It doesn't help that the modern characters are often written as the most obnoxious teen stereotypes with dialogue screaming "How do you do, fellow kids?". It worked in Until Dawn because it was self-aware and subverted most tropes over time, but in Man of Medan I was ready to let most of the cast die halfway through the demo.
It’s so good to finally find someone covering all supermassive games, I never bothered to check the whole anthology because of how bad man of medan was and nowadays there are so many “video essays” out there that only summarize the plot instead of analyzing it. Such a good video!
@@voiceunderthecovers This video is literally a video essay. Jacob Geller's entire catalogue is video essays. Not to mention the hundreds of high quality essays you can find about any number of topics. Are you sure you can't think of *any* type of video that might be worse?
Brad being the sailor girl COULD have worked if Conrad was able to choose between flirting with him or Fliss. Conrad seems like a player who can use his charm to get any person he wants, in contrast to his sister whos in a stable relationship with plans to settle down. Imagine Julia calling him out for pursuing Brad because thats her fiances brother and Conrad is like "Free game is free game"
If they didn't want to go the "bisexual life" route with Conrad, then they just shouldn't have had ANYONE take the place if Fliss died previously. Would've solved the issue and nothing says the hallucinations HAVE to be someone. I do agree, though, that it would've been much better if Conrad had instead have been flirting with Brad in the story. Then, if both Brad and Fliss were both alive at that point, the game could've chosen which character showed up depending on which the player flirted with more. It also would've helped characterize Julia more too, adding that strict contrast between them. With her wanting to settle down in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship while Conrad is out here trying to live his best polyamorous, bisexual life. The two could've easily had harsh conflict about that throughout the game. Julia calling out his habits because he's scared of growing old and Conrad calling out her judgements because she can't see past her rose-colored glasses to realize that she is scared of what the man she wants to marry could end up being (As shown by her seeing Alex's face over Olson's). Could've also assisted with the characterization of Brad and Fliss as well. Showing how those two react with being flirted with by the same individual so brazenly. With Brad being the more "conservative" of the two while Fliss is more nonchalant and casual about it. Really... Making Conrad be bisexual and giving the option to flirt with Brad just all around fixes many issues with the game's story lol
a little trivia about the game which is also neat: The south pacific is so poorly monitored and remote that it's also a "shadowlands" or "the shadowland". Anything from piracy to drug trafficking, enslavement and so on does happen there. The idea of running into pirates or bioweapons isn't too far fetched even.
I was thinking ‘how come nobody else has found this ship’ for a while before I realised that the Pacific Ocean is so insanely massive (and the military know where it is and are shown to kill people who find it).
I cannot wait for a House of Ashes essay, it's by far my favorite of the DPA and I think it's the best one, too. Shout out Jason and Salim, best characters.
I love seeing cited sources start popping up in videos like this, getting deep in the weeds on background is so much fun honestly. Also, I sat down at my desk with my morning coffee and saw that you'd posted this, perfect timing to start the day!
yess!! I was so excited for this, I love your video essays!! Also Supermassive Games always has this off and on tendency to come up with such an interesting concepts yet always leaves them half-baked, like just based on the basic information we are given on these characters from the start, we should be seeing their anxieties and insecurities through their hallucinations (like Conrad’s sailor girl) like possibly Brad’s insecurity of feeling out of place or nothing like his brother (who’s this incredibly manly and confident guy) or Julia’s anxieties of marriage (especially when thinking about how similar Olson and Alex really are) and even for Fliss as a woman in such a position and the possible imposter syndrome she feels from men questioning her abilities (like Conrad) there’s a lot more complexity all these characters deserved to have and it’s disappointing to know that they didn’t!!
hey dude commenting for engagement and also to say a) in terms of essay structure i think some signposting would be good, jumping straight from recap to criticising hallucinations was abrupt & could have been avoided by a general 'yeah so lets look at x, y, then how that results in z' to move from case study to discussion, b) putting gameplay in the background while you talk would make it more interesting to look at, c) surely get a cursed rat avatar, and d) if you're worried about typecasting your channel & views into just 'dark pictures' videos, there's definitely a market for good video essays looking at nostalgic horror media, especially stuff that was big on youtube in the 2010s and now has a massive audience that still thinks fondly of it but who haven't seen media on it in yoinks. i look forward to the next video!
I don't often leave comments, but I really appreciate how much effort you put into those videos. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the rest of the anthology!
i just discovered your channel at 4k subs and was flabbergasted to see how underrated you are. Keep up the good work I look forward to your videos. I enjoy that you summarize and interpret the content rather than only summarize it. W mans
Thanks, yeah I don’t much care for ‘video essays’ that are just plot summaries, fair play to people who make them and enjoy them, just not what I want to do
@RatatTalks oh it DEFINITELY is! I went full completionist on it for all the achievements and my daughter walked out on me playing when I had to kill if Salim. She was all "I can't watch this, my Boi Salim" lol My hubby is getting his own copy so we can play it together and be total d¡cks to each other for Halloween 😆
I was initially very interested in Man of Medan because the story of the Ourang Medan is such a fascinating story. That, and ghost ships have always been a particularly eerie subject for me, especially as they have occurred with famous cases like the Mary Celeste. Sadly, I also ended up unimpressed by this story as well. To add at least a little more to the discussion, I'd honestly say that the story would've benefited from some form of supernatural presence. Not necessarily any antagonistic figure, but maybe some of the deceased crew could be observers or possible guides attempting to lead them out. It would've given the atmosphere of the ship much more mystery and potential narrative weight since the greatest threats to the protagonists would be themselves and the pirates. It could lead into the themes of the heart and mind betraying you, since what would frighten and disgust could in turn be their salvation instead. Not at all a perfect compromise, but it'd help if they didn't want to go back and make the hallucinations more tailored to the characters and just not let them die for a bit longer so the narrative team has less to juggle. Man of Medan is one of the prime examples I can think of with a story that has a technically coherent narrative, but one where the answers are worse than the mystery. Making the ship a giant biohazard with a hallucinogenic that induces cardiac arrest is certainly terrifying in its own right, but as the twist itself with such nothing characters being subjected to that, it ends up feeling weightless. The exact feeling you absolutely don't want for a horror story.
I loved the concept of haunted ship but it did sour with it being merely a druggie dream boat. They did much better with House of Ashes. Like you, I absolutely love the concept of a haunted ship. Was really hoping for more.
Woah didn't even see this video came out just yesterday... Your character examination and explanations are so attractive for some reason I could listen to you all day 😔
i binged your supermassive vids at work and i really enjoyed them, im leaving a comment to say that it's really surprising and refreshing to see a masculine sounding person reviewing games to mention romantic chemistry between same-sex characters, i genuinely love that and the fact it's just not something you put a lot of emphasis in. it may sound like a very weird thing to say, but ig I've watched too much videos that insert little harmless homophobic jokes that made me feel a little icky. thank you rat person! i also really enjoy your in-depth character analysis from a psychological standpoint, I really loved your abi take about abuse victims n stuff in the quarry video and it's just. really refreshing. also, i really enjoy when you tell what you'd do differently and how you would've written said arc. it's easy to criticise something but it's way more difficult to offer something in return, so to speak
I think Man of Medan and The Devil in Me are good parallels as they both start with interesting historical prologues that evolve into much less realised modern day stories with half-baked casts. In general, I'm a pretty big defender of Supermassive's approach to horror gaming but these two were almost hard to get through. It's pretty interesting that they're also the first and last installments of the first season the DPA since it kinda feels like Man of Medan existed to get the ball going, whereas The Devil in Me was their attempt at going out with a bang (via involving a big name like H.H. Holmes). These two seem to really suffer from a lack of clear theming/message compared to the exploration of grief and comradery in the second and third games. Going off of the comic, regret/guilt/insecurities should've been the theme for this game but they kept going slightly off the mark every chance they got to commit to it. Looking forward to your future analyses!
Nice! Exited to watch this. Really looking forward to a House of Ashes video, too. Talking about IP licenses, the end of that game made me wish Supermassive would've gotten an ALIEN license. I think that would have been a match in heaven.
OG alien as a supermassive game would be awesome, it’s already got the cast and the iconic threat. Excited for HoA replay, I remember the scene where the soldier talks about shooting the woman who was only carrying groceries as being one of the best scenes in supermassive games
@@RatatTalks that's the one scene that elevated the game from good to really good. The actor playing Jason nails it. The game is not perfect, but you gotta give it to Supermassive: There are a lot of games that front load all their best content and stumble later on. HoA manages to consistently get better towards the finale (imo), a much rarer feat.
I think you summarized the issues with the game pretty well. For me personally, I just never like any of these games because it feels like the writers are too scared to really dig into the characters. Because they're so underdeveloped, none of their pain really has much of an impact on me. Great video!
Honestly I don't hate the fact that Man of Medan is a "It was all a dream" trope story (And I don't even consider it a proper version of that trope since the threat is still real in some way and the player is very much aware of the hallucinations.) Unless the anthology was marketed as being all supernatural or all of them having the same type of horror I really love the idea of going from a bio-weapon to witchraft to alien parasites and finally to a good old serial killer/Saw type story. Of course it could have been done better but that isn't really a fault of the setting.
I have no real issue with ‘it was all a dream’ stories with purpose (fight club, blade runner 2049, im thinking of ending things, silent hill 2, the wizard of oz, the list is endless really), my issue with this title is how nondistinct all of it is, it suffers from a crisis of identity where it can’t be fully scientific or fully supernatural so lingers in the middle ground.
Just here to say, I stumbled upon your videos a few days ago. I absolutely love how thorough you are, and your content is enjoyable and fun. Please continue making content 🙏🏻💜
Enjoying the Supermassive videos a ton!! Brief The Walking Dead game mention though makes me really inclined to see a video from you covering it ! Keep up the great work :)
Incredibly random but there’s a great podcast called Decoding The Unknown that looks at a bunch of things throughout history that are less based on fact and more speculation/theories. They have a good episode on the Ourang Medan.
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I agree with a lot of this and would like to add something for the Glamour Girl chapter (game-mechanic wise). You briefly mentioned this, but playing Man of Medan on shared story mode is the key to enjoying this game to the max IMO. Just to describe what things I have in mind: In the mentioned chapter, both parties (Fliss/Brad and Conrad) are being controlled by the players, Now imagine that you and your partner in crime are muted when your characters are apart and talk when they are together (to share news and information), and get into Glamour Girl. One plays as fleeing Conrad (and even though we already thought it's hallucinations, I totally forgot that might be the case), the other player controlls Fliss/Brad who tries to calm Conrad down. But since you don't know you are in the same scene, a lot of chaos arises. It's the perfect example to play any DPA on shared story mode for the first run. From this perspective, having Brad chase Conrad makes story sense, as they are aquitances and he is trying to calm him down. Conrad can hallucinate Sailor Girl on anyone, as he has just seen her on a poster and is a notoriously horny person. Thanks to shared story mode, Man of Medan is ranked first on my list. It was a truly wonderful experience. Then again, my list is completely different from the internet and that just might be the difference with playing solo/couch vs shared story mode. My friend and DPA partner in crime @CtrlAltNoob made a short summary of the first Dark Pictures Anthology series on her blog. If anyone would be interested to take a look, you can find it here: ctrlaltnoob.com/2024/08/16/the-dark-pictures-anthology-season-1-shared-story-mode-ranked/
Thanks for the link and discussion, this is a really unique perspective. Shared story mode is a whole different ballgame and offers more well rounded experiences, I do agree, and I find your ranking interesting as I agree with it in the parameters stated. The reason people like House of Ashes is that it's a brilliant character study, it holds up the best singleplayer and has the most gutpunch moments, but in terms of multiplayer I'd need to revisit it. Little Hope is similar, it's really a very linear singleplayer story, it only really has one character. Man of Medan does have some great moments in co-op, allowing you to see things like Charlies hallucinations at the start of the game and giving him some character, and making more sense of chapters like Glamour Girl. I agree with your ranking of it in terms of ranking the games as co-op adventure stories. Bookmarking this link and might refer back to it when forming my own reviews on the latter entries in the series, as it offers a lot of insights I hadn't considered as a primarily singleplayer guy. Thanks again for the comment.
@@RatatTalks Absolutely, I love to discuss topics when both parties are equally involved, even though they share different values. It's interesting how much a single variable can affect a very different outcome. Shared story mode has it's ups and downs, as my friend described in her post. But it is and probably always be my preference when it comes to playing a Dark Picture. For you, as a content creator, single player mode seems like an absolute necessity so you can absorb as much story as you can in a single run. Also you don't have to rely on your friend to relay found (mis)information. As two players, you can overthink found information more easily and make a bad decision with a higher probability. You are right, that House of Ashes has very well written characters. One of them will be very hard to beat even with future installments. House of Ashes had a really strong intro, but the story overall didn't leave much impression on me. Sure, this might have been a result of killing Eric very very early on and losing a ton of content. I was fascinated by Little Hope, imo it has the most interesting story by far even though the ending negates most of it. When I thought about it from psychological perspective, it ended up making a lot of sense. Human mind is a brilliant instrument. The whole game just made you think so many crazy theories. It's actually second on my list unlike on my friends. When it comes to The Devil in Me, shared story mode was an absolute beast once again. I'll give an example without spoilers. As a certain character, I found a dark picture premotion showing my character's death, which I interpreted right, but acted on it the other way round because the prompt confused me and I was about to die. My friend went through her part so quickly and efficiently that she managed to trigger a "saving" cutscene just a few seconds before I should have died in mine. Saving me in the process. Or another time, the game plays mindtricks on you "Sailor Gir' style.
After until dawn I’ve been disappointed by almost everything put out by this company but it’s fun to listen to you talk about it. So at least there is that
Something that kinda annoys me about the Dark Pictures Anthology is that both Man of Medan and Little Hope set the precedent of "supernatural occurrence that isn't actually supernatural and is more psychological in nature." And you start out thinking that that'll be the vibe for the rest of the anthology, but then House of Ashes just goes "yeah... The Aliens are real tho". And then Devil in me doesn't go with either of those premises and just does a cute little "who knows if that's a supernatural or not. Not us, teehee". It's inconsistent.
Devil in me spending half the game being Saw and then giving up halfway through when all the traps don't work and becoming Friday the 13th is extremely funny
@@gr33nriver77 as a highly probable lifeform that exists somewhere in outer space? Yeah, I see your point. However, not as a hyper-intelligent immortal species that had already made contact with ancient civilizations and has a remote base in the ruins underneath Earth’s soil. That is based off of several conspiracy theories, as well as horror tropes, and I wouldn’t say that that counts as “grounded in reality”
Something that ALWAYS pissed me off that I've never seen a single lets player notice is how smug that guy is while throwing money into the ocean for the purates. Like, he had no reason to be such a dick, AND he looks like a smug douche while doing it. AND NO ONE SEEMS TO NOTICE. It drives me crazy!
Hey Ratat, really like your stuff. If and when you decide to get a new microphone, I'd recommend a shure SM58. It is a workhorse dynamic microphone built and used in live performances. This means very low self noise and will work well in untreated environments. You can get very cheap second hand. Run it through any audio box into your computer and you'd be sorted.
Thanks so much for this comment, my audio mixing has always been the thing I'm least happy with and one of the most common issues people raise with my essays. As I approach 10k I'm for sure in the market for an actual microphone. I'll definitely look into it!
@@RatatTalks At the same time, don't stress about it. Regardless people will watch your content as it is good. Some free recording software like audacity or garageband will do the trick
I literally just played it myself and I thought it was fine, I went in with minimal expectations (also didn’t know the ship and all of that was based on a real thing so the aspect of “how does this game spin that” wasn’t a factor) and was just looking for a good time. I pretty much agreed with mostly everything you said, I wish the characters and narrative are better, the personified hallucinations would definitely have been the better way to go instead of generic zombie guys with the twist in mind, and it’s even weirder cause I don’t think Conrad is the only one, I think the implication with the prologue guy is the kid that jump scares him is supposed to be a hallucination of his son which you see a picture of when he wakes up in the medical bay, so clearly they had some ideas for personified hallucinations outside of Conrad. Speaking of the twist though, I’m kind of curious if Supermassive were trying to trick players of Until Dawn specifically (for reference I’ve only played UD and none of the other stuff tho I do own them and will probably continue playing later) by doing a reverse twist. In Until Dawn the twist is you think it’s more or less a killer/human threat but later on you realize there’s genuine supernatural shit going on, but in Man of Medan it’s the reverse, it makes you think it’s all supernatural at the start but you realize it has a logical nonsupernatural reason behind it. Just a thought I had playing it. One last thing, I will admit I didn’t really pick up on the Alex and Olsen parallels until you pointed them out cause in my playthrough they barely interacted at all (I didn’t even know him and Junior were supposed to be brothers) and in my first playthrough only Conrad died and it ended with Brad fighting Olsen, the only thematic thing I could get out of that is “he hasn’t done anything in the game so far and in this he gets to save the day” which isn’t that great, but on when I redid the bit Conrad died in, it became the everyone lives ending with Conrad fighting Olsen and I felt that was the best thematic conclusion as in Conrad started everything but is also the guy to fix it and I feel like it’s the nicer ending to his arc (tho he didn’t get with Fliss at all so there’s that). My general thoughts are I thought it was fine but definitely could’ve been better, I’m interested to play Little Hope and House of Ashes from what you said about them (tho I’m interested how Little Hope also does the “all in le head” thing), though I might play Devil in Me first cause how hard you bashed that which gives me the vibe to get that done with then leave the good stuff after that. Also play the Quarry eventually too
House of Ashes is awesome, Little Hope is alright, I've got a video on it right now. Devil in Me and Man of Medan are pretty similar in how they have a lot of ideas in play but they don't really take full advantage of them (like how little is done with the Olson/Alex parallels). The point about the twist is interesting, and that might have been true, but Supermassive just absolutely love a twist ending, I think basically all of their games have one save for The Quarry.
(Spoilers for Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box/Pandora's Box) One of the few games I believe that was able to pull off the "It was all a hallucination" trope in a satisfying way is PL and DB/PB. A very different game in genre and gameplay mechanics, but I always recommend anyone to give that game a chance if you haven't already ☺️ By the way, I wonder when the next Dark Pictures game is coming? 🤔 I believe it is called Directive 8020, and it's going to be set on a space station, so it'll be interesting to see what diection they take (and what the inevitable comparisons to Alien will be). I would have thought it would be releasing at the end of this year, but Supermassive have gone quiet about it. It would be great to hear your thoughts about that too. Looking forward to the next one! 👍
I think one thing that was actually well done in Man of Medan, from what I've seen recently at least, never played it myself, is that the hallucinations worked well if you played with a friend. Or they could work well at least. And I think that was the point. That was the idea behind the game, play it with someone and you don't know if it's not your friend you're actually seeing, but instead of just being a forgettable protagonist, it's your friend's protagonist, and you killed them, oh no, drama. It's fun ! You said the Manchurian Gold is a plot device, but I actually think it's more a gameplay device. For multiplayer. And for me, all that makes the game slightly above the average of Supermassive Games. Which isn't that hight either, but still.
Why does it seem Supermassive is afraid to make games not set in present-day? Both Man of Medan and Little Hope only have it for the prologue, but those two and the Quarry would have been more interesting if set in the past.
I’ve noticed this, most of their concepts make a lot more sense with a historical framing, be it WW2 for man of Medan or even just the 1980s for The Quarry
Honestly, there are flaws to this story and game, but I think the one thing that really bugs me overall is most of the characters running around bare foot on a rusty old ship with many holes lined with jagged sharp edges. Someone should have gotten tetanus from this
One thing that anybody that has ever been out to sea knows is when the engine is disabled the radio still works. The Radio works idenpendently of the engine. So they could have gone back to the their boat and called for help at any time. Fliss says the boat will not run without the engine cap which ials true but radio should still work fine. The whole BS with not being able to contact anyone had me screaming at the tv ffs the radio on your boat works fine go back and call the coast guard.
@@RatatTalks If you fail to send a message on the radio on the bridge and the engine cap is lost the ending is them just starving on the ship. Me just thinking uhh Captain Fliss your radio on your boat still works dumbass :)
She uses the radio when the engine is off while Julia and Alex are diving. That what makes it even more baffeling. The whole we are isolated part just falls apart for me there and it was really hard to take the story seriously. All the writers had to do was have the pirates smash the radio and plothole solved.
I absolutely despised the all just a dream ending of Little Hope, because the setting to me was so interesting & having historical characters really intertwined into the modern narrative. Upon further watch-throughs of Man of Medan (I don't think I've ever actually played it myself unlike the others and not really bothered to) I actually didn't mind it, even though it was not very satisfying, and a spooky ship should be much more interesting, because in Little Hope most of your choices literally mean nothing in the end whereas they do in Man of Medan
The problem I had with the twist here is that it was something I called immediately and was sort of hoping they would not do as it seemed like the most obvious angle for them to take: Until Dawn is posed as a serial killer (man) story and even emphasizes that angle once the Wendigo are started to be revealed with the asylum (like they were just crazy people in a Hills Have Eyes way) before being revealed to be fully supernatural. Since Man of Medan opened with supernatural events I instantly clocked they would do the opposite and even that the Manchurian Gold was a fear toxin sort of deal. It only made the game more pointless feeling because I was waiting to understand why they were doing it as none of the characters are like Josh - if a character like that was in the plot it might make some sense. My only hope was that they were doing a double fake out and I was crossing fingers for a scene where a character closes their eyes and goes "it's not real" only for the zombie like creatures to still be there.
I thought that music at 9:57 sounded kinda familiar. Took me some time to realise it was White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and I absolutely didn’t expect to hear it here.
@@RatatTalks looking forward to it! i'm a big fan of the series (despite their downsides) and i think you're spot-on in your essays. i like overthinking and analyzing things, and these games allow to have different interpretations/ideas, so i really enjoy hearing other people's thoughts
Honestly what intrigued me about Man of Medan is that the title isn't just a random assortment of words that conveys nothing, but an actual proper noun.
Hah, I totally missed Conrad's ark. I thought he would show up earlier and was kinda pissed that I managed to save everyone except for him. And that I apparently missed the best narrative of all characters 😂😂😂
All these games (until dawn the quarry and this game) remind me of yet another game that I’ve seen bits and pieces of. From what I remember it’s about a film crew going to a house or a mansion of sorts (I forgot what made them get killed, whether it was a killer or some supernatural being)
man of medan was so forgettable i thought the series was gonna start with little hope since i completely forgot about MoM. what a nothing burger of a game. which is insane considering according to the wiki fandom, the game has 352 game ending variants.
Yeah as sara said gaming Harry has done the entire dark pictures anthology, it’s mostly story summary but he does give some takes on the plots and routes
Yeah the dark pictures anthology is such a mixed bag. The twist works okay-ish here, it absolutely doesn’t in Little Hope. House of Ashes has the best characters by apparent fluke. And Devil in Me, the one story that should have had a twist like the first two games, doesn’t and absolutely suffers for it. Man of Medan could have been better if the hallucinations were character specific, and clearly Supermassive wanted to try that if they were hoping to make a Silent Hill game.
Looking forward for the next one. Men of Medan is just "meh" imho but Little Hope is simply offensive to the player intelligence (I like House of Ashes and the Devil in Me tho)
lol I found the heartbeat QTE the hardest mini game in the MoM (Man of Medan) though I admit I sometimes have bad reaction time when it comes to QTE’s due to wearing Glasses lol
Never played thes game just because I got told that it all boils down to “it was all a dream” thing, thanks for this essay! Can’t wait for the next 3, haha
Little hope, I want to finish the anthology before moving on to more supplemental games, at some point I will have covered this studios entire roster hopefully
I think whenever during the dark pictures series they went the way of haha actually it was a gas leak instead of committing to the supernatural they… failed. None of them are great imo but the best one *to me* by far is House of Ashes because it did commit (also ashley tisdale)! Tbf to the game, I did not know about the historical background until just now so I suppose it could also be my own fault for hoping this installment specifically was supernatural. Ive only played Devil In Me myself and that experience was awful ngl, excited to see if you’ll make a video on that one too :)
All of the supermassive dark pictures games are based on historical myths/well documented events! Yeah, I feel as though being halfway between supernatural and gas leak was a weakness, they should’ve more heavily leaned into either
@RatatTalks oh for real?? Didn't know that. Well, in the sense that they're all based in the real world and reference large real events like the iraq war and witch trials, yes I did know but are they all based on more specific stuff than that? Did look up the killer from Devil in Me when I played it. Weirdly, now that I think about it, I don't actually remember the story of that installment very well considering I actually played that one.
I think the main problem is that they need good character arcs and development. Until Dawn had that, and all the other games they've made have limited (or none) at all. The gas twist and other twists that make everything not real is also what pulls a red flag for me. Until Dawn had completely real skin walkers/wendigos.
The hallucinations are honestly odd to me. Why is everyone having Resident Evil ass mutant like hallucinations. They should've just made it supernatural, frankly, if that sort of stuff was what they wanted to use. It doesn't really work for the "psychological horror" they want with the way the occurences are presented, frankly.
Yeah the dark pictures anthology is such a mixed bag. The twist works okay-ish here, it absolutely doesn’t in Little Hope. House of Ashes has the best characters by apparent fluke. And Devil in Me, the one story that should have had a twist like the first two games, doesn’t and absolutely suffers for it.
Me: “If you can make better stories why not put it front and center?” Creators: “Whoa there gamer. Do you know what good stories lead to?” Me: “increased sales?” Creators: “Expectations.”
i think the best thing those game series gave us is probably the best storytelling multiplayer out there. The fact that i can play this story online with a friend and only 50% of the decissions are made by me makes such a good gameplay. I dont even see why my friend , besides their individual moral compass , does their decissions they do as i dont see their part of the story at all. This system also kinda taints the overall opinion of people trying to play it solo and get to see the entire story and have every choice in their hands. Sadly The Quarry kicked that system into the bin and made one of the worst multiplayer experiences of all time. In that game they decided the host to play the game exclusively and the other person just watches the game play out. in a 2 player game the host also wins all 50% decissions.( it was designed for girls to play it with their twitch chat, which is super super sad) So while i did enjoy the story and the idea of the quarry i hated it. I really hope they decide to follow their formula from the dark picture season 1 in the second season, with the wide array of different storys everyone will find something they enjoy.
I agree here, that's why I brought it up, and will continue to bring it up talking about the anthology. Too many reviews I've read played it only once and solo, so they missed a lot of context and fun gameplay segments, which I feel isn't the most fun you can have with the title.
I honestly feel like, however uninspired such a premise might seem, would be to have some sort of Saw setup. They don’t have to be trapped in a Saw-esque trap, but more so a tailor made situation for their character flaws/strengths. The devil in me kind of does this but not really (that game is kind of all over the place imo). This is obviously not ideal but Supermassive Games seem to always struggle with either budget, writing a narratively interesting villain/ending confrontation, and making all characters feel like actual characters. I believe they’d just be better off if they go for a full on schlocky, wacky, cliché story that is just fun rather than one with potential that disappoints and doesn’t really go anywhere. Schlocky and cliché horror can still be fun and scary.
Out of all these types of games that I know off (until dawn the quarry this one and another one whose name I forgot so I won’t mention) this one’s the most confusing one to me. I haven’t played the game but even looking at playthroughs is confusing
The whole it was just a dream thing is exactly why I loved Until Dawn and strongly disliked both Man of Medan and Little Hope I consumed a lot of children detective media when I was young where it's a pretty common trope of something creepy or supernatural happening and then the smart kiddos clear it all up and there were of course rational explanations for all of it, and in detective media that's what I want But that makes it so much more stale and boring when it happens in horror. I loved Until Dawn bc I went into it thinking, this is probably all going to be explained away in the end. And most of the focus is on the psychopath killer plot in the beginning so I didn't even consider actual wendigo being a possibility And then with Man of Medan and Little Hope exactly the opposite happened I was intrigued by mystical happenings and wanted to know more about the lore behind it and the world building only for it to be explained away with the it wasn't real shit... Some part might also go into the fact that I was like, 14 when Until Dawn came out, so I was easily impressed back then, and when Man of Medan came out I was a lot more critical, but watching this video essay sums up why I liked this game so much less than Until Dawn pretty well xD
This is one of my least favorite choices matter games ever. Like, I don't think there's anything about it that I enjoy. I guess Brad or Conrad sometimes says something funny? That's about it. Like, the only thing that puts it above Heavy Rain is that it respects your time and is shorter. And plus the choices matter way more. I could put some more constructive criticism here, but like, what do I have to say? The characters aren't interesting. The setting isn't all that intriguing. The antagonists could've been cool, but are underdeveloped. Again, this game having the most outcomes out of any Supermassive game is really its only saving grace. But in spite of that, the choice and consequence system is the worst out of any Supermassive game. This game is full of reverse-deus ex machinas. Imagine if someone is playing on Shared Story and they're on, say, Matters of the Heart, the Curator's Cut player gets to the kitchen before the Theatrical player. That basically destroys the MacGuffin that you're looking for, even though there is no warning of that, and they could have never predicted it. It feels like divine intervention, but it's actually Satan intervening, not a benevolent god.
Yeah, this game actually suffers from having too much going on. It’s a bit of a paradox because they really push the ‘lots of choices’ thing here, but ultimately it makes the game worse because lots of the branches you can go down feel anticlimactic.
@@gr33nriver77 when I say "worst choices and consequences system," I am referring to the fact that most of the time the consequences of your actions make no sense. It's the best game for branching, but not for that.
@@gr33nriver77 "deliberately ignoring everything" no??? There is no way they could've foreseen the fact that opening a (seemingly) completely unrelated door would lead to the elevator falling and the distributor cap being destroyed. Stakes are built on cause and effect ("cause and effect" literally being the MO of these games), but they're also built in *logical* cause and effect. Take that time Brad can find the gas mask. Firstly, why would the player open a locker that they just saw had a skinned face in it? If they'd already figured out "nothing I'm seeing is real," then there you go, what you saw wasn't real. But why would you expect them to go back? In every playthrough I've watched, nobody went for the gas mask except for like, 2 people. Why does the locker suddenly slightly open? In games like these, everything needs a narrative explanation (it's what the games rely on for you to enjoy them), or else people are going to point out very minuscule or very large plot holes (i.e. Heavy Rain). There's also the fact that Fliss can just say one nice thing to Conrad and then suddenly they're in love. Or if you turn on the power, Alex (or anyone else in the cabin) says the full legal name, SSN, IP address, DOB, and marital status of the ship to the military completely unprompted. Maybe I should've pointed out that there are only a couple of major "reverse-deus ex machinas" in this game, while the rest are pretty minor, but it's still annoying.
@@gr33nriver77 I have 100% completed this game on Steam. I have every achievement and collectible. I do not have a "lack of playthroughs." I have also done this for every Dark Pictures game. To assume I am "lying" is very bold. Unlike you, I actually like thinking about the media I just consumed, and I strive to see everything it has to offer. When you start to *think* about this game, it falls apart completely.
@@gr33nriver77 I have also just realized that you are the same person who got pissy at me for thinking Du'Met was two people. Which means you are stalking me. Anytime you reappear, I am simply going to ignore you now. I hope that suffices, because you and I have much better to be doing than this.
i found some of the facial animations real weird in these games (UD included) but the anthology was rather naff, i also didn't like any of the modern cast in the anthology
Yeah, Dark Pictures had a pretty rough start... IMO, House of Ashes is when it really started getting good. Haven't played The Devil in Me, saw a playthrough Little Hope and thought it SUCKED, and Man of Medan is...meh, in my eyes.
if@@RatatTalks has 1 million meaningless and off-topic comments, i am one of them, if @RatatTalks has 1 meaningless and off-topic comment, I wrote it, if @RatatTalks has no meaningless and off-topic comments I am no longer on this Earth
Y'know, when Man of Medan first came out, for god knows what reason I actually thought it was better than Until Dawn purely because of how much your choices really mattered in this game and how much the game could change because of it. Since then I have come to realise though that having a game with 3 or so potentially 'meh' stories like Man of Medan is not preferable to having 1 'good' story like Until Dawn. Sure, there's an aspect of Until Dawn that is a little disappointing once you realise just how little the choices actually affect things and how basically every let's play of it is pretty much the same until around the last third, but in hindsight, it's a lot better than Man of Medan's case which has a fairly uninteresting story even if there's so many branching paths (Though it still is neat just how different playthroughs of this game are, so from a spectators perspective it's still kind of nifty). I'm sure not helping matters was the fact that you can easily figure the twist out from the prologue, and also the fact that the cast is just not that interesting or entertaining aside from Conrad. It's also worth noting that Man of Man actually had a climax that was cut from the game. IIRC it had the player rapidly swapping between characters in a single room as they all confronted their main "hallucinations" (Glamor Girl, The two headed thing, the Alex doppelganger and Fliss' Grim Reaper hallucination). I think if the game had this type of climax, along with maybe Olson learning what the manchurian gold actually was, it might have been a little more of a satisfying end to the game than the underwhelming possible climaxes in the actual game. And the on-screen text at 19:20 is just strawmanning at this point. Genuinely such bad faith to assume that people would throw an anti-woke fit at you talking about a completely different and unrelated type of diversity. Like, c'mon man, this is a great video otherwise. You don't have to out of nowhere talk down to the viewer like that.
Yeah I agree, the game is a bunch of average stories and not one coherent one, it doesn’t strike the balance that the prior entry did. That original climax sounds awesome, Olson is already shown to rule and control through fear, so him mantling it would be amazing to see. The cutscene where his second eye opens and he has the two glowing red eyes would be an amazing final form for him, with him basically giving everyone bad trips. The joke is that it’s obvious strawmanning, I’m not trying to make an actual statement there, however, I do have people legitimately call me r*tarded and telling me to off myself at least once every two days for using terms like ‘cisgender’ or ‘colonialism’ entirely within context of analysis, so whilst its bad faith these people do exist, and whilst I don’t care to interact with it that much because I appreciate it’s a small minority of my viewership I do think it’s fair to poke fun at people who are so deep into the brainrot that words throw them into tizzys no matter what context they’re used in. I don’t assume my viewers to be stupid, and I don’t want to talk down to them, I want to make fun of a very small subsection of people who I legitimately believe are incapable of interfacing with this kind of analysis due to terminal anti-woke brainworms. The way I see it I have no obligation to engage in good faith discussion with people who won’t engage in it with me, because then I’m just talking to a wall. The objective isn’t to have a serious discussion, it’s to make a joke.
This game is not good. What's below, vanilla? It's that. Only play it if you've played all other Dark Pictures games, and you need to get a fix. Then it is okay. Also, folks need to stop bad mouthing Little Hope. It's grossly underappreciated. Thanks for letting me get that out. You are sweet. Cheers.
For me in all honesty Out of everyone who could have the generic zombie soldier or ghost hallucinations I feel like Fliss fits those kinds of hallucinations because of how superstitious she is and how she always says to the other characters to be respectful of a person's resting place
Dark Pictures Anthology has the annoying habit of starting with interesting historical characters before switching to boring modern ones.
I’m sure that’ll become a theme as we discuss all of them
@RatatTalks Can't wait🫠 Seriously though I've really been enjoying the videos so far
@@RatatTalkspersonally I think House of Ashes avoids this by having the fucking goat Salim.
@@crimsoneclipse0618 Salim is bae❤
It doesn't help that the modern characters are often written as the most obnoxious teen stereotypes with dialogue screaming "How do you do, fellow kids?". It worked in Until Dawn because it was self-aware and subverted most tropes over time, but in Man of Medan I was ready to let most of the cast die halfway through the demo.
It’s so good to finally find someone covering all supermassive games, I never bothered to check the whole anthology because of how bad man of medan was and nowadays there are so many “video essays” out there that only summarize the plot instead of analyzing it. Such a good video!
"Video essays" are the worst kind of videos ever.
@@voiceunderthecovers This video is literally a video essay. Jacob Geller's entire catalogue is video essays. Not to mention the hundreds of high quality essays you can find about any number of topics. Are you sure you can't think of *any* type of video that might be worse?
@@voiceunderthecoverswho asked💀
Video was good until voiceunderthecovers commented
@@RatatTalksbased reply
Brad being the sailor girl COULD have worked if Conrad was able to choose between flirting with him or Fliss. Conrad seems like a player who can use his charm to get any person he wants, in contrast to his sister whos in a stable relationship with plans to settle down. Imagine Julia calling him out for pursuing Brad because thats her fiances brother and Conrad is like "Free game is free game"
If they didn't want to go the "bisexual life" route with Conrad, then they just shouldn't have had ANYONE take the place if Fliss died previously. Would've solved the issue and nothing says the hallucinations HAVE to be someone.
I do agree, though, that it would've been much better if Conrad had instead have been flirting with Brad in the story. Then, if both Brad and Fliss were both alive at that point, the game could've chosen which character showed up depending on which the player flirted with more.
It also would've helped characterize Julia more too, adding that strict contrast between them. With her wanting to settle down in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship while Conrad is out here trying to live his best polyamorous, bisexual life. The two could've easily had harsh conflict about that throughout the game. Julia calling out his habits because he's scared of growing old and Conrad calling out her judgements because she can't see past her rose-colored glasses to realize that she is scared of what the man she wants to marry could end up being (As shown by her seeing Alex's face over Olson's).
Could've also assisted with the characterization of Brad and Fliss as well. Showing how those two react with being flirted with by the same individual so brazenly. With Brad being the more "conservative" of the two while Fliss is more nonchalant and casual about it.
Really... Making Conrad be bisexual and giving the option to flirt with Brad just all around fixes many issues with the game's story lol
This would fix a lot and also add way more fun interactions, W suggestion
Not every game needs gay representation
@@ALongAndLowTide perhaps not, but you can't deny it would work here
@@ALongAndLowTide And not every game needs a Heterosexual representation. But here we are, in Man of Madan we have six.
a little trivia about the game which is also neat: The south pacific is so poorly monitored and remote that it's also a "shadowlands" or "the shadowland". Anything from piracy to drug trafficking, enslavement and so on does happen there. The idea of running into pirates or bioweapons isn't too far fetched even.
I was thinking ‘how come nobody else has found this ship’ for a while before I realised that the Pacific Ocean is so insanely massive (and the military know where it is and are shown to kill people who find it).
Olson doesnt have one eye because he's half blind, it's simply because he's a pirate. He's just missing his eyepatch
Ooh yeah of course!
I cannot wait for a House of Ashes essay, it's by far my favorite of the DPA and I think it's the best one, too. Shout out Jason and Salim, best characters.
Me too, I was afraid it was going to end up lacking, like the other two, but it was actually incredible??? I loved everything about it
Jason and Salim HYPE!
I love seeing cited sources start popping up in videos like this, getting deep in the weeds on background is so much fun honestly. Also, I sat down at my desk with my morning coffee and saw that you'd posted this, perfect timing to start the day!
I like to cite things because I appreciate others probably enjoy going down rabbitholes as much as I do
yess!! I was so excited for this, I love your video essays!! Also Supermassive Games always has this off and on tendency to come up with such an interesting concepts yet always leaves them half-baked, like just based on the basic information we are given on these characters from the start, we should be seeing their anxieties and insecurities through their hallucinations (like Conrad’s sailor girl) like possibly Brad’s insecurity of feeling out of place or nothing like his brother (who’s this incredibly manly and confident guy) or Julia’s anxieties of marriage (especially when thinking about how similar Olson and Alex really are) and even for Fliss as a woman in such a position and the possible imposter syndrome she feels from men questioning her abilities (like Conrad) there’s a lot more complexity all these characters deserved to have and it’s disappointing to know that they didn’t!!
Thankyou!
Cannot wait for both little hope and HOA!!
They're my top 2 from the dark pictures anthology so same!!
hey dude commenting for engagement and also to say
a) in terms of essay structure i think some signposting would be good, jumping straight from recap to criticising hallucinations was abrupt & could have been avoided by a general 'yeah so lets look at x, y, then how that results in z' to move from case study to discussion,
b) putting gameplay in the background while you talk would make it more interesting to look at,
c) surely get a cursed rat avatar, and
d) if you're worried about typecasting your channel & views into just 'dark pictures' videos, there's definitely a market for good video essays looking at nostalgic horror media, especially stuff that was big on youtube in the 2010s and now has a massive audience that still thinks fondly of it but who haven't seen media on it in yoinks. i look forward to the next video!
Appreciate all the feedback it’s always nice to get, with regards to point C I’ll definitely look into it
I don't often leave comments, but I really appreciate how much effort you put into those videos. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the rest of the anthology!
I appreciate that!
i just discovered your channel at 4k subs and was flabbergasted to see how underrated you are. Keep up the good work I look forward to your videos. I enjoy that you summarize and interpret the content rather than only summarize it. W mans
Thanks, yeah I don’t much care for ‘video essays’ that are just plot summaries, fair play to people who make them and enjoy them, just not what I want to do
i’m so excited for you to get to hoa omg i’m enjoying your breakdowns
House of Ashes is my favorite one so far!
HoA is the good one if memory serves so I’m excited to replay it
@@RatatTalks yes it is my favorite!!
@RatatTalks oh it DEFINITELY is! I went full completionist on it for all the achievements and my daughter walked out on me playing when I had to kill if Salim. She was all "I can't watch this, my Boi Salim" lol
My hubby is getting his own copy so we can play it together and be total d¡cks to each other for Halloween 😆
I was initially very interested in Man of Medan because the story of the Ourang Medan is such a fascinating story. That, and ghost ships have always been a particularly eerie subject for me, especially as they have occurred with famous cases like the Mary Celeste. Sadly, I also ended up unimpressed by this story as well.
To add at least a little more to the discussion, I'd honestly say that the story would've benefited from some form of supernatural presence. Not necessarily any antagonistic figure, but maybe some of the deceased crew could be observers or possible guides attempting to lead them out. It would've given the atmosphere of the ship much more mystery and potential narrative weight since the greatest threats to the protagonists would be themselves and the pirates. It could lead into the themes of the heart and mind betraying you, since what would frighten and disgust could in turn be their salvation instead. Not at all a perfect compromise, but it'd help if they didn't want to go back and make the hallucinations more tailored to the characters and just not let them die for a bit longer so the narrative team has less to juggle.
Man of Medan is one of the prime examples I can think of with a story that has a technically coherent narrative, but one where the answers are worse than the mystery. Making the ship a giant biohazard with a hallucinogenic that induces cardiac arrest is certainly terrifying in its own right, but as the twist itself with such nothing characters being subjected to that, it ends up feeling weightless. The exact feeling you absolutely don't want for a horror story.
I loved the concept of haunted ship but it did sour with it being merely a druggie dream boat. They did much better with House of Ashes.
Like you, I absolutely love the concept of a haunted ship. Was really hoping for more.
Woah didn't even see this video came out just yesterday... Your character examination and explanations are so attractive for some reason I could listen to you all day 😔
i binged your supermassive vids at work and i really enjoyed them, im leaving a comment to say that it's really surprising and refreshing to see a masculine sounding person reviewing games to mention romantic chemistry between same-sex characters, i genuinely love that and the fact it's just not something you put a lot of emphasis in. it may sound like a very weird thing to say, but ig I've watched too much videos that insert little harmless homophobic jokes that made me feel a little icky. thank you rat person!
i also really enjoy your in-depth character analysis from a psychological standpoint, I really loved your abi take about abuse victims n stuff in the quarry video and it's just. really refreshing. also, i really enjoy when you tell what you'd do differently and how you would've written said arc. it's easy to criticise something but it's way more difficult to offer something in return, so to speak
I think Man of Medan and The Devil in Me are good parallels as they both start with interesting historical prologues that evolve into much less realised modern day stories with half-baked casts. In general, I'm a pretty big defender of Supermassive's approach to horror gaming but these two were almost hard to get through. It's pretty interesting that they're also the first and last installments of the first season the DPA since it kinda feels like Man of Medan existed to get the ball going, whereas The Devil in Me was their attempt at going out with a bang (via involving a big name like H.H. Holmes). These two seem to really suffer from a lack of clear theming/message compared to the exploration of grief and comradery in the second and third games. Going off of the comic, regret/guilt/insecurities should've been the theme for this game but they kept going slightly off the mark every chance they got to commit to it. Looking forward to your future analyses!
Nice! Exited to watch this. Really looking forward to a House of Ashes video, too. Talking about IP licenses, the end of that game made me wish Supermassive would've gotten an ALIEN license. I think that would have been a match in heaven.
OG alien as a supermassive game would be awesome, it’s already got the cast and the iconic threat. Excited for HoA replay, I remember the scene where the soldier talks about shooting the woman who was only carrying groceries as being one of the best scenes in supermassive games
@@RatatTalks that's the one scene that elevated the game from good to really good. The actor playing Jason nails it. The game is not perfect, but you gotta give it to Supermassive: There are a lot of games that front load all their best content and stumble later on. HoA manages to consistently get better towards the finale (imo), a much rarer feat.
I don’t comment a lot, but man I love your breakdowns of these games!
Thanks!
I've been really enjoying your videos about these games! they are very well made. Can't wait for the house of ashes, it was my favourite
Spoilers but it’s my favourite too
I was just rewatching your video on The Quarry, so happy to see this pop up!
Thanks for checking it out
I think you summarized the issues with the game pretty well. For me personally, I just never like any of these games because it feels like the writers are too scared to really dig into the characters. Because they're so underdeveloped, none of their pain really has much of an impact on me. Great video!
Honestly I don't hate the fact that Man of Medan is a "It was all a dream" trope story (And I don't even consider it a proper version of that trope since the threat is still real in some way and the player is very much aware of the hallucinations.)
Unless the anthology was marketed as being all supernatural or all of them having the same type of horror I really love the idea of going from a bio-weapon to witchraft to alien parasites and finally to a good old serial killer/Saw type story.
Of course it could have been done better but that isn't really a fault of the setting.
I have no real issue with ‘it was all a dream’ stories with purpose (fight club, blade runner 2049, im thinking of ending things, silent hill 2, the wizard of oz, the list is endless really), my issue with this title is how nondistinct all of it is, it suffers from a crisis of identity where it can’t be fully scientific or fully supernatural so lingers in the middle ground.
Just here to say, I stumbled upon your videos a few days ago. I absolutely love how thorough you are, and your content is enjoyable and fun. Please continue making content 🙏🏻💜
Enjoying the Supermassive videos a ton!! Brief The Walking Dead game mention though makes me really inclined to see a video from you covering it ! Keep up the great work :)
I'd happily make a several hour long video about how much I like Kenny
Incredibly random but there’s a great podcast called Decoding The Unknown that looks at a bunch of things throughout history that are less based on fact and more speculation/theories.
They have a good episode on the Ourang Medan.
I’ll check it out!
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I agree with a lot of this and would like to add something for the Glamour Girl chapter (game-mechanic wise). You briefly mentioned this, but playing Man of Medan on shared story mode is the key to enjoying this game to the max IMO.
Just to describe what things I have in mind: In the mentioned chapter, both parties (Fliss/Brad and Conrad) are being controlled by the players, Now imagine that you and your partner in crime are muted when your characters are apart and talk when they are together (to share news and information), and get into Glamour Girl. One plays as fleeing Conrad (and even though we already thought it's hallucinations, I totally forgot that might be the case), the other player controlls Fliss/Brad who tries to calm Conrad down. But since you don't know you are in the same scene, a lot of chaos arises. It's the perfect example to play any DPA on shared story mode for the first run. From this perspective, having Brad chase Conrad makes story sense, as they are aquitances and he is trying to calm him down. Conrad can hallucinate Sailor Girl on anyone, as he has just seen her on a poster and is a notoriously horny person.
Thanks to shared story mode, Man of Medan is ranked first on my list. It was a truly wonderful experience. Then again, my list is completely different from the internet and that just might be the difference with playing solo/couch vs shared story mode.
My friend and DPA partner in crime @CtrlAltNoob made a short summary of the first Dark Pictures Anthology series on her blog. If anyone would be interested to take a look, you can find it here: ctrlaltnoob.com/2024/08/16/the-dark-pictures-anthology-season-1-shared-story-mode-ranked/
Thanks for the link and discussion, this is a really unique perspective.
Shared story mode is a whole different ballgame and offers more well rounded experiences, I do agree, and I find your ranking interesting as I agree with it in the parameters stated. The reason people like House of Ashes is that it's a brilliant character study, it holds up the best singleplayer and has the most gutpunch moments, but in terms of multiplayer I'd need to revisit it. Little Hope is similar, it's really a very linear singleplayer story, it only really has one character.
Man of Medan does have some great moments in co-op, allowing you to see things like Charlies hallucinations at the start of the game and giving him some character, and making more sense of chapters like Glamour Girl. I agree with your ranking of it in terms of ranking the games as co-op adventure stories.
Bookmarking this link and might refer back to it when forming my own reviews on the latter entries in the series, as it offers a lot of insights I hadn't considered as a primarily singleplayer guy. Thanks again for the comment.
@@RatatTalks Absolutely, I love to discuss topics when both parties are equally involved, even though they share different values. It's interesting how much a single variable can affect a very different outcome. Shared story mode has it's ups and downs, as my friend described in her post. But it is and probably always be my preference when it comes to playing a Dark Picture. For you, as a content creator, single player mode seems like an absolute necessity so you can absorb as much story as you can in a single run. Also you don't have to rely on your friend to relay found (mis)information. As two players, you can overthink found information more easily and make a bad decision with a higher probability.
You are right, that House of Ashes has very well written characters. One of them will be very hard to beat even with future installments. House of Ashes had a really strong intro, but the story overall didn't leave much impression on me. Sure, this might have been a result of killing Eric very very early on and losing a ton of content. I was fascinated by Little Hope, imo it has the most interesting story by far even though the ending negates most of it. When I thought about it from psychological perspective, it ended up making a lot of sense. Human mind is a brilliant instrument. The whole game just made you think so many crazy theories. It's actually second on my list unlike on my friends.
When it comes to The Devil in Me, shared story mode was an absolute beast once again. I'll give an example without spoilers. As a certain character, I found a dark picture premotion showing my character's death, which I interpreted right, but acted on it the other way round because the prompt confused me and I was about to die. My friend went through her part so quickly and efficiently that she managed to trigger a "saving" cutscene just a few seconds before I should have died in mine. Saving me in the process. Or another time, the game plays mindtricks on you "Sailor Gir' style.
Keep these bangers coming, homie.
After until dawn I’ve been disappointed by almost everything put out by this company but it’s fun to listen to you talk about it. So at least there is that
Something that kinda annoys me about the Dark Pictures Anthology is that both Man of Medan and Little Hope set the precedent of "supernatural occurrence that isn't actually supernatural and is more psychological in nature." And you start out thinking that that'll be the vibe for the rest of the anthology, but then House of Ashes just goes "yeah... The Aliens are real tho". And then Devil in me doesn't go with either of those premises and just does a cute little "who knows if that's a supernatural or not. Not us, teehee". It's inconsistent.
Devil in me spending half the game being Saw and then giving up halfway through when all the traps don't work and becoming Friday the 13th is extremely funny
@@gr33nriver77 as a highly probable lifeform that exists somewhere in outer space? Yeah, I see your point. However, not as a hyper-intelligent immortal species that had already made contact with ancient civilizations and has a remote base in the ruins underneath Earth’s soil. That is based off of several conspiracy theories, as well as horror tropes, and I wouldn’t say that that counts as “grounded in reality”
@@gr33nriver77 I don’t remember much of the game, but I also don’t really think that changes much in terms of what my original comment said?
Just jumped off your until dawn video. So excited for this one.
YES KING 👏 So excited to see this on my feed!
🫡
Something that ALWAYS pissed me off that I've never seen a single lets player notice is how smug that guy is while throwing money into the ocean for the purates. Like, he had no reason to be such a dick, AND he looks like a smug douche while doing it. AND NO ONE SEEMS TO NOTICE. It drives me crazy!
so excited to hear your thoughts about house of ashes
Hey Ratat, really like your stuff.
If and when you decide to get a new microphone, I'd recommend a shure SM58. It is a workhorse dynamic microphone built and used in live performances. This means very low self noise and will work well in untreated environments. You can get very cheap second hand. Run it through any audio box into your computer and you'd be sorted.
Thanks so much for this comment, my audio mixing has always been the thing I'm least happy with and one of the most common issues people raise with my essays.
As I approach 10k I'm for sure in the market for an actual microphone. I'll definitely look into it!
@@RatatTalks At the same time, don't stress about it. Regardless people will watch your content as it is good. Some free recording software like audacity or garageband will do the trick
W music choices (the one piece theme during the plot summary was hilarious when i realized what it was)
I literally just played it myself and I thought it was fine, I went in with minimal expectations (also didn’t know the ship and all of that was based on a real thing so the aspect of “how does this game spin that” wasn’t a factor) and was just looking for a good time. I pretty much agreed with mostly everything you said, I wish the characters and narrative are better, the personified hallucinations would definitely have been the better way to go instead of generic zombie guys with the twist in mind, and it’s even weirder cause I don’t think Conrad is the only one, I think the implication with the prologue guy is the kid that jump scares him is supposed to be a hallucination of his son which you see a picture of when he wakes up in the medical bay, so clearly they had some ideas for personified hallucinations outside of Conrad. Speaking of the twist though, I’m kind of curious if Supermassive were trying to trick players of Until Dawn specifically (for reference I’ve only played UD and none of the other stuff tho I do own them and will probably continue playing later) by doing a reverse twist. In Until Dawn the twist is you think it’s more or less a killer/human threat but later on you realize there’s genuine supernatural shit going on, but in Man of Medan it’s the reverse, it makes you think it’s all supernatural at the start but you realize it has a logical nonsupernatural reason behind it. Just a thought I had playing it. One last thing, I will admit I didn’t really pick up on the Alex and Olsen parallels until you pointed them out cause in my playthrough they barely interacted at all (I didn’t even know him and Junior were supposed to be brothers) and in my first playthrough only Conrad died and it ended with Brad fighting Olsen, the only thematic thing I could get out of that is “he hasn’t done anything in the game so far and in this he gets to save the day” which isn’t that great, but on when I redid the bit Conrad died in, it became the everyone lives ending with Conrad fighting Olsen and I felt that was the best thematic conclusion as in Conrad started everything but is also the guy to fix it and I feel like it’s the nicer ending to his arc (tho he didn’t get with Fliss at all so there’s that). My general thoughts are I thought it was fine but definitely could’ve been better, I’m interested to play Little Hope and House of Ashes from what you said about them (tho I’m interested how Little Hope also does the “all in le head” thing), though I might play Devil in Me first cause how hard you bashed that which gives me the vibe to get that done with then leave the good stuff after that. Also play the Quarry eventually too
House of Ashes is awesome, Little Hope is alright, I've got a video on it right now. Devil in Me and Man of Medan are pretty similar in how they have a lot of ideas in play but they don't really take full advantage of them (like how little is done with the Olson/Alex parallels).
The point about the twist is interesting, and that might have been true, but Supermassive just absolutely love a twist ending, I think basically all of their games have one save for The Quarry.
(Spoilers for Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box/Pandora's Box) One of the few games I believe that was able to pull off the "It was all a hallucination" trope in a satisfying way is PL and DB/PB. A very different game in genre and gameplay mechanics, but I always recommend anyone to give that game a chance if you haven't already ☺️
By the way, I wonder when the next Dark Pictures game is coming? 🤔 I believe it is called Directive 8020, and it's going to be set on a space station, so it'll be interesting to see what diection they take (and what the inevitable comparisons to Alien will be). I would have thought it would be releasing at the end of this year, but Supermassive have gone quiet about it. It would be great to hear your thoughts about that too. Looking forward to the next one! 👍
Oh I’m so excited for this video!
I hope it delivers
@@RatatTalks I loved it! I do agree with your analysis of the game and I’m glad you went over Connor’s section
I think one thing that was actually well done in Man of Medan, from what I've seen recently at least, never played it myself, is that the hallucinations worked well if you played with a friend. Or they could work well at least.
And I think that was the point. That was the idea behind the game, play it with someone and you don't know if it's not your friend you're actually seeing, but instead of just being a forgettable protagonist, it's your friend's protagonist, and you killed them, oh no, drama. It's fun !
You said the Manchurian Gold is a plot device, but I actually think it's more a gameplay device. For multiplayer.
And for me, all that makes the game slightly above the average of Supermassive Games. Which isn't that hight either, but still.
Why does it seem Supermassive is afraid to make games not set in present-day? Both Man of Medan and Little Hope only have it for the prologue, but those two and the Quarry would have been more interesting if set in the past.
I’ve noticed this, most of their concepts make a lot more sense with a historical framing, be it WW2 for man of Medan or even just the 1980s for The Quarry
It's very odd. There's even a return-to-retro/set in old times trend right now in movies and games, so them not taking advantage of it is very weird.
Honestly, there are flaws to this story and game, but I think the one thing that really bugs me overall is most of the characters running around bare foot on a rusty old ship with many holes lined with jagged sharp edges. Someone should have gotten tetanus from this
OMG YES! This has also been my biggest gripe and it’s so petty but I can’t ignore it lol.
One thing that anybody that has ever been out to sea knows is when the engine is disabled the radio still works.
The Radio works idenpendently of the engine.
So they could have gone back to the their boat and called for help at any time.
Fliss says the boat will not run without the engine cap which ials true but radio should still work fine.
The whole BS with not being able to contact anyone had me screaming at the tv ffs the radio on your boat works fine go back and call the coast guard.
I didn’t know that but that’s hilarious
@@RatatTalks If you fail to send a message on the radio on the bridge and the engine cap is lost the ending is them just starving on the ship.
Me just thinking uhh Captain Fliss your radio on your boat still works dumbass :)
She has a fake license so maybe she’s just shite at her job
She uses the radio when the engine is off while Julia and Alex are diving.
That what makes it even more baffeling.
The whole we are isolated part just falls apart for me there and it was really hard to take the story seriously.
All the writers had to do was have the pirates smash the radio and plothole solved.
I am very excited for House of Ashes video, it is the only game in the anthology I think is good
I absolutely despised the all just a dream ending of Little Hope, because the setting to me was so interesting & having historical characters really intertwined into the modern narrative. Upon further watch-throughs of Man of Medan (I don't think I've ever actually played it myself unlike the others and not really bothered to) I actually didn't mind it, even though it was not very satisfying, and a spooky ship should be much more interesting, because in Little Hope most of your choices literally mean nothing in the end whereas they do in Man of Medan
The problem I had with the twist here is that it was something I called immediately and was sort of hoping they would not do as it seemed like the most obvious angle for them to take: Until Dawn is posed as a serial killer (man) story and even emphasizes that angle once the Wendigo are started to be revealed with the asylum (like they were just crazy people in a Hills Have Eyes way) before being revealed to be fully supernatural.
Since Man of Medan opened with supernatural events I instantly clocked they would do the opposite and even that the Manchurian Gold was a fear toxin sort of deal. It only made the game more pointless feeling because I was waiting to understand why they were doing it as none of the characters are like Josh - if a character like that was in the plot it might make some sense. My only hope was that they were doing a double fake out and I was crossing fingers for a scene where a character closes their eyes and goes "it's not real" only for the zombie like creatures to still be there.
I thought that music at 9:57 sounded kinda familiar. Took me some time to realise it was White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane and I absolutely didn’t expect to hear it here.
Most my videos feature classic rock or pop music piano covers because I don’t want to just use video game OSTs haha
god im having flashbacks to all those tiktoks that use the same music playing during the intro 😂
Oh god is it a TikTok song? I knew it from berserk haha
Lesss goo I checked yesterday to see if this came out yet lol
❤️❤️
i love your videos! i hope you'll cover the rest of supermassive games!
That’s the plan, I should have another video out in the next few days in fact
@@RatatTalks looking forward to it! i'm a big fan of the series (despite their downsides) and i think you're spot-on in your essays. i like overthinking and analyzing things, and these games allow to have different interpretations/ideas, so i really enjoy hearing other people's thoughts
Honestly what intrigued me about Man of Medan is that the title isn't just a random assortment of words that conveys nothing, but an actual proper noun.
Hah, I totally missed Conrad's ark. I thought he would show up earlier and was kinda pissed that I managed to save everyone except for him. And that I apparently missed the best narrative of all characters 😂😂😂
All these games (until dawn the quarry and this game) remind me of yet another game that I’ve seen bits and pieces of. From what I remember it’s about a film crew going to a house or a mansion of sorts (I forgot what made them get killed, whether it was a killer or some supernatural being)
Is it the devil in me? Because that’s the same anthology
@@RatatTalks yea that the one! Thanks for the reminder
man of medan was so forgettable i thought the series was gonna start with little hope since i completely forgot about MoM. what a nothing burger of a game. which is insane considering according to the wiki fandom, the game has 352 game ending variants.
Super forgettable. 352 endings but actually only about four that are distinct and aren't some variation of 'whoever's still alive fights the bad guy'.
Last week I searched for video essays on this game but didn't find much content. Thank you bunches 😊
You can also checkout Gaming Harry, tho he isn't as thorough.
Yeah as sara said gaming Harry has done the entire dark pictures anthology, it’s mostly story summary but he does give some takes on the plots and routes
Yeah the dark pictures anthology is such a mixed bag. The twist works okay-ish here, it absolutely doesn’t in Little Hope. House of Ashes has the best characters by apparent fluke. And Devil in Me, the one story that should have had a twist like the first two games, doesn’t and absolutely suffers for it.
Man of Medan could have been better if the hallucinations were character specific, and clearly Supermassive wanted to try that if they were hoping to make a Silent Hill game.
Im so excited for you to get to house of ashes lol
looked around and there are 13 works on ao3 of conrad and brad pairings :)
The good timeline
Looking forward for the next one. Men of Medan is just "meh" imho but Little Hope is simply offensive to the player intelligence (I like House of Ashes and the Devil in Me tho)
lol I found the heartbeat QTE the hardest mini game in the MoM (Man of Medan) though I admit I sometimes have bad reaction time when it comes to QTE’s due to wearing Glasses lol
Never played thes game just because I got told that it all boils down to “it was all a dream” thing, thanks for this essay! Can’t wait for the next 3, haha
the game*, damn I can’t type
So what will be your next review, Until Dawn Prequel game or Little Hope?
Little hope, I want to finish the anthology before moving on to more supplemental games, at some point I will have covered this studios entire roster hopefully
I think whenever during the dark pictures series they went the way of haha actually it was a gas leak instead of committing to the supernatural they… failed. None of them are great imo but the best one *to me* by far is House of Ashes because it did commit (also ashley tisdale)! Tbf to the game, I did not know about the historical background until just now so I suppose it could also be my own fault for hoping this installment specifically was supernatural.
Ive only played Devil In Me myself and that experience was awful ngl, excited to see if you’ll make a video on that one too :)
All of the supermassive dark pictures games are based on historical myths/well documented events!
Yeah, I feel as though being halfway between supernatural and gas leak was a weakness, they should’ve more heavily leaned into either
@RatatTalks oh for real?? Didn't know that. Well, in the sense that they're all based in the real world and reference large real events like the iraq war and witch trials, yes I did know but are they all based on more specific stuff than that?
Did look up the killer from Devil in Me when I played it.
Weirdly, now that I think about it, I don't actually remember the story of that installment very well considering I actually played that one.
I think the main problem is that they need good character arcs and development. Until Dawn had that, and all the other games they've made have limited (or none) at all.
The gas twist and other twists that make everything not real is also what pulls a red flag for me. Until Dawn had completely real skin walkers/wendigos.
The government cover up ending is one of the least satisfying endings of any game ive ever played
The hallucinations are honestly odd to me. Why is everyone having Resident Evil ass mutant like hallucinations. They should've just made it supernatural, frankly, if that sort of stuff was what they wanted to use. It doesn't really work for the "psychological horror" they want with the way the occurences are presented, frankly.
Yeah the dark pictures anthology is such a mixed bag. The twist works okay-ish here, it absolutely doesn’t in Little Hope. House of Ashes has the best characters by apparent fluke. And Devil in Me, the one story that should have had a twist like the first two games, doesn’t and absolutely suffers for it.
Me: “If you can make better stories why not put it front and center?”
Creators: “Whoa there gamer. Do you know what good stories lead to?”
Me: “increased sales?”
Creators: “Expectations.”
i think the best thing those game series gave us is probably the best storytelling multiplayer out there. The fact that i can play this story online with a friend and only 50% of the decissions are made by me makes such a good gameplay. I dont even see why my friend , besides their individual moral compass , does their decissions they do as i dont see their part of the story at all. This system also kinda taints the overall opinion of people trying to play it solo and get to see the entire story and have every choice in their hands. Sadly The Quarry kicked that system into the bin and made one of the worst multiplayer experiences of all time. In that game they decided the host to play the game exclusively and the other person just watches the game play out. in a 2 player game the host also wins all 50% decissions.( it was designed for girls to play it with their twitch chat, which is super super sad) So while i did enjoy the story and the idea of the quarry i hated it. I really hope they decide to follow their formula from the dark picture season 1 in the second season, with the wide array of different storys everyone will find something they enjoy.
I agree here, that's why I brought it up, and will continue to bring it up talking about the anthology. Too many reviews I've read played it only once and solo, so they missed a lot of context and fun gameplay segments, which I feel isn't the most fun you can have with the title.
I honestly feel like, however uninspired such a premise might seem, would be to have some sort of Saw setup. They don’t have to be trapped in a Saw-esque trap, but more so a tailor made situation for their character flaws/strengths. The devil in me kind of does this but not really (that game is kind of all over the place imo). This is obviously not ideal but Supermassive Games seem to always struggle with either budget, writing a narratively interesting villain/ending confrontation, and making all characters feel like actual characters. I believe they’d just be better off if they go for a full on schlocky, wacky, cliché story that is just fun rather than one with potential that disappoints and doesn’t really go anywhere. Schlocky and cliché horror can still be fun and scary.
I will _absolutely_ press all the favorable buttons so you can solicit scam artists… what a line 😂
please do house of ashes i want to hear your thoughts on it !
It’s on the list!
Out of all these types of games that I know off (until dawn the quarry this one and another one whose name I forgot so I won’t mention) this one’s the most confusing one to me. I haven’t played the game but even looking at playthroughs is confusing
The whole it was just a dream thing is exactly why I loved Until Dawn and strongly disliked both Man of Medan and Little Hope
I consumed a lot of children detective media when I was young where it's a pretty common trope of something creepy or supernatural happening and then the smart kiddos clear it all up and there were of course rational explanations for all of it, and in detective media that's what I want
But that makes it so much more stale and boring when it happens in horror. I loved Until Dawn bc I went into it thinking, this is probably all going to be explained away in the end. And most of the focus is on the psychopath killer plot in the beginning so I didn't even consider actual wendigo being a possibility
And then with Man of Medan and Little Hope exactly the opposite happened
I was intrigued by mystical happenings and wanted to know more about the lore behind it and the world building only for it to be explained away with the it wasn't real shit...
Some part might also go into the fact that I was like, 14 when Until Dawn came out, so I was easily impressed back then, and when Man of Medan came out I was a lot more critical, but watching this video essay sums up why I liked this game so much less than Until Dawn pretty well xD
This is one of my least favorite choices matter games ever. Like, I don't think there's anything about it that I enjoy. I guess Brad or Conrad sometimes says something funny? That's about it.
Like, the only thing that puts it above Heavy Rain is that it respects your time and is shorter. And plus the choices matter way more.
I could put some more constructive criticism here, but like, what do I have to say? The characters aren't interesting. The setting isn't all that intriguing. The antagonists could've been cool, but are underdeveloped. Again, this game having the most outcomes out of any Supermassive game is really its only saving grace.
But in spite of that, the choice and consequence system is the worst out of any Supermassive game. This game is full of reverse-deus ex machinas. Imagine if someone is playing on Shared Story and they're on, say, Matters of the Heart, the Curator's Cut player gets to the kitchen before the Theatrical player. That basically destroys the MacGuffin that you're looking for, even though there is no warning of that, and they could have never predicted it. It feels like divine intervention, but it's actually Satan intervening, not a benevolent god.
Yeah, this game actually suffers from having too much going on. It’s a bit of a paradox because they really push the ‘lots of choices’ thing here, but ultimately it makes the game worse because lots of the branches you can go down feel anticlimactic.
@@gr33nriver77 when I say "worst choices and consequences system," I am referring to the fact that most of the time the consequences of your actions make no sense. It's the best game for branching, but not for that.
@@gr33nriver77 "deliberately ignoring everything" no??? There is no way they could've foreseen the fact that opening a (seemingly) completely unrelated door would lead to the elevator falling and the distributor cap being destroyed.
Stakes are built on cause and effect ("cause and effect" literally being the MO of these games), but they're also built in *logical* cause and effect.
Take that time Brad can find the gas mask. Firstly, why would the player open a locker that they just saw had a skinned face in it? If they'd already figured out "nothing I'm seeing is real," then there you go, what you saw wasn't real. But why would you expect them to go back? In every playthrough I've watched, nobody went for the gas mask except for like, 2 people. Why does the locker suddenly slightly open? In games like these, everything needs a narrative explanation (it's what the games rely on for you to enjoy them), or else people are going to point out very minuscule or very large plot holes (i.e. Heavy Rain).
There's also the fact that Fliss can just say one nice thing to Conrad and then suddenly they're in love. Or if you turn on the power, Alex (or anyone else in the cabin) says the full legal name, SSN, IP address, DOB, and marital status of the ship to the military completely unprompted.
Maybe I should've pointed out that there are only a couple of major "reverse-deus ex machinas" in this game, while the rest are pretty minor, but it's still annoying.
@@gr33nriver77 I have 100% completed this game on Steam. I have every achievement and collectible. I do not have a "lack of playthroughs." I have also done this for every Dark Pictures game.
To assume I am "lying" is very bold. Unlike you, I actually like thinking about the media I just consumed, and I strive to see everything it has to offer. When you start to *think* about this game, it falls apart completely.
@@gr33nriver77 I have also just realized that you are the same person who got pissy at me for thinking Du'Met was two people. Which means you are stalking me. Anytime you reappear, I am simply going to ignore you now. I hope that suffices, because you and I have much better to be doing than this.
i found some of the facial animations real weird in these games (UD included) but the anthology was rather naff, i also didn't like any of the modern cast in the anthology
Yeah, Dark Pictures had a pretty rough start...
IMO, House of Ashes is when it really started getting good. Haven't played The Devil in Me, saw a playthrough Little Hope and thought it SUCKED, and Man of Medan is...meh, in my eyes.
Lol beyond the sea
cant believe they made a whole game to rip off a random hallucination i out in a game of starfinder smh (i stole it from a Markiplier video(
Thanks for the ttrpg lore drop friend of the channel Obamabiden
if@@RatatTalks has 1 million meaningless and off-topic comments, i am one of them, if @RatatTalks has 1 meaningless and off-topic comment, I wrote it, if @RatatTalks has no meaningless and off-topic comments I am no longer on this Earth
Y'know, when Man of Medan first came out, for god knows what reason I actually thought it was better than Until Dawn purely because of how much your choices really mattered in this game and how much the game could change because of it. Since then I have come to realise though that having a game with 3 or so potentially 'meh' stories like Man of Medan is not preferable to having 1 'good' story like Until Dawn. Sure, there's an aspect of Until Dawn that is a little disappointing once you realise just how little the choices actually affect things and how basically every let's play of it is pretty much the same until around the last third, but in hindsight, it's a lot better than Man of Medan's case which has a fairly uninteresting story even if there's so many branching paths (Though it still is neat just how different playthroughs of this game are, so from a spectators perspective it's still kind of nifty). I'm sure not helping matters was the fact that you can easily figure the twist out from the prologue, and also the fact that the cast is just not that interesting or entertaining aside from Conrad.
It's also worth noting that Man of Man actually had a climax that was cut from the game. IIRC it had the player rapidly swapping between characters in a single room as they all confronted their main "hallucinations" (Glamor Girl, The two headed thing, the Alex doppelganger and Fliss' Grim Reaper hallucination). I think if the game had this type of climax, along with maybe Olson learning what the manchurian gold actually was, it might have been a little more of a satisfying end to the game than the underwhelming possible climaxes in the actual game.
And the on-screen text at 19:20 is just strawmanning at this point. Genuinely such bad faith to assume that people would throw an anti-woke fit at you talking about a completely different and unrelated type of diversity. Like, c'mon man, this is a great video otherwise. You don't have to out of nowhere talk down to the viewer like that.
Yeah I agree, the game is a bunch of average stories and not one coherent one, it doesn’t strike the balance that the prior entry did. That original climax sounds awesome, Olson is already shown to rule and control through fear, so him mantling it would be amazing to see. The cutscene where his second eye opens and he has the two glowing red eyes would be an amazing final form for him, with him basically giving everyone bad trips.
The joke is that it’s obvious strawmanning, I’m not trying to make an actual statement there, however, I do have people legitimately call me r*tarded and telling me to off myself at least once every two days for using terms like ‘cisgender’ or ‘colonialism’ entirely within context of analysis, so whilst its bad faith these people do exist, and whilst I don’t care to interact with it that much because I appreciate it’s a small minority of my viewership I do think it’s fair to poke fun at people who are so deep into the brainrot that words throw them into tizzys no matter what context they’re used in. I don’t assume my viewers to be stupid, and I don’t want to talk down to them, I want to make fun of a very small subsection of people who I legitimately believe are incapable of interfacing with this kind of analysis due to terminal anti-woke brainworms. The way I see it I have no obligation to engage in good faith discussion with people who won’t engage in it with me, because then I’m just talking to a wall. The objective isn’t to have a serious discussion, it’s to make a joke.
This game is not good. What's below, vanilla? It's that. Only play it if you've played all other Dark Pictures games, and you need to get a fix. Then it is okay.
Also, folks need to stop bad mouthing Little Hope. It's grossly underappreciated.
Thanks for letting me get that out. You are sweet. Cheers.
For me in all honesty
Out of everyone who could have the generic zombie soldier or ghost hallucinations
I feel like Fliss fits those kinds of hallucinations because of how superstitious she is and how she always says to the other characters to be respectful of a person's resting place