Omg thank you! This needed to be made! I remember watching the Anderson video all those years ago and it's so goddamn snarky and contradictory I could not believe how dramatic and pretentious it was. Thank god someone is calling that out
Joseph is correct about the 1h puzzle. I watched the video first and only after discovered the puzzle, leading to me rewatching the video again. It was utter bs. The game doesn't even allow you to alt-tab either, if you do, it pauses the game. Joseph is also correct about the music puzzles being bs, but for a different reason for me. I played this game on low volume, at no point did the game hint strongly that the puzzles have something to do with sound, specially after conditioning you to either use thinking of what's simply on the panels or look to the environment for static visuals. The sound which was used was very subtle, birds chirping in a forest infrequently. It doesn't sound like a mechanic, rather just background ambience. If the very first introductory puzzle is so ambiguous as to make me learn what the core idea it's trying to convey, it's implemented poorly. The story of the game is also not entertaining. Doesn't matter if it's deep or interesting if the time the audio players start playing i want the person speaking to shut up halfway through cause this is not the format in which I as a player want to interact with the ideas being presented at all, I'm simply rushing off to the next puzzle to solve it, or want to be told an interesting story in an entertaining way, not stopping for a few minutes to ponder about an interesting random idea after spending half an hour solving difficult puzzles with considerably more engaging ideas to the brain. Games are an interactive medium where reflection is best after a gaming experience or at the time of play if there are concepts which move the soul, which are rarely encountered in games, and certainly which the witness has none since it's really just a good puzzle game at heart and not much else. Most of the interesting reflection of the game is in watching opinion pieces about it on youtube anyway. If Jonathan Blow wants to make players interact with all of those interesting ideas from the audio tapes, make it entertaining to do so and not the borefest that it is in The Witness. Story 1/10 Puzzles 9/10 RU-vid reviews of the game 10/10
As a gay man its not fetishising lmao 😭😭 as long as u arent being weird abt its fine esp considering most of the old hetalia fans who “fetishists” / super into yaoi usually end up as gay trans men
I don't understand at all how The Wall isn't the most accessible. (I'm not a Wall fanatic. I'm just talking accessibility.) I can't see how the fact that it's a concept album so the pieces fit together to form a bigger story impacts accessiblity, when all (or at least most of) the pieces seem completely functional as standalones, musically and lyrically. Unless you're somehow defining accessibility as "how hard is it to get everything out of it that was put into it", I just don't get it. This is so far from what I perceive accessibility to be, that when waiting for you to get to The Wall, I was trying to guess why you were putting it as late as you did, and the best I could come up with was "it's a double album, that's too much committment".
As someone who playtested The Witness, I'm obviously a bit biased, but I think this is a pretty nice refutation of that video. (I do wonder where all the commenters with the same bogus complaint(s) about your video copy-pasted those complaints from. I have to imagine you find that just as frustrating as Blow found Anderson's video. (Of course the "assuming that I'm wrong" thing is a real mistake, but that's just an aside that doesn't impact anything else in your video at all, and that's not what I'm talking about.))
This was brilliant. That video always bothered me for being so popular yet off base. This video deserves the millions of views that Joseph got for some reason.
His video is even dumber than I remembered. He also sounds like he has a vendetta against the game and Jonathan Blow or something. He wants to hate the game. How did he become so popular?
Wow..what a throwback! I was pretty into Hetalia back in 2010s (mostly late 2010s as thats when I got into anime, but nonetheless) and while I did drag one of my friends down with me (TBF, she got me into the cursed Web Comic) I managed to not get into that much toxic fandom communities?? at best it was shipping wars or just weird people being weird. I was into the 2pverse for a bit and honestly just consumed that side's content until I was sick of the fandom. I think my first big brain move was literally picking Canada as my favorite and just sticking to the Americas cause I'm American. Hetalia did get me into history and my first ever cosplay was funny enough Canada but I think I left the fandom longg before any big dramas happened that wasnt what happened to England's first english dub va. Sometimes in the 10 years since I left (2014 was at least the earliest of me being into it) I do check in and see that it has matured fandom wise but I cannot for the life of me rewatch the anime. I own the DVDs, Ive tried using the YT uploads, but I cannot get back into it, maybe I'll catch up on the manga but for now, like clockwork, my usual checkback will just be fanart. I do have the weird bragging rights of watching S5 when it first came out on Dailymotion with no subtitles as it was airing over in Japan and that besides the most recent season, own all the DVDs.
When you say "it's not your fault you don't have a sense of pitch", it's like, the most passive aggressive thing you can say. It's just so condescending... I doubt the guy doesn't have a sense of a pitch, he just had a hard time with the puzzles. So did I. Do you think I don't have a sense of pitch either?
As author said, it's ok to have different perspectives about this game and it's message, so in my opinion independent of what game developers wanted, it is now a game about elitism and people feeling superior for what amounts to insignificant things (being better at understanding a video game), with both gamedevs response (at first I thought he was giving it in character as a snobbish author whose response to any criticism is "you just don't get it", while not engaging with what was actually said) and this video being good examples to support my reading
ngl I was really excited for this video because I love RU-vid beef, but the tone and style you chose to engage in during the second half of this video really doesn't bode well for you. You made great points initially, but I felt you decided to take a personal slight at Joe for reasons I have no idea. Calling him an uncurious person could not be further from the truth, and if you've seen or engaged with his content besides the singular Witness video you would've known that. I'm all for dissing when appropriate, but it's all in context and your personal slights at Joe come across extremely brash and aggressive, especially as the type of content Joe makes could not be further from RU-vid beef and drama as possible. Lowkey you should've stuck to your analysis and cut the video down by a lot and more people would've seen your side of the argument.
Wow, a video like this exists, I was not huge into the hetalia fandom as a kid we just laughed at the characters and partially the series influenced me to start looking into the real history of the world, compare events and such to see the deeper meaning behind historic jokes. I never knew the series was this scrutinized throughout the years and kinda glad I stopped associating with it, however I brought it up recently to my Belgian friend and she almost instantly fell in love with Belgium for being the cute ditz that she is.
What is with the bizarre background audio during your title sections, where we listen to you talking to your cat or your boyfriend, etc? It is so nonsensical to include such audio in this video - I truly don’t get it.
omg... I am so glad I found your video! I am only half way through now but ALL of the points you bring up until now went through my head while watching his "review". I was really mildly furious because his video is such a bad faith misrepresentation of the game, it's really a shame. I just had a wonderful experience with it. Sure, I had regular mental breakdowns while playing, but I NEVER once had the (persisting) thought that the game was bad/unfair/inconsistent/illogical/nonsensical etc. The Witness is an example of consistency and it was an absolute joy to play it. I can only hope that during the last 8 years he matured a little bit and is now able to take a step back before reviewing other titles. And that he is now able to see a video game not only as a game but also as a work of art - which he obviously wasn't 8 years ago.
Half of your criticisms would crumble if you watched his "Subjectivity is Implied" video. You accuse Joe's logic of being subjective, when under Joe's semi-postmodernist view of art and critique, basically anything anyone can say about any piece of art that goes beyond the basic facts is subjective, and most of what you say is subjective as well. If you understood Joe's critique style, you'd understand a lot of the things he's talking about. I admit that he doesn't understand some of the puzzles, but that certainly doesn't mean he's stupid. He's also positively critiqued puzzle games on his channel, so I don't know how you justify saying "you should investigate your claims when making them on youtube" when you're comfortable making assumptions about Joe's character and intelligence when only having engaged with one of his many videos. I'm not saying you have to be a certified Joseph Anderson expert to say anything about his video, but I'm sure you can imagine that it frustrates people who do know more about Joe than you. This combined with your consistent personal attacks makes you come off to the more Joe-familiar as aggressive and mean-spirited, which, ironically, stems from your own lack of curiosity about Joe as an art critic and writer.
Your general attitude throughout the video is pretty inflammatory. This seems like a video that, while having a lot of valid points of criticism, seems to ignore that subjectivity is implied in ANY video essay worth it's salt. He literally made a video called "subjectivity is implied" to shut up people who can't stand that someone had a different, less positive experience with a game they enjoyed.
great job throwing the Irish under the bus, "not as bad" my ass England practically starved my ancestors into selling out their lands and having to flee overseas just for a chance to survive
Jesus this is so childish. You critisize him for making a review of a game in bad faith even though it's just his opinion. You then rag on him for an hour. You can be petty and carry over the zingers your boyfriend thought up like you're a couple of schoolkids, at least be honest about it.
Coming back to this video again, yeah no you made incredible points and showed that JA was just talking out of his ass lmfao. Still not a fan of the ending, but I can stomach some personal attacks when you’ve already spent an hour showing why someone is speaking with conviction on something they are wrong about lol.
New fan here! This really helped me understand more about stuff, I do have ships, however I’m also a multi shipper and all hetalia ships are problematic, I also have crack ships for fun (like Sweden x table) and I really like your videos and I was extremely happy to find that you did an hour+ long video about it! (I know this was 2 years ago but still) I really want to get into cosplay and I think your Austria cosplay was amazing! :3
You kind of just make assumptions about Anderson and argue besides his points for this whole video. Calling him stupid, saying he doesn’t like puzzle games which both aren’t true. You criticize him for mentioning the 500 puzzles thinking he wants less puzzles when in reality he wants the 500 puzzles to be all good puzzles. Not a very honest or understanding refutation of Anderson’s video.
Damn I miss Hetalia so much It was the first big fandom I had, was a big fan from 2013 to 2019 Sadly I was catapulted out of it because the Hetalia Cosplayer scene in my country got quite toxic and more and more people left. I had so much fun I learned a lot about History, about cultures and my Geography grade got a lot better I started to write little fanfictions for friends, I started to cover and translate, I created a lot I still have my France, Belgium, Russia and female Romano cosplays in my closet I probably won't wear them again, but I also can't throw them away Hetalia is a kind of joy, a feeling of home, that I miss and was not able to find again I get a feeling of homesickness when I think about the characters or listen to the songs and see old mmd videos Thank you for the great video about this messy but wonderful chaos that was and is Hetalia c:
39:50 So you're just literally misquoting him at this point? He's talking about the difference between game directors and film directors, and how the former doesn't get recognized as often. This video is in poor taste. Maybe spend some time creating something meaningful instead of trying to cause meaningless drama around other creators.
Hold on sorry, apparently every criticism (except for the one where he complains about the single line puzzles counting for the total number, that’s fine I agree with you on that one) you have of Joe is stupid. And since you appear to be bad at figuring it out for yourself, that’s my SUBJECTIVE opinion. I guess the video must be a masterpiece with one fairly insignificant flaw. Maybe…maybe YOU just don’t get it.
39:40 you are either misunderstanding or intentionally misrepresenting Joe’s video here. The clip you showed is after Joe makes a point about many people who immerse themselves in gaming content know who Jonathan Blow is. He claims this is significant because “the average gaming enthusiast would struggle to name as many game directors as a movie equivalent could about film.” Using that context the line “assuming I’m wrong, Jonathan Blow is…” would mean “if you don’t know who Jonathan Blow is, Jonathan Blow is…” A far cry from the “absolute weirdest line in his video” but whatever, maybe I just don’t get it.
While I didn't agree with everything you said, I do appreciate the time you put into this video. It's very comprehensive. I hope you continue to make videos like this and that your channel grows. I do think you were extremely harsh in this video to the point of it looking like Joseph's criticisms were personal to you. You're very arrogant and pompous, and you spend far too much time insulting his intelligence and going off on many tangents about it. In the future, I would keep this in mind as it can make you seem unlikeable, although that is subjective, so who knows. Then again I've never played this game so what the fuck do i know?
1:16:20 I believe what is going on here is that Mr Blow has a different interpretation of what "treating your time as precious" means to Joe. If only there was a word for a statement that is up to interpretation...
1:09:57 this smug patronizing is outlandish considering you spent 2 minutes of this video criticizing him for a "mistake" he made that was birthed from your own misunderstanding of basic language structure
