It's a funny clip don't get me wrong, but I still feel the need to bring up that he wasn't actually mad that Soulja Boy didn't understand Braid. It was a more general statement and the people making the film just decided to use the Soulja Boy video. Still funny though.
@@mostaposta It's an easy comparison to make. Something in your life, or media that is easy to relate to Blow's attitude. I watched sections of only two of his videos that were recommended to me and his attitude is very opinionated and unforgiving. That is not necessarily a BAD thing, especially since determination and having low persuasiveness are good indicators for being successful in life. An unintended side affect however is that he will rub many people the wrong way. Many of his criticisms come off as uncalled for, or needlessly critical. Then there is the tone he uses to convey his criticisms, which shifts the color from friendly to discrediting.
5:14 You have to admit it takes skill to complain this much. He was just finished complaining about the death battle, his character isn't even back to life yet, and he's already complaining about the "generic cave droplet sound effect." Most complainers would still be sitting there waiting for something new to complain about. But Jonathan blow is tuned to all frequencies. He sees things most people don't, and then he complains about them.
I've been working in game audio for 24 years, and before he said it in my head I went "cave_drop_01.wav". People who make games tend to notice a million small things that you wouldn't think matter. I don't think he was complaining about the drop sound, just making a comment.
@@ninomojo He's totally right but the timing killed me. I could listen to someone complain for hours about how one frame of a movie is everything wrong with society on every level. There's no sarcasm, I die at videos like this and he's at the top of an art form here. It does take skill to both notice all this stuff and articulate it fast/clear enough to never let the game get away with ANYTHING, not even an ambient water dripping sound effect.
also no offense to elden ring fans. It could be my favorite game and I'd still like this. In fact I do this myself to things I love and sometimes people think my favorite games are games I hate lol.
Actually it's more like he's massively insecure that his own crappy games are already virtually forgotten and he'll never have anywhere near the success these guys are having and so he had to try to cut it down. He's an idiot.
I'm just like Jonathan Blow when it comes to his opinion and attitude on the in-game subtitles, except that my opinion is the complete opposite. So every game makes either me or Jonathan Blow mad in this regard. It's hard to please everyone I guess
The reason he didn't like it is mainly because he wasn't interested in the first place and he also wasn't interested in trying to enjoy it. This is a compilation of clips so I might be wrong but I noticed that he didn't try to go anywhere that seemed interesting. He just aimlessly wandered around. Even though he is a game designer he didn't follow the imo obvious hints to where to game is trying to lead you. Of cource you could say this shows that it wasn't obvious at all but I'd say he wasn't paying attention.
He gives it another try later that you can tell is quite a bit more earnest in trying to understand the game. There's a stream of him playing it for like 7 hours, and it looked like he was having fun.
He clearly states why he didn't like it and none of the reasons are what you said. Stop acting like people aren't allowed to dislike games you like. Besides, all you have to do is watch 5 minutes of gameplay to know its just a copy of the last games which were all copies of each other. Once you've played one you've played them all. Shit game.
@@RealityStrikesBack-wk8uzI’ll agree with the first part, but c’mon, it’s really not 😂 Everyone who’s played ‘em know there’s already the more subtle differences stacked up, but the glaring ones in regards to the actual open world and effects on the design, c’mon. But it IS shit, that we can all agree on.
@@RealityStrikesBack-wk8uzYes they all have the same mechanics because the unique part is the areas you go through. Like almost all game series. Majora's mask is just the same as OOT but like a different map with different stuff. Shit game.
The problem with Jon Blow isn't his criticisms, it's that he refuses to really engage with the game enough to appreciate what it does right. He made many complaints that were result of him skipping stuff or not trying to understand why things are the way they are.
It's just lazy game design. The game pops up a box with text in it (wow how immersive!) to teach you a mechanic. However, there's actually no requirement to perform that particular move because they just place generic enemies. Also they "teach" you all the shit in a row so by the time you're in an actual fight you'll have forgotten most of it. No way to return to the tutorial either. Then everything is just full of weird ass option menus. Like at the bonfire. Why have lots of options there for things that you can't even do because you lack the resources? It's just overwhelming. And then there are things you somehow cannot do at the beginning like level up. What's the point?
@@i-am-the-slime What do you mean no way to return to the tutorial, you can do it over and over, just head back to the cave of knowledge and enter it. Also on the "there's actually no requirement to perform that particular move because they just place generic enemies". On your claim they've been "lazy", the enemies behave differently and have different health levels relevant to the move you're asked to perform. But why have a *requirement* anyway, the player's been told what to do and provided a suitable enemy, if they don't want to do it then they don't have to, why force them? It would make redoing the tutorial a huge PITA for one thing. Treating the player like a moron (imho) isn't good game design and is in fact what differentiated Demon's Souls from all the other mediocre crap out there when it released.
"I'm sure there are button combo's that I don't know what they are" You can tell someone's new to souls games when they don't know you just R1 through the entire thing
watching him play made me realize the the game tried to set up weenies(land marks that should draw your interest) right when you step into limgrave, but I think the overwhelming openness and freedom the game gives you can make you quickly wander off in the wrong direction. Normally wandering off shouldnt be an issue, but since the game locks key mechanics behind specific graces you wont be making any real progress in the game until you go to them.
This is why I struggle to buy and actually sit down and play big open world games like Skyrim, Elden Ring, Witcher 3 and the newest Legend of Zelda. Everything is just too overwhelming and there's too many places to explore, stuff to pick up, people to talk to... I really enjoyed the first 3 Dark Souls and Bloodborne because there were less paths to explore into and it felt like a much more cohesive and handmade experience.
@@musthabe_Elden Ring really helps with this. The open wprld actually feels like a big handmade level. Are there some patches of wilderness sure but it's not like a ubi game.
Blow is such a troll lol. I love him criticizing the mise-en-scene of this game's cutscenes when he literally shits out random philosophy quotes at the player in his previous two games.
I honestly don't think he's trolling, he's probably saying what he's thinking, gotta give him props for that at least. Him saying they should've learned from their previous titles is pretty fucking ironic, coming from a guy who made 2 video games: one a 2d platformer on the lower end of average the other a 3d sandbox.
I think that was phrased weirdly, but it makes sense: the existence of monsters does not necessarily change the way bridges should be built. If a bridge would not work in the real world (because it's too big, or structured so that it would collapse, or because it's inconvenient to cross), that same bridge would not work in a fictional world. I don't really care about how bridges look, but I understand that his point is valid.
@@spectr__ I don't know how you would come to that conclusion from what I wrote. All I'm saying is, one can understand the points of the other person and still disagree on the general opinion. It's sad that Jon was surrounded by a beautiful scenery and he picks on the one thing that he doesn't like, but his point still stands. I don't know how being able to accept that means one doesn't understand art.
Jon makes correct observations. The problem is that they're not as significant to most Elden Ring fans as they are to him. To him they're major problems, to others they're minor problems or not even acknowledged. If you go watch a Dark Souls streamer play this, they're obviously already playing with subtitles on, because all streamers do that. They don't care about the story because people like to see competent gameplay over everything else. They love the random messages because they have no immersion to begin with because they have to check on a chatroom full of 1000 people every 5 seconds, and the messages add comedy and entertainment, or can just be ignored.
I don't get his beef with subtitles. It's a preference. For some reason I always look to enable subtitles, I do that even in movies, even if I can speak english and understand pretty well. I am not native english speaker, but sometimes I watch a movie and someone said something, maybe the pronouncation is different or it wasn't very audible, then I want the subititles to be sure. Not everyone is a native english speaker. And it's an option one can remove. Streamer who has played the games 1000 times sure, but first time? In fact, even if I have played Dark Souls many times, I still turn off online everytime I replay. I want to stare at some beautiful vista with nothingess, not endless sea of glowy messages. It really takes the immersion off. I might be missing fun stuff and online gameplay mechanics, but I don't care. There is a tendency for people to think multiplayer is better than singleplayer, since of course a multiplayer experience means playing with actual human which must be better than AI. But it has become a trend of "always better" so every game out there, even games made for single player need to include it. That's sad but that's how it is.
I played DS1 without them (from "green μ" place. It's definitely just some extra crap that doesn't add any value. Like skins and gamemodes in Resident Evil. Not that the game itself is very fun. Challenging, but not in a fun way at all.
I have never played braid but I love the witness. But making 2 games that were fairly well recieved doesn't give you the right to be this pretentious. I just came from an interview where he talks at length (20 mins +) about ubisoft and bad games design holding your hand. Then you plop the guy in elden ring and he's mad after 10 minutes of playing that they didn't hold his hand and take him to the "cool" things. It's really immature. It's like that time your mom told you to do the dishes so you went to the sink and slapped a plate around in the water and said 'I can't do the dishes, i don't know how, nobody taught me'. He can't even give the game any credit whatsoever. He gets hit with the first open world vista and all he can muster is 'that's weird'. Yes the scale is big, that's what people like about it. It's fantasy, who cares if the bridge is realistic, it's beautiful and has diagetic reasons for being that way, which you would know if you played more than 45 minutes.
I get like this when playing some games, they just don't work for me and I leave them after a few minutes. Then I might give them another go later in a few weeks or... years, maybe not. I feel Elden Ring is lazy like Jon says, but sure, if you make an effort to explore it and jump through its hoops, you might end up liking it a lot.
He's objectively not a failed game designer though, he's released two games that were and still are universally acclaimed. I'm not saying he isn't being whiny and annoying here, but atleast use some accurate insults.
Sometimes I think people are a bit too harsh on Blow, like if it was basically any random streamer saying the exact same things as him, nobody would care. Just because he's an intelligent and creative game designer doesn't mean he can't be stupid in other areas. I think people mistake being smart in one area for being smart in general (not least of all, smart people themselves). That being said, complaining about a bridge in the distance looking somewhat structurally unrealistic whilst there is a several-hundred-metres-tall glowing golden tree on-screen made me wince.
Talks over cutscenes - says the story makes no sense. Runs through the game with little regard to the environment and his surroundings - claims the game is not suitable for new players. Clearly just playing the game out of pressure and has 0 interest in it... This guy related to DSP? lol.
haha I 100% agree with Blow. There is such a lack of innovation within From Software. Activision, Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda and From Software; same games over and over again. I wish the industry was more rewarding towards new game mechanics and better optimization.
To think that Braid's creator could become so pathetic. Senseless complaints throughout the video, not sure if jealousy or midlife crisis. You need to be more self-aware
Braid was never significant of meaningful. A gimmick is usually never inspiring or interesting enough to drive a whole vehicle for you...And that's what Braid was, a gimmick driving a mediocre game off a cliff.
@@1lapmagic it's funny how quickly the narrative shifts about games as soon as players start hating the creator, I wish people would stop acting like their criticisms aren't spite driven. Its the exact same with Neil druckmann, most didn't know him or knew him as a guy who wrote good games at naughty dog, but after tlou2 suddenly people act like he had no part in making those games good and is basically the spawn of satan in people's eyes. With jonathon blow suddenly history is being rewritten that the game always sucked and is just a gimmick, there's nothing really there, etc. I think jonathon blow is pretentious and can be annoying but I like his talks and games, you don't need to go rewrite history because he's annoying.
@@something215 The last of us was also never good. You just have entry level opinions. You were told Braid was meaningful and believed it. Braid was ugly and boring.
@@1lapmagic TLOU1 was a good game. Being a contrarian gatekeeper and not liking what others like because it's an 'entry level opinion' isn't a replacement for an actual personality, sorry. I wasn't told anything about braid. I played it and enjoyed it and got something out of it. That's what led me to jonathon blow's stuff, I dont agree with everything he says and hes annoying sometimes but I still think he's interesting.
No shit Braid was so easy, mechanically clunky and forgettable, if this is what he has to say about a game that every normal gamer enjoyed... It was too long for me but my first impressions were "I can't believe I'm playing this game right now" not "this cutscene le bad, touch grass haha le funny"
this looks sooo boring. my god. how is this popular..? reminds me of fallout, without the aesthetic nor humor, and far more randomness (random abyss?? LOL. explosion?)
I get where he is coming from and I had the same 2 main issues with the game as him. The open world feels forced and the combat is simplified. Souls games get more and more distanced from the original concept of "Every fight is a boss fight" Into slowly becoming a generic hack & slash game to accomodate a larger audience. Most of the mechanics have gone stale by now and I really want them to innovate. No, stitching together a lot of areas and make it open world isn't the innovation From Soft needed here.
Love the comment section full of fanboys trying to make stuff up to pretend the game doesnt have obvious flaws and isnt stuck in the past with some very archaic design choices.
@@Dr.UldenWascht I mean elden ring is a good game, really fun. But if they correct some of the isssues Jonathan pointed out it wouldve been improved by a lot.
@@mosh1987 Oh, I fully agree that Elden Ring has flaws, some more serious than others. And unfortunately the universal praise it got will more likely cause them to stay. And I say this as someone who's sunk more hours into the game than he's willing to admit. But I'd also argue, almost none of the issues Blow brought up are fair or valid. From the character selection screen to navigating the open world; I mean you can't both ignore clear instructions the game gives you and go about doing your own thing, and also complain that the game didn't show you anything in 30 minutes. And these are coming from a guy who made The Witness. A game famous for its obscurity. We can go into what he said point by point, even though life is short. And more importantly, his attitude toward the game (and it seems like a pattern) is like a teacher who is correcting the paper of a lazy student that he's already decided is going to fail the exam. Everything is a flaw and cause for eyerolls. But then again, I'm not a Blow fan, admittedly. And this is just a snippet of his stream. Maybe this makes more sense in the context of his other streams and his overall online presence.
Blow reminds me of Yuji Naka. Both are geniuses (no one on sonic team has been able to get physics right since the genesis games), but pretty developed a banger one time, thought they were the ****** and then a lot of meh games as the years went on.
Love how he says they keep the messages in because they're afraid to change anything but nobody actually likes them. When on literally their last game, sekiro, there were no messages, they changed a ton from their usual formula, it's considered one of their best games to date, and they patched the messages back in after a year because the community kept demanding it.
Are there any modern games Jonathan mostly praises for being excellent other than his own games? I am not being snarky here, just curious to hear some of that from him.
wrong vagabond noun [ C ] old use or literary uk /ˈvæɡ.ə.bɒnd/ us /ˈvæɡ.ə.bɑːnd/ a person who has no home and usually no job, and who travels from place to place: "They live a vagabond life/existence, travelling around in a caravan."
Possibly the most miserable 26 minutes I've spent watching a video on RU-vid in 2022. The game is not without its flaws, but if you are this joyless and uninterested to play a game just turn it off, go watch Twin Peaks, and save us the trouble. Of course, "different strokes for different folks."
completely agree, this is either someone acting pretentious on purpose to drum up what small audience he has, or his brain is so fried from trying to pretend he's right about everything even when its completely idiotic. I cannot imagine trying to play or watch anything with this guy next to me, id want to fucking die
@@alexandrep4913 not even close to my favourite, but unless your blind you can see this guy is grasping at straws for attention, a bit like what your trying to do
@@TheRedBombers at the first 2 hours I was completely bored myself and that was my honest opinion, like I felt there's something wrong about me, why is everyone praising this bullshit, what am I missing. Later on it got much better but I think Jon's right on on this one. The beginning of Elden ring is very bad
Committing to being this level of contrarian is honestly pretty impressive. After seeing this I for sure am not planning to put any money on stuff this dev makes where it would just inflate his ego even more. Like literally, "Subtitles in games is bad" ??? No amount of mental gymnastics that would make that a good take.
Why does he dislike this game; isn't Elden Ring designed fairly similar to The Witness and Braid in the realm of exploration and not giving the player obvious hints?
I appreciate how he mostly has no idea what's going on, but already has _strong opinions_ about basically everything. I'd assume it really helps to be like that when you're making a video game - a strong vision helps to save a ton on time and money compared to devs who need to try a bunch of things to find what they want. I'm not very impressed by the particular opinions he's having though, and I'm not quite sure an 'uncompromised vision' _necessarily_ results in a good game anyway - but it definitely results in an _uncompromising_ game, and hey that's a pretty worthy goal. I don't need him to understand Soulsborne games, it's not like Fromsoft's going to ask him to help them make one.
@@Jorbz150 'I like root beer' is just a preference. On the other hand if you spoke more broadly and in more detail about root beer for 20-25 minutes (and people were inclined to listen), everyone _might_ be impressed by what you have to say - or they might _not_ be. That is how communication works.
That is the most insighful comment here. Being opinionated is indeed a really great skill when creating a project, and I think our current culture lost that, the most obvious tell for me is how bloated everything is. On the other hand, we should not forget how stupid a more opinionated culture is(remember the 00's game reviews?), when creators(even whole companies) were trashing each other for meaningless reasons.
For real. The algo brought me here and I was curious. I never in a million years would have guessed he was a game dev. He sounds so uninteresting that I have no interest in checking out anything he has made.
3:00 - I was prepared to accept his complaint about the lack of clarity on what the classes do at character creation as a fair remark, but I checked out once he started whinging about subtitles. Subtitles are a detriment? Really? Reading is too much of a burden for him? A basic accessibility option intrudes on the game? This isn't a commentary, it's clickbait. Okay trolling Jon, 6/10, you got me to reply.
Subtitles I'm pretty sure is a joke. Like im pretty sure the witness has subtitles on by default, or at the very least I know there's an option for them
The Games Industry, where companies and fans shame you for not being sufficiently pleased with their product. I really don't see this anywhere else. "Man this car is annoying, the wheel is..." "You think YOU could build a better car? It took so long for engineers to build that car. We get it, if you didn't build the car it sucks. It's obvious that this stems from your deeply held insecurity in not getting enough attention from your mother."
I have similar thoughts, Sekiro ended up being one of my favorite games when it released and I was looking forward to elden ring. The game was pretty fun for the first half but it really didn't have many new things to offer besides an open world compared to sekiro which had an entirely different combat system and way of doing things. I was also looking forward to the horse combat but it just turned out to be dogshit, spear type weapons should allow you to couch upon charge like in mount and blade. The open world was pretty fun to explore up until Leyndell but after that, and even before that in smaller amounts a lot of enemies ended up being reused so they could pad out the massive map. The bosses were also terrible compared to sekiro. Good luck actually relaying this to the braindead playerbase who just wants to play a different ice cream flavour of dark souls 3 without being called a casual or whatever
Because I've never seen a car rebiewer go what? You can press the wheel and it makes a loud noise? I don't like that. And the tires have little sticks on them? Weird, I don't even need to sit down, bad car.
DS1 tutorial was great, it's subtle and teaches you to avoid the boss if you are too weak, then it teaches you the plunging attack. The messages for various things like parry-reposte, good to know but you will forget them in your first play through. These games need time to get used to. ER tutorial was lame, also it's a hole in the ground, there are players that missed it. Because you think "I am not dropping in that hole yet, maybe later,. let's move on outside". There are some players who don't explore everything (they wouldn't even read all the messages and try to learn the moves even if they dropped there) and if you want to teach them, they will skip things. But there are players who missed there in the darkness that hole for a tutorial. It's not as obvious. And it's ok, in Demon Souls I see you can chose to not go through the tutorial. It's good to be able to skip it or go through it. I also wouldn't mind it if there wasn't a tutorial. Old games didn't have something. We think it's unacceptable because it's there. But the magic was to learn old games by experimenting, reading the manual or now reading some wikis or watch other people play. That's not bad,. it's a positive surprise when I don't know something, and then I realize one day "Wow, I didn't know you could do this"
I know that Blow is critical of literally every game he plays, but there are certain things he's not realizing are "charming" about From Software games that people like. The odd translations, characters speaking softly and strangely, being confused for a bit. That's all intentional to set a certain mood.
@@aeriagloris4211 He is incredibly intelligent in general, and very prolific as a software engineer and game designer. But yeah he's also a bit of a whiny asshole.
@@aeriagloris4211 Just one of the pioneers of the indie development world, and made two sucessful video games in a genre where noone really makes games for anymore. But yeah, not super bright right 😂
@@epicotakugamer4930 He's making a new puzzle game if you haven't seen alias "sokoban". Jon seems like the kind of guy who always wants to try and make something different from the last time.
You can tell he never plays games like this. Then proceeds his usual snobby opinionated ways by telling his viewers exactly how everything works. He's never made a combat-centric game. By the looks of it, he doesn't play them either. Man this guy is overrated. I saw him implement VBOs for his game and he did per-mesh VBOs like it's 2000...
He puts pretentious audio messages and half hour long videos in his own Witness game, and yet here complains how a cutscene is boring and how he is confused. Why even try a game if you are refusing to engage with it? Why is he cranky like a 70 year old?
What is sad imo is that some of his insights would be interesting, if not even downright useful and valuable, if he hadn't this overall sentiment that "the game is generally bad, no doubts about it". Like there are many ways I didn't like ER, but there were many many good things, and being that prejudiced about anything isn't honest either.
"I want to skip this cutscene, a filmmaker can make this interesting but games can't do this" "the tutorial is just corridors" "GIVE ME THE TREEEEEEEEEEEEE gimme gimme gimme"
The thing with NOT having an unskippable 20 minute linear section to teach you the game isnt "dont want to change"... These games have 2 things: A "new game plus" cycle where once you beat the game you start over with all your stuff and the enemies get harder A strong speed running community. Such a linear training segment would make those 2 things worse. Thats why the training area is optional. Thats the compromise. The training section itself could be better for sure though.
Wow. I love Blow but I'm kinda surprised and embarrassed for him here. He clearly primed himself to dislike it before starting and isn't giving it a fair shot or even trying to engage with the systems, and then he smugly tries to judge the game. I wouldn't expect this to be a game for him, but, considering the types of games he makes, I'm surprised to see him put in such low effort before forming an opinion. When you start complaining about the dripping sound effects, you must know you are just hating at that point. C'mon John, I really thought you were more mature than this video illustrates.
@@BlowFan absolutely fair, they aren't for everyone. But I was a bit saddened to see Blow "trying" a game in the manner he did, as he clearly has already preformed an opinion and is not giving it a fair chance from the beginning. He's just grasping at whatever he can to complain about, and outright refusing to engage with the systems so that he can smugly affirm his preconceptions. Why bother? I'm sure he'd be frustrated to see someone do the same with his game. This reminded me of Soulja Boy playing Braid.
They hate him because he isn't a conformist who repeats what other people say. Conformists refuse to believe that anyone thinks individually, so they presuppose anyone with an unusual opinion must be up to something suspicious. The world is turning into one giant cult.
Plays the game for exactly 13 mins before skipping to "final thoughts" and "being done" lmao, and that is after numerous remarks about how FS should "evolve" and how theyre "scared of changing their game", all in lecturing tone before even learning the basics of gameplay. How would you know anything about making a game of this caliber and quality, buddy? What gives you the right to lecture people that made DARK SOULS (of all things)? What did you make thats anywhere close to this? Do these devs and indie-devs dont realize how bad it makes them look when they try to criticize a product thats incomparably better than anything theyve ever worked on instead of learning from it? Seems like a trend for ELDEN RING. Is it really just jealousy speaking?
Damn, it was like he was sitting on a tack he was trying to ignore while trying the game. - The audio mix with the music I agree with to some extent, in earlier games you can miss very interesting lore details because of the music... but if they lower it at important moments that might actually be immersion breaking as if some deus-ex-machina/annoying-guy-to-watch-a-movie-with was controlling the volume telling you to really pay attention at "this" point. (DS1 OnS fight, music off and you can hear the glee of Smough as he kills his "friend" that you then also notice was actually still alive.) - Presumably he didn't read about graces (so never sat down?) so never got the horse. - Didn't notice the rays of light coming from the graces that are there to guide new players(as the pop-up said) . - That one "hell" hole is where the character's body is dumped to wake up under ground after getting beaten by the scion. ie. if the hole wasn't there, there would be holes in the lore/story/logic. (kind of too bad you don't re-spawn in the puddle. - The messages are very limited so not to be about cell phones and politics. (so IMO not immersion breaking, people in the world just like to leave notes, and leave blood-ghost-echos when they die.) there is also the part where its a kind of meta-game to make the best messages in relation to the environment etc. Such a series of unfortunate events or he was distracted or he kind of didn't want to be another fan of the game everyone thinks they're cool for liking, or a mix. PS: yeah I know long comment == bad-person, I just didn't want to leave annoyed after watching the video (with pent-up answers and "answers").
