I am still incredibly fascinated by this game. The way people talk about it online makes it super intriguing, despite all the complaining some people seem to absolutely love it. I haven't played it for myself yet, but I plan too now that 1.5 was released.
I LOVE GENUINE YIIK REVIEWS THAT AREN'T JUST RIDING THE HATE TRAIN fr it's such a fascinating game i fell in love with it years ago instantly, flaws and all.
I think what is most cool about Alex as a character is how he "improves" himself, if you look at the narrative, at the start of the game he is an annoying piece of shit that your supposed to hate, at the end of the game he is still that same piece of shit, He never really improves the entire game, he begrudgingly "realizes" his flaws, but never really acts to change apon them, which I find to a really interesting character arc, so many characters in fiction are about their changes, an asshole gets redeemed, but alex is too weak too pathetic to really improve apon himself, always inventing and twisting the words to make himself seem less wrong then he actualy is, and its pretty realistic to most people like alex in real life, people like alex never really will improve, They never really get character arcs, they always regress, and thats the genius of alex. when you realize this, what kind of character alex is, you can see the flaws in him, and hopefully improve apon yourself... kinda like proto Michael in a way
I watched the video, great quality. Just afterwards I saw the amount of subscribers you had and the amount of views this video had. You can make it far man, great quality stuff
Great review, I think you hit the nail on the head with basically everything, but something to note Post-Modern Storytelling, YIIK is a perfect example of what a Post Modern Story actually is. It has: Historical/Political Events (Elisa Lam's death, The Police focus on the Black Characters in battle, YIIK was the fear that computers would fail to work on January 1st, 2000 due to the change in the number, etc). Self-Reflexivity (Which means it references other works the author has made, in this case, Two Brothers in featured heavily in the ending) Metafiction (Which literally means, about Fiction, It's when the game acknowledges that, yes, this is a game and not a real thing, happens most prominently during the start of the game with all the tutorials and the end with the Two Brothers reference) Intertextuality (The Meaning of the text is changed by the context in which it is perceived, YIIK does this masterfully by using...) Unreliable Narration (The Characters Lie to the player. Commonly, in works of fiction with modern story telling, lies are revealed in some dramatic moment, in Post modern story telling, lies may never be commented on, and its up to the reader to figure out what is and isn't a lie based on clues the story provide. Every Major Character in YIIK is defined by their lies, Alex sees himself as more important and heroic then he actually is, Micheal is literally defined, in universe, as being someone who will backstab Alex when Alex needs him most, Vella lies about her connection to Semi Pak, Sem is lying about how crazy she is, Rory is lying about that thing nobody cares about, Claudio and Chondra are lying about their motivations, Claudio actually just wants friends, and Chondra actually DOES want to find her brother, and that's why they respectively join the crew. The Essentia is... a whole basket, it would take a full deep dive to really goe into what her story is, but to keep it simple, Essentia is not a soul of Vella/Semi, but is a Soul of Alex.) The 1.25 Update, specifically the elements of the characters, is very interesting in a meta-fictional way as well, it's based on the five elements of Feng Shui, and you can see that Alex is weak to both Micheal and Vella, the characters who treat him the worst, while he's strong to Rory and Claudio, the characters he takes advantage of, with Micheal and Rory being stronger of the four connections, both in element and character. This holds true for every character, Micheal treats Rory pretty badly as well, if you pay attention, what usually sparks an explosion from Alex against Rory is Micheal instigating and being an ass, then turning around and pretending to care as he scolds Alex, knowing it will set Alex off further. Vella gives NO SHITS for either Alex or Micheal, and leads them on when she's not talking down to them, but she babies Rory and Claudio at every opportunity. Rory is constantly being jerked around by Alex and Micheal, and in turn, he hides behind Vella and tries to avoid Claudio because Claudio's obsession with anime irks him. Claudio is weak to Alex, who shares a soul with his brother, his "Big Weakness" in story, and Rory, who he thinks is a kindred soul, while he's strong against Vella and Micheal, the two characters who treat Alex the worst, like a big brother would be, and in story, his presence in the party is what gets those two to stop jerking Alex around so much. Interesting to note, Semi and Essentia have the same elements as those they share the soul with, which makes sense considering Souls are like Archetypes in a play, they can have different actors, but they're still essentially the same character. Chondra is the most interesting though, as her Wild Card status makes perfect sense. She shares a soul with Micheal, but HER Alex was her brother Aaron, but Aaron was pulled from the 'story' before Chondra had her chance to betray him, leaving her a character without a purpose, a literal wildcard. She's antagonistic towards Alex because as a Micheal, it is her predisposition to do so, but this Alex is not HER Alex, so it ends up being... warped a bit. I do love the story of YIIK, as evidenced by that dive into character relations can attest, it is incredibly interesting if you really dive down past the surface and make the effort to really understand it on a Post Modern level... but not everyone enjoys that sort of storytelling, and yeah, the gameplay is pretty bad. I'll leave this off on a fun fact, the reason Alex's LP toss was so busted in the original release was because the game forgot the clear the Mini game's internal score counter after every use, so it would stack higher and higher with every usage of LP Toss, quickly making it capable of one shotting anything in the game.
So, I can't post links to outside of UA-cam in the description with such a new channel, so I gotta post it here in the comments. Sorry, UA-cam is making me a liar :( YIIN Defense Of YIIK: A Postmodern Review; ABSOLUTE TRUTH steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1825593111
Hellkrai comment! omg, I didn't think you'd watch this. I originally planned to mention you and linguisticspaceship when I talked about the YIIKcord and the community, but the video was already waaay too long.
@@sstephreads I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but....you're not the main character. I am. You're just a sidekick..... You don't get a real story arc......
A helpful modern definition of JRPG that I like to use is “RPGs in the style created by and popularized in Japan” - this allows games like YiiK and Undertale to fit in the umbrella while excluding games like Dragon’s Dogma and Dark Souls Also, if you want to understand Post-Modernism it is going to be really difficult without understanding Modernism first, which is fortunately fairly straightforward and easy to grasp - both the basic concepts and why artists would eventually rebel against it. Extreme nutshell: Modernism was the 19th century idea that just as we were discovering fundamental concrete truths of the universe via science, there must also be objective rulesets for art, making art objectively good or bad - you just gotta follow the rules and go down the checklist. The idea was following these rules for science and art would only bring about progress and good for humanity. Then WWI happened and that science and art was used to kill millions in an impossibly brief time. And we started learning that our precious science rules actually had a lot of caveats and a century later we still aren’t any closer to a true unified theory of the universe. Nevertheless, to this day people try to insist that for some reason art must have unbreakable objective rules that even science won’t reflect, even though all art is is communication between flawed, beautiful humans. Post-Modernism refutes and openly challenges that idea.
I am still incredibly fascinated by this game. The way people talk about it online makes it super intriguing, despite all the complaining some people seem to absolutely love it. I haven't played it for myself yet, but I plan too now that 1.5 was released.
I LOVE GENUINE YIIK REVIEWS THAT AREN'T JUST RIDING THE HATE TRAIN
fr it's such a fascinating game i fell in love with it years ago instantly, flaws and all.
I think what is most cool about Alex as a character is how he "improves" himself, if you look at the narrative, at the start of the game he is an annoying piece of shit that your supposed to hate, at the end of the game he is still that same piece of shit, He never really improves the entire game, he begrudgingly "realizes" his flaws, but never really acts to change apon them, which I find to a really interesting character arc, so many characters in fiction are about their changes, an asshole gets redeemed, but alex is too weak too pathetic to really improve apon himself, always inventing and twisting the words to make himself seem less wrong then he actualy is, and its pretty realistic to most people like alex in real life, people like alex never really will improve, They never really get character arcs, they always regress, and thats the genius of alex. when you realize this, what kind of character alex is, you can see the flaws in him, and hopefully improve apon yourself... kinda like proto Michael in a way
Your voice is kinda relaxing.. hearing your casual yet genuinely insightful review was almost like ASMR to me..
This might actually be the nicest thing anyone has said to me, I'm actually blushing. Thank you so much
@@KingJoeberon You’re welcome, mate. Cheers
LETS GO YIIK LETS GO YIIK
This video is sick
I watched the video, great quality. Just afterwards I saw the amount of subscribers you had and the amount of views this video had. You can make it far man, great quality stuff
Thanks mate, here's hoping. Took me a while to make this, so I'm hoping I can streamline the process to make decent vids at a decent pace
I'M SO PROUD OF YOU OMG THIS IS SO WELL DONE
Awww, thank you
wooooow drunkard battle hate........
Well hey, at least it's memorable😂. I wasn't sure if the grunts were battle sounds or the song the first time I heard it, lol
Great review, I think you hit the nail on the head with basically everything, but something to note Post-Modern Storytelling, YIIK is a perfect example of what a Post Modern Story actually is.
It has:
Historical/Political Events (Elisa Lam's death, The Police focus on the Black Characters in battle, YIIK was the fear that computers would fail to work on January 1st, 2000 due to the change in the number, etc).
Self-Reflexivity (Which means it references other works the author has made, in this case, Two Brothers in featured heavily in the ending)
Metafiction (Which literally means, about Fiction, It's when the game acknowledges that, yes, this is a game and not a real thing, happens most prominently during the start of the game with all the tutorials and the end with the Two Brothers reference)
Intertextuality (The Meaning of the text is changed by the context in which it is perceived, YIIK does this masterfully by using...)
Unreliable Narration (The Characters Lie to the player. Commonly, in works of fiction with modern story telling, lies are revealed in some dramatic moment, in Post modern story telling, lies may never be commented on, and its up to the reader to figure out what is and isn't a lie based on clues the story provide. Every Major Character in YIIK is defined by their lies, Alex sees himself as more important and heroic then he actually is, Micheal is literally defined, in universe, as being someone who will backstab Alex when Alex needs him most, Vella lies about her connection to Semi Pak, Sem is lying about how crazy she is, Rory is lying about that thing nobody cares about, Claudio and Chondra are lying about their motivations, Claudio actually just wants friends, and Chondra actually DOES want to find her brother, and that's why they respectively join the crew. The Essentia is... a whole basket, it would take a full deep dive to really goe into what her story is, but to keep it simple, Essentia is not a soul of Vella/Semi, but is a Soul of Alex.)
The 1.25 Update, specifically the elements of the characters, is very interesting in a meta-fictional way as well, it's based on the five elements of Feng Shui, and you can see that Alex is weak to both Micheal and Vella, the characters who treat him the worst, while he's strong to Rory and Claudio, the characters he takes advantage of, with Micheal and Rory being stronger of the four connections, both in element and character. This holds true for every character, Micheal treats Rory pretty badly as well, if you pay attention, what usually sparks an explosion from Alex against Rory is Micheal instigating and being an ass, then turning around and pretending to care as he scolds Alex, knowing it will set Alex off further. Vella gives NO SHITS for either Alex or Micheal, and leads them on when she's not talking down to them, but she babies Rory and Claudio at every opportunity. Rory is constantly being jerked around by Alex and Micheal, and in turn, he hides behind Vella and tries to avoid Claudio because Claudio's obsession with anime irks him. Claudio is weak to Alex, who shares a soul with his brother, his "Big Weakness" in story, and Rory, who he thinks is a kindred soul, while he's strong against Vella and Micheal, the two characters who treat Alex the worst, like a big brother would be, and in story, his presence in the party is what gets those two to stop jerking Alex around so much. Interesting to note, Semi and Essentia have the same elements as those they share the soul with, which makes sense considering Souls are like Archetypes in a play, they can have different actors, but they're still essentially the same character.
Chondra is the most interesting though, as her Wild Card status makes perfect sense. She shares a soul with Micheal, but HER Alex was her brother Aaron, but Aaron was pulled from the 'story' before Chondra had her chance to betray him, leaving her a character without a purpose, a literal wildcard. She's antagonistic towards Alex because as a Micheal, it is her predisposition to do so, but this Alex is not HER Alex, so it ends up being... warped a bit.
I do love the story of YIIK, as evidenced by that dive into character relations can attest, it is incredibly interesting if you really dive down past the surface and make the effort to really understand it on a Post Modern level... but not everyone enjoys that sort of storytelling, and yeah, the gameplay is pretty bad.
I'll leave this off on a fun fact, the reason Alex's LP toss was so busted in the original release was because the game forgot the clear the Mini game's internal score counter after every use, so it would stack higher and higher with every usage of LP Toss, quickly making it capable of one shotting anything in the game.
rise up yiiksquad
A GOOD YIIK VIDEO!!!!!
I'm your 13th subscriber
So, I can't post links to outside of UA-cam in the description with such a new channel, so I gotta post it here in the comments. Sorry, UA-cam is making me a liar :(
YIIN Defense Of YIIK: A Postmodern Review; ABSOLUTE TRUTH
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1825593111
AND I CAN'T PIN IT YET EITHER!?!?
Hellkrai mention.
Hellkrai comment! omg, I didn't think you'd watch this. I originally planned to mention you and linguisticspaceship when I talked about the YIIKcord and the community, but the video was already waaay too long.
Oh my God. I am Alex. 😢
I didn't want to say it....
@@KingJoeberon When will I have my defining moment that promotes character growth 😭
@@sstephreads I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but....you're not the main character. I am. You're just a sidekick..... You don't get a real story arc......
@KingJoeberon that's fucking slander
Will you make a yiik I.V review?🥺👉👈
A helpful modern definition of JRPG that I like to use is “RPGs in the style created by and popularized in Japan” - this allows games like YiiK and Undertale to fit in the umbrella while excluding games like Dragon’s Dogma and Dark Souls
Also, if you want to understand Post-Modernism it is going to be really difficult without understanding Modernism first, which is fortunately fairly straightforward and easy to grasp - both the basic concepts and why artists would eventually rebel against it.
Extreme nutshell: Modernism was the 19th century idea that just as we were discovering fundamental concrete truths of the universe via science, there must also be objective rulesets for art, making art objectively good or bad - you just gotta follow the rules and go down the checklist. The idea was following these rules for science and art would only bring about progress and good for humanity. Then WWI happened and that science and art was used to kill millions in an impossibly brief time. And we started learning that our precious science rules actually had a lot of caveats and a century later we still aren’t any closer to a true unified theory of the universe. Nevertheless, to this day people try to insist that for some reason art must have unbreakable objective rules that even science won’t reflect, even though all art is is communication between flawed, beautiful humans. Post-Modernism refutes and openly challenges that idea.
Aaahh, I kinda get it. That;s way easier to understand than a dense wikipedia article
never heard of yiik, sounds cool, not ognna play it, but good video.
Good review. Yiik really is overhated, there are certainly worse games out there
more like "yuck: why does this game even exist"
no
no
no
yes
Piss off