Pentiment (Zero Punctuation)

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This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviewed Pentiment. Zero Punctuation compilation episodes are now available on Spotify with more platforms coming soon. open.spotify.com/show/2tuZ4ro...
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[@hanniballahr94]

"Write and be condescending to people." Sounds familiar...

[@juanfranciscovillarroelthu6876]

some things never change

[@Mene0]

Takes one to know one I guess

[@thebookofduderonomy]

New here?

[@matosz23]

I believe that's what people call: irony.

[@dryued6874]

So what you're saying is that Yahtzee is sufficiently qualified to investigate a murder mystery. I see no problems with this statement.

[@earlofdoncaster5018]

To be fair, a game about Columbo going back in time would be outstanding.

[@coolgreenbug7551]

You don't play Columbo, you are in the present and Columbo is there. Then a unexplained magical portal opens around only you sending you back in time to Medieval Europe, and Columbo is also there, and it is never brought up as strange

[@Oldhandlewasabitcringe]

The game never truely ends, it just goes “one more thing…” ad infintium

[@LeDeux11]

a game about columbo being in any sort of setting whatsoever would be outstanding

[@robertbeisert3315]

"Verily, there be a singular point of interest which perplexes me.." "Speakest thou plain, Investigator" "Hold a moment! For, in truth, mine apparatus of scripting appeareth to have misplaced itself. Have you quill and ink I might use?"

[@bradleyhiggs3824]

@@robertbeisert3315 youtubes lack of emote reacts is a curse

[@Grymbaldknight]

"... dream strange dreams about giant, golden penises." It's callbacks like these which make ZP something genuinely timeless and special. References to a decade-old video, in that same style which has been consistent throughout, make my old bones feel young again. Never change, Yahtzee. Cheers.

[@BasedPeter]

What video was that referencing? I thought it sounded familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it

[@jmurray1110]

Fairly certain it was his Minecraft video

[@VanessaMagick]

The ten foot golden cock and balls!

[@Deathstorm501]

@@BasedPeter the same game that dominates a major fraction of KZbin gamer culture, that infernal blocky abyss of mods and strange servers, Minecraft.

[@supergluehotty]

I love minecraft.

[@cyansuy3062]

This game strikes me as maybe someone at obsidian listened to Yhatzee’s extra punctuation. I don’t remember which episode it was, but I remember Yahtzee saying “instead of having 1 big 10 million dollar project, split it into 4 smaller 2.5 million dollar games that explores new ideas” and this game is certainly doing a lot new and is pretty niche for a AAA studio.

[@jmurray1110]

I believe it was the extra punctuation about the death if the open wired when he compared the maps to the height of movie epics because they had to change philosophy to an auteur medium

[@felisasininus1784]

Obsidian is a AAA-capable studio, not a typical AAA studio. Calling them the latter feels more like an insult. All of their games were made on some sort of a limited budget, and they are almost always all better for it. I believe Alpha Protocol had a decent budget from Sega. That was maybe their worst product iirc.

[@neelot9842]

From what I've heard, Josh Sawyer wanted to get this project funded since the time he worked at Black Isle but it kept getting rejected.

[@DonChups]

There's a really nice interview with the developer and the History academics who were consultants, somewhere around the internet. It's a really interesting conversation and there's a lot of love for the story of the characters and the history of that particular place / age.

[@ish..]

They got so many details right. As a chef, I appreciated the conversation about Injera bread made from teff flour that was had with the visiting Ethiopian monk.

[@VeritabIlIti]

I hope someday a history teacher will look at this game, realize that it presents a hell of a lot more historical intrigue than anything they could do, then tells their whole class to buy Xboxes and kicks back. That's about the amount of effort they get compensated for, anyways.

[@Isaacandjed]

There's also a really in-depth case study about the game's different fonts by the font studio (something I had never heard of before this game) that Obsidian partnered with

[@bw-mx1dy]

The lead developer was interviewed on the Friends Per Second podcast (hosted on Skill Up's channel). That might be the one you're talking about.

[@dzejrid]

Fine, but does all of that fluff actually make a GOOD game?

[@addieberg3460]

Pentiment really stuck with me because the entire central theme is about history- what we get to know and not know, what gets lost, what we tell ourselves about the past when it gives us a benefit vs. telling the truth and making people uncomfortable. Never getting to read what's in the Historia Tassiae even if you manage to get a hold of it is a deliberate shoutout to the now-lost Aristotle book in The Name of the Rose- it's explicitly denying the authority of a book that in a lot of other stories would be the thing that reveals The Real Truth to the protagonist. In real life, such a book would *also* be one written with limited information and massive authorial biases, about as trustworthy as what most of the characters tell you about the town's history (which is to say not *untrustworthy*, but only one lens on the whole picture). The final image, of Andreas and the kids painting on the side of the mill, then disappearing as hidden by the windmill sails with only their art remaining... that got me a bit choked up, because usually that is all that remains of your life in the long run- the physical materials you touched. I also don't think it's completely fair to say that choices don't matter. The grand march of history makes it so that one person intervening would realistically never be able to stop what happens with the monastery in part 2 (especially not a nobody outsider who lived there for like a year a decade ago), but your choices do impact the people around you. Somebody gets married and has kids, or leaves/enters the convent, somebody is burned as a witch because you encouraged their interest in heresy. And I cared about the characters so I cared if I got one killed or their life ruined. Frankly, I think if the story branched more than does it would mean that the themes would get muddy. You'd have more power than the story needs you to have, because a central part of this story is failure and your inability to change anything, like you wanted to be Columbo but at best you're an amateur desperately pointing the finger at someone you don't even have great evidence for.

[@omarfejzic2981]

No that's what would've happened if i got her interested in the old ways! That is a gut punch even though i haven't done that yet in a playthrough.

[@nevinmyers1245]

The fact that I absolutely did not have enough time to investigate the murders meant I always had a feeling that I was out of control. When questioned about Rothvogel's murder, I passed the check to suggest who committed it, but decided that the judge had more information that I did. When questioned about Otto's murder, I couldn't believe any of them had done it, but I still had to choose anyway. And being immersed as I was, it truly felt like my inability to investigate the murders had gotten people killed, people I cared about. I don't really care about the lack of branching paths, because it still feels like each of those decisions were important, even if they would have all lead to the same outcome. I feel like the lack of caring for the characters is a fault on the player's part. If you're gonna sit down and play a game that's essentially a book, you should be ready to pay attention to what's going on. When I met Claus and learned that his wife and child died, I felt terrible, because I met them just hours before, and I wanted to make it up to Claus. I immediately wanted the best for Magdalene, as a sort of proxy for helping Claus. After the second time skip when I saw Magdalene grown up and was given control of her, I was so glad to continue her story. My favorite part might be watching Ursula grow up. You know when you visit your grandparents after a while, and they remark on how much you've grown? It made me feel kinda like that. Like, I told stories to her when she could barely speak, and now just mere hours later she's in her twenties. I don't know. There's so much to love about this game that I don't understand how you could get hung up on there not being branching paths and there being too many characters.

[@bigtastyben5119]

I get the feeling Yatz didn't really pay much attention to the game and dipped out within the first 30 minutes.

[@gincairn8763]

I've been using zero punctuation as a sleep aid for years, so happy it won't have to be videos all the time now, thanks guys

[@Dark.Shingo]

Somehow, sliding into Morpheus' arms while listening to Yahtzee's voice seems like the weirdest yet the most enticing idea ever...

[@boltonatorsaomd9368]

So glad to know I’m not the only weirdo using these videos as a sleeping aid.

[@nuevarine]

How do you sleep through the intro and outro?!

[@gincairn8763]

@@nuevarine I don't, I use the supercut episodes on spotify, I'm asleep way before the outro music

[@BoPrivateFC]

as other people've said, if a game's entirely about dialogue and characterization, choices that make major changes to dialogue and characterization do actually matter, even if they don't allow you to skip over the second act or unlock a new village or whatever.

[@prog8454]

From what I intuit about the game where the persona games lock you out of storylines because of time management systems means that you can't 100% the story in the game. Then wouldn't who you interact with in the game are the choices that matter? And maybe that's the intended replay value of the game, seeing different stories in the village that you didn't see the first time.

[@twilightvulpine]

But does it really though, if the result is exactly the same?

[@talitanaka]

I also think that expecting the plot to change a bunch because we're told our choices matter is misunderstanding what "choices matter" means. The choice can matter to the player even if it doesn't matter to the plot, and that importance is not to be underestimated.

[@rheawelsh4142]

@@twilightvulpine The result isn't the same though, you're just positing that the only possible meaningful difference is the ending

[@twilightvulpine]

@@rheawelsh4142 How can different routes and characterizations end up in the same conclusion if not by invalidating the differences that they tried to pretend were relevant? The façade of choices with no meaningful effect quickly fall apart once one tried to do everything different but get dragged back to the same conclusion.

[@bingo5387]

Doing multiple playthroughs does actually make it pretty clear who did each murder after you've seen all the relevant info, especially the first.

[@bjhale]

Thanks. This makes me much more inclined to get this

[@PiratesRock]

Does it? I thought it was more of a case of, well there are likely suspects but the game itself never clears any of the murders.

[@bingo5387]

@@PiratesRock For the first case, there are certain aspects of the way the murder happened that point to one suspect more than the others (blood left on wall at the scene), especially when considering a bit of diologue that explains away the other most likely suspects murder weapon. This person is also the only person that doesn't deny it or really say anything during their execution. The second one is a little less obvious, but I think I know who it was.

[@PiratesRock]

@@bingo5387 I see. Fair enough.

[@ProgrammedForDamage]

@bingo5387 Doesn't really deny it, eh? Oops! I accused the wrong person then.

[@nickb7998]

I do really support this game, it's quite rare now to see AAA companies make something so unique

[@TheMarkoSeke]

More like AA. Which is rare in itself.

[@luluna5228]

@@TheMarkoSeke honestly not rare at all. at least today. a narrative muder mystery isnt really the most unique thing

[@hazukichanx408]

@@luluna5228 I believe Marko was referring to the game being "AA", that is to say: Neither full-insanity hyper-capitalist publisher-shackled "Triple A" with a large game budget, a huge marketing budget and ridiculous sales expectations... nor a fully indie game created by a studio of one, two, or at most a handful of people (in the core team, anyway). Obsidian might be one of the few companies trying to find a place in between the extremes.

[@luluna5228]

@@hazukichanx408 what do you mean hyper capitalist publisher shackled?

[@GoodEggGuy]

@@luluna5228 It's in the same sentence: "a large game budget, a huge marketing budget and ridiculous sales expectations." You get all the money to make this huge game but then are tied to the publisher's wishes for the game (usually very conservative, which is why we see the same thing again and again in the AAA space), with overlords telling your dev team what they can and can't do through the entire development cycle. Oh, and if your game doesn't sell X million copies, it's probably the end of your studio.

[@cr6458]

It's a hard sell to get people to accept that "choices matter, but not as much as you would like." That's an important element of the story. It's almost the point. Anyways, very close to calling this my game of the year. What a beautiful experience.

[@tomasviera36]

Why do you say that it is an important element of the story?

[@Graknorke]

@@tomasviera36 probably because it comes up numerous times, one of which is pretty much right at the start (sister illuminata talking about how being a woman her choices for her life were very narrow) and one is right at the very end just before credits roll

[@cr6458]

@@tomasviera36 the theme centres around the feeling of powerlessness in the scope of history, of never being the true main character. You are just a guy doing your best, wondering if that's enough.

[@MeteoBahamut]

@@cr6458 to be fair I do not need to play a game to feel that lol

[@VeritabIlIti]

I mean if you live in a small village in Bavaria and are the only college educated man in town, chances are you're the only one with ANY choices. It's not like people could just pick up everything they had and move to another provincial village, much less another country

[@Aphasial]

Oddly, ZP compilations have been precisely serving that role for me for a while now ... KZbin may go from video to video in the evening, but it inevitably eventually sends me to an annual collection at some point, and that ends up going for the rest of the night. Yahtzee you are indeed responsible for some very weird dreams of mine, I'll have you know.

[@commenter9303]

@@trustyvault13canteen32 Sideload? What is this sorcery you speak of?

[@orcinusrex]

"Use our 4-Hour edits as a sleep aid" You forgot the part where your intro is 5 times louder than the actual video. There was one year where the intro volume wasn't that high and it was very nice.

[@EresirThe1st]

I wish they'd just get rid of the intro. The old days had actual music but now why even have it? It just makes you have to skip the first 10 seconds of the video

[@picaludica]

The compilations don't have any intro/outro between epiosdes, they transition seamlessly into one another ^^ Seeing so many comments about using them as a sleeping aid, I've been trying it myself for a couple of weeks, and it works really well for me!

[@RhondaFizzleflint]

I hate this intro and fumble desperately with the volume slider at 2am for almost two decades now.

[@SimuLord]

I play two of them and that's when I know it's time to go home from work.

[@Rhyno012345]

I appreciate how recognizable Brother Mathieu is at 2:10 even in gremlin form

[@KillahMate]

It's true - saying 'the fonts in this game are offputtingly well-realized' _does_ make you sound like you're insecure about your arts education.

[@Kefkaesque13]

I'd say that a good Detective game _does_ have replay value, in much the same way a good book, movie, or TV show has "replay" value. It doesn't need to have multiple potential outcomes, it just needs to be well written/executed enough that knowing what comes next doesn't hamper the enjoyment of seeing it play out.

[@glassphoenix9095]

if a narrative is less enjoyable when you go into it knowing how it ends, it's possibly not a very good story

[@Mick0Mania]

This is an interesting point which I agree with. A good story, despite how linear, can be worth experiencing again. In the case of movies and such, even those that rely on a mystery element, starting again pre-equipped with info can help you catch certain details missed the first time. I think games can take advantage of this. I think the problem with most narrative heavy branching paths games is that the story really isn't that compelling and the gimmick is supposed to hold the experience together. So subsequent re-plays take away from the experience because it starts to highlight issues with the game, instead of adding to it. David Cage games come to mind.

[@glassphoenix9095]

@@Mick0Mania i feel like detroit become human did a somewhat decent job at the branching paths thing but a lot of cyoa games like those by supermassive (until dawn, dark pictures anthology) or telltale (walking dead, wolf among us) dont give you much freedom. that said i do still like until dawn and telltales the walking dead, even if they always end the same with a few trimmed off branches in different places. the walking dead is a game i liked enough to buy it even after watching several lets plays and knowing where the story ends, while something like heavy rain is only fun to watch other people play, blind, so you can slowly watch their goodwill and enjoyment drain away

[@rexbaumeister7377]

I honestly still want to try this game just for that dialog system. That sounds amazing

[@ms.porter4385]

I’ve had a lot of fun with it so far. It’s not perfect, but you should definitely try it

[@ladyV-hara]

It's great. And what you chose as your background definitely changes what you can and can't do over the course of the game. You'll end up pursuing different paths based on your knowledge base. I wouldn't really call it a murder mystery. There is a murder mystery in it, but it's more about how history is told by those with influence and revised over time in a way that doesn't necessarily represent what happened. Hence the name - pentimento means a painter revising a painting leaving the changes underneath the new paint.

[@Sgt.Crawler1116]

It is, specially if you like story games and history

[@Hendlton]

I just finished the game and it was definitely worth it. I think "Murder mystery" and "Choices matter" are wrong ways to describe it. It's a story game. You play it because you want to see how it ends, not because you can choose how it ends. It's also a very philosophical game exploring religion and the commoner's interpretation of it. For example, I'm not religious, but I basically greeted everyone with "God bless you." and accepted everyone's thoughts and prayers because it seemed proper. You can also be a dick and tell everyone that religion is BS and that God isn't real. It doesn't actually change the game in any meaningful way, but it makes you think.

[@witchywoman2008]

I really do love Pentiment. It’s different, it plays into my love of history and thirst for knowledge, it’s really pretty, and I’d happily play it again just to have dinner with different families and see what they say. Ultimately your choices don’t matter, but I loved the world enough for that not to bother me.

[@christophertaylor8166]

Having played it without the weight of anyone else's reviews or expectations other than my own (which amounted to, "Boy, I really enjoyed New Vegas and the Stick of Truth, but Outer Worlds was pretty underwhelming," for the record) I did *not* go into this game expecting the very foundations of the plot to shift based on my choices. And I was frankly thrilled with what I got. As Yahtzee points out, the game's characters are by and large incredibly well fleshed out. I was remarking to my partner as I was nearing the end of the second act that I had opinions about the inner lives and knowledge about the personal relationships of all but maybe two NPCs in the entire game up to that point. If you haven't played a game like that, it's almost hard to describe how rewarding that can feel. I also disagree to some extent about the foundations of Yahtzee's negative impression. Re: replay value, maybe it depends upon what counts as, "replay," but I played the first act over again several times before beating the game, just to see the different forms the investigation could take, to get to know the different perspectives. ****SPOILERS AHEAD**** On that note, I even take issue with the idea that "nothing changes" based on the people you accuse in the first two acts. Those people die! When they killed the widow Kemperyn because I didn't offer up a more credible candidate, I felt deeply convicted by the injustice of what was happening. Even with Ferenc, I had a real sense of the consequences of my actions and the possibility that ultimately the wrong man may have been convicted. I just fundamentally don't agree that whether Ferenc, Ottillia Kemperyn or Piero is brutally executed, or whether you discover that "Martin" is an imposter is an insignificant difference. Yahtzee's frustration with the impossibility of choosing the right answer is understandable, but the real world doesn't always give us the tools to find true justice either, and I don't think it's inherently wrong for *some* games to explore that idea. If you're not interested in the opportunity for interpersonal relationships of characters in games, and only really care about the broad strokes of the plot, I can see how you would say these things. But it really glosses over so much of what this game has to offer, in a way that I think dismisses the value it can pose to the kind of player who would might find these stories engaging.

[@Norrikan]

As is usual for Obsidian the game really shines when it comes to characterization and dialogue. Round that out with the strikingly unusual visuals and you have an early contender for game of the year that'll probably fly under most people's radar for being weird. So, yeah, it's an Obsidian game.

[@lightningv46]

"medieval people really suck at investigating murders" Brother Cadfael would like a word

[@jackspence6061]

I thought I might be the only person on here to remember that show!

[@BLZ231]

@@jackspence6061 you thought wrong! Granted, I barely remember it, but still.

[@scionofdorn9101]

Holy crap, I haven’t watched that in ages. That was a fun show.

[@WinterRoseASFR1]

Or ya know... The Name of the Rose's two monks would also have a few things to say. One of them in a right authentic Sean Connery Voice.

[@widyasantoso4910]

@@WinterRoseASFR1 Indeed, the page of Latin text that you rub out with the rubbing stone at the start of the game is the first page of The Name of the Rose, translated to Latin.

[@firefly5247]

I really liked Pentiment, probably more than Yahtz. The murder mystery was whatever, but what really stuck out for me was the struggle of being a good person when you're not sure you're doing the right thing. It was like Disco Elysium to me where the murder just highlighted everyone's existing tensions rather than served as the main one.

[@Karanthaneos]

I unfortunately believe that Disco Elysium did a much better job at everything Pentiment tried to do, both in its writing as well as the mechanics. After Disco Elysium, Pentiment feels very railroaded and confused in some of its mechanics, making them feel underutilized or even underdeveloped.

[@theescapist]

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviewed Sailing Era - www.escapistmagazine.com/sailing-era-zero-punctuation/ - Watch it early on KZbin and support the channel via KZbin Memberships or Patreon for $2/month.

[@blandedgear9704]

Can you put the 4-hour compilations on other podcast / audio places, such as google podcasts, as well as on Spotify?

[@theescapist]

@@blandedgear9704 We're working on it. I believe it should be on a bunch of them now aside from Apple Podcasts.

[@muffinfluff2476]

Listening to mogworld on audible at the moment. I've listened to all your books so far. Differently morphous is my favourite

[@JoanDarc1984]

youve put an extra - at the end of the link

[@MmmDoggy]

How did the entire theme that the game is literally named after go completely over his head? The whole game is about history, who gets to write it, what changes, how it gets interpreted and used over generations.

[@georgeashley6643]

I came here to say the same thing. I love ZP but my heart sank when I saw it was this weeks episode, bracing myself for the inevitable shitting on it because of how niche it is.

[@michealzambos4083]

"This game is a tragedy about how all society is built on the foundations of things that came before us, and that, even if the original has been lost to time, its echoes remain in the afterimage. About how The Truth is ultimately less important than the perception of the truth, and about how, no matter how certain we are of things, the universe refuses to bend to our demands for concrete answers to its mysteries." "OK but why isn't it more like this other game where you fill out an insurance ledger?" Pearls before swine etc.

[@JacksonJinn]

An insurance ledger where you get a magical time-travel watch and a ledger that you can cheat through brute force to get the absolute correct answer, even if you have no idea or reason. Yeah, Obra Dinn's a great game but it's definitely not trying to make the same point about history's truth being lost when we only get one person's perspective on it.

[@michealzambos4083]

@@JacksonJinn I loved Obra Dinn. Probably my second favorite game of all time after Disco Elysium. I don't know how one could miss the fact that the primary inspiration for Pentiment was Night in the Woods. The game wears its inspirations on its sleeve precisely *because* it's a game about how all art is built upon the foundation of other works.

[@michaelmiller2418]

@@MrTeddy12397 then why are you here?

[@ShinigamiofExcellence]

The opening is hilarious because i actually do listen to ZP as i'm going to sleep. His anger at live service has actually become a familiar comfort while life has gotten hard. Just something nice and consistent to wrap up the day with.

[@derlammergeier5287]

Bit late to the party on this one, but when Yahtzee says that this is a last ditch effort for Obsidian to make a splash and that The Outter Worlds was their last "big" game, I don't think he realizes that they made that amazing 80s inspired "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" game called Grounded, that released just before the New Year. He really should cover that one, it was a blast.

[@Hendlton]

I had no idea that was them. To me it seemed like a generic crafting-survival game, so I didn't pay much attention to it.

[@edwardnewtonLA]

For what it's worth, I liked Pentiment. It became clear about halfway on that the choices weren't going to dramatically change the outcome, but getting to be part of that world and get fully invested in it was nice. By the end, you really know the town and its people.

[@Mick0Mania]

I think this is an aspect of point and click adventure games that gets left out in discussion. It is perhaps THE most immersive genre because the gameplay is directly linked to the narrative, while most other games encourage you to tune out most everything that isn't directly the mechanics of the game. As a kid, I remember enjoying the simple act of going around and talking to people in adventure games. It is no wonder Monkey Island came about when the creator wondered "what if you could be a part of the world depicted by the pirates of the Caribbean Disney ride" and not "look at all these wacky cool puzzles I came up with" or a story we get to change the course of.

[@rheawelsh4142]

I'd argue the choices do change the outcome because the characters those choices really impact are the focal point, the main plot is, at the end, just a representation of the turmoil occurring at the time, and the towns goers are the real characters you care about. I cared more when I saw that I could have gotten endris married than I would have over any hypothetical ending change

[@nevinmyers1245]

@@rheawelsh4142 Exactly. The murders may be the plot, but the actual story takes place in the characters.

[@MechWomanWarrior15]

Been watching ZP for years, I look forward to it every week. Your new content is awesome also. Keep up the great work!

[@VeritabIlIti]

Ah yes, it's been a while since Yahtzee really obscured how he felt about a game. So much so that I have no idea whether he liked the game or not, but then again that's not why we're here!

[@Chaylubb]

I got to the end and had a moment of "uhh he definitely talked about the game" entertaining nonetheless

[@JagdPanther101]

Can't decide which got me to laugh more, the Fulton Recovery System reference or "Hang out at the arcade with Yosuke." Excellent work this week.

[@WhatDoesDStandFor]

All the fonts are custom, with their own sound-types, and it can change mid dialogue, and the ink-splotches... its the little things

[@CturiX.IREALLY]

Thanks to Escapist for the Spotify entries, i was sapping my battery hard by leaving the videos play in my pocket

[@grey-yem]

If you get Brave browser for your phone, you can lock screen and listen to YT through the mobile site. Comment sections also make more sense here than the app

[@PiePie453]

I've been using Yahtzee to sleep for over a decade now, this way I just don't have to get awoken every 5 minutes or so by the intro's weirdly louder place amongst the videos. Now do Vampire Survivors 🔫

[@KenshiImmortalWolf]

The problem with choices mattering is that the only games I've ever seen where they do, tend to either be absolutely massive where choices you make early on can matter later on cause they can afford to actually make those massive narrative separations. or multi-game series like Mass effect where, sure all the main plot is the same, but how easy or hard it is can easily depend on your choices and it isn't just about who lives or dies, though that is a big part of it.

[@Sperium3000]

Yahtzee you don't get to call people out for being Smug, that's literally your only state of being.

[@Riddla26]

I know Yahtzee doesn't give a flying fig what KZbin commenters say but this review does sound an awful lot like Yahtz got 3/4 of the way through and stopped, or perhaps didn't actually make enough of the right choices in background or dialogue to get to the, you know, actual ending? There's a VERY good reason why who you chose for the murder investigation doesn't matter that you only discover minutes before the credits roll. It's odd that the script types were also mentioned but not the main thread of intrigue throughout the game which is related to a specific strange gothic script that nobody can recognise showing up mysteriously near crime scenes. When I played Pentiment myself and got to the end I could see how the choices seemed fairly restrictive but it's one that you play more cerebrally than look at list go to place click right button, getting into the setting and figuring out motives and putting info together.

[@gakuka]

I paused my 4-hour ZP compilation on Spotify to watch this. I love that you're spoiling your fans 😁!

[@collingray7729]

I didn’t realize those were on Spotify, that’s dope

[@johnthough6247]

Actually, i would argue that you always find the right killer, despite your choices. After all, you find the person that motivates the people who committed the crimes and who are ultimately responsible for it and they end up dying. And as for the people you accuse of the murders and who end up dying for it, i believe the point is that their guilt or lack of it never really matters in the face of public opinions. After all, their histories are written by the people who outlive them and carry their memories. Ultimately, this lack of true choice is also a reflection of the lives of everybody in the story. After all, they have no choice either and try to live within the strict constraints that their positions in life allows them. This is true for Andreas as well since despite his greater knowledge and therefore position in society, he is still beholden to the people who commission his paintings and who have destroyed his love for art. So i dont see why our choices should matter either. History isnt always right and is usually based on what people believe is true and not the actual truth. Although, they probably should not have promoted the game as a choices matter affair, so that part is on them. However, this is still a unique game created by a studio owned by Microsoft, the triple aest company there is. So, just like with the people in the story, creativity can still persist despite the constraints imposed on it.

[@Luis519RS]

I got emotionally devastated by the game that depicts the crude reality of why you should never really want to go back to this times. High mortality. We still lose a ton of children on this day and age. But this little town showcases how devastating it actually was. Hell a big reveals in every chapter is exactly who died while I wasnt there. A thing that hits so close to home. Friends and family just die while you are away doing your own thing. And this game is utterly good a reminding me of that.

[@NinjaZombieGenocide]

I think the whole thing where the answer to the mystery isn't given is reflective of real life detectives. They don't have someone to tell them they solved the crime correctly, and will forever have that one case that nags them. Its doing what Disco Elysium did, where the point is to experience a richly detailed cast of characters than achieving any goal. Yes that means its interactive narrative as opposed to a game, but not any less worthy.

[@axelprino]

The thing about "choices matter" is that the underlying reality of multiple options in a game is just a decision tree, if you want lots of replayability and a bunch of potential branches it will need to be a pretty short story by necessity. I'm currently playing through a game called Reventure that goes for the absolute extreme take on this and offers one hundred endings, but getting to one of those endings can take as little as half a minute and even the most complicated ones to get are just about ten minutes of gameplay at most. I know it's just one example but you really can't have length and a breath of branching options in a hand-crafted story, it's one or the other.

[@orbitfold]

As someone who lives in Upper Bavaria I've never felt more catered towards.

[@adambriton5394]

Those 4 hour compilations are great sleep aid

[@absoul112]

How much do choices need to effect to matter? Feels like when people say, "choices don't matter", they really mean "choices don't change enough of the game" Edit: some of the responses make me think people have unrealistic expectations.

[@Medytacjusz]

How much - and what. Sometimes the issue for people seem to be that they don't care about the things the choices do indeed affect.

[@ninjacat230]

If a game advertises how it's choices matter, it should be reasonable to expect your choices to have a significant impact on the game's plot.

[@TheKrossRoads]

@@ninjacat230 This. If you advertise that your game has a "choices matter" mechanic, those choices better do more than just change a line now and again. I feel like Dragon Age: Origins does the bare minimum to be expected: your choice of background affects the first two hours of the game completely, and has little impacts later on, like affecting the ending or opening up new ways to solve quests. Cyberpunk TRIED to do something like that, and then fell flat on its face. Deus Ex games tend to pull this off significantly. Obsidian games do as well, or at least they used to. Alpha Protocol is still the king of this trope, as every little thing you do can come back to help or hurt you. They all have a somewhat unchanged main story, but how you navigate it can vary wildly.

[@acoupleofschoes]

If "your choices matter" is a major selling point of a game, than they should majorly affect the game. Say a character building choice is that you are from Paris; at some point in the game there is an NPC from Paris; he becomes close with the player and that connection allows the game to played differently, maybe it's that the NPC can give you the only automobile in a game with a lot of walking, or a second investigator in a game like this so you can see multiple things that happen at the same time; or any number of different things. It doesn't really matter what it is, but the game where you befriended this NPC is very different from the one where you didn't (the endpoint could be the same or not, depends on the game, is it more about the ending or how you got there). All because you decided to be from Paris.

[@jakemartinez6894]

absoul112 When you have two “choices” that ultimately lead to the same outcome no… no they don’t matter in the slightest

[@paytongagliardi8709]

Putting the compilations on Spotify just solved every train ride of my near future

[@theprettypinks74]

It's so weird to see how the ZP compilations are so popular. I used to listen to fan compilations before they were officially published. And now they are podcasts? Wild to see how popular they were - I thought it was a weird thing I liked, not a weird thing a lot of people liked.

[@arnoldfreeman2885]

I prefer Hbomberguy videos for this myself

[@thyrrin5033]

I'm super pumped those full year vids are on Spotify now.

[@plainlake]

Yatzhee having a complex about lack of education is probably a big reason of why he became such an effective and entertaining critic. Even his speech and written word reflect a need that has driven him into success. He is self-reflective enough to have come to terms with it as well. The same self-reflection that made him drop his fedora (no really it is a trilby) before it became too embarrassing.

[@dotanuki3371]

he sure put his complex front and center here

[@varsoonhks3211]

Trilby hats are just Fedoras for an even neckier beard

[@curt810]

I think Yaz played this one a bit too quickly. He got to the murder and thought that that was the game, but the game was not a murder mystery. It's a story, that goes to great lenghts to charactrize main character and everyother person that he interacts with. Truth is your actions do matter, not in solving a mystery but in affecting the lives of the people you meet. if you rushed through I can't blame him for not noticing or caring what happens. I mean only two kids died after the frist time skip, it's not hard to remember that detail. Only two characters tell you thier kid died and one of them, Claus, tell you as apart of the main story. Also, Claus' surviving daughter is the character you play in act 3, don't know how he forgot but if he missed that I wouldn't be surprised if he missed why you're playing this new character. Honestly, take it form a random weirdo on the internet, approach the game as a "choose your own adverture" story and I think you'll have a better time.

[@housediablo3556]

Thank you for the continued excellent content

[@scionofdorn9101]

Yahtzee, you complaining about people being smug is like a penguin complaining that your underwear smells of fish.

[@Pineappolis]

Fair point but I suspect the dev team at Obsidian would find it _considerably_ more difficult to successfully employ the, "it's a comedic persona," defence than a game reviewer on KZbin.

[@gmodib]

I like how Yahtzee’s announcement about Spotify had a reference to his Minecraft review of all things

[@s7zto]

Way ahead of you Ben, been falling asleep to those compilations for years now.

[@jeremiahlewis410]

Love how true the goose killing him for his hat at the end is. Had one when I was young that took "trophies" when it managed to draw blood from me or my siblings. We've always had "interesting" pets.

[@cacharadon7460]

I had no idea Yhatzee is still doing these! Its been over a decade since I last listened to Zero punctuation. I didnt realise how much I missed your dulcet tones

[@NarffetWerlz]

"Ah, I see you're in the middle of bloodletting to cure the plague. My wife, see, she tells me that that's painful stuff right? She never liked needles, see, excellent seamstress though. The best. Marvelous tapestries. I looked at this latest piece she did and I wanna say, "Is that what a lion is supposed to look like?" But I stay quiet because, y'know, happy wife, right? And I don't want people to start thinkin she doesn't know what she's doin, right? Ah well, I'm ramblin and you're a busy man, I'll leave you to your bleeding. Oh, but wait, one more thing..."

[@Changetheling]

The smug cat out of nowhere gets me every time.

[@angeldeb82]

LOLed at the whole thing, especially with the imp line cluster! 🤣

[@sebiro2315]

Not sure why Yahtzee says that The Outer Worlds did poorly and Obsidian's on the ropes, considering everywhere I checked says that the publisher was happy with TOW's performance and a sequel has been in development.

[@thewielder3445]

I think he was referring to the games reception. A lot of people think The Outer Worlds was underwhelming. Though, a lot of the major issues with The Outer Worlds can be pinned on budget limitations, so that shouldn't be a problem with the sequel since Xbox owns them now. We just have to hope they don't bite off more than they can chew

[@TheCreepypro]

nice to hear about this since I didn't hear about it anywhere else

[@Geoffery_of_Monmouth]

There's honestly a lot projecting in the review, and not in a good way. Yahtzee goes on about how he never got a high school education and accuses the game of talking down to him, only to completely miss what the game was actually about, even just based on the title alone. Just because it has a murder mystery doesn't make it a murder mystery game, and expecting it to be like other murder mystery games completely misses the point. Also surprised that, given his recent comments about how his kids have changed him, he never mentioned what happens with Casper or August. It's a game about how to live with the choices and mistakes we've made. Sad that he seemed to not get that. Maybe it should have talked down more.

[@howlingdin9332]

Yahtzee has stated more than anyone that stories are innately linear and the 'choices matter' marketing angle is bs. And yet he always seems upset at being right.

[@rudolphbloom]

"Choices do not matter in a dialogue-driven game because choices only give you more dialogue" Incredible perspective.

[@aaronketzenberger8411]

Come for the game reviews, stay for the Slylock Fox references. Another great one, Yatz

[@CAP198462]

“The pentiment man will pass.” Have I been thinking of that line for a long time and waiting for a chance to use this reference to Last Crusade? Yes I have.

[@Bob-jn8jt]

Yes to the podcast and yes it does help me sleep. Thank you.

[@subjectsigma1317]

That is precisely what I use the 4h compilation for yahtz

[@user-kh3jj4rx2v]

the slylock fox joke gets me so much

[@WinterPhoenix]

I love how the last thing before the title card is Yahtzee causally drowning someone

[@andrewpillinger3]

The quote "allow me to hold your face under the putrescent waters of knowledge" from his Peggle review is where that pic originated.

[@fede6811]

YEEEEEEESSSSSS I was searching for zero punctuation on Spotify the other day

[@TeaUnicorn]

way ahead of you yahtz... I've been using ZP to fall asleep since 2014 it actually results in a lot of dreams where someone is talking to me very fast

[@playin4power]

I do infact use those videos as sleep aids so thank you for uploading them to spotify

[@alldayagain]

In reference to his additional video about detective games needing to let the player fail, it's interesting how detective game and difficult games can both fall into an argument of accessibility Whereas difficult games can be argued to restrict access to the game based on skill, detective games can the argued to restrict access based on intelligence Maybe it's because both use progression as a reward for success I don't know, just some game design musings

[@ANTVGM64]

That Spotify thing is such a good idea

[@Sadarak1980]

Wonder if there's room for discussion about whether creating a believable fake of choices matter is still okay, if you believe your choices mattered and don't find out till later they didn't, is the experience any worse?

[@Prototype-357]

Steam has a whole tag called "choices matter" and that seems to complicate things quite a bit cause if a game has that tag but doesn't deliver it starts feeling like false advertising. I lost hope for true "choices matter" games that aren't interactive fiction long ago so I just read that tag as "we have lots of alternative dialogue" now but people still want to believe games that have that tag. Pentiment is a weird case cause the thing about not finding out if we made the correct choices was very intentionally the point the game was making, that was the plan throughout all of development according to the devs, and yes that is a very different and special experience they created but it just doesn't seem to warrant that steam tag. I'm not mad like Yahtzee though, worse games have gotten away with using that tag and not delivering, Pentiment is not the one that's gonna make me grab a torch and pitchfork.

[@tomasviera36]

Major Spoiler alert: I chose bookworm and when Andreas sacrificed himself as if he was some Darkest Dungeon character just to save a few books I really felt like that was due to my earlier choice. I dont really care if it wasnt. It felt like it at the time

[@hazukichanx408]

I would say that Deus Ex is an example of an actual Choices Matter game. Examples: At one point, you either fight some MiBs to save your brother, or your brother dies. At another point, if you don't identify a suspicious person as a saboteur and KO or kill him, your pilot will die. Granted, these are a bit heavy-handed; The Witcher goes another way, and just sort of throws random consequences at you - i.e. "You helped some elves smuggle a box, and now this random dude later on got shot by one of them with an extra deadly arrow." I'd kind of like to see a game where you're trying to help people in general, and depending on your choices you might succeed or fail, and then perhaps you can follow up to correct your blunders without the need to just load a game and "pick correctly" all the time. In a narrative Telltale-type game, that could be quite compelling, I think; but also, perhaps, in more of an action/RPG/open world sort of game. There is arguably some art in making it _feel_ like choices matter even when they don't change much, but making the changes significant in some way is probably an even more impressive feat.

[@Dr.Death8520]

If choices matter, I want at least some significant variation to be a result of my choices. Alternate dialogue is a requirement to keep the narrative in check, but if the plot just bulldozes to the same conclusion then it failed. Faking it falls apart really fast, especially when a choice gets shoehorned into the same result as another. E.g. "kill the woman or not", but then she gets herself killed seconds later anyway. On the face your choice changed events, but picking the latter clearly says "no, wrong choice"

[@potatoboy6094]

As he said, it’s about the expectations, if I buy what I think is a mango, but when I bite into it that shit tastes like a banana, I like bananas, but I wanted a fucking mango! Maybe these types of games need a different tag that isn’t “choices matter” if your choices don’t fucking matter, it loses so much replay value you thought you were getting

[@fatherceltics2379]

I love that Columbo reference :)

[@NoMansSkyResources]

I'm a bit confused by the Outer World reference here, given that it was universally loved by the gaming community & talked about a whole lot. Not sure what Yahtzee is talking about on this one.

[@LOLquendoTV]

I dont think thats true though. Maybe it got generally positive outlet reviews but everywhere else reception was lukewarm

[@NoMansSkyResources]

@@LOLquendoTV It's talked about very positively on most list-type videos on youtube & countless people seem to talk to me about the game all the time. I see people online talking about it often. I've never seen anyone say anything negative about it & the game seems to come up a whole lot. There also seems to be a whole lot of asking for a sequel. I don't know how you or Yahtzee have experienced differently.

[@LOLquendoTV]

@@NoMansSkyResources i guess this is the pitfall of our modern day experience of the internet, but personally I have seen nothing positive said about it. I personally thought it was bland and a disappointment given the promise of a game to pick up the torch left by New Vegas

[@TS6815]

"Energy drinks that take themselves too seriously" - Yahtz, who lived in Australia for years I saw an Internet Historian video once so I'm just gonna assume you're talking about Mother Energy

[@ngchloe4877]

I really enjoyed this game, as a mystery lover myself. Certain events feel fixed, but the mystery part and the characters pull me in, especially the uncertainty on who did what. I often found myself scrambling at the last minute to find key information before it was time to pin the murder on someone. Two issues I did have were that I would find myself failing dialogue options cause I wasn't expecting them or Andreas never brought up the specific thing I knew or just didn't have any good dialogue options. The second is that the third act felt a little cliche in it's set up, the strong independent woman who has a snarky love interest that she definitely doesn't like, is just one of the oldest romances ever. Also Yahtzee, I'm going to assume that you were just joking in the beginning, but you know Obsidian is owned by Microsoft right, and that this game was made cause the studio is provided some freedom and security, right?

[@nevinmyers1245]

That's the only thing you got out of the third act? A cliche love story? There's so much more to that act, and for what it's worth, I didn't role-play Magdalene as liking Ötz and didn't get a love story out of it.

[@Jewelsmith]

Pentiment was a labor of love by Josh Sawyer (Pillars of Eternity, Fallout New Vegas) and he'd been wanting to make it for something like 20 years. It's definitely not a game for everyone, but in its defense there are many more choices than just the protagonist's background. There are tons of dialogue choices that determine whether or not you can later persuade people to give you information or even change the course of their lives. Choices affect who lives or dies, where people live, what the mural looks like at the end of the game, and more.

[@Unformed8]

Funnily enough friend has been making me watch Columbo, absolutely worth the reputation he and the series has

[@0miniq]

I know the sleep aid thing was a joke, but when I binged all of ZP over the course of a month, just hearing Yachtzee start talking knocked me out instantly

[@Atm_0s]

I'm curious what your take would be on Paradise Killer. It has a lot of what you were describing in terms of detective games but I think they've actually pulled it off with how they do it.

[@GameDevYal]

My personal favorite type of choice is when you get a gameplay-based "smorgasbord" of optional story beats, like per-character sidestories that unlocks new abilities for your party members. They can still be linear narratives with no real branches, but you need to actively decide to pursue them (which is the best kind of choice) and since the effects stick around and affect your primary loop shenanigans afterwards, they've got a very palpable sense of mattering. Fallout: New Vegas kinda tied this both ways, your party members' social sidestories only unlocked after you did a certain amount of regular story missions together to build trust.

[@Sgtnolisten]

Is it safe to plug a suggestion to check out the 1632 series by Eric Flint here? I enjoy the hell out of it and the time travel jokes just makes it feel right to bring up.

[@ViMBarN]

The ZP Minecraft reference was slick

[@Dapper_Games]

The Slylock Fox reference sent me to the moon!

[@BlackHawk4698]

The only games where choices matter are dating sims. "I am putting my into 's " is a statement whose meaning changes dramatically based on what you put in the blanks.

[@gchocca]

I agree. I actually loved it, but like what it is: a beautifully crafted interactive story, with some nice mostly cosmetic choices to make. I was a bit baffled when the first part finished, how should I know who made it. I thought I had missed something. But at some point not far from that I realised nothing actually really mattered, and I enjoyed the rest of the tale. If someone plays it expecting a typical detective game, probably will end up frustrated. It was not my case, but I can understand it.

[@SneppyNotSnoopy]

Does the podcast include the intro song? Cant imagine sleeping through that

[@sdbzfan1]

This is why I love Persona 4 if you at anypoint fuck up between November and December you still get an ending its just a bad ending where you didn't catch the culprit and if you do get passed that point you can still get the neutral ending instead of the true ending because you didn't solve the whole mystery just caught the murderer its nice when a mystery game has multiple end states rather than just you failed try again, I've seen a guy go through the game 3 times before they got the True ending because of something on the final day that's so good

[@Freenure]

By the time I wanted to investigate more suspects in the Second Act, I couldn't. Also, the way everyone just assumes your investigation is infallible is appropriately medieval.

[@Graknorke]

they believe it because they want/need to, I think. there's a time limit in each case where they need to blame somebody and it's easy to give credibility to the educated stranger to relieve some of the responsibility of making that decision yourself

[@Freenure]

@@Graknorke and still the game allowed me to actually choose someone. I could choose between Guy and, get this, NOBODY ELSE. Also, I wanted to help Brother ¿Aeco? With his cough, but the only yellow flowers I could find in the forest had no contextual prompt. I guess he died.

[@Graknorke]

@@Freenure yeah idk, skill issue I guess

[@GameDevYal]

There's an interesting GDC talk out there by some small company that exclusively make visual novels, who brought up their statistics on player behavior - most players never replayed a game, so they figured having branching narratives was a complete waste and had evidence to support it - but if you're too obvious about it players would catch on, so they put a lot of work into making choices be properly acknowledged.

[@jgibbjr]

"I like getting knobbed in cloisters." 😂😂

[@technogamer18]

Well Yahtz, you’ve achieved something in influencing me today.. ..where did I put that columbo boxset..?

[@mattbachmann4311]

Hey, I don't who told you I use them to fall asleep, but it was completely accurate.

[@colehartel7206]

They should make choose-your-own-adventure games with multiple branching storylines, but where each branch is entirely random no matter which choices you actually make. You might get to replay it at least a couple of times before deciding your original choices were probably the best ones after all.

[@Ramsey276one]

1:23 I need a series depicted like that! XD

[@gus.smedstad]

Here's how you make a detective game which you can replay, and which isn't "we're not going to tell you who was guilty." Make it like Clue. Have a selection of plausible perpetrators, and randomize which one is guilty at the start of the game. Then put in different dialog at various points based on who is guilty in this playthrough. If you've got 6 possible murderers, there's ample opportunity to making winnowing them down require a fair amount of work.