I feel like in a rewrite the elves could still CLAIM to love fluffy cute nature but it's juxtaposed with them treating absolute face-ripping beasts like lap dogs-- the same attitude as people who name their dogs Princess
Elf: This is Cuddles. Scared Human: The giant porcupine Dragon!? Elf: Yep, Isn't he cute? Who's a good cuddles? Cuddles: Rooooaorr! Kill! Destroy! Elf: Good Cuddles! Get the human!
I feel like the 3 mistresses were kind of meant to represent each of the minion types, but cuts and budget stopped that from being fully realized and developed which makes me sad. Kelda represented the browns, being brutal and to the point; Juno being the greens, or at least could have if she really was more tricky and a political snake or an actual witch; Fay corrupted would be the reds, while a ghost would be the blues. I loved Kelda as a kid because she was badass at least on paper, though I like Fay more for being a surprisingly serious character and her exasperation for her people’s antics. Her being willing to corrupt herself for the greater good was really cool to see. Honestly feels like there should have been more to them, like actually side quests and such you did to earn their favor/love instead of just buying knickknacks. This game was my childhood, which is why I’ll always love it, but it definitely felt like there was a lot that was underused or rushed. I did love the twist with Florian as a kid, seeing him just drop the hippy elf act and reveal himself as the emperor was awesome. Another thing that I felt was undersold. And the fat jokes was a lot. Having it just be a mother goddess thing with the elves, which is based off the old fat statues, or the mermaids as a gag, or the Empire to show their hedonism and how the emperor is treating them like cattle, would have been enough. But all of them put together is just… ugh.
Wait a minute, elf woman defending her people, killed and raised into undeath by an evil tin plate tyrant, why am i getting a sense of deja vous? And why do elves always seem to get the short end of the stick in modern fantasy? Warcraft, Dragon Age, DnD, Warhammer both versions, Elder Scrolls, Witcher, Overlord why does everyone seem to hate elves?
This is modern fantasy, you need poor opressed race to feel sorry for Also getting shorter stick in ES? Literally the greatest threat to Empire are high elves, in Warhammer everyone is doomed and DnD? Nothings wrong with them there too
Well in Elder Scrolls, Elves genuinely did a lot of fucked up shit. Can't speak much for Warhammer Fantasy since I'm lacking in the lore department, but in 40k they're the reason at least one of the Chaos gods exists.
From what I've seen, Elves are often used in fantasy in ways similar to Vampires, Fae, etc. which is to say standins for either Bourgeois Elites/Nobility tied to arcane traditions, long lived and uncaring for the lives of those "beneath" them... and, at worse, this is expressed by them being coded as foreign, feminine or gender ambiguous, and queer, which in turn motivates a lot of the popular violence against them. This doesn't mean "elves are always standins for women/femininity/queerness/foreigners/etc." but that's often a writing crutch used by certain writers that fits neatly into popular depictions of post-Tolkien fantasy Elves - at least in Western media If your story calls for a stand-in for either an uncaring foreign sorcerer, you can choose to depict them with the same kind of queercoding that Disney did for it's villains and you can go ahead and make them an Elf too to emphasize their "other-ness" and "fantasy presence"; if you want to have an opressed minority as a analogy for racism but aren't comfortable using real-world racism in your story, slap some elves in there instead to again: emphasize how they're "othered" by comparisson to humans, conventionally attractive (for those "falling in love with the beautiful opressed minority" plots) and both humanoid enough to be empathetic and weird enough to be fantastical - it's ultimately down to lazy handling of tropes by writers that aren't really thinking "that deeply" about it The opposite problem plagues Dwarves, as they're often used as a cheap writer's crutch to represent conformity, traditional masculinity, protestant work ethic, greed and industry, etc. - which, as an autistic obsessed with fantasy Dwarves, I am extremely frustrated by - I mean, bearded women and literal underground societies would have so much potential for weirdness that never seems to get explored...
I saw the change in corruption as being well representative of the character. In Overlord 1, you had a choice between embracing your role or instead maintaining some of your former goodness as a fallen hero. Which made sense considering who you were. In this, your a bullied kid who was raised entirely by the minions, and even before that came from a harsh culture if Kelda is anything to judge by. Some you instead having the choice of corruption vs destruction makes more sense. Your not really as craft or grey, because the minions that raised you aren’t either. Even the mistress chance made so sense, as underused as it was and as juvenile as it was. His father was a knight with a seemingly strict view on love, and his options were a pair of sisters. The witch boy was raised by minions who definitely don’t have the best view on romance, if Gnarl’s comments are anything to judge by.
@@nevermore7285 for me corruption vs destruction seemed quite detrimental to a game about being Evil. There was just less of a point to it without the ability to choose good. I didn't usually choose good in the first game, mind you. This is purely about choosing evil vs not being able to choose good.
That glitch is exactly why I didn’t finish the game as a child. Half my fault, I had found an upgrade thing for my minions but it was over a narrow log bridge. The heart and upgrade piece got stuck, neither group of minions could set either one down, so I teleported and uh oh no heart.
When I played this game, the most annoying part was subjugating Everlight during the Elves' rebellion because there are civilians in the area and you can accidentally blow them up. I do hope that this series gets more games since I loved playing Overlord 1 and 2, but given that Fellowship of Evil sucked ass and Codemasters is owned by EA, it's very unlikely...
I mean I'm fat and was fat when I played Overlord 2 and never really bothered me, I even found some of the fat jokes funny, not all mind you, but we need to be able to laugh at ourselves, take ourselves too seriously and we end up unable to enjoy things
I don't think it's that big of a deal so much as overplayed. I think there should never be red tape when it comes to comedy as that is the main way in which real discussions can start, through laughter. As she stated this is a crutch in their writing as they just keep going back to it.
@@naheleshiriki5496 There is old rule about jokes that three is maximum amount people will find a joke funny if it is repeated, it seems the makers of this game overdid that by a country mile. I have not played this game myself.
As someone who has always been skinny and leads an active lifestyle well into my early 30s I will say I take issue with the rampant obesity problem in the US and I think there is a level of shaming and stigmatism that should exist around it because diabetes and heart disease plagues our society and affects our children when we don’t know how to take care of ourselves let alone our progeny and I firmly think child suffering and death is not cool. HOWEVER, this game’s problem is not that the writers believe being fat is gross, unhealthy, or funny, which is subjectively humorous to some, it’s that it consistently pulls the same punch over and over… and over. I agree with the fact that the joke is played out ad nauseam. Almost every detestable character contrary to the goals of the player is fat or an effeminate man… or both. I’m not even one to virtue signal for the sake of wokeness and I realize that this game is targeted for a young male audience with the idea of playing an Overlord in and of itself being a textbook power fantasy so the misogyny, machismo, and edgy aspects aren’t as disturbing to me. But it’s just plainly not funny when the same joke gets made repeatedly. Even a light jab at someone’s appearance in real life can evoke a chuckle but hearing the same person rail another person for their weight, looks, or demeanor is just malicious and downright mean and most importantly in the context of trying to be funny, very unfunny. At some point you realize the joke is not in jest or light-hearted and instead becomes more of a directed attack. A comedian can get on stage and make a dicey joke about fat people and will usually win the crowd over if the joke was executed right but there is no comedian on this planet who dedicates a whole comedy special to ribbing people with weight problems for their hour-long special because it would lose people very quickly. That’s what this game tries to make work. Ralphie May, Gabriel Iglesias, and Chris Farley among others have created a career out of the absurdity of their weight but that wasn’t the only thing they had to say. Make the joke and move on. This game can’t seem to do that and the comedy suffered for it imo. Beyond that, most successful body image jokes are self-deprecating. None of the appearance jokes in this game are aimed at the player or the Overlord and remain solely focused on pointing and laughing at other people which feels very elementary and lacking in any level of self-awareness. And maybe there’s some meta humor about the main character being a malevolent ruthless jerk who preys on these type of people because he’s heartless but the writing seems far more low brow and lacking in depth than that would imply. Honestly the comedy isn’t great at any point. It ultimately feels mean-spirited to the point of trying to make a statement instead of a joke.
Not where I thought I would learn the difference between jungle and rainforest but I'll be dammed if it wasn't delivered in a way I'm going to remember forever
While I agree the game focused too much on fat people for its jokes… being mean-spirited is the entire franchises vibe. Everything comes back to being cruel and mean either for no real reason beyond satisfying the bully or megalomaniac in the player or because it benefits you, often both. It shouldn’t focus so much on fat people, and should strike at the short people, as well as anybody and everybody else, especially when it would be hypocritical. Because in this franchise, cruelty = funny.
If they ever made another one of these games, it’d be cool to mix some of the mechanics like the minions and domination system with Shadow of War’s nemesis system. They’d go pretty well together.
This sounds like that one teenage friend who keeps joking about a fetish being weird and they just think it's funny and you find out later they just have that fetish, just the verrrrrry large women just keep showing up
Aw, as I watched your retelling, I was hoping the twist was that the Emperor was actually the child of the previous game's protagonist, who had gone overboard with Rose's orderly ways.
I hope we get a third, actual game out of this. I feel like modern Triumph is still based enough to make something good. Dark Legend and that one MOBA don't exist. Weird you'd even mention them.
Imma go out on a limb here and say: This game was deliberately cringe to distant itself from epic tales. And saturated distasteful humour reminds you, the player, that your side is not the good guys
I hope they make a real sequel, and double down on all the stuff. More off color jokes, more objectification, and more making fun of hippies, and definitely more mistresses who only want your coin and status. With one mistress who genuinely cares about the character, cause that's tradition at this point.
Cool video & ideas. The only criticism I have for your proposed changes is that Overlord is meant to be a mean-spirited game where you play as the bad guy (with 'how bad' being somewhat up to the player) and nearly everything is a stereotyped mockery of what people like about medieval fantasy. I'd say the issue with Overlord 2 isn't the fat jokes & sexism - it's that there's not enough of any other mean-spirited stuff unrelated to those things to balance it out.
@@bruuuuuuuuhhhh I think it's a tie between the baby seals & orphans. Orphans bring high-pitched screaming, but the seals will sound the funniest when they explode on impact.
While everyone is free to have their opinions on things I'll be honest. Trying to compare and hold a game made 15yrs ago to the current day standards and societal norms just honestly feels pointless. Its like the folks who watched the classic Disney films and got offended by the things in them because they don't meet that persons standards based on the current day. They then demand scenes be changed or removed altogether. Instead of trying to change them etc instead use it positively to show how far society has evolved since then.
I agree, tho not because of the humor. it's a cartoonishly evil game in a cartoonish setting, so a lot of the flat jokes and writing seem kind of fitting for a game about being cartoonishly evil. You aren't the good guy, so I don't particularly find issues with the way they treat the characters in the game. It's not a serious game with a serious take on morality. It's just surface level bad guy doin' bad things. It'd be interesting to see a more adult and realistic approach, tho.
@@svenneumann2816 except this isn't "having a sense of humor" lil bud, I know it's hard to wrap your mind around but jokes have to be funny to be you know jokes
Overlord is based and minionpilled, the only thing that could have made it better is if you played as a snu snu hip crushing fem overlord and conquered the lands while amassing husbandos.
A few points on the how to make it better section. Yes the fat jokes are overdone but a few of them do have a place like the empire being fat, lazy and undiciplined outside of the military and the right hand man makes sense as the emperor (not sure if I should refer to him as Solarius or Florian) has no interest in building a lasting civilization of humans and likely intended for it to fall apart after his goal was reached by either destroying it himself or leaving it to crumble to the corruption, greed and laziness he not only allowed but nurtured (that is my interpretation at least might be looking to deep into a silly game tho). The elf priestess being on the thicker side makes sense if you look at he statue in the first game or the multiple ones in this one but this is way to far. The faires were kinda pointlessly fat outside of giving Quaver an exuse to make a bee joke and establishing that minions like big bazoongas and don't really care beyond that but I did chuckle at Gnarl voicing one (same voice actor apparently voices Florian/Solarius/the emperor too) so I'm all for a redesign tho the flower idea might clash with the cartoonish and slightly off putting style of the game. Love the mermaid idea but don't think eldritch deep sea monster with a hint of body horror would mesh with this game in particular what with the cartoonish style. counterpoint about Fey (btw she is in fact not an elf but a different and apparantly unique fairy), keep the corruption mistress option specifically because of that yikes evil factor, make the banshee hate and haunt you and not be a mistress, but make a third option if you don't enslave or destroy the towns where she looses most of her powers but is uncorrupted so she becomes the counter voice to Gnarl and his evil for evils sake advice. Juno needed to be fleshed out more (or at all) and there are hints in game that there might have been more too her at one point in development, if we look at her decorations and favored minion tipe there are two distinct themes, opulence and grandeur in lions, eagles and gold vs venomous and treacherous in snakes, spiders and dark silver, so I think there is a lot of unused potential in Juno as a backstabbing politician and/or assassin that may or may not betray you, even better if you can't be sure by making her be the flirtiest of the mistress options but all the flirting sounds vaguely threatening. Kelda fighting alongside you in some missions would be awesome but I think the saving the overlord plotline is a bit much as the whole point of the game is to be a near unstoppeble overlord with a small army following you everywhere. On the topic of the mistresses specifically the decorations they bring should be aesthetic only but unlocking some of them could tied to side quests for each individual mistress, hunting with Kelda to get fur and trophies for her decorations, extort, robbing or killing nobles with/for Juno to get the fancy gold ones for her and finaly helping/exterminating magical creatures for Fey depending on which version of her you have and get a clean or tattered decor for it. Meet in the middle on the elves? someone in the comments mentioned elves as a bunch of Hagrids with "misunderstood" dangerous creatures and I lake that idea but also have a sub faction of elves headed by Florian acting like the hippie flower children they do currently as he is trying to subvert the elves to make them less of a threat to his plans. as for Florian himself the only change I think he needs is a more distinct change in how he talks after revealing himself to drive home that the obnoxious hippie flower child was all an act. as for my own suggestions for improvements: a low corrption/order route, instead of just destroy or enslave you can rule (see uncorrupted Fey idea). more to do with the towns/town inteface, as it is it's just pay to take over, I would like to have just a bit control over the towns I supposedly conquered like fixing the damn bridge in nordberg, specializing/upgrading the towns towards something like keeping the tourism going in everlight for more gold every time you visit.
While I am glad that are continuing to put out content, I cannot stress enough (nor often enough) how great your reidealizing and retelling of stories was great. You've a knack and voice for the telling of stories. I do hope you get back to that some day.
God, I love the overlord games. These games are near the near perfect only issues I have some minor gameplay issues, and it's just not long enough. The humor is 10/10 I love that this game embraces its theme and never feels like its trying to hold back or expand appeal to an audience that wouldn't enjoy it. It knows what it is. It knows theres audience, and it embraces those fans. I hope we get another even its just one more some day
@@redsnake188imagine being mad at someone that made their whole channel about giving their opinion and their version of how the game would've been better. Don't like the opinion? Go to a channel YOU like that has a similar opinion as yours. Why you mad? 😂😂😂
Honestly, this whole video felt like " I don't like this and wish it was something developers had not actually intended to make" under a guise of a critique.
@@gabbonoo I think it's leaves a bad taste, since the rest of the Video and the things that don't conflict with her innocent ego are usually well crafted and expressed.
@@TurKlack dont know what innocent ego means but i feel the same. high emotion simplifies and polarises, leading to less comedy. i dont watch youtube to join the outrage brigade
@@monkebiznezno its not. Ya guys are being snowflakes about a medicore gsme from the early 2000s. Its actually really pathetic. Literally half the game is fat and slut jokes. And the elves are annoying. How is pointing that out a twitter post? Cuz ya dont agree or ya like hearing the same unfunny joke 20 times in a row? I swear its people like ya that explains why most games are shit now.
so like, i get the bad stuff, i understand the bad stuff, but like i also feel that the game, in its base form is designed to be played with the mindset of being evil, your not supposed to care for others, your not supposed to care about the women your not supposed to give two damns about anything, you kill baby seals for gods sake, and while I get it yknow objectifying women is wrong, making horrendous tropes such as the "goth" or "men + boobs" and "perfect" girl is shallow and unfunny, these games were made like in 2009. also, keep in mind that most of the bad shit that's said in the game is by the minions, who are...unintelligent creatures who don't know any better and speak without filtration, so keep that in mind as well. finally I like to choose to believe that our perception as the player is warped to see things in a different light, such as seeing romans as fat pigs, seeing the elves as hippy tree huggers, etc etc, of course this doesn't excuse the fat shaming, but again, the whole "evil" thing.
3:26 my favorite aspects to the whole series let's be honest if there was a new overlord game with the same humor it would be canceled by the soft hearted
Okay the timing off the Editing of the hell off a wobble got me good. Damn i should not laugh but the timing was so good that i sprayed water out of my nose. You have my sub for that. Genius editing. Praise you ooh overlord of laughs.
Honestly I feel like the corruption system being replaced makes sense, The 3rd Overlord was a fallen hero who was an adult able to make his own decisions, how he wanted to go about Overlord-ing was his decision, but the 4th Overlord was raised by Gnarl and the Minions, creatures solely dedicated to evil, so obviously he’s gonna be a lot more ruthless than his papa
i remember player overlord 1 when it came out in 2006 or 7. When i got my xbox 360 i bought overlord 2 and i loved it. I bet the game multiple times. Your being way too literal about this game.
This comment section passes with flying colors the "i just want to make fun of fat people without being called a bad person!" check. Sorry Jonathan, pick a personality. Making fun of fat people and "it's the point of tje game to be bad!" isn't one. 😂😂😂
Right?? This kept cropping up in my thoughts whenever a new parrot would pop up in my notifications saying the exact same thing, and I think I finally figured out how to articulate my point though I don't think any Those Types will give a shit but like - When you put the player in the position of being a villain and especially if the takeaway is "they should have fun being our big pantomime villain" I don't think it would be good design to write a ton of jokes at the expense of men and relentlessly make nasty remarks and comedic slapstick happening to men, while explicitly or implicitly suggesting that they deserve it because they are men. That would probably make most men playing feel kind weird and put-off, like the game is actively trying to tell them specifically to fuck off. I enjoy playing through the evil route of the game inFamous and some of those choices involve keeping food for yourself and friends instead of letting other people take their share, murdering a man blocking your way instead of talking him down, forcing someone else to expose themselves to dangerous material in your place etc but never is there a choice dedicated to brutalising women specifically or going out of your way to terrorise a specific demographic. Because that would break the magic circle around the game and the player. And again, it's not that you can never write these things how dare you, me critiquing it is not a demand to erase it from existence. I deeply enjoy Dishonoured but I'm very uncomfortable with one of the choices where you can hand a female target over to her stalker to "non-lethally" deal with her, something the devs later expressed regret over. I need to do a video about Monster Prom and Saints Row RE how you can write out of pocket games that rely heavily on sheer audacity and comedic charm without being unnecessarily mean-spirited about it. (Saints Row had to do some growing on that front, but the point is that it DID grow) Anyway that was a ramble but yeah, your comment here was starkly refreshing 😅
28:25 In the real world, the saying "Happy wife, happy life" is extremely common for a reason. The man traditionally provides, but the woman is the one who has control of the household. Coming home to someone who is mad because you forgot the milk or didn't do an errand or forgot something does indeed suck. Buying your spouse an apology gift to make it up to them (I prefer glass sculptures because they are more elegant) is also pretty common. 34:00 Yes, historical Rome did not have that many fat people in it. Yes, they make a good exemplary character flaw about self control and decadence. The game is a crass comedy so they are turning that knob to 11
If it was the actually overload making these jokes id get it. But its not theyre making these jokes about themselves at this point. I think the devs saw how fable did its humor said yeah i can do that" then didnt actually do that.
@@yoshinikoori9855 That's always driven me nuts. People complain about EVIL characters doing EVIL things. Like, duh, HE/SHE/IT/THEY/XIR/POUNDSIGN is EVIL!
Comedy is definitely subjective and that's okay. I think where the problem lies here is the presentation of the game's premise rather than the premise itself. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the game, and I don't think it necessarily means you're an asshole, but that's the only part I really disagree with. Ultimately I'd fall short on calling it problematic, just annoying at times. Like you said, the game doesn't take itself seriously, and neither should we spend all that much time taking its humor seriously. Great video, and congrats on a new sub. lol
As an avid Fan of the Harem Genre, i must speak out against the reduction of Female Companions, even if i agree that they should be handled in a different Way. For Starters, the unlocking of the "Adult Fun Time" scenes should not come through buying Stuff, but via Minigames which are the "Time spent together" signaliser, where Witchboy can get to know each of his Mistresses. Speaking of the Mistresses, to make the Harem work, 2 of them require rewriting. Somewhat extensivly. Kelda the least, mostly just making her non-hostile to the other 2. Juno could be shown with a metaphorical "Mask", that being her canon Personality, which falls apart over her Time once she is brought to the Nether and shown genuine Care and affection by Witchboy. Maybe writing her Arrivalscene where she, after seeing Kelda, makes a Remark about another powerhungry Man collecting Women, which Kelda can counter with something along the Lines of, "he has yet to enter my Chambers uninvited" putting Juno more at ease. Fay requires the most work, but there are Ways. Firstly, she is not drained to fuel the Towerheart, and neither does Witchboys corrupt her. Secondly, the Elfs are now all female, because the males all died, either because of the exploded Towerheart, or as an aftereffect of living in the cursed Forest for extended Time. Which drove Fay´s Mother into an early retirement, forcing the Crown onto Fay, making her a very young Queen, who was also surrounded by only Women for quite a few Years. So once Witchboy comes along, all tall, powerfull and masculine, she rejects him as something foreign, unknown and dangerous, but he also intrigues her. Later, when the Towerheart has taken all the Magic of the Shrines as well as hers, and appears to be at most a Quarter full, she does offer her Life to fill it, but Witchboy decides on a different approach. He casually charges her with one Hand (which again does NOT corrupt her) making her feel stronger then ever before, while just as casually filling the Towerheart up to 100%. This Display of Power, (which you as someone truly intelligent knows to be one of the very few true Aphrodisiacs) together with the (pleasurable) Sensation of Male Energy entering her Body and mixing with her own, Female Energies, should serve as a superior explanation/justification for Fay to, as you put it, "want to jump Witchboys Bones." Forming these 3 into a Harem however, i feel should fall to Rose, who as Witchboys Mother naturally would hold some Authority in his Life, in particular since i would make Wb recognise her in her first Visit in the Nether, and makes her stay instead of leaving him again. That would give her something to do, namely forging them all into a Family that can and will support her Child in his Conquest, and eachother in Life. Maybe even getting a dirty ambigoues Implication that Aunty Velvet might "join" the Houshold
Loved this game personally. Partly becuse I enjoy the catharsis of being an evil dick partly becuse I found the humor enjoyable mostly becuse Im a pikmin fan and the gameplay is just janky pikmin with a walmart LOTR knock off paintjob
To be honest, the only issue I had with this game was the magic system. Mechanically it just never worked right, so I just stopped using it altogether. Had it been more like the first game's, I think it would have worked a lot better. As for the mistresses, Kelda is OTP and best girl.
My GOD playing this game and the first one was a blast this week BUT the controls feels buggy sometimes on pc. Prob just an old game struggling to keep up but meh. I really liked both games and still hoping for the 3rd game. Fellowship of evilness does not count as a continuation of this series or as a game. Also as a fat guy I got a chuckle or two at all the fat jokes
Tbh I like game harems in theory. I mean yes, let me romance all the characters lets go. But the practical reality of that is that less time gets dedicated to fleshing out the individual characters. Each additional character means more time & resources that could be spent developing other aspects of the game. So yeah, I like them... in theory :(
I honestly thought a lot of the fat stuff made sense in universe. The followers of the mother goddess sharing a different beauty standard than the empire wasn't a bad idea and the wealthy fat tourists going on vacation there kind of made sense. Both were cartoonishly exaggerated, but so is the entire game compared to its predecessor. The minions were malicious, but they're supposed to be evil incarnate. Honestly you telling a game about being Evil "Don't be mean" got a small laugh out of me. There only being one woman who isn't fat or living in the slums in the empire is probably just the dev team being lazy, as the whole game had an uncomfortable amount of npcs just copy-pasted over and over again. Now there were two instances where the use of fat people really was unnecessary: first, the women with the unfaithful husbands didn't need to be overweight. In fact it might have been great to have 2-3 completely different ones there. The other was the overweight slaves. Was there an explanation how they managed to gain so much weight while being slaves?
If you really wanted to be lazy and change as little as possible, Fey's character could still be saved by later revealing that she actually *wanted* to side with you because you were taking the fight to the Empire and that the whole "evil energy" thing was just an excuse. But yeah she shouldn't be with you if you *kill* her. Aside fr the grossness, what's the point of giving the player choices if they have no consequence? People should die when they are killed.
I recall playing the game and loving it a lot when I was younger, it's been many years since I played it (And my English has improved immensely in that time, a lot of the jokes and comments flew over my head) and I was expecting to not like this video when you brought up the fat joke's at first. "Oh it's just a couple of times, you're evil! Of course you're gonna be cruel to people". but as the video went on and on, I noticed you we're totally right. The game does target fat people specifically quite often, and always as if being fat was the worst thing about these people who owned slaves and thought nothing of killing people for amusement. I still cherish the game for getting me into villainous protagonist games but I see it's flaws much better now after watching this video, thank you. It was a really enjoyable video and I can't wait to watch more from you.
I could see a third game with Queen Fay as the PC. We drain her in Overlord 2, which corrupts her. Check transformation into evil. She's now drained of power and needs to power up throughout the game. Check for power progression. And if we want to; check for swapping out the gender of the PC to get something new going. We could even have a RIVAL in the form of a kid that Witch-boy got with his mistress (regardless of what gender they are). Or sibling duo for rivals if we should tick both human mistresses. Otherwise just twins or normal siblings (like Rose and Velvet) as rivals. Rival could remain your rival and we end that in a duel or you can become a power couple that destroy everything.
I see a lot of comments arguing that the meanspirited jokes make sense, because it's a game about being an evil overlord. That doesn't really work for me, for a couple reasons. First, the evil overlord isn't the one making any of the jokes. I guess it somewhat applies to your minion, but plenty of the fat jokes are made by other characters as well. Are they meant to be evil, too? More importantly, the sheer number of fat jokes compared to everything else throws it off for me. If the overlord himself were constantly making mean lowbrow jokes about all sorts of people - a fat joke here, a gay joke there, a dead kid joke here - then I'd buy that it works for the sake of the tone; you're playing a mean bastard who reflects that in his humor. But it seems like for every joke about clubbing a baby seal, there's ten jokes about how fat people are gross. That feels less like "you're evil so you joke at other people's expense" and more that you just specifically don't like fat people. That doesn't feel very "evil overlord" to me.
Someone was working through their fat kink when they made this game. Not a mummy kink, this was a maw kink. I dont mind low hanging jokes, some were funny some were mean but thats kinda the point in an evil game. But jesus i didnt notice the mother goddess statue in the last ones dlc. The abolute absurdity of it was the worst kind of funny. Im all for people creating art however they want but how the hell did that ever get past the censors. How did that even get past their own QA team. Id understand some edgy indy developer doing that, but a mainstream developer? Id rather they not but whatever floats their boat, which is apparently fat women for that one dev in their office
Maybe it's my nostalgia blinding me(and the fact that this game gave me several kinks I would learn about only 10 years after playing it for the first time, corruption being the biggest one), but I find most of your complaints unfounded. Your biggest mistake(IMO) is looking at this 15 year old game with a modern eye. I don't mean it as an insult, I just think that you're missing a point of who this game was made for and what ideas were in there. First game was a surface level parody of Tolkien world, pretty much, a humorous perversion even, where they took the worst parts/stereotypes about every race, turned them up to 11 and had fun with it. Overlord 2 does the same thing, with Romans(not even real Romans, they are caricatures from Asterix and Obelix, pretty much) , Elves(of course they are cartoonish hippies with a bit of LGBT paint, that's how mass media viewed nature loving fantasy creatures at the time) , Fairies etc. They took the most basic negative stereotypes, cranked them up, threw a humorous filter and got this surface level parody. That's why they aren't insulting empire for any evil they did(+you're playing as the most evilest evil to ever evil, duh), and only for them being fat fatty fat fats. It's the easiest thing to point out, a surface level insult, cause the game is not even tryin to be deep deliberately. Is it distasteful? Yes. Was it meant this way? Yes. Do you have to enjoy it? No, but applying modern society standards to this game is silly. It's a product of its' era. Oh, and about treatment of women: This game is a power fantasy for DA BOIZ, and what DA BOIZ usually think about relationship with the girls? Buy stupid things, make them happy through it, somehow, and then you'll get to shake the tower at night. That's also the reason why you have an option to go for harem route, cause DA BOIZ love having multiple women fall over them. Yeah, it's sexist, catering to male fantasy specifically and a game like this would never fly today, unless it's some tasteless 18+ steam junk, but at the time, making games specifically for DA BOIZ was seen as the winning strategy, since gaming was way more male dominated back then.
The idea that these things werent critizied 15 years ago just show how little you know about gaming history. Games where critizied for it then and is now. Theres nothing new or modern about it.
Maybe you're right about that, i haven't seen every review ever of Overlord 2. But the fact that the game got a mostly positive reception upon release and became a cult classic, in my eyes, does inmplicate that people back then weren't as offended by the content, since, like i said, it wasn't a statement on anything, just a surface level satire, where you can be evil for the sake of being evil. And yes, the fact that you're not the hero in the slightest also makes complaints about morals of charaters misplaced, cause you're not supposed to emulate the behavior you see in game.
I have not seen or thought of this game in like 14 years. I remember playing this in early high school, and I liked the mechanics. The addition of minion mounts, and new pieces of armor, was interesting. I also thought the first game was vastly superior in terms of story, and plot. The first one perfectly subverted the expectation of a noble hero saving a fantasy world. This sequel was a little a wacky and over the top, I always like seeing Roman characters, and the changes to gameplay was fun, the story just didn't hit the same. I very much agree with all your suggested tweaks, except for Juno. I think keeping Juno as an optional second mistress is reminiscent of your character in the first game. I love the idea of Kelda fighting in combat alongside you, this your respect and acknowledgment being the thing that brings you closer together. Like you said, she was the only person to accept you as a child, and should be the romantic interest. However Juno should remain as a sort of temptation for evil. She is petty, vain, greedy, but also they should have made her cruel and chaotic. Do you give your entire your base instinct to destroy, pillage and horde everything, even if it means betraying Kelda & Rose? In short I like the changes to Kelda, but I think leaving Juno as an optional, "chaotic wife" would have been fine as well. Love the idea of Fey becoming a villain for the next game, either as a Dark Queen or Banshee Overlord.
I do have one question to ask, during your "making it better section" you turned the villain into a anti hero, so my question basically amounts to what would make you evil?
I got the sense that the constant jokes on the women was meant to intentionally insult women as part of the role of playing an evil overlord. The same with every other thing. For a sequel, I think a good one would be the father escaping hell and it would be father versus son. Also, it could be that one of the mistresses in the second game will be loyal and fight with the overlord, while the other betrays the overlord and joins the father. All depending how they are treated.
Me, a poly individual before watching the video: “what’s wrong with a harem?” Me, a disgusted poly individual after watching the video: “ohhhhhhh. Ohhh noooooooo” (Also the fixation on fat people is definitely a fetish. I cannot begin to imagine being that obsessed without something to it)
Homestly, your short sight analysis is boring. You mention that game doesn't take itself seriously, but then proceed to judge every part if it as if it a statement. No, games premise is simple: The Good (as envisioned by some with radical ideas ) has won, and as it has turned people into monsters. You just need to clean up and set things in balance. But it also takes a laugh about idea of relationships between fairly tale Prince and Princess. It makes it cynical and fun. You keep forgetting that your morals do not apply to Evil. 😅
I dont get it. You're playing a villain in a grim dark fantasy, but it can't have mediocre humor. Where exactly do we draw the line for evil play throughs?
35:27 why dont make her get in the bed szene accidentally merge with the overlord? haveing a half merged banshee pokeing out of the overlord untill u find a way to savely separate again could look epic and would help to visualise that corruptiv nature of the overlords interaction with her even more and would show that u do anything for your power/interests also i think that would fit in the games style more smoothly than makeing her yet another kerrigen wish ripoff
This was a very well thought out piece. IMO, Overlord 2 is objectively worse than the first game from a gameplay POV; it's handling isn't as smooth. As someone who just finished playing Raising Hell and Overlord 2 back to back, I think the second game has way more frustrating bullshit than the first game. The experiences towards the end of the game were less enjoyable than the first Game's.
This was so good. Overlord 2 is one of the most disappointing games I've ever played solely because it's opening is one of the best I've ever seen. If I could make one suggestion, it would be to bring back the idea from the first game that all the badguys represent one of the deadly sins. It's almost already implemented. Governor Borius is a fat glutton, Florian is envy, Juno for greed, Rose is slothful for not making any effort to raise her child, and Senator Drearius lusts for Juno. It works so well that I imagine it was apart of the game design but got abandoned halfway in development.
I think I didn't take the fat jokes or failure to represent women favourably very seriously. I mean you play a cartoonishly evil murderous slaver. I do think the first game had better writing though. Also you're writing tips are good but kind of too good for the game. It's like saying an Adam Sandler movie would be better with some Shakespeare.
I must say I was impressed by your suggestions for improving the game. Even ass a guy who likes the game alot as it is and isn't easily offended I think you add a fair bit. There's still some room for fat jokes I think with some specific ruling imperials being fat as a sign of weakness and a lack of self control as you pointed out the Romans viewed it. The romans in this game very much feel modeled after the Asterix comics and I don't see a need to change that but they do pull the fat card a bit often now that you point it out. The elf women modeling themselves after their deity can stay I think since it's already established that the mother goddess is basically built like primitive human fertility goddesses, which is actually kind of fitting, so having them be fat is actually kind of a neat touch even if it's another fat joke. Ditching Juno is understandable since she doesn't really add much to the story though losing Fey as a mistress is kinda a shame given how interesting she is. Setting up the next game would have been advantageous though for the series in generals. Kelda is definitely best girl and I would love to see her as an actual companion even just for one scene fighting beside you and maybe sorta leading a few minions. It's actually very appropriate that she be the prime mistress if not outright wife since you have the most connection to her and as an added bonus, her benefit with the wolves is kinda the only one that's actually useful for the final battle since there's no walls to climb for the spiders or ramps to roll around with the Salamanders. So there's no reason to have anyone else as mistress for the last level. Good stuff.
I feel as if the series was aiming to be comically evil and not to be taken seriously in the slightest. Just a funny (albeit raunchy) bad guy doing bad guy things and genuinely not caring about it afterwards. It is understandable how he’d treat anyone or anything outside his rule that serves no personal gain as either inferior or objects of ridicule with the barrage of jokes, insults and general disgust. Granted, the fat centered insults can get redundant, the best option would be for more substance and diversity in the insults
The mistresses could work honestly... Don't make them catty to one another, have them unionize, make it a full Polycule instead, make it femdom to keep up the Gomez Addams parallel his father was, I guess make them full specialists with side quests you help them on with them in your party for the quests, and Fay (whose Italian localization name was really... Weird from what I remember) just make her a, uh... Political marriage? Give away with the domination shit for OBVIOUS reasons and have it be a, like... Evil power corrupts situation where she seeks the Tower Heart to save her people independently from you, becoming corrupt and evil independently from you over the course of her appearances as she becomes more and more desperate to save her people from genocide, and then have the mistress thing be a thing about her controlling the Overlord so to speak as another evil source of power to control, or maybe as mentioned have it a marriage of convenience? Also Juno could do "witchcraft..." Like not actual magic stuff but she is all about poisons and spiders no, just have her be about that and have her be persecuted for that instead of just a bunch of angry wives, or still have the angry wives and have her swindle them with fake love potions or something, I don't know with the benefit of hindsight I do understand that Juno was honestly the least developed of the three. Maybe have the "dilemma" over which mistress to listen to be about Rebolution (Kelda) Imperialism (Juno) or Cartoonish Evil (Fay). Side note, is... David Tennant voicing Gnarl and a bunch of other people, or am I hearing things?
so you want to take the evil overlord power fantasy game, make the harem a polycule and make him the submissive in the relationship. are you stupid? just find another game. don't ruin this one with your own kinks under the guise of making it "better"
I personally felt like the first game had a more modest handling of fat people. As while yes, there is a lot of fat jokes tossed towards the halflings, especially their leader. It's in my opinion fair for the sake of the game being not serious and campy. So having fat people and fat jokes in Overlord 2 is par for the course, though the amount seems to be quite a bit more than it should be. I'd be fine with a lot of empire nobles being fat to show them being overly decadent, but there should be a mix, even if slim individuals are in the minority in the empire outside of soldiers and poorer people. They also should reduce the amount of fat jokes, and the fat elves just shouldn't be a thing, or should be few and far between. I also don't think the elves should be a bunch of hippies, or at the very least there should be a mixture of ones that are, and ones that aren't. And I don't actually mind them loving animals and nature, that's kinda the point of elves in Overlord. But having them act like hippies is a bit extreme, but then again, Overlord tends to lean towards extremes. As for only having one mistress, I personally dislike the idea of not including any choice of mistress. It should have a choice of mistress, just like how the previous game did. I think even the elven queen being a choice is fine, but there needs to be more steps. For instance you corrupt her and then do some more quests for her, as she slowly gets more on board with being evil, and then you get the option of her being your mistress. The alternative is, you killed her and her spirit causes problems you need to go deal with in exchange for you gaining an additional power up instead. Overall you should have options to pick from, but it shouldn't just be an easy harem situation. Having played several eroge games with a harem option, they usually make that the most difficult thing to get. So it makes more sense to need to jump through hoops to ever get that option. Where most people will only have one mistress, hell have the mistresses have happiness levels that if you don't satisfy it, they leave. Except for whoever your main mistress is. Or have it be that when you have the option to take a new mistress it replaces them, and you need to go convince them to come back. Simply put, more options rather than less, and those options should mean something. Not just spend money, get laid, like it's a brothel or something. It's fine to make edgy jokes, it's fine to do most forms of comedy, I get called a walking skeleton by people, doesn't bother me in the slightest because I can just do the reverse back to them. Though it doesn't mean anything most of the time, and even if it did, I'm not the type to get bothered by it. Insult my looks all you want, I don't care, I'm more bothered by people trying to insinuate I'm something I'm not. Because while my looks are plain as day, the idea you'll try to assume the type of person I am is more alarming to me. But that's just how I see it. But again, humor is subjective.
just realized that they stopped showing how bad obesity is on games and now 2 out of 5 adults and 1 out of 5 children's are obese and that has serious medical consequences...
... I mean, I don't get why she's upset about cheap jokes if the whole game was meant to be "kinda making fun of itself and about fantasy clichés". Like she's like "OMFG YOU MADE FUN ABOUT ELVES!!! THATS SOOO SEXIST AND CONSERVATIVE!". o.o"
@@DaroriDerEinzige It's not the elves being made fun of that bothers her jellyrolls, it's the fact they're making fun of hippies and climate activists, who I'm sure she agrees with on a great many things.
I didn't even get that far into the game I got just passed the dryads, got stuck, fell back down an elevator that I'd just gone up, only to discover a progress breaking bug in the form of not being able to get the elevator back. Between replaying 20 mins or playing something better, I picked better.
While i did enjoy the video since it was about a semi obscure game i used to play just like the game kept going on and on about fat people you kept going on and on about fat people jokes and just like the game it got tiring real fast. The really anyoing part was you trying to apply modern day values to a 2009 game lol
Not only that but like... you're playing as an evil character. When kelda makes a joke about the governor's fat, he's also a colonizing slaver. Are we trying to defend that? I mean you club baby seals to death but the fat jokes are too far?
@@grumpysphinx4911 I mean... that's a decade and a half ago, at this point. It's not that long ago in the grand scheme of things but it's a long time and it's absolutely valid to argue that tastes and culture has changed quite significantly since then.
36:05 Yo I was agreeing with you on the other things until then Kelda part, making the fairy queen the next game's antagonist actually sounds awesome, and honestly I don't even remember the name of the 2nd mistress she was way too boring,and having Kelda join the fight could be a cool scene, but the whole cheap romance novel part of Kelda saving the injured overlord and him speaking for the first time just to thank her is WAY too cringe, it honestly sounds like bad fanficion
I think the main problem with this game is its not apparently obvious that the game is supposed to be a parody. Which i didnt even realize was a problem till this video, because it was always obvious to me
my favourite game just wish it had coop campaign for the story not like two overlords but main player controls the overlord and player 2 controls some sort of super minion
The meta commentary is stated as though this series isn’t an incel power trip… that’s the point of the game is it not? Dude’s an outcast, dork-fuel, rolling with imaginary creatures uglier and more outcastie, and smaller, who leans into it all by being evil, and grows up to be tall dark and mysterious…. Of course the women are undesirables except for the ones he gets to be with him with no effort… Why even bring it up? Lol
ngl the fat jokes still get a chuckle out of me but it is a bit overdone. It really does get to the point that the joke stops being funny and annoying. Just creatively bankrupt from even a perspective of not caring if its cruel or not. The evil side being weird and gremlins being kinda... off about what they think they know about women does completely check out though. I mean, I dont expect them to even understand what humans generally want. The whole bit with ehh I dunno give the women knick knacks and gold? would hit a lot better if they contrasted it with the women just... really not being into it all that much. Not only would the contrast work better as a joke, it'd be more interesting too.
Ok, gonna start off by agreeing the writing in this game isnt all that good. They definitely push jokes too much to the point where its not super funny. But the whole if you don't agree with me you're a bully stace is ridiculous. What a joke of a stance. Like lol wat? Liking irreverent humor does make people bad... please get off your high horse. The "fat phobia" and "misogyny" is on purpose. You are playing a game where you are the bad guy, the anti-hero. You literally say in the first games review that you wish there were more games that let you be the bad guy, but the get upset with the more miniscule bad things that the actual evil acts that you do in the game. Like you are upset that the mistresses are treated like hunks of meat, but the mass murder and mass enslavement is nbd... how can you not complain about a mass murderer but being misogynistic is "too far"? I only leave a negative comment like this because I liked the video, but gosh were those the most awkward and preachy segments of any game review I listened to for a long time.
Overall I do think the game really does hit an issue when you get to the Elves and the Dungeon parts ofvthe games for sure. The humor I really didn't mind because the mermaids outfit of one area were just minor annoyances who half the time I could barely see let alone realize they were heavy set. And a little late to the party on the ladies you get being trophy wives in the most basic way because many described them as not nice words just sitting around eating all your cakes. Overall Overlord 2 is not a great game as it does have issues and I prefer the first as it's more consistent. Given the changes for a follow up I myself would have kept the ladies as is with Dark Fay being the primary one or the one that actually gives you a child in the end, because a follow up would be an all female boss group similar to the Blue Roses from the Overlord novels and anime with each having a different area of power and the previous Overlord loses because he doesn't have the tower heart and not nearly as much power as say his father but a having a child from two magical beings puts that Overlord on a whole new level.
