as time goes on.

[@Se7enRemain]

Hotline miami 2 is the reason kissing a girl is the second best thing I did in 2018

[@molypoly6884]

he should do a video about lisa the painful but i think he missed alot of things in this video.

[@Se7enRemain]

@@molypoly6884 Entirely possible! It's hard not to miss *something* though. Hotline Miami 2 is a game that can be understood by its plot and concrete events; but seems deliberately obtuse when you try to decipher so much as a theme. The only difference between me and Jacob, is that I didnt care. I was 13 when I beat the game and 15 when I was playing it every day. I got my completionist badge, found optimal strategies, and circumvented the difficulty. Yet, at no point did I act within my usual M.O and just... think about the game. Colors, sounds, feel, memorable, fun to say lines. I remember listening to El Huervo - Daisuke for 2 hours while I burned incense and tried my best to nap. I remember that the flamethrower only needs one ammo to take out a big guy. I remember The Author unloading guns; but slipping into a horrific, bloody rage if you click too many times at a takedown. I dont remember a purpose that contextualizes these scenes. I guess I liked hurting (digital) people too much.

[@joaobispo2602]

Im pretty sure the whole "movie" thing isnt real, its all a way the murderer found to run from his reality, he actually did r*pe that woman, then he got trialed, escaped and ultimately got put down by his initial victim, but while it was going on he was making a more confortable version of events in his head, the girl didnt hate him, she was an actress; he wasnt being tried for murder, he was facing critisicism for his famous movie; he wanst going to be locked up for life, he was just working on a scene; and at the end he didnt get killed by a tormented girl who only carried a gun in the first place, because of the fear he caused in her; he died because of an accicdent; and the girl wasnt crying because of the trauma he caused her, she cried for him.

[@ceoofsocialanxiety6658]

I believe the intro scene might be a way to expand on the first hotline miami. I think it's a means of showing you that jacket's actions have become so well-known that people are making movies inspired by the first game's events. This is, i believe, further reinforced by the fans' existence and actions. Also I personally think it's about as difficult as HL1

[@tonkdumbledonk]

My thoughts on this is it's a deconstruction of sequels in general. The idea is when a piece of media captures lightning in a bottle like Hotline Miami, inevitably the audience and investors clamor for more, even if the first was a perfectly self contained story. The purposefully insane and convuluted plotlines, inclusion sequel, prequel and sidequel all in one game, and many characters almost fetishizing the events of the first game without even understanding it fully. Obviously Hotline Miami 1 was meant to make players introspective on the way they play, and why they enjoy the violence as you've said. And yet people still want more, whether they understand that or not. It's a strange dualism. Hotline Miami 2 feels like a sort of high budget almost Hollywood exploitation version of Hotline Miami 1. Even the Devs at Devolver asked the question on how to follow up a game like Hotline Miami 1, and ultimately the answer is You Don't.

[@gomerjomer9209]

I didn’t even realize you could get any more ammo in the Hawaii segments until the last room of the last Hawaii segment.

[@dylhas1]

I hate that you think everything has to mean something or “say something.” There’s plenty of works of art where the creator(s) has said that there is no moral or meaning. Not everything has to be a commentary on something or have some profound meaning. In fact, most people probably interpret a meaning from art that the original artist didn’t at all intend. I’ve heard this said many times referring to art of all forms: It means whatever you think it means. I think many parts of this game aren’t meant to say anything, and I don’t think it necessarily matters if they are trying to say something. Personally I think you read way too much into things. It’s why I enjoy your content, but hearing your frustration over not understanding the meaning of this game just seems ridiculous. But anyways I enjoyed the video!

[@wujek7616]

It's all a simple message: By escalating violence, you will only get more violence, until everything is destroyed.

[@theholypeanut8193]

The violence has escalated. Ok

[@samuelclayhills3298]

Recomend watching the full chronology of Hotline miami to get the full picture of the story.

[@boomkruncher325zzshred5]

I think the SA scene in HM2 was a consequence of “You thought there was a point to this?” If there is no point, then why do taboos exist? No line should remain uncrossed in a video game where the lines do not matter, because that’s what we enjoy… right? That was my main takeaway of what that scene was trying to say.

[@boomkruncher325zzshred5]

Following on that, I think the game is a nihilistic take on entertainment. The more you sink into something you enjoy, the less pleasure your brain feels; that’s how dopamine works, you get less and less the more you engage in the same activity until it is no longer pleasurable to you. In an important corollary to this, the more desperate your brain gets to feeling “good” the more extreme your brain will go to feel the same level of pleasure from that activity. HM2 sends EVERYTHING into overdrive: the plot, the meta bits, the gameplay difficulty, the critiques, everything, all in an attempt to “feel” the same as you did when you first started. No wonder the second game feels so different from the first; it was never meant to “feel” the same as the first game, because “more of the same” will NEVER “feel” the same… but we desperately cling onto it because… well… there HAS to be something core to the pleasurable thing in question that will ALWAYS “feel good”… right? Right??! PLEASETHEWORLDISAWFULANDCRUELICANTLIVEWITHOUTTHISPLEASEDONTGOAWAYDONTGODONTGOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA At the end, there is nothing more to “enjoy”. It’s over. The game is over, the franchise is over. There is nothing more to enjoy, it was milked to absolute destruction. There is no reason to keep trying, because there is nothing more to gain from it. If you want to “feel good” again, you need to move on. Play a different game. Or stop playing games. Or do SOMETHING different. But a part of you will always be tempted to go back to that well of memories… because a part of you desperately wishes you could “feel that good” again without abandoning the activity that “felt” that good in the first place. But you will ALWAYS fail to “rekindle” that “magic” that attracted you in the first place. The nuke comes. Time is cruel. Your brain sucks you into a pattern that now feels “bad” but you feel compelled to keep it going because it “used to feel good”. But there’s no going back. If you don’t leave it behind, life will leave you behind and leave you with no choice. Leave. Go. You won’t forget. The memories will always be there, waiting for that nostalgic neuron activation, for good or ill. Take your fleeting windflower of temporary dopamine and get the hell out. You’ll destroy yourself otherwise. You will stay in that desperate, hollow pit of despair as the same “drug” you “overdosed” on now barely tickles your consciousness. No, there is nothing special for being stubborn. There is no revelation about the world, there is no secret technique to uncover, there is nothing “special”. Just a temporary hit of dopamine that you feel, get your kicks with, and move on when you don’t want to (or can’t) be addicted to it anymore. It’s how our brains work. It’s how it treats repetitive stimulation. It’s what drives our curiosity. It’s what moves us to something new and different. If we don’t listen to that desire, if we don’t move our own ass, life will nuke us and force us to move that ass. There’s always a new experience around the corner. Get off your butt and go face them. The more you wallow in one thing, the more pointless it becomes. Get your ass moving and go do something different. It’s what your brain wants.

[@turgturg4479]

If I had to pick a theme for this game it would be how we as humans use try to justify our negative actions. If the first game proves we enjoy bad things then the second ponders how we justify enjoying these things. For example the soldier uses the army to justify killing, the fans use jackets actions to justify it, the actor uses art and the WN uses “patriotism” to justify it. In the end the nuke represents how if we continue to indulge in these actions it will lead to our demise. This could therefore be used as an allegory for climate change (intended or not). We indulge in actions that we know are negative effecting the planet but continue because we justify it. “I need the car to get to work” “why should I recycle if most people don’t anyways”. These are justifications for our actions that will lead eventually to as much destruction as the nukes in the game.

[@TindraSan]

"You want more? After we already got our point across? FUCK YOU, HERE'S TORTURE ON A VARIETY OF LEVELS!"

[@mattgroening8872]

23:48 yeah that’s…kind of the point of the fans as characters. They’re stupid and try to act like it’s hotline Miami 1 when it’s hotline Miami 2, and the gameplay is much more puzzle centric instead of reflex centric. It’s not supposed to be particularly useful, it’s supposed to be flashy and dumb and likely to get you killed. That’s the theme of the fans.

[@boxobanter3278]

I do feel that the second game is a bit more difficult but honestly I loved that change. The Richter levels were especially engaging in how they needed to be "solved"; the odds seemed so specific in how they were stacked against you that it resembled a puzzle game. As for the military levels, I had SO much trouble the first time I tried to go through the game, and I think a large part of that was the combination of the limited ammo and the sight lines. The sniper makes both of these challenges much easier, it gives you extended viewing range and it has enough ammo to get you through the places where you're obliged to shoot. Also the duel wielding mechanic had three veryyyy specific instances where it was very useful and it was INCREDIBLY satisfying when it went off flawlessly, I definitely feel they're worth looking for

[@jarosawogorek1404]

I love Hotline Miami series so fucking much, and second even more than the first one. Much more, I really don't know how it's possible. It's an unforgettable experience, masterpiece of art. I laughed watching this video pretty hard, cause had the same feeling of frustration of lack of understanding of what the fuck is going on here, after first playthrough. And for the love of the Satan, why? Also I was emotionally rollercoastered and didn't know why. That created the need to find answers, like when Biker's part in the first game started. And than discovered that there's even more fun with uncovering the plot, checking out other people's theories about parts of the game and creating my own (anarchist one of course 🏴‍☠️), having a kick for a philosophical analysis of, well, everything. For me game is not about one thing, it clearly about lots of different topics, from different perspectives. It's open for interpretations and closed at the same time when you put the pieces of puzzles together, the picture can be seen. And also can't xD. Yeah, it's a fucking masterpiece

[@TobiasWiggle]

I think maybe we're missing the forest for the trees here. You even reference the Stop-Rewind thing the game keeps doing. It has a whole VHS aesthetic and it starts out with a scene from the set of some kind of exploitation movie. With how disjointed the game is, with how many characters there are, with how varied it is (you point out the gameplay difference in the Hawaii level - what about the level where you play the guy who only allows himself to take down enemies, not to kill them?)... maybe it's not about a tree, a singular story you can or should piece together. Maybe it's about a forest. A big shelf of violent 80s b-movie VHS tapes. A kaleidoscope of barely coherent violence. We look for meaning in themes (They're scarred veterans, maaan!) but the themes are often excruciatingly underexplored (like the sexual violence you point out but the same really also goes for the rest of the cartoonish nonsense the characters in this game get put through), the stories ultimately don't make sense (Hawaii?? Everyone is nuked??) because what these b-movies are really for is the opportunity to show us violence (and sex or sexual violence) and, like in the games, the "stories" are the boring bits where characters are "just" talking. It's a bit of a dismissive take on violent media but I've enjoyed many b-movies like this that deserve a dismissive take like this.

[@coffeefox2k]

You my good sir… made me come back to one video three times on a month because this is just a proper presentation of an entire franchise. You’re amazing.

[@MidnightLobster7]

Considering the product we got was the afterbirth of an entire other game that was scrapped, (The real Hotline Miami 2 was discarded, hence why this one is called "Wrong Number" since it's technically HLM3) it only makes sense it's hard to make a solid takeaway. Game went through Hell and Back, it certainly didn't come out clean.

[@MilkyWayGrump]

I think, from the way you described it that I can piece together one, single, possible overlaying theme in HM2, but I would have to play it to see if the actual text supports it: HM2 is about how people try to find belonging, community, or self-worth, in/through violence, through propaganda, personal beliefs, or media (like the first game, so to speak), but, due to the glamorization and streamlining of said violence on those platforms, are completely unprepared for and blindsided by how ruthless and difficult murder and violence actually are, and DEARLY regret it, often paying with their lives or identity. Thats the one through-line that I think applies to all the plots you described, and would also account for the difficulty spike.

[@ibtastico]

I think the purpose of the first scene in hm2 is to continue the question "do you enjoy hurting other people" and asks "well, just how far are you willing to go" which is why the option to skip it is there in the first place.

[@oloolo1661]

the rape and abduction depicted in the beginning of the 2nd game is a grindhouse representation of jacket rescuing a woman from one of the levels so the extremely graphic scene of sexual assault is not there merely for shock value but is another event from jacket's life that was bumped up for the midnight animal

[@huffabubba7041]

Something important to note ia that the player only sees the events from the perspective of the character being played. Jacket is known be INCREDIBLY unstable and hallucinate consistently. The events on screen are not always real. Jacket saving the girl may have been his perception of the events while he may have really kidnapped and raped her. Also, the devs have said the story for 2 was written before 1s release and planned to be in the first game, but it was too much. So they decided to release all the stories that support and clarify the first game's setting.

[@PoisonIvory088]

I doubt jacket did the Eminem thing to her, maybe the kidnapping and forcing her toe the home. But she could have ran away to the cops like pig butcher

[@pullupenthusiast3800]

Nah I seriously doubt that jacket is that unstable, he only hallucinates things that he really wish would of happened, as he’s dreaming after all, he dreams of seeing beard everywhere because he is his best friend and him being able to go anywhere and see him is just reinforcing his relationship and care for beard, him killing the biker is wishing he did because he blames himself for the girls death, I seriously doubt that the game was trying to paint jacket in the way you’re describing as him saving the girl echoes beard saving him. Also the midnight animal scene is most likely there because of the public seeing that jacket kidnapped a girl and she has gone missing ever since they probably painted him to be a pig in the movie or it was just a tatsteless horror flick based on true events for cash

[@bloopsmoot1534]

“Get on with my life” *Proceeds to grind Slay the Spire*

[@AlwaysSomeone]

I feel like the series is trying to say “live by the sword, die by the sword.” And that desensitization to violence leads to apocalypse. But this is undercut by the fact that the writer and his family dies even if you play pacifist with him. If the one guy that set aside his violent obsessions for the sake of a peaceful, happy, and simple life had been the one to survive, it would have put a bow on the thesis. But giving him the same fate as all the rest turns the message from “live by the sword, die by the sword” to just “die by the sword.”

[@sooz6092]

Midnight animals is a lot of things at once and it's even explained and implied by the game with various dialogues and things you can piece out together. It's akin to thoses " Inspired by true events" movies where they glorify horrible things and even outright lie about said events, the movie is both inspired by what the crimes Jacket commited and what the public actually thinks happened which got deformed through words of mouth. On top of criticising that, it also touch the subject of method acting and how it sometimes goes too far with Martin Brown, it ALSO bring up the same point that the first game does, where we distance ourselves from the violence because "it's just a game" , the same way Martin goes "It's just a movie". Could it have been done better? Probably, but going all "Why is this even in the game" like it has no purpose makes me question if you even paid attention to the dialog in the game.

[@lewislockwood9402]

26:00 perhaps it's because I am naturally sceptical of the military but I always saw these sections as worse than the rest of the game. Obviously it's all ultra-violence but when its a lone man blasting through a building its larger than life and almost cinematic but when you're a lone man massacring people in a jungle (obviously reminiscent of Vietnam and therefore the atrocities committed there) it seems realistic for the first time in the game.

[@ProTele-ql5om]

I think the dev focused too much on the story and theme (= the "message") rather than the actual gameplay. As much as you want to communicate a message with the player you should not do it at the expense of fun. The player is first here for fun (at least in high speed, blood and gore, arcade shooter). I saw in a interview they did not play test the game as it should be and continued developement with technical difficulties, like the game running super low fps. If they wanted as much restriction to vehicule their message they should had go another genre, more linear and story driven.

[@MattWalters123]

I think that hotline Miami 2 is about deconstructing the glory of violence. It shows people getting screwed over and dead by the sword as they lived by the sword. The henchman fails to steal the money. The son fails balance drugs gang violence and his life. The fans fail to balance their violent tendencies. The movie actor attempts to method act and dies. The soldier attempts to fight Russians yet nuclear war still happens. All of them could have movies made about their tragic woeful tales yet they die inconspicuous stupid pointless senseless death. No one dies with glory in this game. They all die with a whimper, just like each of their victims

[@korstmahler]

When the man in the chicken mask asks you "wtf are you doing" in more complex words: Stop. Go back. Or you might wake up in a different house.

[@The_overseer_vault_13]

My favourite part of this video was the music

[@blebbbder6216]

I came away from Hotline Miami 2 realizing that every branch shows how violence only serves to lead to worse violence, and the upping the anti of making a sexual assault scene for a movie about the events of the first game feels like another logical conclusion to this idea of violence branching out in different ways and escalating itself. Every character is effected by the violence caused by other characters, stemming from characters fighting in a war they don't really want to be a part of leading to the chain reaction that leads to every character in the story dying horrifically, killing off any stragglers left standing with a nuclear bomb

[@NotBamOrBing]

0:13 ARTEMY BURAKH'S TORMENTOUS NIGHTMARE!

[@AlyxDps]

16:52 The hallucinated monsters are the Fans, which Son thought were real versions of the animals who's masks they were wearing. Also, haven't seen the back end of this video yet, but I've always thought of the game as an indictment against american pop culture, like midnight animal needing to 'sex up' the already violent events of the first game, and what that meant for the Fans, the Actor, the Writer, and in a very unique way the Cop. Than and the jingoistic crusade 50 blessings goes on, and ultimately how 50 Blessing's obsession with 'murica #1 leads to the downfall of literally everyone involved or no