In my opinion, “The Bargain” is an very satisfying ending. On one hand, like any puzzle, the final pieces shouldn’t be an unexpected twist and whole new image, and as the player you’ve been piecing together the narrative as you explore the ship. Since 58 fates are known before you see the bargain, a sudden turn in the narrative would not feel that satisfying. However, the Bargain has a huge turn in the narrative and answers the final unknown question of “Why has the Obra Dinn returned?” The twist in my opinion is that I thought the captain had done nothing during the doom as he isn’t present in those scenes and is even said to be below deck. You see everyone dying and the captain is hiding away somewhere. Then in escape part 1, when the mutinies start to unfold, you see that the crew thinks the captain did nothing and then claimed he saved the ship. The twist in the bargain is that the captain was not lying, and he in fact did save the ship and everyone on board. And his expression at the end of escape when he sees that his crew is turning on him and nobody believes him was heartbreaking. He kills himself because of this reason.
What I took away the most from the Bargain chapter was the eureka moment when I realized what was glowing far away in the ocean during your entire investigation. It was quite a peculiar feeling to realize that one of the first things you likely noticed and ignored when you started the game was not just some random curiosity, but ultimately linked to the reason how the Obra Dinn returned in the first place
Absolutely wild that your takeaway was that the captain did anything but doom the entire ship. There’s a reason only a certain handful of people end up surviving
I actually did leave at the spoiler warning and... Holy fuck I couldnt stop smiling playing the game. Dont let the articulate, funny giggle man spoil this for you
just played it for the first time after avoiding watching this vid since release and i was immensely disappointed by how the game just leads you to clues with fart gas and doesnt just let you work out the mystery yourself, making you follow the fart gas even though you know exactly where to go and completely wasting your time. very frustrating game that clearly had a lot of effort put in that seems completely wasted.
@@boxxylegoplaymobil8906 this is such a petty gripe. The mystery is never set up to be "find the corpse" its "who was this and how did they die." The corpses aren't even fuckin clues, at most they tell you something 3 seconds before you activate the pocket watch and get definitive proof.
@@boxxylegoplaymobil8906it doesn't show you "the clues", it is to make different bodies appear so you can check their fates. the game rarely makes it so that you can figure out what's going on within the fate itself so you aren't solving shit right away aside from like a few people. also the fact that is what the dealbreaker was is insane, it's a small annoyance that occurs for maybe half the game whenever you find a body for the first time.
Honestly, the final otherwise-locked area of the game did end up satisfying me when it answered a question I never would have bothered asking, perhaps the question implicitly posed by the very title: "The Obra Dinn was lost at sea, how has it managed to return?"
I thought the "Bargain" scene was shocking; it led me to the conclusion that the shining object in the water was the final remaining shell being held by the merfolk who made the deal with that dead officer to bring the ship back to a British port
That shining shell haunted me my entire playthrough. The more I learned the more I was like, "Oh shit I want that light in the distance as far away from me as possible"
Oh I didn't put it fully together until you said that. I wasn't really paying attention during the last scene though, I was already confused about the monkey and stuff and a bit disappointed that they killed martin :/
I think one of the great things about this game is that you can blame the captain for every single death on the boat and the company will agree with you.
Something I want to mention is the way the game frames these deaths. Some of these death scenes are portrayed so well, like the first scene you stumble upon where you are just dumped right in front of a fired gun; or the scene where you just saw a guy blown up by a powder keg; or the one with the guy getting struck by lightning. The sound design builds you up for what you're about to see and the freeze frame the game dumps you into nails it. The game wouldn't be half as interesting if you always just entered the scenes from a wide angle and everything is visible and you can go everywhere, even if that's probably better for gameplay. The timing of the captain angrily opening the door, firing his gun, and seeing the captain standing right in front of you shooting you in the head was perfect for immediately hooking me in.
Its honestly such a smart way to involve the player. They get 5-10 seconds of dialogue to immediately get snapped into the environment and then are shown some heinous stuff. The cannons or the poop deck in particular are always the most "holy shit" moments for me
The immediate thing that catches my eye about this video is that for my playthrough I spent more than two thirds of the game trying in vain to figure out who Brennan (The guy in the hat who actually fired the correct shot in the firing squad) was. He is involved in so many different deaths and fates to the point where he became my personal nemesis, I called him “Hat Guy” and I cursed his name whenever he appeared because I just could not for the life of me work out his identity. Finally discovering who he was exploded into what must have been over ten correct identifications for me, and that burst of momentum carried me through the entire rest of the game, locking in correct guess after correct guess on the first try. I bring this up because apparently you figured that out so fucking early! What is playing this game like without the specter of the hat man crushing your dreams? I don’t know! And that’s so fun!
you are SO right about brennan, "my old buddy beanie boy" plagued me for the first half or so of the game, and when I finally figured it out it gave the boost I needed to actually finish the game
He’s a red herring. You assume he’s as high ranking as the top crew, only to realize Brennan is litteraly named outright. For me, the biggest win was to discover the numbers attached to the hamacs. I identified probably 12 people that way.
Just so people know, "Formosans" is referring to Taiwanese people. The island on which Taiwan is located is called Formosa and was also called that for some time (especially in Europe).
thanks for this information. I've just finished the game tonight (with a very poor number of fates unraveled, I must come back to it x) ), and was wandering who they were
Correction: Formosa is the name used for the island by europeans during the Age of Discovery, when it was discovered by the Portuguese (Formosa: Grand, beautiful). The native name is Taiwan, which people use today. It's a similar situation with the use of Persia - Iran.
The greatest thing is that on Lucas Pope youtube channel, you can see him drawing that actual painting use in the game, Lucas Pope *is* Edward, and he decided to let himself getting crushed while on the toilet
Yes, and we can all enjoy listening to the sounds he makes over and over because his death is one of a few vignettes that hide a ton of useful identification information. :/
The notebook that you need fill in is a highly functional user interface. It allows you to search for people of interest by name, face, or chapter. You can also look up all scenes where a person appears by bookmarking them. There are useful hotkeys for turning pages, and the index of content lets you jump to specific parts of the book effortlessly. The map of the ship with all corpses marked, in the order you discovered them, is also helpful when you need to pick up where you left off. One thing Lucas Pope talked about in a conference was that the effort to localize Obra Dinn nearly failed. The sentence structure "Alice was shot by Bob" does not translate well into other languages. Many causes of death, i.e. "clubed", "knifed", do not have a corresponding word in other languages.
Yeah, I noticed that language problem in the German version. There were two causes of death which were called "zerrissen" and "zerfetzt" and while these are nont entirely the same thing, you normally can't see the difference in a still image if it is not made very clear. The problem was that at least in one instance only one of the two was correct and therefore I was lost for a while because I couldn't figure out where I was wrong.
The same "issue" happens in Spanish. As Spanish is gender-oriented, the word "passenger" can be translated as "pasajero" (male) or "pasajera" (female). You can realize quite quickly that Bun Lan Lim is a woman because she is catalogued as "pasajera", so you already know the face of one out of the four Formosans. Something troublesome happens with the translation of "bosun" and "bosun's mate" in Spanish. In Spanish, "bosun" is translated as "contramaestre", but its assistant, the bosun's mate, is translated as "condestable". The glossary neither includes nor defines this concept, so it's easy to miss the rank connection between the bosun and his mate if you play the game in Spanish.
The only few thing i wish they had with the notebook is ingame note and quick access to memories. As i played, because of watch always shaking when we see the memory for the first time. I feel like it rushed me to the next corpse, so i end up playing by trying to look for all the corpses first and try to identify who’s who later and it make me overwhelmed for trying to walk over the ship to see each memory again. If i can access to each scene via notebook instead of walk to each corpse again and again would be nice.
For anyone who wants to play this game for the first time, I would seriously recommend finding a few friends, and getting them all together one night to play it. I played this for the first time with 4 of my friends, and the experience was very enjoyable. You will argue and fight over solutions, and it's part of the experience. Plus the more heads working together the better.
12:04 The stabbing is actually quite obvious when you look at a later death scene (iirc actually it should be the scene used to get to the one where he is stabbed) where the guys corpse is shown, with the knife in full view in his back. Going back to the memory then is only to figure out who was the one who plunged the knife in him.
I spent so long so on that one until I noticed the knife on the boat's floor on the previous scene. Go back to the later one - knife is gone, but not obviously in the Formosan's hand. Next scene: body slumped over, knife visibly in neck.
I thought that knife was a chunk of an oar that has broken off for the longest time… I also had some trouble identifying the man who got killed due to the art style making his pool of blood look like a simple shadow for the longest time. When I realized it was blood I thought that he had hit his head on the chest, then was frustrated because there was no was to articulate it in the book. When I finally figured it out via noticing the knife in his head I felt so foolish…
I really admire the subtle hints at different possibilities sometimes, when John Naples leg is cut off, I assume it is from the mermaid he was helping to carry. It wasn’t working and I figured out that Fillip Dahl believed he was cursed, and attacked him with a sword (which was why he was put in the lazarette). The last problem I had was figuring out who the bosun’s mate really was. At the beginning I figured it was Maba, who was very blatantly referred to (and shown) as torn apart to the bosun in his death scene. Later on, after it doesn’t confirm, I found that the actual bosun’s mate was inferred to be torn apart offscreen, and was in the disappearances section. The main giveaway for that was that Maba was shown doing things topmen did and was with topmen in the drawings, along with his attire not matching that of a mate.
Oh, I thought the clue was supposed to be when the Bosun says "where is my frenchman?" in his deathscene. Then I just figured the striped shirt was supposed to make him french lol. Was definitely one of the last ones I got though. Maba was one of the first three somehow. Lots of them I narrowed down along the lines of "people of the same nationality tend to form groups" so I tried to figure out who seemed to be likely friends.
@@CaptainWumbo You can also get him by his proximity to the Bosun himself - after putting in a few of the more obvious "mates" and stewards it clicked that the Frenchman that was the bosun's mate would be near him in memories.
Bosun and Bosun's mate are the two retrieving guns from the store when the crab/spider people are attacking below deck, as would have been their authority to do. I got to 58/60 but literally got Galligan and Toporov the wrong way around. The real Galligan seemed to have a wizened Russian peasant look whereas the real Toporov looked like a slim, wily Irishman to me at first.
I've been waiting my entire life for a real, substantive Detective game. Obra Dinn is the first and only game I give that title too. I hope there are more games like this in the works; it's genre defining.
C. L. It still feels very much like and adventure game with a detective theme imo so I’m not so sure about it being genre defining (I think ‘Her Story’ did a better job a few years back) but it’s mechanics and aesthetic are beautifully worked and the story was very satisfying in its exposition. I agree, can’t wait for more spins/progressions on this initial premise!
@C. L. I would recommend checking out a game called, “The Shiver.” I have not played it myself, but Mark Brown from the channel GameMaker’s Toolkit did a video discussing detective games, and that’s one of the best he found. I’d recommend checking out his video if you are interested in knowing more.
Hey have you played Hypnospace Outlaw? It's a game set in a fictionapn1994 history where people use the Internet in their sleep through their brains. You are tasked with censoring and managing this early internet content the game is a fake OS eventually it warps into a mystery detective game. You need to be very perceptive of these geocities like webpages to solve the later puzzles. Does it achieve the same status as Obra Dinn? No. But its a similar type of puzzle solving with a really awesome aesthetic.
12:03 this actually worked really well for me. I went to the next sequence to investigate and saw the knife in his head. I'd bet other people realised this too
I personally saw that there was in scene before knife on “floor” of boat, and when he attacked the knife gone missing, so I figure out that he attacked with knife
SPOILERS The tattoo! Figuring out an identity/fate by spotting a bunk number and seeing a tattoo on that bunk's inhabitant's arm (in a flashback that had nothing to do with that character) was really satisfying. I was super stuck at that point and that led me down a path of a bunch of realizations. Allowed me to really figure out all of this by myself.
Very interesting. I saw the tattoo amd never managed to find in on the sailor in amy memories. I found out some other way i believe i absolutely love that there are multiple ways to figure out the identities
I figured out the identities of all the Chinese topmen by figuring out what shoes/trousers they each wore and cross-referencing that with a scene where they are sleeping in their bunks with their bodies covered but legs hanging out. Helped that every bunk was numbered.
I found the tattoo but never saw it on the man's arm, even when I was in the right scene, due to the art style. Also the accent for that character was misleading in my opinion.
A thing about the art style you didn’t mention which I found pretty cool: In the settings, you can choose between different Color simulations of old PC systems.
50 seconds in. Ok ill take your advice and play it blind. But im also going to mute the video and run it in the backround to muck with youtubes algorithms. Win win.
Sadly, RU-vid can and probably does detect if you're not watching, listening or both and feeds this information to the algorithm. This might cause the opposite effect - algorithm might classify your view as 'fraudulent' and ignore it.
That moment when you realize that one scene where the people get executed on deck was the one you’ve been staring at with the entire crew and passengers was mind blowing for me. It may be been obvious earlier but when I realized it, it was a very cool moment.
Man i launched this game in the middle of the night thinking i'm gonna check it out for an hour and go to sleep. Fast forward 7 hours later to me soldiering through a mad headache just to figure out the 6 remaining crew.
holy shit, I've just ended it in 7 hours, only have 6 validated, with about 7/8 more that the game doesn't validate, mistake from me... I must suck in that kind of games x)
Took me 14 hours to beat. Probably because I committed myself to trying not to ever plug in names at random so I ended up watching a lot of the fates a bunch of times (although I did end up using a hint guide when I got completely stuck just rewatching a few fates over and over and over for hours trying to figure out what I missed (I never would have thought to look at the Chinese topmen's socks for example otherwise). It was a great experience just trying to bookmark one person's memories through the entire story and learn more about them through studying what they did in each situation.
The game will also, in a few cases, accept multiple answers when it comes to not just the cause of death but the individual responsible: you can claim the executed man was killed by the Captain, or the one giving the firing squad the order, not just the gunman that made the shot.
I guess when I was trying to decide on his cause of death I didn’t have 2 other fates lined up as well. Took me awhile to figure out that you could track the one bullet that hit him back to its shooter and I thought it was so cool that it made you do that. A little underwhelming to learn that you could choose the captain as well
I had the captain selected for the longest time yet the game didn’t accept it, I guess I must’ve not have had other two correct guesses during that time.
damn that crazy, what about the cannon deaths? I said the beast was the one who shot them with the cannon, I wonder if it accepts others like the one in charge or the one who lit the fuse
Figuring out the 4 crew members who escaped was one of my favorite parts! Right off the bat you know that there's at least one crew member who made it out alive - the guy who sent you the book. You also know that he's in Morocco, because this is where you're instructed to send the book when it's completed (it says so in the Preface to the book). When I figured out that he was one of the four that escaped, I assumed that all of them were in the same place, and that ended up leading to a lock of 3 of the four who escaped. It was magical.
...oh that makes so much sense. My entire playthrough I was pissed off because I couldn't find a single clue of where the group escaped to and I never connected the dots of who sent you the book until the ending of the game 💀 (may have brute force guessed the location not my proudest moment)
I don't think you realize that there WAS a huge revelation at the end of the "The Bargain". You just didn't pick up on it, which is understandable as much like the rest of the game, it is very subtle. You hear the steward shout "Quicksilver" at the end of the final fate whilst reaching into the chest. While not apparent at first, this is a massive giveaway, and one that explains multiple things. Firstly, it explains why the death of It-Beng was electricity. Quicksilver is a very good conductor, and the shells presumably emit electrical pulses. Reaching into the pool of quicksilver fried his arm. Secondly, the chinese topman wasn't electrocuted by mere coincidence, it was instead the sign of the approaching attack by the mermen. Thus, we can assume these merpeople have some control over electricity/storms, most likely by using these shells/mercury. Thirdly, and most importantly, it completely explains the story of the Formosans. In ancient china, the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, died of mercury poisoning. After creating a concoction of jade powder and mercury, he tried drinking it to gain eternal life. At this time, mercury was thought to be a miracle substance, when of course in reality it is extremely toxic. This kind of irony is all too similar to the story of the Obra Dinn. The chinese "treasure" of quicksilver is fought over by the 60 crewmates, only for it to end up killing almost all of them. Even more ironic is that the shells were most likely not treasure at all, but rather weapons, as evidenced by the multiple uses of electricity to kill others; Everyone killed each other over weapons. To me, finding this revelation heightened the ending to one of my favorite endings of all time. The random mention of quicksilver was all too odd to me, and me researching Chinese relations to quicksilver and to find the story of Qin made me feel like a real detective. If Pope planned such a thing, I have to give him a lot of credit.
Problem is, It-Beng's death can be also listed as burning, which I know since I did it. It's probably not actual Quicksilver, or if it is, it is definitely literally mystical in nature rather than logically electrical that causes their deaths.
If this is what the game actually intended the ending to mean then it’s hyperconvoluted if you’re expected to know/research the link between quicksilver and electricity??? Also the shell art fiat a quite clearly burned It-Beng at the captains steward (although the game accepts electrocution)
Thats not an especially satisfying revelation because the broader idea of the shells being harmful is very obvious. At most, the quicksilver connection is a fun piece of trivia that ties into real history. There's really nothing in the Bargain that tells us anything we didn't already know, except that the third mate released one of the mermaids in return for sending the ship back to britain, which I don't think anyone was too interested to learn. It's honestly bewildering why the Bargain was teased as much as it was and then seperated from the main body of the game.
To go another step further and make the style of the game so "lo-fi" was a really great idea. It is a little bit like a Moby Dick engravings, combined with an old dot matrix printer.
Me: lol idk about spoilers, I was never gonna play it anyway "Made by the same person who made papers please" Me: okie dokie ill find another video to watch 🙃
Conversely, it’s the only game I’ve ever refunded on Steam. Granted I’m awful at puzzle games and not sure why I thought this would be any different. Just my 2c in case this isn’t your kind of genre too. Sudoku really is the best descriptor for how to tackle this game and I’m just not a fan of the pencil guessing
@@Outplayedqt but you really don't have to guess. since you refunded the game that means you played it for less than 2 hours, which is just not enough time to actually find all the clues to solve the fates. sorry you don't like puzzle games, but don't write this one off as "pencil guessing" just because you didn't give it a fair shot.
Eric P Pencil guessing in the sense that Joseph describes several times in this video - and he does specifically name drop Sudoku. And of course I kept close track of my playtime so that I could safely refund if need be. I didn’t mean to imply whatsoever that I actually beat the game, much less get very far in it. A quick look at howlongtobeat shows that this is an ~8 hour game, so I think giving it 2 hours is a fair shot.
I found The Bargain quite satisfying, because I was really curious how they got away from the kraken that was very clearly overpowering the crew and ship, and I kept musing over what the sparkle in the water was or why the shell was just… there… in the distance. I also thought that the monkey thing was really clever on Evans’ part, and given his failing health and apparently strong motivation to record the story of the Obra Dinn, I didn’t question why he would be giving up such a powerful device, regardless of how rare it might be.
For me the one moment I was most proud of noticing something was when I found two people in a workshop and then noticed that there are two people on board that should work there. That was amazing, as the workshop was pretty well hidden.
This comment was 4 years ago so your certainly won’t notice this, but I would like to mention that you also see those 2 carrying a wooden plank to a broken part of the floor, giving another hint that they’re the carpenters.
One of my favourite little moments in this game was when you find out the magical artifact was thrown into the sea, and I realised I recognised the effect given off by it was only used by it and nothing else. You can see it in the sea on the present day ship (at 18:20 in this vid) while at first i thought was the reflection of the moon or something, meaning the mer-folk who took it are still nearby looking after the remains of the ship.
For people who get stuck: the book tells you where to activate scenes. Two or three are tricky to find. The scenes are also bigger than they seem sometimes, incorporating more than one deck. I found a few times I just guessed and got it right I would later find out how I was supposed to figure it out. All it really takes is another three confirmed names to start a chain reaction of "now I know who murdered x" Eventually you get it down so well that you know two for sure and can go through the possibilities of a third until the game tells you it is right, but it feels really meta gamey. It's definitely a game to play in 2 or 3 long sessions, so all the clues are fresh in your mind. Would be a bit difficult only 1 or 2 hours in a sitting.
@@CaptainWumbo also the hammocks are absolutely HUGE clues and should not be understimated (this is also the only way to reliably name all 4 of the chinese topmen without cheesing)
First reaction: Woo, a new Joseph Anderson video! Second reaction: Aw, man.. **only** 20 minutes long.. :'( Haha, I've come to love your nearly hour-long (or more) in-depth videos, they're so nice to sleep to. But I'm gonna enjoy this regardless, thanks for what you do!
@@jacobhanlon-dunn6254 Yeah, I agree lol. His old Fallout videos as well - and The Witness "a great game you shouldn't play", and the God of War video!
@@njurasovic Joe is the suppressed third personality of the Mandy/Sseth gestalt, sort of like how Two-Face unknowingly developed the Judge persona in Batman: TAS.
Eeegh, no. I don't want to imagine how the game where a guy gets torn in half by a kraken would have looked like with AAA budget. That was pretty gruesome even with pixalated graphics.
No need to guess! Mass Effect 1 had spare ribs and stock monster sound effects to communicate dread and horror. Obra Dinn clearly kicked butt in that regard.
This line:” remember death” always gives me chills when I first read it in the Nintendo DS game (999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors). If you never played this game, I highly recommend it especially for fans of horror and mystery and puzzle and anime. Your decision shape your story and endings...
Sir Mister, I must give you a big thanks. A few weeks ago, I was reading an article about a game, the journalist criticized it in a way that really made me want to play it, so I watched who had directed it, and read great things about a director making clever visual novels with deep thematics and interesting choices. It's not my favorite kind of video games, but this was enough to make me hooked, and I thought that if I found the time, I would play to his latest game. But unfortunately, between this moment and now, I had forgotten both the name of the director and the name of the game, I just remember there was AI in the game I wanted, and that he had directed something with several times "Nine" in the title, but didn't manage to find anything about it, I was a bit upset... And here I decide to end Joseph Anderson's vid, that I had started 5 days ago but hadn't finished since I hadn't done the eight chapter of Obra Dinn yet, and I fall on you, quoting the name of a game of the designer that I was actually seeking! :D I now know that I want to play AI: the somnium files , it's noted and will not be lost, thank you very much!
"Memento Mori" and "Remember you will die" appear all over the introduction for Persona 3. Every time you load up the game you see it say that, along with some awesome visuals and music. If you've never played it, I recommend it. It's as good as Persona 5 if not better. Also it's one of those things that you see constantly and only understand at the end of the game
I was able to determine the fates of people escaping by checking the map and noticing which part of the land was the closest during that chapter. My mind was blown when this worked!
*WARNING: SPOILERS* The women and the Russians were able to be identified logically without the need to exploit to the locking of every 3 correct entries. For the women you have Miss Jane Bird and Emily Jackson, The honuorific Miss would mean she is not married, One of the women is wearing a wedding ring on her finger, so she is married, That would be Emily, The other lacking the ring would be the unmarried one. Abigal was pretty obvious and easy to figure out. As for the Russians you can deduce who they are. Leonid Volkov was the only Russian topman, In one memory scene, You see him on the rigging, So he would be the topman. Alexsei Toporov is seen smoking a pipe with him, being the only crew member we see with a pipe. You see that pipe hanging beside the hammock, you use the number on the hammock to identify him on the crew roster. And for Alarcus Nikoshin, the process of elemination can identify him. Took me a while to figure these out, it's hard to see details managed to figure it alone.
Joseph! Please oh please review Outer Wilds. It is an absolute GEM of a detective & exploration game, and one that I think you'll appreciate a lot if you liked this.
Absolutely! It’s the best bits of Breath of the Wild mixed with the best bits of Obra Dinn, with a bit of Metroid Prime and Majora’s Mask mixed in. It rules.
As someone with cognitive difficulties that can't play even the simplest keyboard + mouse games, I actually really appreciate that you still summarize things after giving spoiler warnings and encouraging us to play them ourselves. I would if I could, and I'm sure others feel the same, and I'm glad that you did it for us.
I sincerely hope you one day play this along with someone else at the "helm", the story (hopefully you forget it soon enough from the brief summary that is this video) really is a treat to unravel and piece together, one name at a time. And even though the game only portrays a single protagonist, don't forget detectives usually operate in pairs! So wether it's solely the controls holding you back or if your deductive capabilities are also impaired, finding someone that can catch your slack is really something I'd recommend to you!
I love this game to bits and it frustrates me that I can't get my friends to give it a shot. Lucas Pope did an outstanding job with this masterpiece and the fact that I'll never get to experience Return of the Obra Dinn blindly in my life again makes me sad. Hope another game like this comes out soon so I can quench my thirst from these type of games once more. Great video, my dude.
4 года назад
Return of the Obra Dinn is a wonderful game, and I think the story was adequate enough to keep me hooked. The graphics are charming and the music and sounds are extremely satisfying. I think those extremely subtle clues that made you look around for almost an hour trying to find it were fine, because there weren't all that many of them and you feel very accomplished once you figure it out.
A part of me always stares at the other objects on the shelf at the end of the game. The large gem, scarab beetle, and other oddities. Were they related to other cases that the character dealt with in that one year gap? Perhaps did we uses the pocket-watch those cases too? Was there other supernatural deaths that needed solving? I doubt we will ever know but it will probably always haunt the back corner of my mind.
Im very proud to figure out almost every crewmate of the ship (by being the clear exception the chinese sailors) without guessing and actually looking for hints and getting back to previous mementos to actually make a solid telling of the events, like figuring out some people by just saying "ah, that sailor looks british enough"
I got so lucky with the Chinese men. I happened to identify the one who was electrocuted on my first try and after that the rest somehow clicked I to place. I took way too many shots in the dark that actually paid off lmao
@@Kri8aris memento one of chapter 2, the beds are counted, you see the 4 chinese sailors are sleeping together, but you can only see their shoes, it ends up the shoes are consistent in all mementos and you can actually line them up if you remember which shoes corresponded to each bed. Yeah, it blew my mind too when I discovered it
I am absolutely so glad that I took your advice and played this game before continuing with your analysis. Thank you for the warning, Joseph. I really appreciate that you’d sacrifice immediate views to preserve your viewers’ experience with the game. You’re really a cut above several other content creators in your genre.
My absolute most proudest moment was figuring out the 4 survivors, I've been playing for quite a bit and filled in like a third of fates, once i locked in the surgeon I see that he's noted as missing in the Escape chapter and remembering that he's the guy who sent you the book from Morocco, going back to the scene where one of the female passangers shoots a sword wielding seaman, guessing that a tough older lady like that wouldn't be logged as miss and getting the 3 fate lock in instantly. That moment was so satisfying I had to take a smoke break
I think you missed another good "How was this person killed" moment with the murder with the knife on two dinghies. I think its obscured on purpose. If you look at that same guy in a scene after his death, you can clearly see the knife in him.
If I ever felt like something was obscured aesthetically, then I would change the look in the game to one of the other options and that was generally enough to have me come to the correct conclusion
I don't think the "crab riders" were separate entities from the crabs, I think they're just one beast - similar to how centaurs aren't "horse riders"; they're the horse and the man
I hope you didn't stop making videos I just found your channel and god damn are these the best analysis videos I ever seen and I've seen a lot of analysis videos and channels. top notch shit man
Played it, loved it. Now to watch this video. Yeah, I totally brute forced like 8 or 9 of the people. Also the last two things I solved before getting everything was, one: the fact that the first (or second to last chronologically) crab guy was killed by a gun not the beast. And two: the man wasn't strangled it was a knife. lots of really cool details I got when going through everything, I think I might play again and win without brute force. Great video, now I have to finish baba is you to watch that one.
Most of the last ten identities for me were just cycling through the three or four people that it COULD be, rather than actually knowing who it was, I didn't even go into the relevant memory for many of them. I did have an easier time than most with those two deaths though, since I noticed that the man was still stumbling along despite the wound for long enough to have needed a more sudden cause of death (plus the hole in the wall), and that the guy stabbed on the boat had a knife sticking out of him when the chest is opened, later confirmed by spotting the knife on the floor of the boat while the captive is still freeing himself.
I was blown away about this type of creative story-telling. I was so drawn in, that I couldn't stop playing and spent most of my Saturday on finishing it. I seriously hope we will get more games like this, either by Pope himself, expanding on the world and myths, or someone else who (hopefully) will go with a Lovecraftesque story as well. If there are things I didn't like, It's the first minute of each scene, where you have to wait for the book-entry and the annoying "following the particles" to the newly discovered body, even if you already know where to look for the body (And you can't just wait at the location, since the particles don't move if you are not close by ... and boy do they like to take detours ... ).
I think it's implied in at least one death; it looks like the crab is facing one way, while the "rider" is looking "behind" the crab so that the crab can aim its spikes. I still think that "foreign enemy" should have been accepted for all of the beasts, especially in light of the true ending.
You failed to understand why the ending was revelatory and why it succeeded in resolving the mystery surrounding the ship. It's literally in the title of the game itself. The game is figuring out why the ship RETURNED to England without a crew to steer it. It's set up as the main mystery everywhere from the trailer to the opening scene. And the ending does the perfect job of explaining that conundrum. The story isn't a afterthought in this game. Piecing it together is the game.
I almost never comment on RU-vid videos but I had to say something because you made the game way better for me with what you said. I always just thought the ship just drifted back towards England after it was abandoned and was then spotted. You're right, I didn't notice that the return of the Obra Dinn was of any significance and neither did Joseph. The story is far better now in retrospect. I hope Joseph sees this comment because almost half of this video is undermined by this lack of information. I wish there was a line or something to bring the players attention towards how odd it is that the ship returned without a crew, because I didn't think it was weird at all.
I never got the feeling from the game that the ship turned it self up. I still think it was a bad ending. I was really hyped for the chapter, but it was just a deal with the mermaids.
I haven't played the game myself, and I didn't realize the title was relevant, but I did think to myself that the mermaids steered it back safely as a part of the deal, even though everyone died, and that that was kinda funny. Also noticed how Joseph didn't really comment on it.
I can't comment on whether Anderson understod why the ending was revelatory. But for me it still didn't work for that final chapter (ie not detracting from Anderson's point in how the game built it up). If it has a build up you expect a payoff. Whether that payoff is satisfying is certainly subjective. For me the explanation was a let down. When you'd had a Kraken, Crab Riders, multiple deaths and murders, murmen, framed by these supernatural objects it needed something to either subvert expectation or redirect it to something unexpected. I think it's a great game, and has some brilliant moments (visually and gameplay) but yeah that final chapter felt reallt flat. Oh and the soundtrack is excellent. Surprised he didn't praise it tbh.
Fun fact, the crab is a Japanese(or Chinese) spider crab, and in real life these crabs can grow to be as big as a car. So half of those creatures are real
And in the previous memory you can see the knife laying on the floor of the boat. I don't think the cause of death being difficult to determine was a flaw of the artstyle in this case, it was deliberate obfuscation.
Is there a similar way to find out that Nunzio Pasqua was stabbed? I spent a lot of tkme trying to figure out how, exactly, he'd died. It doesn't really help that in both cases it doesn't really sound like they were stabbed.
When you got into the story of what Happened on the Obra Dinn, I realized how much I didn't take much notice of it when I was playing the game even though I was literally investigating what happened on this ship. It was almost like I was so disconnected with *what* happened and more concerned with how each individual death *did* happen. I agree with that point that the story isn't much but I also agree that it probablywasn't the point (flew over my head anyway). I really liked this game and liked this video too. Congrats on the baby and good luck with the lead up to the Witcher.
Wow. Taking your advice in the first minute was a really good idea. Playing that blind was an experience I would recommend to anyone. I agree with pretty much everything you said, though I thought you'd also talk about how clever it was for the game to have it's own difficulty slider. Just like you play through dark souls blind with no items, you could also choose to play through this without allowing yourself to blindly guess into groups smaller than two (which you need to do for at least two sets of people, I think - both mentioned in the video). I thought it the ability to guess using suspect pools of decreasing size was an interestingly clever way of both covering their assess in case this new concept/art style didn't work out as well as they'd thought and of including an in-game difficulty slider.
I _just_ finished the game last night. I'm so deeply thankful that I don't need to duck this video to avoid spoilers! XD Note: the *was* only one frustrating bit during the last 7 fates where something I thought counted as a "foreign enemy" ONLY counted as a "beast", and I spun my wheels for about half an hour before accidentally stumbling on it. Follow-up note: the destination of the four escapees is actually kind of easy. The preface at the very start of the book tells you exactly where they went.
I would love a sequel to this one. At least with the same insurance agent and their mysterious watch. Could be called in to do a house that burned down and find out the events leading up to the fire.
Just finished this game last week, and then comes Joseph Anderson NAILING a detailed review, in which I 100% agree on! Hope to see a lot of influence in games to come from now on...
This game absolutely needed thos. I remember going through the first few deaths and then got to the one of the wife. Ok, seems like a bit of wood came off and got her. Now, what is going on....WOAH!
Well, he's had his ups and he's had his downs. He's had his smiles, and he's had his frowns. But I still say he should be crowned... The King of Limbo!
I loved Obra Dinn. The atmosphere and mystery of it, slowly pacing around each death scene trying to work out what was happening where during each moment of time, it was a great experience and I'd never had anything quite like it before.
*My thoughts on ‘fixing’ some of the “plot-holes-not-plot-holes” you mentioned* Finally got back from uni and had the chance to play through the game before coming back to watch your video through. First of all, I wanna say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I played it over the course of two consecutive days and it took me a combined eight hours to beat. It was a truly engaging and challenging experience right the way through but playing it in just a few sittings definitely feels like the best way to approach the game. Anyway, in terms of my thoughts on how to improve the story regarding the issues you raised about Henry Evans, the pocket watch and the PC’s occupation. To resolve these without drastically changing any plot elements, I’d do as follows: Have the player be a close descendant/relative of Henry Evans. He has been missing for some years, but upon recently succumbing to his illness his corpse and belongings have made their way back to your family. Going through old personal effects, you came across the pocket watch belonging to Henry and a book he had started writing but only managed to complete the preface before dying, hence the book is blank. At the start of the game, you arrive at the location of the Obra Dinn, as described in the preface, and intend to set out to uncover what happened and finish the book. It plays out the same, except the last thing you learn/figure out is that Henry escaped to Africa as you previously didn’t know where he was (even after his body and things were mysteriously returned to your family). Upon reaching this point after figuring everything else out, bar the missing chapter which may have to be ever-so-slightly different to accommodate the new plot, discovering Henry’s fate is essentially the last step towards the true ending, at which point you discover he escaped to Africa - and he wasn’t alone! At once, you seek to get the book and a message out to the women he was with and they write back in a similar way to the actual true ending, bringing us essentially to where the game actually ends up, but with the somewhat disappointing missing chapter being partially irrelevant as what truly matters is the twist that Henry escaped to Africa with some others. Sorry for the long read; it’s late but I hope my general ideas came across.
God, it was so nice to find your channel, everything is put together smooth and nice... Wish you'll find a way to get back to your channel one day, it would be a great present for thousands of people ❤️
One of my favorite memories of this game is figuring out the identities of the passengers (more or less), not putting them in, and then using them as a kind of brute-force checker. Like "okay, I have these 4 or 5 fates entered in that I'm reasonably confident in, time to enter this lady in and see which ones are right"
I have been waiting to watch this video for months. I've had this game on my laptop for something like a year but for various reasons never played it and then my old laptop got corrupted. Got the game on my switch and OH BOY am I glad I waited! I finished the game last night and I'm so in love and hoping for more games like it. Thank you for that strong opening, I normally ignore those but yours was strong enough to make me wait and this game was a joy to play because it wasn't spoiled.
I do love this game, was playing it at the same time as my friend and we helped eachother out sometimes. One thing I did brute force was finding out where the escaped passengers went. My friend told me about the way he found out and I honestly felt so stupid for not noticing it.
What other mechanics would be good for an Obra-Dinn like game? I thought of something like a AND THEN THERE WERE NONE scenario with a small cast but with no real log of names or faces, or with a PREY scenario with a large cast, but some people aren’t immediately identified because their full-body outfits make them unable to discern who they really are, similar to (Spoilers) The Samuel peters, seaman and Perser being lifted into the air but you only know their identities because you saw those 3 earlier Another idea I had was that the playable character has history the victims, and you can make choices that determine certain fates of characters, either through time travel or flashback mechanic. Please comment your own ideas!
I remember being stuck after solving 20 fates, i tried so hard to no avail so i looked for "nudge" guide rather than answers. The nudge guide basically tells u exactly what to look for(like look at the drawing, look at compartment, this guy killed another by accident in beginning etc). So i solved one and it set off a chain reaction, everything fell into place very easily after that and i solved like 17-20 fates in next 5 min. I loved this game for its artstyle, music and puzzle.
Hey Joe, when you first released your video about Return of the Obra Dinn I didn't play the game and didn't watched the video because of that. I was only until this weekend, where I finally decided to play the game and I must say, it was amazing! I just wanted to say thank you for the recommendation, it feels like this is the "detective" game where I actually had to combine and look for evidence.
I will say that i was shocked to hear that it was possible to know all the characters with no guessing, in particular the two women who escape. Then I saw your complaint about the one death on the boat, and when i played i was stuck there too. After going to the seen before and seeing a knife laying in the boat in that one, I then saw in the one after that the guy had a knife sticking out of him. I really enjoy these reviews so keep up the great work. Also props on the king of Limbo joke.
On my first play-through I found 30 fates. On the second go around I got them all! The music that plays when you get 3 right is so satisfying (even when you end up guessing based on where the people are standing on photos and what they are wearing)!
