Podcast #01 - General Questions 1

[@Shinmera]

Regarding The Witcher 3: I don't think it's right to say that it tries to do a lot of things at once. It isn't trying to be a combat game, a racing game, a crafting game, and all of those things at the same time. What it's trying to do is tell an enticing story and sell you on a world that feels fleshed out and real enough for you to immerse yourself in for many, many hours. The fighting and racing and all of those things are there to aid in that. They are an integral part of the setting, so it only seems right that you as the player will get to participate in them through game play. Thus it seems unfair to me to put the game down for having a lot of different gameplay facets, as opposed to the other games you mentioned. It is trying to do one thing well most of all, and it does this exceedingly well: it presents you with a fictional world that feels fleshed out. The fact that you have different mechanics mashed together is just an effect of this. This isn't to say that the individual aspects couldn't be better. They certainly could, and games that focus on any particular one of them and do it well most definitely exceed The Witcher 3 in that one respect. I just don't think that that's the point.

[@matthewmatosisextra]

This would probably be more clear to me if I had played it, which is why I generally don't comment on games I haven't played myself. I think I should've used GTA as an example instead as its appeal lies more in the actual moment to moment gameplay. I'd like to point out that this also solves the "contradiction" I mention about Demon's Souls. In fact it actually comes up as part of the Demon's Souls video. It's not the fact that it does many different things which make it great, it's that those things align towards a single goal. I feel much the same way about Breath of the Wild. It has many different gameplay aspects but it's also centered almost entirely around the idea of exploration. In that sense it's focused even though it has a lot going on. The Zelda series in general has always been an outlier here and would've been a great counter example of how Japanese games don't always skew really heavily one way. They're a mix of exploration/puzzles/combat and it's more the way they seamlessly mix those three elements that make them stand out.

[@bartekkko]

Matthewmatosis Extra still GTA doesn't have that many different elements to it either. There's driving, there's shooting, maybe flying, and for the most part that's all, and the appeal lies in the general sandboxy fuckaboutiness. Like minecraft.

[@lardshank]

bartekko driving abd shooting are the 2 core forms of gameplay, but gta also has millions of little minigames and one-off missions.

[@Ghisteslohm139]

For me the combat was bad enough to make the game worse though. I would have actually enjoyed it more without combat. It dragged down a lot of things with it too. Half the quests are monster hunting quests which are not fun if the combat isnt fun, and even a lot of the normal quests feature combat. Exploration also is kinda ruined since you cant do anything special besides walking so finding interesting monsters should be a reward but again the battle with them isnt exciting. Weapons, equipment and skilltrees all feel kinda pointless if you can use the same strategy on every enemy. Since the game is good at telling a story and giving the player choices a point and click style approach would have fit much better but that doesnt sell of course. Open world and active action does. If I have to endure the gameplay to get to the story something is wrong though.

[@johnathonhand8570]

Generally agree, but.... I'd like to ask, why are all of the "side activities" that are meant to flesh out the world based almost verbatim off of well established gameplay types? What I mean by this is, if the game world is truly open and expansive and the developers want to have all the varied gameplay activities contribute to the single goal of immersing the players in their setting/story, then why are we just racing, hunting, crafting, and doing other things that are commonly found in plenty other video games? In fact, most of gameplay found in these side activities do have their own genre. If I'm being cynical, I'd say all of these varied side activities do contribute to a feeling that this is a somewhat expansive world, but more so these side activities just remind me that I'm playing a video game, and there are certain expectations of the types of gameplay opportunities we should find in most video games. This could be said for most video games that have varied gameplay opportunities to evoke a certain feeling, but it becomes even more annoying the more gameplay variety there is and the more often these varied gameplay opportunities can readily be found in many other video games.

[@reallyf8717]

0:00 Intro 1:27 How do you define depth? 14:02 Will you do an analysis on how to improve a genre? 25:36 Thoughts on the "Souls-like" genre? 28:41 Should players critiquing a game consider the conditions in which the game was developed? 35:20 Thoughts on skippable/QTE/real-time cutscenes? 47:08 Do you think there is an element missing in video game reviews being that they exist in video form? 52:41 How big of an impact do you think the 2008 financial crisis had on games? 1:01:02 Thoughts on "design by committee", and the expression of artistic vision in video games? 1:04:02 Thoughts on the divide between Western and Japanese video games? 1:12:53 Thoughts on the playtime of games? 1:24:05 Thoughts on the viability of games to express emotions other than "fun"? 1:27:07 Thoughts on the emphasis of online multiplayer in Western AAA titles? 1:31:25 Thoughts on game preservation, and its reasons? 1:37:50 I think momentum is the most important aspect of a game. Do you agree? 1:40:37 Thoughts on the seeming notion of games being immature? 1:48:48 I think game development is less growing to be less creative over time. Thoughts? 1:54:03 Any thoughts on "photo modes" in games? Questions edited for formatting.

[@melissadaiz1233]

Pin this shit Matt

[@theepicjamez99]

Thank you so much

[@rat4992]

thanks dude

[@noxanneballadynasowacka6125]

Matt explains breadth by talking about Breath while running out of breath.

[@kennethconnally4356]

1:27-5:45 Matthew explains why he won't define "depth" 5:46-12:43 Matthew defines "depth" 12:44-14:03 Matthew further explains his refusal to define "depth"

[@negativespace261]

When it comes to defining critical terms like 'depth', some of the responsibility also falls upon the viewer. A vast majority - if not, all of us watching this video are fans of Matthewmatosis, and likely have seen many of his videos. Because of this, we as viewers should, at some point, have a proper understanding of what Matthewmatosis' taste in video games is. Using this knowledge, I think we can better understand what Matthewmatosis - or any review/analysis channels with consistent standards and views, mean by words like 'depth'. For an example, in the Lost Soul Arts video, Matthew states that he believes the combat in the soulsborne games lack depth. Without even making mention of it, within seconds I remembered the channel I was watching is one that happens to have a _two hour and forty minute_ long Devil May Cry 1 analysis, as well as videos raving about Bayonetta and W101 and etc. These are also games that focus greatly on combat mechanics, but allow the player to do a lot more with their attacks than in soulsborne games. Because of this, I never had a question of what Matthew meant by depth. Context matters to words like that - and not just the context of the sentence, but the person saying the sentence. While semantics can be fun to debate on rare occasions, I think most viewers will understand what he means by 'depth' and any similarly difficult to define terms like it. Defining it could only ever serve to complicate matters, so I believe it is best left alone.

[@JohnDoe-qi9mb]

So instead of just stating what he means by depth, anyone who wants to clearly understand what he's talking about in a video is to watch dozens of hours of previous videos to extract a vague definition based on context? And you're the one talking about not wanting to complicate matters.

[@DarkCloudGather]

But you don't need to watch his videos to understand what someone means when they define depth. Someone else that I watch also has the same description Matthew gave, it all boils down to the definition of depth and if you have played a lot of video games. SoulsBorne combat doesn't have depth because of "tastes" or different point of views, it is an objective measurement that you can't perform a versatile amount of actions to tackle a certain challenge.

[@downsjmmyjones101]

And yet I don't understand how Soulsborne combat lacks depth. So clearly there is something lacking in the communication.

[@wonderguardstalker]

Were you being dense on purpose

[@jimbo5266]

I think this is a really good comment. I have a mantra for taking creative advice (particularly writing advice). Always compare it with the work of whoever's giving the advice. For example, James Patterson and Stephen King have very different ideas of what a good story is, and both give very different advice. If I prefer Stephen King's novels, or want to write similarly to him, I'd be better off following his definition of a good story than Patterson's. But, if there are aspects of King's stories I dislike, I should probably be careful of following advice that would lead to similar results. With critics you respect, it's still useful to remember their perspectives on what "depth" or other concepts are will be different from your own. However, if there is a critic or a writer you don't respect or follow, there's little reason in subscribing to their preferences or following their advice.

[@tongofication]

In regard to Japanese vs. Western games: I definitely agree with Japanese games being more "skewed". Here's an observation of mine which ties into that. I think Japanese stuff tends to be more systematic and less naturalistic. The Japanese tend to not value naturalism as much. I was thinking about this to myself for a while, and then I read an interview with a sound director for Capcom, Tomoya Kishi, which solidified the idea for me more. He talked about the difference in sounds of Western games and Japanese games, and used footsteps as an example: He said typical Japanese games may have only 2 footstep sounds per ground material. The reason, he said, was that Japanese people expect a symbolic representation of sounds: for footsteps, they expect a "left, right, left, right," "clip, clop, clip, clop" pattern. In Western games, however, usually many more footstep sounds per material are used in an attempt to mask the game's artificial nature. Kishi also said he felt that Japanese games tried to make the player hear individual sounds more, whereas Western games focused more on the soundscape as a whole, making sure no sound stood out in particular. In my opinion, it's because if something stands out, it breaks the naturalism, which I think many developers equate with immersion (I don't at all, personally). Compare GTA and Yakuza, for example. They both have tons of side activities, they're both trying to "do a lot" and appeal to a lot of people. However, Yakuza is very systematic and very straight up about it. It doesn't hide that it's a game. It has three explicit gameplay modes: "Event", "Adventure" and "Battle", and it lists them in the manual. Respectively, the modes are for cutscenes; walking around, talking to people and minigames; and fighting. There are also different "levels" of cutscenes. There are the full cinematic ones, the less polished animated cutscenes, the visual novel type scenes with voice acting, and the visual novel type scenes without voice acting. It's very easy to see these levels, which were surely done that way due to the budget (Like Bayonetta's two types of cutscenes as another example). So you can plainly see where they allocated their budget. On the other hand, I think Western games would be very hesitant to "show their budget" and wear their technical nature on their sleeve like that. As far as I remember, GTA has one type of cutscene and one mode of gameplay, and they often move seamlessly from one to the other. The menu is on the character's phone. Their goal is for the player to forget they're playing a game through "naturalistic" incorporation of game mechanics. In my experience, I don't actually find that more immersive. To me, it doesn't really matter if a game calls attention to its own mechanics and structure and budget and whatever. I sometimes feel like games that do so are actually involving *me* in the game more closely, making it *more* immersive. When games try to hide that stuff, however, it can feel like they're trying to keep me a "safe distance" from the game so I don't see how it all works. It can even be distracting, and I think it can make the game comparatively less immersive. I can imagine that the idea of wanting to make a game seem more natural, to make sure nothing that sticks out too much to the player, might affect how "skewed" and strongly characteristic those games are. Just an observation of mine, though I think it ties into big differences in how Western and Japanese games are made. But I'm still not sure it's getting at the heart of the differences of the West and Japan, because more naturalistic games come from Japan as well, like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. More recently, there was FFXV, which for a JRPG I think took some huge steps toward naturalism (though I only played the two demos). Maybe Japanese games like Ico could be compared to similar minimalistic, naturalistic western games and the difference could become clearer...

[@TomasBatista89]

Wow... Your comment makes me think... Maybe its because Im a sound designer and that first example was really good but still is an interesting new nuance to me to think about games. This is not regarding West vs Japan but still... I wonder which criteria had Blow when making The Witness since he's from the US but also studied a lot of East culture. Maybe this is one of the "whys" for choosing low poly as the art style of the game... Very insightful comment ....

[@melinoel616]

This is by far the best comment I have seen in breaking down some general design differences between Japanese and Western games. I love how you compared Yakuza to Grand Theft Auto. While I'm not a big fan of open world games, I felt more willing to mess around with the tight and structured design of accessing and playing the side content in one city district in Yakuza than the looser and more relaxed nature of massive city-wide maps in GTA or Saints Row. Thanks for this insight.

[@LN.2233]

Eh, even Yakuza has followed the GTA example of having your phone be a menu.

[@majoova]

This is a great idea. Your streams and this podcast make great in-between content between your main videos. Good balance of Quality and Quantity.

[@asimpledevice]

the easy way to understand depth is this: for each action a player takes, there was a decision to take that action. "depth" is just a factor of how complex that decision was. games where decisions are very complex are "deep", whereas games where decisions are easy and straightforward are "shallow". it's called "deep" because you have to go farther and farther down a decision tree to reach your final choice; each step in the tree is another series of variables to consider.

[@ZeroKitsune]

I know this is 3 years late but that's honestly the best definition I've ever seen for depth

[@myahmyah3196]

''If a game is stretched out, you're essentially getting closer to your own fucking demise without experiencing as much cool shit.'' - Matthewmatosis, 2017

[@CD-mb4bv]

On the Anor Londo reveal thing, I completely agree, and they even showed this in Dark Soul 3 with the Irithyll reveal. THAT was what the Anor Londo reveal should have been.

[@LoLoLeft4Dead2]

Your voice is honey to my drums

[@fuckwad1234]

he sounds like atlas from bioshock

[@LoLoLeft4Dead2]

Epik Nice ha it really does :D

[@matthewmatosisextra]

Would you kindly donate your life savings to me on Patreon?

[@fuckwad1234]

Jokes on you i took the lot 192!

[@Ghisteslohm139]

Looking at the "japanese-western: do you play a lot or not" topic from my personal standpoint: I would agree. The people I know who enjoy the big western titles are mostly friends who play some game now and then. While the others like me, who maybe even play too much, focus on the games that do a specific thing really well.

[@SoShiBias]

2 hours of Q&A that I'll spread to a few sessions to watch because it's precious.

[@zydeas]

I can't watch this in-depth right this minute, but thank you so much for doing this.

[@diodamke1007]

Pokemon might not have the difficulty of Shin Megami Tensei but ever since playing Pokemon FireRed recently I've been pleasantly surprised by how good of a game it actually is. I think it's more intelligently designed than most turn-based JRPG's, including SMT in some ways. I honestly don't know how they managed to do it but it's somehow very simple to play it in a very mindless way and still succeed, while at the same time lending itself to surprisingly strategic play with only light self-imposed restrictions. With a lot of JRPG's, particularly older ones that just doesn't seem possible at all, it always ends up kind of mindless even if you try to make it more interesting. Whereas with Pokemon all I needed to do was distribute the EXP over around 10 mons by rotating them in and out of the party and not use items, and I found myself relying on stat-changers and status effects a lot and having some pretty tense moments. A lot of games don't manage to make those moves useful at all, even with how important buffs are in SMT it rarely makes ailments useful. I really enjoy how symmetrical the combat is compared to other games in the genre, every opponent is governed by the exact same rules as you, none of them are arbitrarily immune to things like sleep or poison and they don't have 50,000 HP when your max is 999, etc. It makes me wonder why bosses are typically immune to status effects at all, as it really doesn't seem to be a necessary concession to maintain balance. A lot of the moves have interesting effects too, it's a much more varied lineup than the standardised spells you see in many JRPGs. It felt pretty refreshing to play after mostly relying on SMT for my JRPG fix. I've honestly come to really dislike the casualised and homogenised direction the gameplay in that series has been taking since SMTIV.

[@MetagrossTCG]

"You will be dead sooner than you think" Matthewmatosis - 2017 on the real though, enjoyed watching the podcast to give you the comment you asked for Matt, I've played games for years and I tend to prefer Japanese games because of that focused aspect of them. I haven't played a western game that wasn't an indie title in years that I've enjoyed.

[@LymusIll]

The stance system in Nioh is really a great take on the combat, at first i thought it was just a copy of BB's trick weapons with one extra mode, but the way the game encourages you to switch stances mid-combat (for more stamina regen) and the way some "skills" execute when switching stances gives the combat a really fun and engaging flow.

[@JuanPerez-bd6oz]

I play a shitload of games, mostly japanese, but I also enjoy the GTA and Witcher games. It's easy to dissect their parts and say "well, there are games with better stories, better game mechanics, etc" but the truth is that videogames are often greater than the sum of their parts. These games offer, for most people, a good enough package of entertainment. I play them mostly for the campaign. Sometimes you are not in the mood for a deeply emotional story, or focused enough for a deep (tee hee) combat system. Sometimes you just want something simple to keep yourself occupied. Press some buttons, watch cool shit happening on the screen and watch some fun cutscenes. And this is not something that only applies to western games, there are games like Yakuza, Disgaea or Earth Defense Force. What I won't deny is that this open world craze has made many western games feel extremely samey. I can understand someone not even feeling like getting into GTA or TW because at first glance they seem like every other open world game in the market. Not saying that they are masterpieces, in fact I consider them to be just okay. I just wanted to point out that the statement about people who play these games only playing these games is not necessarily true. At the end, you could say the same about Minecraft, MOBAs, sports games, or anything that comes up on the bestselling charts. Most people don't play a huge variety of games.

[@iWillWakeYouUp]

Holy shit your avatar picture is pure gold. Not necessarily because of Pepe, but because of the chromatic abberation. Can it get any trashier? I don't think so.

[@MV4got2aim]

Love podcasts because of my long commute, so this is great!

[@dtbouchard]

I believe you also touched on the misconception that "fun" is the only feeling games should strive for in your MGS4 review, which I thought was a great point. As far as the Western/Eastern design philosophies, I think you were just about spot on. However, I think integrating a lot of different styles into one game can be helpful when it comes to world building. For example, in The Witcher 3 the breadth of different activities you can partake in really helps to make the game world seem like a real place where many different things can happen. I love the podcast idea, and I really enjoyed listening. Cheers!

[@MrNess640]

1:12:53 I think that people compare the amount of hours they played a game for to the price of a game because it's difficult for them to otherwise express how they like those games. With Hollow Knight, I got a lot of mileage out of it because I liked it so much, so when I say I got 80+ hours out of it, I mean that I found the game good enough to put 80+ hours into it and still enjoy my time playing it. The longer a game is, the more chance it has to overstay its welcome, sure, but I don't think games that do have long play times should be scrutinized for it if they don't do that. Whether or not a game does the same thing in less time is irrelevant to me if I enjoyed it anyways. What I'm also saying is your talk about Environmental Station Alpha convinced me that I should play it at some point.

[@Reclusive247]

The reason defining words is so important, and I believe it is, is because otherwise you may get two people discussing a conversation, using the same words but intending completely different meanings. I see nothing wrong with hedging your defininitions with probability, "in general I define depth as", then clarify your closest approximation of what it is you mean. It's not about getting everyone to agree, just clarifying where you're coming from when making a point.

[@exeledusprince9165]

I would love to see a analysis of hollow knight, as I personally think it's easily the best game I've played all year. It's interesting to hear you didnt really enjoy it all that much, I'd love to hear about it in depth.

[@fewes17]

This is a really good format. When you play games like Bayonetta (talking about your stream uploads) it's almost a podcast already, and while I enjoy those videos if this is less effort to make I encourage you to keep making them.

[@Tardsmat]

Can somebody link the ps2 "coming this year" image to me? I couldn't find it online.

[@matthewmatosisextra]

i.imgur.com/JXt8W9s.jpg I should've put it directly in the video when I was talking about it.

[@LukeHarpercouk]

That's a pretty amazing collection really, you won't find a line up with such a broad range of quality for a long time.

[@Tamacat388]

Luke Harper All within a year of the console launch too. Meanwhile the PS4 spent the first 3 years of its life as "The Bloodbourne Machine"

[@Warmaka]

@@Tamacat388 You can play other games on the BloodStation???

[@AppleGreenmusic]

You better make the podcast name a Radiohead word play as well. Looking forward to more!

[@deanfieldhouse]

>If Pac-Man hadn't been made, would we actually have any games where you go through a little maze and collect dots and you work on this sort of digital up-down left-right and you get chased - would there be anything like that? Pac-Man (1980) was inspired by Head-On (1979), where you play as a car collecting dots in a maze while avoiding other cars. There are a few Head-On clones before Pac-Man, but Space Chaser (1979) is worth checking out for how similar it controls to Pac-Man. Starting from level 2, one missile will chase the player, while the other follows a set path.

[@YARGGG_GG]

Regarding cutscenes: I think their presence can be justified (or not) based on what kind of game we're talking about. Some games can tell their story almost exclusively through their mechanics, but others cannot. I didn't mind the whacky live action cutscenes in the old Command & Conquer games, for instance, because the little pixel soldiers viewed from above could never tell the same story. Some games just substitute sections for cutscenes because they're lazy, though.

[@felipearellano2811]

1:48:48 I did two years of economics in Uni, this is a term for prices of products but a little tweak can make it work on a medium such as videogames, and it's the marginal gain. Back in the NES era, console games took a big step from their predecessors, like the Magnavox or Atari 2600, so there was a very margin for you to think outside the box and do something very new and creative, and executives from these dev companies often let the employees run free with their minds. Nowadays however, we've had 3D rendering, cutscenes, and basically all that could be thought out, was done already, which leaves a very small marginal gain of hardware or design. At least for consoles or PCs; Virtual Reality is one submedium which games have a lot of potential to discover and do new, creative works.

[@collette3428]

Doctor - I'm afraid you've only got 2 hours to live Me -

[@ArchHippy]

Damn. I'm too late to point out the speed setting.

[@123OmgSeriously]

Here's the difference between breadth and depth simplified: breadth would be many options available at once where which ever choice you chose has a similar or equal amount of effectiveness, depth would be many options available at once where making one choice or another results in a significantly better or worse outcome.

[@yourmatethemadbutcher9304]

On the point of western games being a wide range of a bunch of things like your examples of The Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto, most of the side things like the racing in TW3 you play for like 10 minutes total while the main bulk of the game is the 100 hour witchering and political tinkerings and I think you do need a different range of games but the setting doesnt fit for just a combat game or just a conversation sim like a Telltale game. As you said earlier it should be looked at on a game by game scale and it shouldnt be compared to God Hand or DMC. I play a multitude of different games and Western and Japanese devs are better at different genres. I still havent played a Japanese game that has the level of writing and roleplaying thats in the old infinity engine games or the old Fallouts for example but I still havent played a western fighting game that even comes close to Tekken or Street Fighter.

[@aliquis2022]

33:00 Regarding the circle-vs.-cross-button controversy, another way to look at it (seen in engineering textbooks) is: - Circle = You see the point of an arrow coming toward you = **Positive** Z-axis (up; out of the page/screen) - Cross = You see the fletching of an arrow going away from you = **Negative** Z-axis (down; into the page/screen)

[@thelastgogeta]

On the note of shooters with "depth", I highly recommend the first two Lost Planet games and Kid Icarus Uprising. The former is Capcom's take on the Third Person Shooter which reinterprets regenerating health as a limited resource, has hostile snowy environments which drain your life, a grappling hook mechanic over a dash (till LP2), mecha which are optional 99% of the time (+ You can replace or borrow a weapon for your on-foot protagonist or mecha in real time) and it even has a roll with I-Frames. Perhaps it has more in common with Monster Hunter or Souls than DMC, but there are plenty of interesting options which I imagine go really far with the second game which focuses on Co-Op beyond any other game I've played (sometimes to its detriment). I think E.X. Troopers is my favourite Lost Planet installment despite being a spinoff but it is definitely more simple and I think the main series deserves a mention first. Kid Icarus Uprising? I don't know where to stop with that one. It achieves so much with one button, the analog and the touch screen. I don't want to oversell it but it feels like The Wonderful 101 for the 3DS.

[@Crowbar]

Shooters with "depth"? Doom, Half-Life, Bioshock. On the surface a game like Doom might look like a dumb shooter, but it actually has so much depth. But instead of explaining it myself I recommend watching the video about Doom by Game Maker's Toolkit.

[@thelastgogeta]

Can you clarify what makes Bioshock fit in for you? I haven't finished any of the three, but I know how Doom's systems work as well as hearing about the influence of Halflife. I hope it is clear that my "depth" is similar to Matthewmatosis, being focused on how a ton of potential scenarios can play into each other or lot of possible actions at any time but I'm curious about you too.

[@KazuyaMithra]

Vanquish though..

[@thelastgogeta]

I was very tempted to list Vanquish but haven't finished it. (Don't tell me it is short, I know!) I also thought it was more worthwhile to highlight a dead IP and underrated 3DS title than a title which just got a second life through Steam.

[@jjdlaughs]

I can't believe i get to listen your sweet voice for 2 hours

[@TijmenRaasveld]

This was real good. Would love it if you continued doing this.

[@jakit4]

Podcast was a great idea, but you seemed to worry at points that you were dragging out questions too long, I really wouldn't worry about that too much. I think a big appeal of podcasts is the unfiltered opinions you share about everything and anything. obviously we're here because we're interested in games but I think most people listening also just like you as a person and would be happy to hear you ramble for a couple hours. I think my point is your podcast should work in contrast with the tight analysis of your main channel. it's good to have a list of questions but maybe next time try only having 3 or 4 and just let yourself talk with less of an agenda. I don't know if you've ever seen "a night with Kevin Smith" but he does something similar and it's really good. I know that might seem weird to you because you've worked hard to develop the well respected "matthewmatosis" who's critiques are clear and concise. But I think it's impossible for you to be matthewmatosis on a podcast, it might go down really well if you just try being Matthew.

[@MonkeysInMyHouse]

jakit4 I agree. Thank you for posting this.

[@Galaxy40k]

I really enjoyed this video! Its nice to see some more off-the-cuff content from you while you work on the next polished production. Hope you make an episode 2 at some point.

[@thepersonwhocomentz]

Hey, I'm the one that gave you the question in your ask feed: "Do you ever sometimes feel like your ethical standards of (not) sharing your opinion/thoughts on games is reflective of someone stuck so far up their ass that they've compressed their innards into a cosmic singularity?" I was kinda just fucking with you, but thank you for the insightful answer. Much appreciated.

[@iquemedia]

Regarding 1:12:30 If I do get the urge to play a certain style of game (racing, platforming, RPG, etc) then the first thing I'll do is look for a new game that I haven't played before that is in that genre. If I don't really enjoy what the new game is presenting to me then I will go off and play a better version of the genre. For example, when I started playing Yooka-Laylee it was nice at first because it had been years since I finished a collectathon, but because of the lack of tight controls I became frustrated and thought "why don't I just go play Banjo-Kazooie again?" and I did. I did eventually finish YL but it was more of a chore than an enjoyable experience. Going back to BK was great and exactly what I wanted. Videogamedunkey's Yooka-Laylee video does a good job of talking about this kind of feeling that you get when you're playing a game and ask yourself "why the fuck am I even playing this" and I recommend everyone go check it out after this video

[@MarioAndYoshi1409]

About the Mario Odyssey concern (no spoilers): a speedrunner posted a video about a month ago where he tested out the movement in the game and it looked really good. You gain momentum by doing basically any fast move (long jump, dive, roll, etc), Mario then starts running faster than usual. Momentum is not lost when jumping afterwards, so anything you do before jumping matters. Aside from throwing the cap when Mario is just walking, there's no momentum killers at all, so that's great (the cap throw isn't even that bad). There's basically no lag when Mario hits the ground out of an action (Mario even gets up relatively quickly from the ground pound), so you can really go crazy, unlike in the newer titles. Mario also turns very quickly and doesn't skid for half a second like in the latest Mario titles. Very smooth overall. Personally, I'm very optimistic about Mario's movement in this iteration, it just looks incredibly fun to mess around with.

[@ashereinhorn]

The 'action button' thing is exactly how input systems are coded. It also lets you disable certain actions but not necessarily an entire button. So in a certain situation you may want to disable 'climb' but not 'jump'.

[@SuperGamer61499]

I would say you're kind of on point with the whole Western vs Japanese game design differences. A lot of Western games do indeed go for the openworld design of doing a lot of different stuff. And I guess Japanese games go for one thing and perfect that said thing but I think I would put it this way. Games like GTA,Mass Effect & Witcher are great in different ways than say, Bayonetta,Godhand,Mario etc. In that, those games give you the ability to do whatever you want (to an extent.) and while it certainly will not be everyone's kind of thing, I feel like there is a lot of appeal to that. I can definitely understand why you be more use to the way Japanese video games are designed but I do believe there are exceptions on both sides of the fence. For the Japanese side of Gaming, take a look at MGS 5. For that game, you can do a lot of different things in them and sure, you could focus on the main missions primarily but you certainly have a lot more freedom in MGS 5 than the previous titles. For an example of a game series in the West that generally skews in one direction, just look at some Indie games for a good example. Shovel Knight for example focuses on the platforming primarily while being a homage to the retro games of old. And hell, if you want a better example of a Japanese game going for the Western game design look no further than Breath of The Wild. I would say it barrows heavily from a lot of the design of the openworld games in the West in that, you could do a lot of things and have a lot of freedom to do whatever. And while there is a main goal, you don't necessarily have to go fight Gannon right away. Honestly, I would say I wanted to put my two cents here since I do play a lot of both kinds of games. I play the games with one thing and one thing only to perfect and then there are those other kinds of games I do play that just give me a lot of freedoms to do whatever while letting the player the dictate the pace of those games. But yeah, that's my two cents on the matter. If you see this Matthew, I hope that my comment does help at least make the other side of the fence more clear.

[@ReanXAlisa]

24:45 They actually got a chance to rectify the way they implemented it in P5 Royal, where the ability now is only activated when running at an enemy and only when the enemy is green or blue as viewed by the Mind Eye ability. They also revamped it to give Exp, money and a Persona which is def nice in the late game because there’s just a lot of stuff to go through and it ends up saving grinding time. So now you can go behind an enemy and not only just get the instakill. Personally I quite preferred this because if an enemy was Red then you can’t one shot it. Also it makes up for having to search for stars in Mementos now which give you the ability to change the resource multiplier to get more EXP/Money/items out of battle. I then feel like it kind of runs a newish problem that come late game it feels like there isn’t much left to play with other than the mini/main bosses.

[@daemongo1202]

For Western games that try lots of things without focusing on any one thing in particular, I think a big part of the appeal for me is drawing you into a world. For a world to be believable, you need to be able to interact with it in a lot of different ways, which results in a lot of different mechanics. A world where I only interact with it by fighting enemies, solving puzzles, or jumping on platforms might be a tighter, more challenging experience, but it's usually something that I enjoy a lot in the moment and then don't think about afterwards. I realize that's just me, and sometimes I even feel like I should be guilty that I don't enjoy "pure" or "gameplay-focused" things above all else, but after playing many games I've found that exploring and discovering the world of a game is what I enjoy the most. I also haven't played The Witcher 3, but I'm a big fan of The Elder Scrolls, and I'll be the first to say that many of its individual aspects range from mediocre to atrocious. Nothing, from the combat, to the writing, to the graphics or performance, is particularly noteworthy by itself, and I can easily see how some people write the series off as boring or terrible. But they're really the only games that offer that kind of world, where you can interact with every object, area, and NPC on some level, in an environment that's detailed and handcrafted. And I'm not thinking "I could be playing _____ for better combat" or "I could be playing ______ for better writing," I'm thinking "This is the only kind of game where I can get this level of interaction with the game world." You could say that it's a Western thing, and that Demon Soul's is the exception, but honestly I've found that these "exceptions" tend to just be some of my favorite games. Also, plenty of Japanese games scratch my itch for rich, detailed worlds you can interact with in a lot of ways, like Zelda (especially now with BotW,) Souls, and Dragon's Dogshit.

[@Alberto-vx4ev]

The main thing I took away from this video: Get around to playing Devil May Cry so I can watch Matt's video on Devil May Cry lol In all seriousness, really awesome podcast and I definitely took away many things from it. I'm looking forward to the next part if you do decide to make another one

[@sarahdetermination5629]

Thank you very much for making a Podcast! What a pleasant way to get through a commute to work. Hope you are able to find the time (and questions) to do more in the future. Greatly appreciate hearing from you.

[@chasepalumbo2929]

Even on the deepest of cuts and most personal of takes there are commenters who cant see through to comprehend what he’s trying to do here. Damn, rip actual interesting conversation in the modern age, it died on the internet. Arcade games are my fucking jam now, Dodonpachi, streets of rage 1-4, king of fighters. You led me on the Holy Path and I will be forever grateful🙏

[@augustdahlkvist3998]

On your point about being skewed: What about Zelda? That series has a bit of everything

[@Zhaelph]

50:00 damn hearing you talk about this after your patreon post has really shown how much you have thought about it. I fully support you in this endeavour!

[@kattankarl]

My man matthewmatosis is there a possibility for u to upload this to soundcloud or bandcamp? KZbin hates when you try to just listen to videos

[@goncaloferreira6429]

hi Matthew. Came to your channel for the dark souls commentary video and have been exploring it ever since. this podcast was great because not just the content but also to learn more about the person behind the voice. Don`t know if this is the right place to drop some questions but here they are anyway. 1- did you ever work in the games industry? would you like to? 2- will we ever get a Bloodbore or Dark souls 3 commentary? 3- Connecting to the second question of this video, would it be fun to make a video or series called "how would a perfect X game be like?" I would love one about dark souls and am sure it would get great views and alow for good discussions in the comment section. 4- I learned you don`t like the genres as labels and are open to play old games. what are the chances of getting your opinion on these games: Vagrant story(ps1), salt and sanctuary(ps4) and nioh? yes, they are in a way an evolution of the same kind of game. keep up the good work.

[@1SWINZ1]

IMO, depth = when one mechanic can be use in multiple ways. This also applies to obstacles that game designers will throw in your way. For example, in Supet Meat Boy, they have these spinning saws, and I'm unsure of the technical name, but it basically looks like a disc with sharpened teeth around the edges, like a saw. The first time you see one of these, it's stationary, on the ground. All you have to do is jump over it. Next time you come across this, there's one on the ceiling, and one on the floor, so now you have to jump through the middle. Then next time you see it, there's one on the ceiling, and one on the floor, only this time, they're moving back and forth along a metal grid so now, not only do you have to position yourself correctly for the jump, but you also have to time it correctly, too. They get many more uses out of these saws, far more than I've mentioned here. This is depth, IMO. It's the idea that you can get more than one use out of any given mechanic, obstacle, or thing.

[@valkyriefandango252]

Thanks for this Matt. I would very much like more content like this from you.

[@bubbleworld4172]

Congrats for 10,000 subscribers! You deserve it my friend. Thank you for your videos. I really enjoy them.

[@masterplusmargarita]

Regarding the depth stuff, at least in combat: I always think of depth in combat as coming from the variety of gamestates it can produce, and the way those gamestates interact with each other. Depth comes from the amount of possibilities in any given state to move to another state, and the ability for skilled enough players to manipulate those gamestates to their advantage. To use a simple example, say you have a normal combat game with a launcher ability and a stun ability. At the start of every encounter the game is in a default state where both the player and enemy are on the ground and able to move. The player then has a choice as to whether launch the enemy into the air, which might make them prone to some sort of air combo, or stun them, which might allow the player time to position themselves better or to set up some sort of power attack. Maybe they launch the enemy and air combo them, which does good damage but allows the enemy to get an attack in on the player. Now the player is at low health, so they might decide to stun the enemy to get time to heal themselves, which essentially resets the situation to the start of the fight, but the enemy has low health and the player is down one healing potion. It's not necessarily the number of abilities the player has, but the number of ways the player can use those abilities to put the game into a number of distinct different situations. I think a game like Divekick proves that a large amount of things to do isn't required for depth, as long as the things you can do change what the gamestate is significantly enough. Skill is the ability to quickly parse all the information available to decide which course of action puts you in the best situation (along with the ability to actually input this course of action into the game on time). In this way something like Furi provides tonnes of depth, since basically every single move the player can make puts the game into a significantly new state, despite the relatively small moveset. You can compare this to something like Breath of the Wild, where most moves in combat don't actually impact significantly on the decisions you make immediately after them.

[@CtisGaming]

1:10:00 This argument discounts the nature of story based genres like RPGs & Adventure games that have always tried to incorporate choices and consequences and thus need various scenarios to involve the player in every action of the narrative. The Witcher would fail to emgage its audience if it focused solely on combat or narrative choices because those inherently limit the possibility space too heavily. It also removes the narrative consistency of the character, being able to cast magic and fight but still be mortal gives a greater breadth of encounters, threats, and approaches for the player to attempt to work through deduction, execution, and ingenuity.

[@kolmolden]

I wouldn’t call the witcher a western game. I think that games like the witcher, metro and stalker have a have a different spirit compared to western games, and the best name I could come up with is Slavic games. All the games I mentioned are based on obscure Russian and Polish literature. And probably because I am Slav myself these games have strange intimate feeling to them. They have relatively small budget (compared to western games) but they have so much love and care put into them. And the thing that these games really focus on and excel at is building different and atmospheric worlds for us to explore.

[@Srry4RollingRocking]

Witcher 3 had a huge budget though ($81 million), and I'm assuming the Metro games do as well.

[@gabemewell3643]

I seriously do not get why people think that game is the way it is through sheer passion, the game was funded by the government for crying out loud.

[@kolmolden]

The more I think about my argument the less sense it makes. Of course games like stalker and witcher 1 had a really small budget but on the other hand there is witcher 3 which is one of the most expensive games according to wikipedia (heh). And if you look at other "Slavic" games you see dying light and sniper ghost warrior which are no different from your average western game. So it's kinda hard to admit that my comment was really fucking stupid. But yeah... Should I delete my comment though?

[@gabemewell3643]

Nah, Everyone makes mistakes, it's all fine.

[@fabulousknight1960]

I would say they are similar enough to western games to justify their inclusion under the "western" umbrella, when compared against Japanese games. Take EYE: that, to me, is a game which is similar in..."spirit" to Stalker, but it's French. And The Witcher, besides being AAA af, really is very western, even if it uses Polish folk tales.

[@rngwrldngnr]

Universal definitions might be impossible, but I think it's often practical and relevant to define a term for the duration of an discussion or presentation. It might provoke counter arguments about the definition from people who don't actually disagree with your real point, but I don't think that avoiding definitions actually fixes this, it just hides it.

[@bearslikeyou]

i dont really think that way about the witcher, esp as someone that plays a lot of games, just as you said earlier you go in diffent games for different things, and despite witcher trying to be a massive game, i go there for story/plot if we simplify, the combat or horse racing or whatever is not really a draw.

[@DrLilo]

Regarding the ease of remapping buttons: The aspect you didn't mention there is UI. The dev not only needs to create a flexible UI with artwork for all the different buttons, but even the layout of the UI needs completely reconsidering.. Picture the UI from Wind Waker, which is designed around the controller layout itself.

[@YARGGG_GG]

I think you're generally right about the western triple A games, but Witcher 3 is a notable exception. It has a lot of moving parts, but the core of it is its story.

[@Felicificity]

For what it's worth, I think there's validity in the criticisms a game can receive for throwing around weighty terms like the n-word without the kind of story/structure to really do the issue of racism justice. Do I think Bioshock Infinite would be a good game if it used the n-word without reservation? Honestly not really. In one sense it would be more internally consistent (Father Comstock's city would seem indeed more racist, as opposed to comparable to the racism of the world below at the time of the story) but it wouldn't address the game's larger issues. I wouldn't laud it for that because at its core that game feels like a poorly written, inconsistently themed swashbuckling power fantasy focused much more on its highly inconsistent time travel plot than anything regarding an interesting or well developed exploration of racial oppression. They defaulted to the less powerful terminology I think because they recognized the game didn't devote nearly enough attention to the issue of race because it was built to be a swashbuckling first person shooter game above anything else (a point you made in your video). They knew that throwing the n-word around wouldn't feel justified because they didn't try hard enough to make a game that acknowledged and prioritized the importance/impact of the word and its associated history of oppression; if they had put that effort in, and demonstrated that understanding, then I feel we could have an interesting game that explores the nuances of the word and its history, and thus explores its use. So yeah, I want games to be able to use the word when they give a spotlight to race, especially if black people are involved at a high level of direction/development so the discussion is actually well informed by life experience rather than a shallow/observer's perspective. But I don't want half-assed attempts like BIoshock Infinite where, if anything, the use of the n-word would needlessly hurt people by bringing up a painful history (as well as mobilize a bullshit alt-right fervor led by people emboldened by the word's use in a triple-A game) without even having a worthwhile and well-informed exploration of racism as a theme. A paradigm where people feel like they can't use the word even for a well-developed, well-intended, and nuanced discussion is harmful, but I fear much more the onset of ignorance and cruelty-from-ignorance that would arise from people throwing the word around without attempting to do anything worthwhile with it. Hope you understand what I mean. Thanks for the great podcast.

[@ChillyUK77]

I understand that by watching the trailer for TLOU you should know that its going to be story heavy however I don't think that neccesariy means you should know 100% that it will have walking sections or too many walking sections etc so if you go into the game blind or just watching one trailer I dont think its reasonable to have your criticism of these parts of the game be met with the counter that "you shoud know what you're getting into" afterall you are a big proponent of going into games blind.

[@TheLingo56]

If anything I feel the success of WoW and GTA 3 is what mainly triggered lots of developers and gamers to have this mindset of the 'everything' game. For a while, it seemed that the main reason they were holding off was that of system requirements, but eventually, the software and hardware caught up. The thing is that both GTA and WoW are designed around these worlds in mind, and the core gameplay idea of both games requires an open world to work. WoW works in a massive open world because you need a seamless world to make interactions between players feel natural while they are exploring. GTA needs an open world because you need to sell that the world is believable so that throwing wrenches into it feels satisfying. Personally, I cannot get into these games very often unless there's, as you said, one spike in a direction that is so good that the world and amount of activities there is to do in it are just icing on top of the cake. The problem is there's so few of those out there. The only two I can think of from the west are GTA V and the Mass Effect series. Grand Theft Auto 5 is mainly because the game is such a masterwork technically that just driving around the city in-game makes me zone out and go with the flow better than almost any other game. Plus on top of that, the game does a really great job at being a sandbox that allows you to throw a wrench at it at any point and have the game react in an interesting way. Mass Effect, on the other hand, is a series I mainly got into because of its good writing, with all the world building, combat, and AAA polish only serving to hold that writing up. Other than that I find most of them a bit of a snore, or just something to pass the time while I'm listening to a video or podcast. I will say though that Witcher 3 is a fantastic screenshot tool, and I think it was worth the price I paid simply because of how amazingly detailed and expansive the world is for taking pictures.

[@CalebHatesGames]

I generally agree with what you were saying about Western-style games. Final Fantasy XV modeled itself after that style, and ultimately ended up feeling like an overabundance of half-baked ideas bandaged together. No single aspect of that game was satisfying as a result of trying to do so much unnecessary shit. So I totally understand where you're coming from when you say, 'I'd rather play a game that does this individual thing better.' As would I. However, most people I know that did enjoy Final Fantasy XV tend to talk about how much they enjoyed the role-playing aspect of it. What hooked them was the cooking, driving, fishing, photography, and chatting with your buddies. So maybe these Western-style games thrive off of a thirst for Role-Playing/Life Sims? I dunno. But also, like you said, I think a large number of those consumers are people who might only buy a handful of games every year. And I can definitely see why someone like that would rather spend their money on the large sandbox game that offers 'everything'.

[@zappandy]

The gaming vernacular in Japan heavily differs from the western one, a lot of labels that exist in the west such as ''platformer'', ''beat 'em up'' among others aren't as predominant in development over Japan. In fact, several originated in the west. On the flip side, there're a plethora of terms in Japanese to convey a specific idea for a game, such as the one the Breath of the Wild developers used to steer design philosophy of that game. I reckon by avoiding the traditional labels and relying on terms that encompass the goal of the game, they wind up feeling a bit more focused. To a certain degree, perhaps you could see they're bypassing this issue of constantly having to label a game.

[@jordy_j_s]

God damn these are great. I could seriously listen to you for hours and thankfully you actually have enough content to support this, hah. Hope to see more of these man!

[@Teawisher]

You were always one of my absolute favourite youtube videomakers and i really liked this too. Hyped if there is more to come.

[@cianseoige4408]

Excellent format for your style. I'm always looking for more content of yours and this is perfect for in between more in depth videos. Keep it up

[@DAIHIMECHANNEL]

About quick time events - another example I can think of where they are used well, even excellently, I think, is Asura's Wrath. If you haven't played it, I don't know if I would call Asura's Wrath a particularly "good" game. There's basically three types of gameplay: third person brawling, a rail shooter style of gameplay, and QTE-heavy cutscenes. The brawling and rail shooting are VERY basic and fairly mindless. This is no DMC or Star Fox. The true enjoyment, strange as it may seem, comes from the QTEs because of the game's exciting cinematics. It's like a David Cage game if it were a hyper-intense Dragon Ball Z style anime that is actually entertaining. And the game uses these QTEs in some unique ways. A key example is the final boss, who actually has his OWN QTEs. And as his health gets lower, he starts failing them more and more until he fails them entirely when you defeat him. For how basic something like a QTE is, a game like Asura's Wrath shows how they can still be used in interesting and fun ways.

[@River_StGrey]

@51:00 talking about making games as a form of review brings up an interesting idea about technology. In the same way that there are video editing and creation tools now, which didn't exist forty years ago, I can imagine in forty years that there will be AI-based tools that allow reviewers to create quick little toyboxes/physics-boxes/proof-of-concepts that they can use as part, or in whole, for their reviews.

[@gabemewell3643]

I don't want to come off as rude when I write this, but changing stances in Nioh is far from Clumsy, it's pressing R1+ any of the face buttons. Also, changing stances allows different moves to be performed at any given time. so sticking to one stance isn't always going to be the right decision.

[@theatheistbear3117]

Matthew said he didn’t play Nioh. He only thought it looked awkward, and that he could be wrong about that being the case.

[@MDRubio19]

I think Japanese v. Western is a very outdated topic. It's similar to millennials v. baby boomers. You can't compare the two sides based on a simple categorization method, in this case geography. There are plenty of outliers from both sides that make pitting these two sides against each rather pointless. Like you mention, Portal is very skewed, and to add another example Doom 2016 also has a very focused core mechanic.

[@swissidol8403]

13:11 Given this quote in particular about twin-stick shooters, I have to wonder what you though about Doom Eternal, probably *the* best example of an FPS game with intense in-depth mechanics and are all coherent with one another.

[@noosins]

To respond to your question about why I play GTA and what not, I personally play a lot of games, Japanese more recently for sure but plenty of Western ones as well. I personally think Japanese games in general lately are just better but aside from that. I enjoy Grand Theft Auto because it's incredibly well at putting you in a person's shoes at a specific time and place. I think for me they've gotten away from this just a bit with GTAV, but take for instance Vice City, there's no other game that makes me feel like I'm actually in the 1980's and trying to jump start a criminal organization in Miami for the Mafia. I think it's really the world, time, and feeling of getting immersed in a time that other wise wouldn't have been able to experience. Even at the time Vice City had awkward shooting mechanics and driving was incredibly arcadey. It's just the all encompassing that can be pretty addicting. I think it's worth acknowledging the 'GTA clones' and how I feel not one of them have ever been able to master the art and balance of a bunch of different things going on, and you're right about how, well if you wanted to play a better racing game, then play Forza or Gran Turismo. If you wanted to play a better shooting game, then play Last of Us or whatever. My feeling for Grand Theft Auto also extends just in general to other Rockstar games, and it's why I feel like they're one of, if not the only Western developer I currently even care about or put up there with Japanese developers. Red Dead Redemption is Rockstar's true masterpiece though and it does what GTA does but to 110%. Just my thoughts. Really enjoyed this first episode hope there will be more to come. I'm curious if this will be only specific to questions or maybe other topics will happen for future episodes.

[@JoshRushingartist]

This kind of stuff is great listening material for when I'm drawing. I'd love to see more of these

[@a1var32]

The following question is consist of tons of generalization. Do you think, perhaps, the difference between Japanese and Western games, that Japanese games tend to skew heavily in one direction rather than try to do tons of things as once as of Western games, may be a reflection of the two different development culture: Japanese game directors have a more powerful directorial role over the whole process and often regarded to have stronger personality and preferences?

[@niclasbelrra]

Depth is having MEANINGFUL choices in a game. Complexity is having a lot of choices in a game. Dwarf Fortress is deep and complex, any good shooter is deep and simple, pretty much all JRPGs are shallow and complex, and tic tac toe is shallow and simple.

[@Tamacat388]

niclasbelrra You capitalized meaningful even though that what many could consider meaningful in a game is debatable.

[@niclasbelrra]

Everything is debatable. What's your point? If you wanted to know what I meant with meaningful choices you can go watch the famous Sid Meier's conference: www.gdcvault.com/play/1015756/Interesting

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

what is an example of "meaningful" choices compared to alot of choices in games? examples!

[@niclasbelrra]

@@Gadget-Walkmen You have 4 examples right up there in the comment you are replying to XD Anyway, take the case of JRPGs and we'll focus on their equipment systems. Usually equipment only add NUMBERS!, making the choice of what your PCs wear meaningless, as there is no reason to use a sword that makes 10 damage when you have one that makes 80, hell, in many games difficulty can be ignored through grinding so you don't even have to equip nothing. But JRPGs almost always have shitloads of equipment, so you have many choices (complexity), but are either forced to pick the obviously and objectively better one, or it doesn't even matter (no actual decision, meaningless, shallowness). On the opposite case, a shooter, you usually have few weapons (so it's simpler), but each not only makes more or less damage like in most JRPGs, they also have different shooting cadences, projectile speeds, projectile hitboxes, ammunition amounts and reload times, so the way you play with each changes and therefore you'll have to pick which is better in every situation (an actual decision, meaningful, and thus we have depth).

[@zydeas]

I really enjoyed listening to this. I hope you decide to do more.

[@Ricko_SV]

I think the pacing of the podcast would be a little better if you spread the long questions outwith some lighter ones in-between. That said, i understand if that is an impossibility with how the questions were linked and that the podcast had a theme. Great work BTW, wouldn't mind having Mitosis on, the two of you have had some nice discussions on your streams, i feel like that would fit quite nicely with this format.

[@MrGav1191]

I feel like the primary problem with western open world games isn't that the individual elements don't sufficiently work towards a unified goal (although that's a legitimate critcism), it's more that the individual elements aren't strong enough on their own to sustain the interest of many people. Souls combat isn't the only merit of those games but it's strong enough in itself to become an enjoyable part of those games, which I honestly don't feel is true of many open world games. This applies to other aspects of open world games too in my opinion, such as driving, horse racing, the RPG elements and so on. It's also worth bearing in mind that the majority of the most highly regarded character action and fighting game franchises are Japanese. I think the reason many Western developers (not all, obviously) focus on cramming in all these elements is because constructing a game with complex and satisfying gameplay systems isn't their specialty.

[@SaiChooMusic]

Mr. Driller is a downward platformer-esque game. Also I recall some Megaman stages having downward sections.

[@RamHoot]

I made two entire videos about the ambiguity of the definition of depth in games after getting some flak. Videos were called "Breadth/Depth of the Wild" on my main channel. I ended up concluding that we use the original graphical definitions of the two words which is perfectly consistent with what's described here in his answers. I'm happy with this.

[@Nemeroth77]

Do more of these, your sweet, soft Irish voice that talks about video games helps me

[@photophone5574]

If I had to define or explain depth then I would say this: Breadth - Adding more stuff Depth - Stuff being used together to create a new effect/strategy An example from PvZ would be: Snow Pea - Makes zombies clump together. Cherry Bomb - Kills all zombies in a small area. Snow Pea + Cherry Bomb - Makes zombies clump together, thus allowing you to use explosives more efficiently. But even then some will argue about how this definition might exclude positioning, probability (like in poker), or even tactical depth. I suppose my 'definition' would be better for "synergy."

[@Impressive__]

Thanks mike I mean thanks matt

[@iWillWakeYouUp]

iunderstoodthatreference.png

[@pangur3257]

Hello, nice try! But I've read all of his fucking Ask and that's maybe the only instance when I'm not ashamed to confess about it. Just to reveal your lies.

[@lanelafisking]

no its true he goes by radiohead because he likes the band radiohead

[@exeledusprince9165]

what i learned from this: matthew has good taste in starter pokemon.

[@Dionysus24779]

I have played a lot of games, though I still think games that offer a mix of many different activities like Witcher 3/GTA V are a lot of fun. It's true that japanese games often focus on a certain aspect of a game more then western games, though I would argue it's also possible to overspecialize... like trying to focus too much to scratch that itch of a very small niche audience and as a result not having enough variety or feeling repetitive. Variety is good. Though of course a game can absolutely try to be too many things at once and end up unfocused and shallow (like Spore). When it comes strictly to western vs. japanese games I think both offer a different approach to certain things and that's fine, there are probably as many western games who have had a big impact on the industry as a whole as there are japanese games. This is a really big topic though and this is just what jumped into my mind.

[@JuliusCaesar103]

First of all, I enjoyed the God Hand mentions and talk way too much. This was a great episode and gave me some food for thought, and also my favorite part was the trying to differentiate between western and japanese games, it's something I've thought about for a long time but could not quite pinpoint and this video definitely helped me out in that respect. Also you probably won't read this, but which video game out there is the closest to the video game that you would personally have made Matthew? Mine is Dragon's Dogma.

[@kurangceret]

Really love podcast like this! Would be really exciting if your podcasts became regular ;)

[@nosapian677]

Really enjoyed this podcast. Hope there'll be more in the future.

[@bass2126]

1:06:00 Quite interesting perspective on differences between Japanese & Western devs, my take was always that Western are more ambitious, like they see games as this flexible, interactive sandbox that you can do whatever you want with them, genres that really demonstrate my point are RTS, RPG, & simulation games, Western devs sway to 3D more than 2D games as they feel they are more immersive. games like System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex, The Elder Scrolls, Populous, Civilization, Fallout, really illustrate my point

[@TheXBRGUY]

Warning : Sorry for this long rant! I can't say that I agree with you on The Witcher, in particular because the series has had such a strange course of development over the years. The original Witcher was this obscure RPG, that very much felt like a dated mid 2000's PC exclusive - it was an RPG that was stuck between the ways of CRPGs(old computer roleplaying games) and more modern design sensibilities. It had good graphics for it's time but unlike a lot of 2007 games by todays standards it's held up terribly graphically. It's budget was decent but what they were able to accomplish with it was astonishing. The Witcher 2 was much more modern and had a bigger budget with better aesthetics, but it was a bit more linear and had more focus. The Witcher 3 was, by comparison, the biggest project in The Witcher series to date and had a massive sprawling world. My point is this : The Witcher might be generally unfocused like a lot of Western games, but it's for completely different reasons. You do "some" combat, "some" racing, "some" of x,y, and z because it's meant to immerse you in a world where your character of Geralt would absolutely be doing those things! It's supposed to function to draw the player in to interesting tasks that make sense for the game world while deviating from a simply linear path. It highlights the roleplaying in the game by giving the player a world that's well established. And that's another thing - even if there's a ton of systems in the Witcher that don't necessarily coincide with the main point of the game, the games overall focus is on a massive RPG experience, where you can take multiple paths in the narrative. In order to have that kind of RPG experience though, the game has to have a fleshed out world to begin with. As great as it is that Japanese games focus one or two core concepts and build features around that in a linear format, I think The Witcher does the same thing just on a bigger scale. Because without the ability to go and find a random crafting diagram that allows me to craft a better silver-sword once i find them in the overworld, without the ability to help slay optional monsters or solve murder cases, without those abilities, I wouldn't feel like I was living in a real world - just a simulation for a story. In a lot of ways, a non-linear story is best paired with a massive world. I think your example of Grand Theft Auto is much better though, because Grand Theft Auto tries to do a similar thing where optional things are there to immerse you, but it handles it so poorly and feels so one dimensional. It makes a lot of the actual themes of GTA underdeveloped because instead of being a linear game, the developers focus on making a huge world, which drives home the aesthetic of the series, but feels rarely hashed out and often makes the narrative feel half-baked. I think the best example is The Elder Scrolls though, which not only has some of the worst main-campaigns in RPG history but also have boring and terrible sidequests that often are just an excuse to remind the player about just how much time the team spent crafting this world, which is all wasted when you can only do quests through markers guiding you there, when fast travel is easily abused, and when every conceivable mechanic is not done properly(combat, leveling ... ROLE PLAYING). I mean in Skyrim, the combat sucks, the story has you making no choices, the side quests ... even one involving a CIVIL WAR ... doesn't effect the game, and none of the mechanics are fleshed out at all. Skyrim is essentially a walking simulator with incredible atmosphere and terrible thought out mechanics, whereas I think The Witcher 3 is a focused game first and foremost, with well fleshed out worlds and stories, that just happens to have distractions to keep a consistent level of scale in the players mind. It's the biggest story in the Witcher series, so it would feel out of place if they made the game more linear like The Witcher 2. Generally I hate this idea that's become popularized that "more is better", but it's not always a bad practice when cohesion and context is added in.

[@ThisAlbino]

I think you were a bit unfair to the Witcher 3 here. It does have extraneous parts like the horse racing etc, but I feel it still heavily skews towards presenting a character's interaction with a world. Geralt and the world he inhabits are everything to that game, and while they don't nail all the interactions, everything in the game points back towards that central idea. However, the first game in the series is still my favourite because it gives me things no other game does.

[@superdudeusa3]

Regarding genres, I think that the real issue is not that they are too broad, but that they are commonly used and defined as classifications rather than categorisations. We expect genres to, by a certain set of criteria, exclusively capture certain generalisations about a larger group of games. We expect things like, "All horror games must have ..." to be the basis for genres. Have too few of these statements and you have a definition that's too broad to be useful; too many and your definition is too narrow to include more than a handful of games. But if instead we thought of genres more as family resemblances, wherein we think in terms of " Game A is like Game B because" and "Game B is like Game C because" and thus make genres subsections of a web where the majority of the games in said web have connections with many, but not necessarily all, members then we get comfortably sized genres. With this change comes a difference in purpose, too. Again, I don't think we should be treating genres as classifications, as tools for game taxonomy. Instead, we should be using genres as a means to focus our reading of games. When you watch a comedy, you expect different things, but most importantly you react differently to what you see than when you watch a horror movie. The same can be said for games. When we label a game an RPG or a Open World Game, what we should be doing is thinking about how we interact with the media of games differently based on these labels and then consider what each perspective adds or detracts from the experience. Because we are no longer concerned with taxonomy, we are freed to apply as many genre labels as we can justify through sufficient family resemblances and by the effects of that genres perspective on the reading of said game.

[@timothyobyrne962]

Baldoyle, maybe Raheny??? Donnycarney myself. Your accent is as familiar as it is validating. Up the Dubs!!!! Keep it up man.

[@Foulfootwear]

I literally gasped when I saw this. I now understand what it's like to clap at the screen when I see a trailer because thing i know.

[@DiscourseElysium]

I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW IT

[@CoolVids19]

Foulfootwear fuck dude i clapped when I saw star wars rogue one also when a comic book movie shows an unknown character at the end. I remember vividly clapping at the end of iron man when fury showed up.

[@Left4Coragem]

+TypicalPony Very cool, very cool.

[@FredFuchs77]

I enjoyed this, I'd be interested if you do more podcasts. Are they on an audio platform where we can download them? Or just KZbin?

[@frustis]

That "maybe" in the description reminds me of the 2018 date for KH3