Sony's weird PS1 game about Shakespeare

[@minimme]

Stop data brokers from exposing your personal information. Go to my sponsor aura.com/minimme to get a 14-day free trial and see how much of yours is being sold

[@Hugsloth]

thank you for shouting out YU-NO. such an exceptional game. highly recommended. only a mild amount of incest!

[@juliankiz]

I GOT A 14 DAY FREE VIRUS WHAT DO I DO?

[@birthdefectthehedgehog3461]

@minimme Broski, will you make a vid about "Ring: the Legend of the Nibelungen"(1998)? It is a point and click adaptation of the ring cycle by Wagner, set in space in the far future. You play as an alien, and it's fucking NUTS!

[@bobbyisonline]

"Hey guys, let's release this English game in Japan only"

[@SmeddyTooBestChannel]

this isn't nearly as uncommon as you think

[@_CNT_]

​@@SmeddyTooBestChannelit does not make it any less stupid

[@bobbyisonline]

@@_CNT_ and funny

[@alvarochaves1999]

Xbox World Collection anyone?

[@Spacething7474]

​@@alvarochaves1999at the very least that was just a line of titles already released in english countries coming to japan while retaining the english

[@normallife4433]

For the Japanese comment from the director, I think a better translation stems from relating the first thought he has right before the final sentence. He's asking if the world we live in is a dream, and the second sentence is him confirming that the world he made for the Playstation definitively is. So maybe a better translation would be: "Is the world we are living in a fleeting dream or an illusion with no foundation? At the very least, the world we built for the Playstation in "The Book of Watermarks" is."

[@thatgreenfur6584]

Weird box art for a PS1 game but a damn fine cover for a rapper's first solo album.

[@DuckRotation]

Low key just looks like normal Japanese box art of that Era. That stuff is all fire

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

I saw "Prospero"s Books" at a local multiplex in the US. Miramax was concerned enough that people wouldn't understand the movie that an usher had been assigned to stand outside the theater door, distributing official handouts that explained the premise and characters of The Tempest for audience members to read while waiting for the movie to start. I still have mine.

[@busyak]

Wow, incredible! Though these days I can’t imagine a film like Greenway’s getting a release anywhere near a multiplex. It was an interesting time!

[@mikeg2491]

@@busyakit was a way different time then, mature adults actually still went to the movies and it was not unusual for the opening weekend to be some big popcorn muncher like Jurassic Park, a competing minor but still big budget film and then 2 or 3 random movies from erotic thrillers to westerns or cerebral stuff like this.

[@HotCherry]

Doth mother know, you playeth her games?

[@thefury770able]

Villain, I have done thy mother

[@murphhhhhhh]

​@@thefury770ablehoyday! and I thine!

[@youguberdaz2451]

Thou shant telleth her

[@goomba008]

thou playedest her games*

[@HotCherry]

@@goomba008 Have I found the one person who hasn't seen the first Avengers?

[@hemangchauhan2864]

I swear, PS1 has a lot of weird, arthouse games

[@nilzero5686]

Walking around an art gallery is something videogames have been trying to do for a while but they've never got the vibes right. This is a good try, though.

[@Lomaxxx53]

To me, the way that Radiohead did it should be the way

[@JORGETECHJorge]

There was a game that did get the vibes of going around a museum right for me, it's name is "The Museum of Anything Goes", it's a really obscure multimedia CD-ROM title from the 90s and it's whole point is walking around a museum interacting with abstract art pieces, the game gets really weird at some point and it feels like a fever dream.

[@fandangobrandango7864]

Love the Year Walk profile picture, I've never known anyone else to play or heard of it lol ​@@Lomaxxx53

[@YoloTub3]

Someone made a Doom wad called The Gallery Experience

[@LucianTheWorldGamer]

Awesome video, but I think the record for shortest multi-disc game goes to "D" also on PS1. That literally asked you to complete it within 2 hours, with no saves, and was like 3 discs

[@drewgoin8849]

Three discs?!?

[@beincheekym8]

thank you for shining a light on this... I really dig when you cover really outlandish games, last one that comes to mind was the mike Oldfield one. as you mention it's far more interesting to analyse than to play these games, and contrary to what you say I think you do it very well, you are pretty smart! I am French so I did not read much Shakespeare growing up (it's still taught in school of course, but yea French tend to favour French classical authors, I know, crazy), this video made me add the book to my reading list. I have a couple questions for you: (1) wonder how you came across this one in the first place? it seems so obscure, Japan-only release about Shakespear... how did you learn about its existence? (2) do you know of any "mature" game which focuses on philosophy / meaning of life in such abstract manner? like I know many games have philosophical underpinnings behind their story but the gameplay does not necessarily revolve around these beats. I am talking here about games falling outside of common genres / tropes like this one. if so would be fun to cover them (if they are fun to you of course).

[@minimme]

Thank you! I really enjoyed digging into this one - and likewise I didn't read much Shakespeare either so it was a bit like peaking into another world for me. Someone recommended this game in my discord server and once I heard the premise I just had to dig in and see what it was, and maybe it's because I just woke up but nothing's immediately coming to mind when it comes to similar games to this - I know a lot of smaller indie stuff explores big concepts and takes from old texts a lot, like I recently checked out a game called Red Tape that's pretty high concept but far more approachable and satirical than this. Good question though! Definitely something I want to explore more of after this

[@fmsyntheses]

I saw a live performance of The Tempest in which Ariel was played by three women at the same time. It's probably Shakespeare's most out-there play.

[@KanaevM]

I love your face edits for thumbnails, they are always so amusing.

[@FriendlyBaphomet]

I love it when you cover these "weird" games, they're so much more interesting and i have never ever heard of some of them. Please give us more of these 😊

[@sirduggins]

The pause after “I’ve never seen so many naked people in a movie” spoke volumes.

[@michaelpitcher2820]

There's a severe lack of tony hawk in that thumbnail

[@DM_GLAUCON]

Minimme becoming the Prospero of obscure ambitious games. Appreciate this style of video delving into artistic influences and themes

[@WonderfulCoyote-0313]

The Bard on PSX, Christopher Marlow on PS2

[@endymallorn]

Wait, which Marlowe is on PS2?

[@v1x4z]

One's really gotta wonder why they released it only in Japan and not Europe, it'd definitely sell more here. Still, the CGI is darn good for a PSX game.

[@nikodem123asdf]

Especially since Europe got loads of Point and click games on PS1, most that didn't release in the US

[@notatrueroute]

Don't take this the wrong way, because I did very much enjoy this video, but the one thing I think it's lacking is a slightly longer discussion of the FMV cutscenes where Prospero describes a book after each puzzle you solve. These cutscenes are just as much a part of the game as the puzzles. You could even go so far as to argue that they serve as *rewards* for a player keen on the character/philosophy of the game. Then, at the end of the game, we learn that Prospero is disavowing his books; the player watches as everything fades away into dream. You say that you did not feel that the game properly built up to this moment, so the ending did not feel earned, but I would have liked to hear you explicitly discuss whether or not these previous cutscenes were successful at all in building the player's appreciation for Prospero, for the his love of books, for the world they are exploring, because all of that could massively color my understanding of how effective the ending is/could be. Maybe the FMV cutscenes fail at that completely, and they're just frivolities that offer nothing beyond the vibes described in the video, but after watching this, I have no real way of knowing. I don't even have a sense of how long each cutscene is.

[@jonbourgoin182]

16:31 does anyone else remember those "Pure Moods" compilation CDs? That's the first thing I thought of when these tracks started playing

[@awesomeferret]

No, but I have quite a few CDs that are probably the same thing.

[@TheFancifulNorwegian]

Whoa, I'd seen the cover of this and thought "Well somebody must've really liked the poster for Prospero's Books," but I didn't know anything about the game itself. Having seen it now, I actually wonder if it never got a release in the West for fear that Greenaway or someone else associated with the film might've noticed it and how much it, ahem, borrowed. On a related note, "Prospero's Books" was fairly well known in Japan (as European arthouse movies go, anyway) because it was a Japanese co-production and relied on NHK's analog high-definition video system to create the intricate layering effects. Given all the nudity, it was only possible to see the movie itself in Japan with copious "fog" obscuring the genitalia-I once saw someone compare this version of the film to a convention of Tribbles-but there's since been some relaxation of the rules on non-sexual nudity and the more recent Japanese reissues are uncensored.

[@Dukefazon]

I know a couple of weird adventure games from the 90's, a couple of them stuck with me. One is Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages - a really-really weird game all about conspiracies that go waaay back in time. The other is Blue Ice, a trippy, obscure adventure game with twisted puzzles and fewer-dream-like imagery. I saw Panic in the Park (featuring Erika Eleniak) and I could dig up a lot of weird puzzle games easily, I have a CD full of demos :)

[@aliatef7203]

drowned god is eerie as hell with what happened to the writer after

[@KingLich451]

​@@aliatef7203what happened?

[@aliatef7203]

@@KingLich451 killed his wife then himself under mysterious circumstances. there are some vid by nexpo i think that explains it but i cant remember the name

[@chromasus9983]

These obscure, bizarre games are the best kind of content, so fascinating and strange. Music VR, Queen: The Eye and this one as well. Hope you keep doing more!

[@ethanstiles948]

Always love to see what new odd game you’re cooking up for the next video. Great stuff!

[@GT2OOO]

JORGE LUIS BORGES MENTIONED 🗣🗣🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷🧉⭐⭐⭐

[@holdingpattern245]

I've read about 2/3rds of Shakespeare's plays, I love graphic adventure games, and I still feel like this game is not for me.

[@ghost_likexswayze]

this is one of your best videos so far, thanks for always covering games in a thoughtful way!

[@sc20kshotgun]

If I'd read about this game in a magazine or something, I would have assumed it was a prank.

[@Ocarina654]

Really great video about a fascinating game. Thanks for making it. Kinda peeved that youtube didn't recommend it to me until now. I'm even subscribed and a frequent watcher of this channel, so I dunno why tf YT wouldn't show this to me sooner. It's right up my alley.

[@awesomeferret]

Same here (although I'm not peeved about it). Apparently the algorithm is pushing this video to his subscribers again 9 months later.

[@Ocarina654]

@@awesomeferret Yeah fair, I'm not peeved it got to me eventually! Quite happy about that actually haha.

[@johnran6015]

I never went to highschool, it has had this weird of effect of books people hated reading back then are genuinely interesting to me.

[@v.m.9198]

There's something about 90s fmv adventure games that just turns every game developer into a pseudo philosophical film snob. Good for them

[@jackclark4598]

ok so seeing as multigenerational households are the norm in Japan, I feel like this might have been pitched as a game for grandma

[@ChaosAngel209]

You are not a smart guy? My dude, what are you talking about. Your descriptions and reviews are always so eloquent and classy, yet friendly and smooth.

[@mankiddyman]

fr

[@Booksds]

I think this would have been right up my alley as a kid, long unskippable walking scenes and all (had I owned a PlayStation… or lived in Japan)

[@jesscorbin5981]

It's crazy to think that maybe a game like this would have made my parents buy me a ps1

[@DrakeHerder]

Do you think the director got a former Star Trek actor to play Prospero because ge, himself, is named Kobayashi?

[@InredibleMrH]

I really like when you cover this sort of thing. Games that have lofty goals and actually stand apart from others, for better or worse. It’s cool.

[@princessmaly]

Oh hell no I'm ABSOLUTELY going to play this game. I don't buy into that spoiler bullshit, though, knowing some of the contents of an old character actor's monologue can't replace the experience of playing a PS1 Myst clone that's a sequel to The Tempest which seems to take place in the universe of Prospero's Books.

[@gabrieleriva651]

When Sony made games without sad dads.

[@SwizzleMix]

For some reason, this game really fascinates my ass. I feel like Shakespeare and history in general are so much interesting when your curiosity is peaked independently, and NOT when you're forced into "caring" in school. I might check The Tempest and Prospero's Books out. Good vid!

[@jack_rim]

You should check out the x-files video game for ps1. Fond memory’s of it but I always had a weird feeling playing it .

[@largeproblem]

Always love to see your coverage of games I'm not sure I would have checked out let alone heard of otherwise. Great video too, the research beyond the game provided some really neat context for what might otherwise be written as a bizarre Myst knockoff. Keep it up!

[@robbiealixsantos]

One of your best thumbnails lol

[@Avi-oy7tp]

This is my first time ever seeing your face. You’re a beautiful human being man

[@SwizzleMix]

I think that was Prospero actually

[@mikethetowns]

I miss when the Playstation had unexpected and different sorta stuff like back in the PS1 days, especially the Japanese library. Felt like after Tokyo Jungle on PS3 it all...stopped. And became similar to everything and. And got boring.

[@ReikuHidori]

I see in your playthrough you didnt unlock the true ending with the epic boss fight against Prosporo himself

[@spyczech]

Im suprised they coded in a full bloodborne grade combat system for that

[@fightthepowerman]

Best thumbnails in the game

[@dylan_kelly]

Hope you do more like this in the future! I don't like Shakespeare at all but the more abstract nature of this video was really pleasant and I enjoyed hearing your thoughts on it

[@dan8910100]

looks like something you would find on the 3DO

[@killer1one1]

Give yourself some credit homie, you're a "smart guy" for being interested and/or engaged enough to do all the research for this video! Most of us are sleepwalking through our own little dreams daily, so it's refreshing (like you say in the video) to take a detour and look at some stuff that is exploring concepts like this.

[@Thor110]

I really appreciated the chance to see this, I feel like I have seen it before but I don't know for sure, perhaps it was all just a dream.

[@retrogameon]

Interesting! Never heard of this game and I love weird, old Japanese PS1 games. Great video, Mr. Me

[@detugny]

did not expect a peter greenaway official video game from the movie

[@cragland94]

the tempest is one of my favorite of shakespeare’s plays. it’s just so weird and ahead of its time. will def check this game out

[@holoheart9352]

I loved this vid. Would love to see more ps1 games/similar small titles from this era that are nonconvientional. I constantantly think about what games could be like if it wasn't CEOs and producers calling the shots. Both in terrible micro transactions, pay to win, and point based games. What kind of new art that we can't imagine would be made?

[@Arakus99]

Itchio has a lot of weird, interesting, unconstrained games, though it’s kinda difficult to sift through

[@jellojiggler1693]

@@Arakus99 Same with Steam. There are some weird, nonconventional as hell games made by a one person indie dev team but there's a LOT of shovelware as well.

[@buyilemzinyathi569]

Minimme from outta nowhere 🔥😌

[@NSAspyvans]

great video This is crazy but a few days ago I saw The Tempest movie from 2010 that bombed really hard. I enjoyed it.

[@Budisgud69]

This game aged so well.

[@cikame]

The book of watermarks starts creating books from the books written within it? ... Shakespeare predicted AI art?

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

I think it's more like totally indirectly predicted SOME form of infinite flood of useless information, just not the means by which to do it. Hell, I wonder if Kojima was thinking about him with how the Patriots drone on and on about the internet's unhinged potential.

[@don-valley-parkway]

This sort of visual presentation will never not conjure the eyewitness intro from deep in my childhood

[@rheck86]

I've had Prospero's Books in the back of my mind (mental to-see agenda) since I saw The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover on Netflix years ago. Peter Greenaway movies are wild. I got the film score for $1 at a record store on vacation because Michael Nyman is amazing. Never heard of this game before. Maybe it will be a surprise PS+ Premium port some day.

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice review.

[@awesomeferret]

This game would have been very cool to me if I had grown up in the Playstation era. It's basically a preview of the kinds of graphics we would see rendered in real-time less than a decade later. I bet a lot of peorp were like "nah, that kind of thing will always have to be prerendered".

[@Air_OK]

Always love when you expose me to a weird game I’ve never heard of before

[@nonAehT]

So we have the Japanese doing British Classical Media here, and we got the Slovaks doing classical german media in "The Ring" (as see with mandalore), so who did the weird artsy exploration game based on classical media best?

[@D0Gdidthemath]

Have you ever heard of the game (some might call it more of an interactive experience rather than an adventure game, since it doesn't exactly have any puzzles, I've seen one review that compared it to "an adventure game on rails") Gadget: Invention Travel And Adventure? (there's also the remake Past As Future) I think you might find it interesting. Also, a little fun fact: Gadget may seem like it was inspired by Myst at first, but it was actually released the same year as Myst and in fact, the company who made it (Synergy) had made two other Myst like games before Myst ever came out (those being Alice and L-Zone).

[@ParanoidGenius-o8p]

If you want to see what triggers what, I .e. watching an fmv without triggering it in the game, decompile the code, & find the reference of the video file & it's name in the code, unfortunately I don't know enough about the C language code for me to be any help.

[@MarvinNeumannOfficial]

I love love love your channel and that you treat games as art.

[@HonestObserver]

Did you decide to make this video before or after the recent PS1 box art memes?

[@minimme]

I feel very out of the loop lmao I think I missed these memes

[@HonestObserver]

@@minimme People on Twitter are posting PS1 box covers using (apparently AI-generated) polygonized versions of album art

[@Chris-nw6ws]

This video is Probably the most amount of time I've ever spent paying attention to Shakespeare 😅

[@SaintMecha]

Sony Japan (SCEJ) stopped making those weird games after the PS3.

[@IkeSan]

After they closed Studio Japan they are never coming back to those days.

[@LyssLiLi]

Puzzle-only Resident Evil game

[@KingLich451]

so, a point and click game

[@Arakus99]

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

[@Mankey619]

A game based on Shakespeare's last play is indeed an interesting take to make a game on the PS1. It makes sense that it didn't get a North American release, cause kids won't know anything about Shakespeare and his plays.

[@sonyreichsinquisitor]

Very interesting video and I wanted to sign up for Aura, but either I'm dumb or there is no way to sign up with a german phone number 😕

[@arielamaya4177]

Shakespeare as a memphis drill raper I don’t know how but I always randomly think about this from time to time.

[@godspeedyoublacknerd]

Another banger from Pete

[@AbsoluteSkycaptain]

Saw your name and thought I accidentally clicked a Funhaus vid lol

[@endymallorn]

Any excuse for more Clannad related music is a good one.

[@vitradesk]

Great video, thank u for making it 🙏

[@HiGlowie]

You’re welcome

[@NovaPrima]

'Dook'. *shakes fist*

[@mememe37]

No idea how you dug up that game, but that was a great video!

[@jerryleto]

this is what im subbed for

[@associatelordgodfrey]

>boring academic stuff brother this is culture and culture by another people appreciating it so much they kept it in its original language. this is how far Sony's fallen from grace.

[@artirony410]

Also Shakespeare's work was like, solidly middlebrow entertainment in his day. Obviously there's a bit of a language barrier for modern English speakers reading it now, but his plays weren't "high art" at the time

[@Victoria-vd2li]

Some parts of this remind me of The Gate to the minds eye

[@kayeplaguedoc9054]

I actually loved Prosperos Books so this is kind of a neat find Doubt it had as much weird nudity tho 😂

[@Penicks]

big bryce 3d, aka babby's first rendering program, vibes in this vid

[@stevenjamesosma3246]

honestly, there seems to be a lot of thematical similarities with Kingdom Hearts as a whole. I wonder if the creators played this game or they grew inspiration from the same sources

[@matt92hun]

So The Book of Watermarks is a large language model.

[@chrisdiokno5600]

Never been too into Myst esque adventure games, but interesting

[@TorqueBow]

Thanks, Prospero.

[@c.jarmstrong3111]

Thank you 😊

[@rasheedkorb9877]

The next game you should talk about is the 2011 game '7554'.

[@saulabbott-atchison6660]

never expected Borges to be brought up on a videogame channel gewd stuf

[@nickmoranis2865]

The … pause.. talk… learnt from somewhere…is .. really off putting

[@a_friendly_idiot]

Thank you for the great video ❤

[@duality222]

This was very interesting to see! Thank you

[@alextheape]

I’m all for games that are more fun to consider than to play. More please!

[@azn1011]

i also miss when Sony did weird shit like this. do you remember their PS2 and PS3 commercials?

[@Pipkiablo]

As a piece of art, this game looks beautiful. As a video game, it looks freaking boring. :')

[@UmmerFarooq-wx4yo]

So... something for Cora in Starfield

[@skiptoacceptancemdarlin]

11:23 you mean like Jimmy Saville?

[@cannedheat2264]

I liked the cover. It looked clean. The cover looked Interesting as well.