In-depth video game reviews and critiques, with a sharp focus on gameplay and narrative where applicable. The best way to contact me is through email or direct message on Twitter. RU-vid notifications come in too regularly for me to reliably see individual comments so if I don't get back to you, try email.
Agreed and disagreed, I majorly hate this game however a lot of the things you dislike about it are the parts I actually enjoy. SMG is the goat though can't be topped.
Wowee look at all the new traffic due to the show & update. I'm not even surprised past Joe got molotov'd out of survival mode, those things make you wish for a nuclear winter.
Here's my pitch to *diagetically* fix the problem of overleveling and underleveling. In short: color coding. More specifically, what if Sites of Lost Grace glowed in different colors depending on your stats and the difficulty of the area you're in? They could change on a gradient of shades of yellow, orange and even red, for example, indicating your relative power in the game. In-game, this could be explained as the guidance of grace prophesizing your fate and giving you some clairvoyance about the danger you're facing. So if you find a new grace and you're underpowered for the area, the site would glow a dark orange or red. Return after leveling a bit and it would gradually turn lighter orange and eventually a bright yellow when you're overpowered for the area. This way the game would give some indication to solve the scaling issues without breaking immersion nor gating harder areas and giving up the openness in the world design. Wow, look at that, ludonarrative harmony. Players would still get to choose what order to tackle the areas in but with more knowledge of whether they're progressing in a smart way or not. Moreover, this hint mechanic would clue players to self-regulate their progression to keep an appropriate level of challenge for themselves. Would you look at that, player modulated difficulty. I'd love to hear what others think of this idea. 😁
I disagree with so many of your points that I have lost count... I applaud the effort you put into the video, though. I suspect you would rather play a more linear game than a Bethesda sandbox.
The thing that fucks with me most with Gregory’s death scene is that we’re reading and experiencing Sam’s take on it, to cope with what happened he wants to believe Gregory went out imagining some happy song and dance, and it’s likely that wasn’t how he experienced it at all
He did a tier list of the games he's streamed. He placed Outer Wilds at the top with little hesitation. His problems were the ending, which he quickly realized was unfounded after thinking about it for a while.
@@masterelia3259 Fair enough. It's been a long time since I watched his highlight video of his play through. I must be getting his ending complaints mixed up with him not liking the game.
You may not have the slightest interest, but I would be quite interested in seeing you cover Starfield. The exploration in it has seen a lot of controversy part of which has been well deserved and part of which has been a bit silly. But looking past that, the RPG side of it has actually had some mild improvement from past BGS titles, and there’s also a couple of specific inclusions/omissions that make me suspect that someone at BGS just may’ve checked a few video essays, these two included.
I don't get your complaints about the difficulty because dark souls 3 has easily the hardest enemies and bosses out of the trilogy and is the only one to actually limit your healing (DS1 had humanities, DS2 had lifegems). Also a lot of extra bonfires are just there for convenience, like do you really want to run from Wolnir every time you die to the beast on the Irithyll bridge? The Dragonslayer armor bonfire is also used to get to Twin Princes faster if you unlock the shortcut, while the second bonfire has a whole sprawling level built around it.
Six years later and I learned this all for myself just last year when I finally got a Switch. Odyssey was day one buy, and by the end of it I was so disappointed I didn't know what to do with myself. Now, it's not a garbage game, but so many of it's design choices just fall so flat. You spent two hours going over it, but just to summarize my complaints; Many of the worlds were either bland and empty or poorly designed. The controls are not as tight as many previous Mario games (Mario has a turn radius like a car now, I'm pretty sure his directional movement isn't true analog, and trying to do the in air Z long jump too often just caused him to do the ground pound - and probably die - even though I know the timing on it). But, worst of any of its issues, is simply that it makes it rain with the moons. Like you said, it's like the only collectable is korok seeds. Look under a rock? Moon. Enter an obvious building? Moon. Complete a long and tedious obstacle course? Moon. The challenge was basically never there, just the time sink, and so neither was the sense of accomplishment. This made the whole game end up feeling... pointless.
16:15 Bethesda doesn't understand how cats work. Bethesda doesn't understand how children work. I've said many times before, Bethesda doesn't understand how anything works. They're all on the spectrum.
bruh i bought hollow knight a million years ago and quit after about an hour because it felt way to restricted and clunky after watching this i got the impression that the restrictedness and clunkyness are part of the early game so i started playing it again and was absolutely hooked i took 50 hours or so to finish it and then did the 5 hour achievement and the 100% in 20 hours achievement and steel sould and everything i almost never got to experience all of that just because at the start of the game you have literally no abilities beyond jump and hit in celeste you at least start with wall jump and dash but in hollow knight you get jack diddly squat
1:14:45 - After the Elden Ring Poise video from Illusory Wall it's actually worse than not taking "stagger" damage. Malenia will just ignore being in the negative sometimes.
1:00:20 - "your heart should sink so low that your thong should get heavy" has to be one of the funniest things i've ever heard in a youtube critique. odyssey may not be a masterpiece but this video is 😎
There are people here that are either agreeing and disagreeing with the video. How about both? Sure, some bosses dont have the best openings, some things in Elden Ring could be improved, but a lot of the game is great. It is still a memorable masterpiece l, but a flawed one at that. Even miyazaki admitted he wished be had done a lot differently.
I really like 76 but I struggle with change... Knowing it's ab online game I knew they would fix and update it and any memory I had would be too nostalgic that I can't revisit it .. I love the idea of 76 and every now and then I hope on still, I feel I got my money worth
The biggest and most glaring issue that ruined it for me right at the beginning was the absolutely terrible use of "Russian" language in the Soviet installation. Half of the Russian language used in plaques, monoliths, and signs respectively in general were poorly translated, had typos, or weren't even in Russian (Red signs inside buildings above doorways sometimes). Also the setting is false as well, it's supposed to be taking place in north eastern Siberia, whereas the actual mythical city of Kitezh is allegedly located in Central Russia. North eastern Siberia isn't even on the same continent. Topography wise it's bad as well 😂 All of the native Siberians speak English with an American accent. Such glaring faults like this immediately discounted any of the supposed "research" they put into this. Then there's also the fact that apparently the ancient Byzantines speak modern Greek, for some reason? Like... Come on now, this is basic stuff you're getting wrong at this point, how lazy can you be?
Seeing you bring up Dexter in regards to endings that ruin something that already had a fulfilling conclusion after Dexter New Blood released is so on the nose and funny.
I'm not sure about the authors' intentions, but the baby scene made me feel similarly to you; happy visuals were a juxtaposition. I don't have any children, but I felt dread knowing what's coming
Not gonna lie, this was my first time viewing your channel. Good analysis, but I fear the algorithm itself has played you here. This is the first time I’ve watched an hour+ long game retrospective and gotten halfway through it to still barely hear anything about the story. That’s not your fault, this is your video essay and you do it how you want to, but its just the norm that these types of videos spend the first half covering plot and story and then the back half is more ingrained in the fine details and mechanics. So 42:00 into it it’s kind of a bummer that I still don’t really know what’s happening. Gonna click onto a different video now to hopefully know what the games about.
This and BotW are your two biggest misses. That said, I realize I’ve started after Red Hook has made many, many improvements to the game. And many of your critiques are spot on but I still found it very enjoyable regardless.
Im trying a LV1 run and having so much fun ngl. As my last response, and to try to not be aggresive , I feel this was an issue of misunderstanding for everyone. Is insane what you can do to go against the bosses. That a boss have a wind up? Well thats actually good, because that often happens to be a big window! That a boss reacts your position and movement? Manipulate it them to do what you want, is very easy to do so, and if done well you can have another window. That a boss have an unreactable or unavoidable attack? I havent found any yet (really, I just found tricky attacks, but nothing I had not seen on any other Fromsoft game). If you dont like this take, is fine, not everyone can enjoy everything, but I do not consider that this boss design is flawed on any shape nor form.This boss design is only hard, and I do not consider that hard is the equivalent of bad. In fact, I really liking it more than ever with this run. Regardless, isnt what is important? To make up your own opinion while acknowledging you cant change others if they dont want to? I feel actually very happy to know that theres people who loved this design, I love it too.
I agree with most of what you said, but with how much the "Lie"-System bothered me I am surprised to find out that you didn't even bring it up at all. For the most part it is a totally fine system, but a few major choices (especially one towards the very end that almost single handedly decides whether or not you get the true ending) really bring down the story as a whole for me. Doesn't tarnish the stellar gameplay though.
By the way, 8 year late comment but at 3:06 you mention that meatgrinder tomb with the Large Divine Ember and how melee builds have no recourse but I also went there as a hybrid mage build and my soul arrows just could not hit below even on the very edge of the platform unlike other areas where you can cheese like this For some reason the soul arrows would just make the wall collision sound before even appearing even if the ceiling wasn't too low, probably a bug because of the lock-on point of the giant skeletons being always inside the wall under you You practically can't shoot down these skeletons since they aggro you from across the room and bash their heads in the wall under your feet there are probably other ways or spells i couldve used to cheese them but either way, notable gap in design quality here even if it was meant to be a trap
