A video essay about YIIK: A Postmodern RPG (Part 3 of 3)
Вставка
- Опубліковано 1 січ 2025
- Correction: I mention a couple times in this video that Alex is a self-insert to the point of which he was designed after the main developer of the game, Andrew Allanson. Apparently that's not 100% true. The image that I found was apparently of a fan of the game (not with Ackk Studios) who posed with promotional material for the fun of it, and these images are often misreported to be pictures of the developer. The actual Andrew Allanson looks very different from Alex, aside from maybe his hairstyle.
Part 1: • A video essay about YI...
Part 2: • A video essay about YI...
My website: shepherdarmory.me
Twitter: TheGamedawg
Discord: / discord
Twitch: twitch.tv/thegamedawg
Patreon: patreon.com/TheGamedawg
DeviantArt: thegamedawg.dev...
I adore this Essay but before I finish, I just want to point out that you got duped on the self-insert thing. That’s not Andrew Allanson; that’s a fan of the game who for fun posed to imitate the key art illustration when the game was still in development. People spread the picture around claiming it was Andrew, but if you look up group shots of AckkStudios, you can see clearly that none of them resemble Alex even remotely.
Oh wow. Whenever I looked up pictures of the dev team that was always one of the first ones to come up, so I just assumed he must have been Andrew. But now that I look up interviews and stuff the guy I find really doesn't look like him except for maybe the hair.
That is so odd how popular that image became that you need to dig that hard to find the actual guy. I'll add a correction to the description regarding this. Thanks for clearing things up.
@@TheGamedawg Here's what they actually look like ackkstudios.tumblr.com/post/103488512267/the-ackk-studios-team-jose-back-left-andrew-in
Don't take that to mean that Alex isn't a self-insert, as having a similar appearance is not required. In fact, it seems quite rare for a self-insert to actually resemble the author in terms of appearance, and usually it's the personality and mindset that identify a character as a self-insert.
@@TheGamedawg I found that out myself by accident. All I ever did is commented on how the cat looks 'majestic'.
But it does speak volumes to the character design for Alex.
I mean Alex is a self-insert, he just doesn't look at all like the developer
One other thing about the Elisa Lam thing: I professionally talk about tragedy and unsolved crime (I'm a ghost tour guide). One of the rules that industry generally follows is not to talk about recent tragedies. Imagine if someone's mother or sibling heard you talking about their loved one and discussing theories about their death. It can be considered pretty distasteful to talk about an unsolved crime from 2013 and imply soul-alien-things had to do with a crime when people the victim knew can see it.
I think one of the most disgusting things is that Elisa Lam is used as literally a love interest prop. There's no purpose for it to be her in the story and the game completely and singularly revolves around Alex making him the singular most important entity in this storyline while at the same time the writer tries to claim the opposite.
Makes me feel pretty disgusted. My previous career was criminology and I did a ton of victim statements and sat in on counselling... what the writers for Yiik does is, well, the name of this game describes how I feel about what he did. Retching from disgust.
@@ErgonomicChair The fact that all the other love interests were alternate versions of her in some way means that no matter which one Alex ends up with, it's still technically her. Combine that with the alternate ending, and it's like someone had a crush on her and made their weird rescue/love fantasy a game.
@@kashsmith6181 Yeaaaaah, right? It's... creepy as fuck and people benen pointing it out to the author for awhile.
"What the game is doing here is a really good idea but executed poorly"
The game in a nutshell
*idear
Wait, so when Panda takes damage for Alex’s friends, it’s actually Alex taking that damage. It’s a part of himself he keeps hidden that shows he really cares for his friends THEY COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING SO COOL WITH THIS GAME AAAAAAAARRRGH
THEY DIDN'T EVEN REMOVE PANDA BARRIER FROM ALEX'S SKILL LIST AFTER HE DISAPPEARS
The sad thing about Two Brothers is that even the negative reviews praised the story and concepts. They literally said, "If you fixed the bugs, the game would be great". I can't imagine why any indie developer WOULDN'T fix bugs in their games for any other reason than just pure laziness. ESPECIALLY if that's the only complaint.
Something you missed with the "claudio/chondra little brother missing thing" is that their little brother is actually another version of Alex. Which is what explains the missing posters with the image of the alternate Alex.
Also isn't it ironic how they left the unused final boss in the title screen, sorta taunting us like "Ha! You got a dumb final boss that got interrupted by a dev's rant, instead of me."
He briefly talk about in the part 1 video, but I guess he didn't connect the dots on that one.
Wait, so Alex from another timeline is the missing brother from the timeline he's currently residing in? Does this mean Claudio and Chandra are also from a different timeline and entered Alex's like Vella did? Or is this one of those things that really wasn't thought through? Or are there multiple Alex's in each timeline? Or is Alex totally oblivious to how those two are his half-siblings?
@@jordanloux3883 idk, the writing is all over the place in YIIK
@@jordanloux3883 I assumed that Claudio and Chondra had slipped into Alex's timeline somehow unknowingly, as the ability to do so usually requires some kind of intense loss, like them losing their brother. Alex doesn't experience a loss like this until the very end, so there's no way that he had slipped into their timeline. Their brother disappearing was because the Essentia from their universe took him to the soul space, and then they probably slipped to Alex's timeline shortly after, hence them not knowing about the end of the world.
37:08 "for some reason..." THEY LITERALLY WROTE HER SUFFERING WAS AN INFLUENCE FOR THE GAME...NOT THE MYSTERY OF HER CASE, BUT HER LITERAL SUFFERING...thats why the reddit comment was probably taken down
That Panda part was actually pretty cool, the toy being just a reflection of a narcissist who always has the answer to everything in his own stubborn way.
But when there's literally nothing left even *he* can't think of an answer for the situation, this has never happened to him and it causes him to question himself, thus breaking the safety of his little bubble and finally seeing things as they are. That's actually amazing.
"I can't think of a single time, off the top of my head, in another game where being a dick has the potential to remove a character from your party like this."
Well there's Dragon Age Origins, II and Inquisition, Mass Effect 3, Radiata Stories, most of the Fallout games, Divinity Original Sin 2, Greedfall, The Outer Worlds and a fair amount of other RPGs. Most of which handle it a lot better than YIIK does, or at least with a lot better writing. Maybe not specifically by killing themselves(except in the case of Mass Effect 3) but still
Alright but the entirety of Lisa is literally choices that could remove people from your party forever.
Also that scene at the end with Roy would've totally made sense if Roy didn't mention how he disappointed his fanbase or anything, or generally rant about Two Brothers having bad reception. Think about it, Two Brothers is a game that the main character puts above Secret of Mana. Secret of Mana! It coulda just been him encouraging himself by remembering his favorite things, or something along those lines.
I don't even mind him pointing out that he disappointed his "fans", because it is true. What bothers me is the "some people really tried to stop me from fufilling my quest", that sounds very agressive towards critics of their work.
So the suicide thing. YOu said it's handled well, but it's definitely obvious you never experienced it, as long story short, the game actually does not change anything if he dies. In fact, they fail so hard to that until the end of the meteor fight? All the dialogue is off because they forgot to account for Rory's dialogue not being there. And also he's just never mentioned again and the game basically goes along with only his dialogue missing and nothing else changed. And then he shows up to tell Alex how it's not his fault he didn't do anything when it explciitly WAS his fault.
Yea I did not like how the game treated suicide, it didn't do a good job to justify a bronze star of participation. I can see what angle Gamedawg is coming from but he clearly hasn't personally experienced having a friend commit suicide and you just sitting there with this massive whiplash to the soul.
Seriously, going through a death due to suicide is FUCKING ROUGH.
and from another yiik video a cutscene just ups and bugs out when he dies as it plays his audio.
yeah out of this whole video that bit bugged me. He clearly never experienced it and his opinion is dismissive of those who had problems with this arc due to HAVING experienced it. Very tactless.
To be fair, he said in previous vid that he didn't play that route himself, he only watched yt vid of the phonecall scene. So it's highly possible that he just don't know the follow-up cop-out since that
@@letsreadtextbook1687 That's why I said it was obvious he never watched any more than that. It's the best part of the whole thing but well, even that wasn't great but it was amazing compared to "oops we forgot to account for him being gone" which it turned out was easy as he only has one-liners for the rest of the game and is not involved in any conversation.
17:55 Yeah... about that.
The details that Rory mentions as fact (the lock, etc.) are ones that people in Andrew Allanson's online circle invented about Elisa Lam, while trying to out-edge each other. So, he seriously wrote a scene, being bitter that journalists didn't report on lies that he helped create.
Also if he wanted to avoid being called out for plagiarism, maybe he should learn about this magical thing usually around quotes called QUOTATION MARKS.
The "quoted" thing is in a character basically saying the thing word for word, not quoting an actual work
Panda was literally just the Gustau ghost thing from Ratatouille
Even if that picture isn't of the developer... Alex is still a total self-insert, and I have two big examples as to why.
Example 1: When you're fighting all of the different Alexes, one of them has a quote floating around them saying they need to finish chromophore (the dev's other game).
Example 2: Alex talks to the protagonist of Chromophore, who urges him to finish his adventure and not disappoint fans, as they failed to do. This is basically the character telling the creator not to fail delivering this game like he did the other.
Also the developer's other game, Two Brothers, gets referenced a lot (Alex name drops it when he and Micheal talks about the best rpgs and wears a shirt advertising it)
yeahhh i've talked with the developer/head writer before. he's not a self insert, he's a depiction of one of his first bullies.
I would disagree, the game makes it pretty explicit that Alex represents you, the player. That’s why the player is the “Alex” of their reality, it’s supposed to allow for self reflection.
@@unchpunchem8947 weird choice then, to have "you" telling yourself to finish a game the head writer was working on, and have the main character of their game telling you to finish their story and how they know what it's like to "disappoint your fanbase".
Look, I sat through that whole thing. It was kinda interesting at first, but when I saw those two instances, it became clear that this person wasn't really me. I know what was intended, but that's definitely not what came out. Not to me.
Maybe it was just the dev being self-indulgent and cheeky, but given their whining about how apparently "games can't be art" because no one liked their unlikeable character, the whole ending of the game just comes across as pretentious and self-pitying.
@@teaforthepoor I don't know how anyone would have gotten that if the dev didn't say anything.
I think the dev team really needs a couple more editors on board. Not writers, they need editors. If they just had some people telling them “oh, you should probably cut down this dialogue, oh you forgot this element existed what’s going on with it, oh maybe shift the conversation away from this” YIIK would be a lot less insufferable.
It’s not a bad thing to need editors, they exist for a reason, and are an essential cog in the machine.
Here's another protagonist who starts off unlikable but actually develops into a better person: *Neku Sakuraba.*
(The World Ends With You spoilers below)
In the first few days of the game's story (in the week where Shiki is his partner in the Reapers' Game), Neku is presented...as a distrusting jerk who prefers not to get too close with anybody. He makes a cold remark that makes Beat distance himself and Rhyme from him, he's tricked into trying to kill his partner, and - after Rhyme got erased by the Reapers' trap - he says that making friends will only hurt you. It was enough to make Shiki call him more inhuman than the Reapers.
But, her words - as well as the advice earlier from mentor figure Hanekoma - do have an effect on Neku. At least, a better effect than on Alex here. He and Shiki open up to each other and share their thoughts on some matters, even having small positive influences on each other's views. By the end of the week, Neku helps Shiki overcome her own inner demons and they clear the Game. Even when Shiki insists that she shouldn't be revived alone (yeah, the Game is about coming back to life), Neku tells her that she has a life to return to, and he still needs some answers about his own life. So, he ends up playing the Game again - but imagine his shock and guilt when he learns that his new entry fee is SHIKI.
...So for his second week, he's partnered with Joshua, a snide know-it-all who's revealed to have an antisocial streak of his own. Neku even reacts negatively to that kind of view - possibly knowing that he wasn't any different a week earlier. Joshua does show even more positive merits when Neku gets frustrated with watching other Players get erased, and admits that opening up is risky, but better than constraining "his world" to just himself. Neku is even visibly horrified when Joshua ends up sacrificing himself to save Neku from the Game Master's last-ditch attack.
...Cue the third week. Neku would be hurt by Joshua being erased for his sake, but he's also angered when Kitaniji, the Conductor, not only doesn't restore Shiki for winning the second Game (saying that the Game was null and void due to rule-breaking, and that she would be carried over to the next Game), but also takes ALL THE OTHER PLAYERS as Neku's new entry fee. Luckily, Beat comes to his rescue, defecting from the Reapers to be Neku's new partner. During this week, they're first searching Shibuya for the Game Master (who took Rhyme's Noise and is playing hide-and-seek with the two), so that they can focus on getting to Shibuya River to challenge the Composer (so Beat can take his place).
During this time, though, they see that the Red Skull pins that were spreading around Shibuya were starting to homogenize everybody's minds until they just stand around blankly and repeat a very creepy line about making the world a paradise. Neku is horrified by this change, because the people are no longer clashing and growing. This all reaches a head when Neku and Beat (and Shiki) finally confront Kitaniji, who was behind the Red Skull pin plot to create world peace by destroying all individuality. Neku and co. defeat Kitaniji...but Joshua shows up and tells Kitaniji that he lost. Then we learn that Kitaniji was partaking in another Game with the Composer - one where his goal is to fix Shibuya's initially toxic state, or Shibuya will be erased.
Joshua of course reveals that he himself is the Composer, who used Neku as a proxy to challenge Kitaniji's plot. Neku is understandably shocked - that Joshua used him in a Game that would risk destroying Shibuya, and that he personally killed Neku to bring him into the Game in the first place (and stole the memory of his death). So Joshua offers Neku a chance to save Shibuya himself, in the form of a gun duel. Even though Neku was angry at Joshua, and that shooting him would probably save Shibuya...he couldn't bring himself to shoot someone he became friends with.
Of course, Joshua wins the duel...but to Neku's surprise, he kept Shibuya intact while making only very minor changes to ensure that its people would continue to grow in a positive way. It's heavily implied that this was Joshua's true goal - to see if even someone as bad as Neku could change for the better. Neku's ending monologue even shows that while he can't quite forgive Joshua, he does trust him. And, as he promised earlier in the story, he and his new friends meet up in real life.
...So uh, yeah. Neku is just one example of how to do the "unlikable protagonist" angle better.
I honestly didn't think of him as unlikable, but that probably reflects more upon my disposition than the character's. This Alex character is ultimately more unlikable to me Because he has no growth or gain in awareness of his friends' life and feelings.
As someone who played devil's advocate for Two Brothers for the longest time, and still do to some degree, learning just today that YIIK came from the same guys feels like a slap in the face now, knowing that they are likely to never "fix" Two Brothers because they think no one liked it...
Seeing the reference to Two Brothers in YIIK and the implication that they have both let down everyone and yet feel some people are "preventing roy from completing his quest" just feels like a backhanded slap after holding out for so long for JUST a more stable version that didn't crash in obviously unintended ways.
Some of the "glitches" could even be argued to be part of Two Brothers' meta narrative and can be written off as features without much problem, given there are things that are intentional being just as bizarre at times. I know having your character suddenly start spawning infinite health upgrades everywhere they walked on a particular screens might seem broken, but it didn't feel like it was unintentional at times... or maybe it's just because the game uses glitchy visual effects frequently in story elements that I'm willing to overlook more game breaking glitches because I cannot tell if they are always intentional or not.
finally.... seeing that quote about how they no longer view games as art actually hurts me, as someone who would still defend what Two Brothers could have been, and not it's being used for now.... as an example of failure and audience backlash.
I recommend the game if you like the idea of a game self aware of it's visual style, as it really nails that old gameboy feel while doing something interesting with color. For example, doing a color puzzle colorblind because the colors in the main portion of the game, as we understand them, are all various shades of gray-green. Meanwhile actual color, as we see it normally, is seen as exotic and even unnatural.
If you are looking to do another video essay on a "earthbound-like" and are willing to bend the definition to extend to games outside the rpg genre, as I personally feel a game can "feel earthbound-y" without the turn based battle system or rpg mechanics, then give Two Brothers a look.
I feel Two Brothers deserves better than being a reference to their failure, I hope more people look at the game and get the devs to look at it again....at least fix the crashes...
if only the head dev actually listened to the criticism instead of just giving up or making assumptions, maybe Two Brothers could be saved
@@sarafontanini7051 I thought they did... I remember seeing a Two brothers dev blog, but nothing came from it.
and seeing what the devs think of their fanbase and of gamers in general now...
I don't think they could save two brothers nowadays without pulling another YIIK and adding crap like the "alex meets roy" scene...
The scene doesn't even make sense, it'd be like meeting Mario in a Metroid game only for him to monologue about how he let everyone down, and how some people are keeping him from "continuing his quest"... and you just...don't say anything? nothing from Mr. "ever played two brothers?" McHipster himself after monologuing most of the game?
It's like whoever made that scene didn't think about how alex would react to seeing a character he allegedly likes talking trash about himself... but I think we all know that the scene was basically the developer talking through roy...so why bother with the detail like that.
TLDR: I'm real sad about this... I wish it was yesterday when I didn't know YIIK was made by the same people who made Two Brothers...
"I overall had a positive time with the game"
Mmmm after like 15 hours of video and like 3 months of playing, friend, that might be the Stockholm syndrome talking :P
0:56:07 Throughout this entire Job Searching thing, if you press the Start Button on your Controller, you can see how much money you have. By that point, you probably have around $1,500 (or more or less, depending on how you spend in-game) just by simply exploring and defeating enemies. the entire game does not address this, at all.
Geez, isn't this like... *Ludonarrative dissonance* ?
Oh, and one more thing.
If you wonder why Essential's mind dungeon and the ending came to be, here's a Variety article that explains it. (Warning: you probably going to feel sad for them)
variety.com/2018/gaming/features/yiik-a-postmodern-rpg-development-1202982677/
Yeah, out of ALL the things Alex could have questioned, it actually woulda been kind of funny if he asked "Hang on, what's with the monsters and how am I getting money from them? Can I use it to pay off my debts?"
I remember hearing about Alisa before this game, her death was fetishised by massive cooperations. Guinness book of world records and Ripleys believe bit or not did it. I thought yiik was going to be different and I was wrong
"Who in their right mind makes a self-insert hateable on purpose?"
Someone with very low self esteem. Source: I did it myself when I was 16.
The PFP makes your comment all the much better. Stay strong Dog-Man.
I agree, stay strong Dog-Man.
Dog-man, I hope you're still strong.
Why didn't they keep that other ending? You know, the one that actually shows real character development?
Oh, right. It's because Andrew Allanson is an insane person.
and,yknow, has an actual final boss instead of an extended cutscene!
And becahse his mom died
1:13:29
Completely agree... the proto comet was stuck on 1 HP for the *entire battle,* as was the final boss (which, mind you, never used its “kill all party members” move on me. I don’t know why, but I just sat there dealing unholy amounts of damage and dodging nearly every attack, not even needing to heal. I reiterate, it never used the move that kills all party members. I ended up having to google this one, and then purposely took damage and even used feedback once or twice). Immersion really isn’t much of an option here :/
and god, so much GOOD cut content
Love how you’re using the unused final boss as a thumbnail when you talk about the loose ends
I've heard that the main criticism of the "Two Brothers" game was all the bugs that were never fixed in it. I've never played the game, but if what I've read is true then it makes the developer rant at the end EVEN WORSE than it already is.
We call it adulting because kids aren't expected to do it, and also because the education system does *literally nothing* to help prepare you for it. Or at least they didn't when I was in school, I've heard some extra curricular stuff starting up in some schools around here helps you learn things like interviewing, writing a resume, actually looking for a job, taxes, etc. but the fact it's extra curricular and not a requirement is pretty sad tbh.
The name of the bar Va11 Halla is also from a game with the same name. I think Yiik has an easter egg in that game too. The Onism theme is actually from that game too if I remember correctly.
It's the most poorly aged easter egg ever cause since the devs are good friends in it it's canon YIIK was so popular it got 4 rereleased and is still culturally loved
Danta Oh no
@@bashamd96 yep, and thats why it made me laugh
I like the idea of Alex just plopping his toy panda in front of him in the middle of a battle and the other characters just accept it because it’s working
For me, any well done writing about Rory's death was pretty much immidately thrown out the window when you meet his ghost. One, it is not a good idea to introduce the ghost/visions of a character that took their own life. It can give the wrong idea, that somehow you will still be there after you are dead to people who are seriously contemplating it. And two, he tells you that you had no part in his decision, he was bound to do it eventually, and so don't feel bad. Forgive yourself for being an ass to him, and giving him that push instead of comfort and love.
Did they really just tell Alex to forgive himself, and that his character flaws in no way negatively impacted the people around him? I don't understand how this can appear in a game that is meant to show Alex the error of his ways, when it tells him that he did nothing wrong and shouldn't change.
I agree that if you have a character that passes away from such unfortunate circumstances, you really shouldn't have afterlife depictions of them. If you absolutely have to, though (not like this game did, but it already presents the idea that ghosts do in fact exist), I would say it does make sense for Rory to think and say that. He probably died not wanting anyone else to feel guilty, and as a ghost I can only imagine one can't really "grow" as a person anymore, as in, they are stuck in that same mindset for the rest of time. _However,_ and a very big one at that, the scene should have been rewritten so that Alex rejects Rory's apology and actually takes responsibility for his death.
Under the pretense of Alex already realizing how much of a terrible person he is over the course of the game and how he has probably accepted many undeserved apologies, a scene where he does not allow a self-described (as far as the game mechanics are concerned) pacifist and pushover to give him an easy way out would be immensely powerful.
Of course, that's a little counter-intuitive considering the whole plot point is a result of player decision instead of scripted material, but such is the nature of these kinds of mechanics.
I think the story we got would make a good YA novel, but the story that was cut makes a lot more sense in terms of the game. These videos actually made me appreciate the game for what it could've and even for what's there. I wouldn't be against a Pathologic 2 scenario where they remake it and change the story to be more concise and thematically appropriate.
Side note: I haven't watched YuriofWind in maybe half a decade so that was nostalgic. I'm surprised he's still at 200k since he's been a featured channel on Game Theory since the beginning. I also have memories of him talking about depression though that could just be me trying to remember stuff from high school.
One thing I do feel like pointing out is the fact that the Y2K bug was ACTUALLY real, to a certain point. Obviously, it wasn't something like "all electricity will cease to exist", but back then, in an effort to save as much computer space as possible, the years were shortened from 19XX to just XX. This is already a problem for all the certificates/licenses/reports that would be printed as being from 00, meaning it was either 1 or 100 years old, but apparently, some computer programs and setups would've met catastrophic crashes outright. This was a large matter that made companies and the government have to get all hands on deck and even call in some retired big names to get it under control before it all went to shit. With that out of the way, I want to say that your essay was a refreshingly earnest tackling of a piece of media!
The Toy Panda is just his mind talking to him is kinda obvious .
10:52 holy shit, I used to watch yuriofwind years ago and his content is amazing. I actually remember him saying a few years ago in a video he was hired as a voice actor for this game but I completely forgot about that. I'm gonna binge watch all his Bullshit Creepypasta Storytime videos now.
So the talking panda doll that no one acknowledged... was actually a panda doll...
Ok but Rory killing himself is actually pretty tasteless. Yes you being a dick to him makes him off himself but you can actually talk to him as a ghost where he'll literally absolve Alex of any wrongdoing by saying that it basically wasn't his fault, becaude god forbid Alex have fucking consequences to his actions in this game. Not only that, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter because everybody, except Alex, is killed near the end of the game anyways and are replaced. So it doesn't matter if Rory kills himself or not because when the meteor hits he dies anyways.
Also can I say that I kind of hate that Alex just...replaces his friends after they die with alternate versions of themselves? The game is basically telling you that Alex's friends are replaceable to him, and that they're not that important in general compared to Alex. Its incredibly egotistical too when you remember that Alex is just the developer's self insert and I fucking despise that shit in games. I would have prefered it if they somehow came with Alex in whatever bullshit afterlife he went to.
Holy shit that Chondra part boils my blood for too many reasons. Imma name 3.
(TLDR: Police looked for a week, they can only do so much before they have to drop the case. It's awful but other people are missing.
Chondra's reason for her outburst of "white ppl bad" makes no sense based on her parents having good ass jobs and probably lived a good neighborhhod.
Also fun fact, Chondra isn't even voiced by a Black VA....So yea lets keep talking about white cops not caring for missing black kids from a perspective of a non-black/african american!)
First of all, when it comes to missing people given candle light ceremonies, that's not the news station. That's the community of the missing person doing that. Also about the white women part, usually when crime shows talk about white women in missing reports is because they're dead. Dead, therefore can be profited off for an investigation show for news networks to run.
Also Chondra and Claudio are pretty fucking well off (Mom and Dad both have a high status job, an assistant governor and a lawyer) like why would they live in a "shit neighborhood" if both their parents have good ass jobs and then immediately think it was race involved? These two characters don't live in poverty, if anything it should've been like "Yea our bro has been gone for like a week....We tried everything....I don't wanna think its a race thing but we did research and alot of African/Black American children go missing for a long time compared to the rest and..." Like that. These characters are coming off like they're low class or something. They're not. It doesn't make sense for a character who probably grown up in a safe neighborhood to immediately blurt out, "UH HES MISSING BECAUSE WHITE PPL BAD".
THIRD, THIS IS A VERY AWKWARD WHEN YOU REALIZE THE VA FOR HER IS NOT EVEN BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN IN THE SLIGHTEST. It feels off when a person starts spouting off real life social issues discussed within the Black American community....when the VA isn't even Black/African American.
Sincerely, a black woman who lives in south Louisiana.
See the thing is, the whole 'Alex meets Roy' thing could have worked. If what Alex liked about Two Brothers was a present thing in the game, the idea of Alex dying and meeting his subconscious as personified by his favorite game could be kind of meaningful. Like Alex is too immature to process the real world without the lens of a game. There's a scene in the anime Hi Score Girl where a character who likes Street Fighter has an emotional breakdown and begins to think the characters on screen are talking to them. Something like that.
alex should have told roy to shut up when he said he "let down the fanbase"
ALEX IS A FAN....why would alex sit there and let one of (arguably) his favorite characters denigrate himself like that unless it was alex reflecting on himself (or rather, the dev standing on roy like a soapbox, to whine about the negative reviews)
This feels like a fan meeting the actor that plays your favorite character, and instead of recognizing the enthusiasm you have for their acting, they whine that you weren't a big enough fan to keep them in business...
Binged all three parts of this today. Really pulled me in because... how do I put this? I guess you could say I'm a YIIK fan that doesn't like YIIK, if that makes any sense. I love the art style, the music, can pick out a decent number of scenes that I like (wholeheartedly agree on what you said about the spoiler scene, by the way), yada, yada, you get the point. I can even appreciate a lot of the ideas that the devs tried to go for, but failed at. But the game as a whole, in the state it's in? I can't like it. It interests me, and I enjoy talking about it with the five people in the world that are willing to take it seriously, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I enjoy YIIK itself more for what could have been than what actually is.
That being said, I'm glad to see somebody give the game a fair shake. I'm dead set in believing that there's such thing as hate for the wrong reason, and the stigma around YIIK seems like epitome of that. YIIK is definitely worthy of criticism, but a lot of the shade its gotten reeks more of petty shit-throwing than criticism (see also: dismissing the game as overly SJW because "ew, hipsters"). I'm just happy that somebody was actually interested enough to dissect it for however much time this freaking behemoth of a video took to make.
Thank you for all of the effort on your part. You write one hell of an essay.
Well put. While far from the game I hoped it would be the hate that seems to get thrown around seems rather uninformed. Not to say an opinion can't be expressed before finishing the game but when the go to complaint is "too much hipster stuff, character is pretentious" it comes off mostly as hopping on the internet hate wagon. I mean personally I felt the combat was very badly done despite potential and the plot had plenty of great ideas but wasted them.
I am in the same boat, this game gets so much right, but then gets all of the right things wrong. The music is awesome, the art style is sooo unique, and the plot is interesting and has a whole lot of potential.
But then the combat is kinda repetitive and boring, some things are overly complicated, and the dev let their personal grievances taint the story.
I kinda wish the dev or a talented fan would release a "remixed" patch that addressed some of the gameplay issues and restored the original ending the developer had envisioned for the game.
Yeah I'm kind of same too. There's so many ideas that it has that fascinates me, partly because there are some story aspects that remind me of my own webcomic. YIIK kind of stands as this fascinating thing for me to look at as what my own project could easily turn into if I'm not careful.
I guess you could call your whole thing with YIIK a "love/hate relationship."
Okay, all in all this was an amazing video essay and you definitely deserve more recognition than you get, because this was researched, read and edited very professionally and with an easy to follow structure. I only have a small channel myself, but I’ll definitely recommend you to my viewers.
Thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed.
So one of the *intents* I think is Alex's current time is actually meant to be more current day and that's yet another sign that he "comes home" to his universe starting to break down, thus why his weapon is an lp, and he can reminisce with a childhood friend about the games he does, because of the 90s kids they actually were.
Which honestly is a cool idea and I can see with better execution that working, esp how towards the end Alex becomes aware of how stuff has been off. But right now it just comes off more as sloppy writing.
I think Rory's death should've been a mandatory plot point caused by Alex's flaws through his treatment of him. Maybe he sees himself in Rory and puts him down for it, like a version of him that's weaker and perhaps he even used to be like that before College. I think if this happened and it was mandatory, it could've been the beginning of Alex developing as a character into one seeing his own flaws. If he himself used to be like Rory and was bullied for it or outcast by others then maybe that's why he got so into Liberal Arts, so he could express himself properly. Then he began to adopt this snide and smug attitude to others due to his deep rooted inferiority. These things would be great to explore and make Alex and interesting character with depth. As is, Rory's fate has no real baring on the plot or characters in the long term and least of all on Alex as Rory absolves him from all blame. Speaking from experience (perhaps that's what the writer lacks) I know a viscous cycle of abuse can be born from someone who was made to feel lesser trying to prove to the world that they're not worthless.
The Pokeflute in Pokemon is a reference to the Fairy Flute in Dragon Quest, which does the opposite thing (a big enemy acts as an obstacle on the map; you can always fight the Golem, but you'll have a hard time _winning_ unless you're near max level or use the Fairy Flute to put it to sleep; in Pokemon, Snorlax is a sleeping roadblock and you need the Pokeflute to wake it up so you can fight it).
And thus, this game's "poke flute" being a reference to the Pokeflute from Pokemon to wake someone up who is a roadblock _by_ killing him is hilarious and kinda ties the two together.
As much as I love this new perspective on Y2K, I can’t get over how you pronounce “idea”
As someone who has some bad issues with depression and anxiety, no college degree, and doesn't really make enough to afford an apartment in the area anyway, I see no problem living with your parents...on the condition you're helping. Pay rent to help with the bills, obviously still help out around the house, etc. Society has transformed over the centuries to damn living with one's parents because independence is borderline fetishised by US culture, but the truth is that the world sucks and being alone helps run you into the ground, and the market for housing continues to get worse and worse and not everybody can afford to keep up with it. If I didn't end up shaking or spending literally *days* overthinking everything, I'd have moved out and gotten a roommate years ago, but instead i'm "not bad enough to get help" but am bad enough to not be able to do anything without it pushing me forward first, cause even though mental health is starting to get a better light in society, it's still largely treated as something to just "get over".
The first time i saw anything about this game, i spotted Rory and i was like "Yup. This is probably the best character."
Glad to know i was kinda right.
I feel like they may have 'overcooked' this game in terms of creative process-they where working on it so long that it started to lose the good parts instead of the parts they thought where good because all red flags look like flags when you have on rose tinted glasses
I'm sorry but i can't agree with your final verdict. (mind i didn't play it so my knowledge comes from analytical videos like this, which good job it was very informative and i feel like i have a pretty good grasp on how the game's like) Combat seems interesting but also really dragged out, and the dialogue especially is the main reason this game gets its bad reception with Alex, there are some neat little jems as you mentioned, but most of it is repetitive and overly long, i just don't want to bother with some hipster's 1425589998 word limit test shoved on my throat every 5 seconds, that single handedly turns me off.
MAJOR RANT, the "near ending rant" has to be the pettiest bullshit in media, I'm genuinely mad game journalists did their usual "do half the work and call it a day" thing, because that fucking rant DESERVES to be mocked, and whoever is responsible has to be blacklisted from writing anything.
How much of a fucking child you have to be, to fuck over your game and let the the time, effort and dedication of the people who worked years for making the best product possible, go down the fucking toilette because your ego got hurt? Even if it turned out a great game with all that demo stuff, that would still ruin the game, honestly i just want to meet the guy responsible and tell him to go fuck himself! I know i'm over reacting but seroously fuck him! People like that really piss me the fuck off, other than being unbelievably selfish and unprofessional, it also shows that the whole game was just meant to be a big ego handjob, and the developers have to deal with having wasted 5 years of their lives on a trainwreck because of one fucking baby, what the fuck was he thinking? Will both the guy from 2 brothers AND Alex be in the next endgame? Will the main character just wear merchandise of BOTH games? Will said MC also join the "gamers are too low IQ for us" club when his game inevitably also fails? If the guy doesn't get fired or grow up, the studio doesn't have much of a future.
Gino Gatash I figure this guy was a bit TOO passive. His voice kinda reeks that “innocent middle man” imo.
@@Mae4Ever I don't think he's trying to be a middle man, I think his feelings on the game are genuine. You're free to disagree with his final verdict, but I don't think he's just trying to get along to get along.
I REALLY enjoyed this video essay. It was very well-researched and I'm glad that you didn't just focus on the negative aspects of the game like some people have done. A lot of the perspectives and theories you had on certain parts were really interesting to me. It's just really sad how this game turned out. It has SO much potential and there are A LOT of good things about it. But it just seems that for every good thing about this game, there are like three things that bring it down. Before I finish, I want to point out a couple of things that stood out to me.
I really like your whole perspective on the part dealing with Rory's death. I've (thankfully) never dealt with suicide myself, so I can't really comment on how accurate it is. My biggest problem with that part is that it seems like it was more of an afterthought than anything (to me it does, at least). It's mainly for two reasons:
1. Like you said, there's a bug in the game where Rory's supposed to have a talking part and the voice acting desyncs completely. That leads me to believe that they didn't spend their time playtesting that option. I understand that it's an RPG and it'd take a long time to playtest with how big it is, but you'd think that they'd at least playtest branching paths in the story.
2. After the scene with Vella, Rory's... never mentioned again for the rest of the story. It just feels like the characters have forgotten about someone who they considered to be their friend. Even ONE scene where one of the characters says something like: "Man, I wish Rory was here" would've worked. There's even one scene (this is going off of memory, so take it with a grain of salt) with Essentia and Alex where Essentia tells him that he hasn't lost anything. This scene does not change at all if Rory dies and it just leaves the player wondering "What about Rory? Wasn't he important to Alex?"
I also feel like the Haruki Murakami reference could've been handled a lot better than how it ended up being portrayed. Like, maybe instead of having a random character quoting the novel, there could be an scene that you get if you examine a part of Alex's room where he sees the novel (maybe on a bookshelf or a desk), drops it by name, and gives a small remark on how much he loves it. Maybe the devs could've had Alex quote the novel by memory and immediately afterwards say something among the lines of: "That's one of my favorite parts! It's just so... deep." Or something like that. If they still wanted to have a random character quote it, they could've at least have Alex, or someone else, call them out on it ("That's... a line from a Haruki Murakami novel" or something among those lines).
The funniest part about the whole Two Brothers thing at the end is that most of the reviews (even the negative ones) I've read of it mention that the story is actually pretty good, and easily the game's strongest aspect; meaning that if the devs took their time to fix all the bugs and glitches, it probably could've been a great game. So the devs are essentially complaining about people who don't like something about the game that they can easily fix with patches.
From the footage here I noticed that Methiew also says that the name of their previous game, Two Brothers, is bad... So, like you noticed before, they released their previous game close to Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and a loooot of people confused the two games, said that they should change the name etc. Try looking for Two Brothers in search engines, you'll find the other game instead. The developers are clearly salty about this too.
I thought Panda being a toy Alex talked to as a means of inner dialogue was just text, not a twist
Because of the scene early on where he has a toy sized panda on his stomach and he's talking to it alone as an inner dialogue exercise
Thank you for going into such a deep dive with this game. I have a love hate relationship with this game that ive been looking for something this comprehensive. All the reviews and videos I found on yiik would just bad mouth things surrounding it, the developers, or hating on alex. Thats a shame because as you described, there are a lot of good elements and motifs to this game. Sure, some were just okay or failed completely, but deserved a better look than just being written off .
Thank you for giving a balanced criticism of this game because this was exactly what ive been looking for. Its also something that perfectly describes my feelings for this game because it isn't all trash! My favorite parts will always be the art and music. I even got the soundtrack way before I got the actual game lolol.
But thank you for such a fantastic essay that gave the game a chance. Your thoughts and attitude towards the game was very refreshing and I look forward to more content from you!
If you have Claudio or his sister in your party when you fight cops they will mostly target them.
@@roamoray good
Absolutely phenomenal video essay man. Well written, researched, thought out, and edited. Amazing execution. I just recently stumbled upon your channel and I’m loving your essays so far, I’ve recently seen the Quantum Theory and Golden Sun videos. You really deserve so much more recognition! I can’t wait to see more of your content.
Unlikable protagonists can work.
People will talk about Luke from Tales of the Abyss, Neku from The World Ends With You or Laharl from Disgaea as the golden standards for this trope.
And the reason why is because they are made accountable for their actions.
Like Luke after the destruction of Akzeriuth or Neku after being manipulated to kill Shiki or Laharl's hatred for the feeling of love after his mother died.
I'm sorry, this is great but, whenever you say idea it sounds like "I deer" xD. Regardless, keep up the good work
That doesn't remotely look 90s/early 00s aesthetic. It's squarely now because of the shading and the waaaaaaaaay too many polygons. There's nothing about the aesthetics about this game that reminds me of that era, and I'm not saying this as someone who has any kinds of feelings about this game. I just found out about it this morning.
Just as someone born in 1982, the art style, the music, the fashion, all of it is twenty teens, almost painfully so.
I had a childhood stuffed animal. Called her "snuggle bear" had to throw her away recently 😢
"Now thats a pretty big claim to make against Allanson."
Well, seeing as how there are literally interviews with him from before the game released where he expressly states that Alex was intended to be shitty, but ultimately a likeable character, no not really.
He literally only ever made the "he was meant to be unlikeable from the start" claim after the game had launched and the consensus on Alex being arguably the most unlikeable protagonist in modern video games was firmly established. When he still believed Alex would/could be liked? He was meant to be likeable. Nobody likes Alex? Well I meant to do that from the start you sweaty gamers!
I do have to say that Panda was awesome. I was thinking, "Jeez, why is he so blunt with the questions?" and then I realized he's your Super Ego! We all have that Super Ego that asks the questions you don't want to hear in your mind.
Man, I thought the elevator scene was bad enough but I think this is the first video I've seen that mentions the water tower conversation. 16:40
Thank you for this essay, it's been a good way to close off my youtube marathon on this game.
Wait do you really not know that pianist is a real word?
He was saying the game called the pianist "piano player"; my guess is that the devs knew the word but being somewhat savvy on Internet culture, knew if they had a voice clip of characters talking about a pianist UA-cam Poopers would put that clip of the game into their videos to make it sound like someone was talking about penises.
Thank you; you're the first person I've watched who even brought up Yuriofwind-sometimes people would bring up Kirbopher but no one brought up Yuri, and as someone who watched him and recognized his voice, it baffled me that no one was talking about it.
Literally the first thing I thought when I heard Rory was "Is that Yuriofwind??"
I don't think you mentioned how the Claudio and Chondra and the cops not looking for their brother makes no sense. They said each of their parents job. One is a lawyer and one is the mayor, how can a government official and a job that pays so much how them leave in a poor neighborhood?
Watched all 3 parts while I was at work. You gave me a new understanding and appreciation of this game after only seeing LPs of it (mainly Oneyplays) and now I know what the fuck this game really is. What an absolute fever dream of a game and video, I loved every second of it. Hope to see more essays in the future!
Thank you!
as for the y2k apocalypse thing in fiction I think its because its still too recent within the cultural zeitgeist to be considered mythologizable, millenials and some of the older Gen Zs will have lived through it, and since we grew up with it, it's hard to defamiliarize the technology and aesthetic present at the time to turn into an apocalypse scenario. Maybe we'll see more of an uptake in that content by the latter 2020s or 2030s but no promises
btw I found your channel thanks to this essay series btw, loving it so far and I love how meticulously made it is, please keep making content like this
-SPOILER TALK STARTS HERE-
Ya know when I saw you start talking about Panda I was thinking "okay, childhood toy, the guy has issues, toys like this are designed so kids can project whatever they want to hear from the toy", so unfortunately the twist... didn't really faze me
It doesn’t really excuse the game in my eyes but it’s worth noting that part of why the game took so long to make was because mother of the Allanson brothers (the developers), passed away. They made use of a lot of time between development and release to cope.
Just commenting to say that this has been a great series. I respect you mentioning what you liked and what you disliked about the game, not many others are willing to give the game credit for its merits (which I don't exactly blame them for, oh my god are the negatives in this game negatives). Glad you finally found an opportunity to talk about Earthbound and games inspired by it in Part 2, that was a wonderful segment both for YIIK comparisons and as a standalone discussion. I wish you the best with your future endeavours dude :)
This is far-and-away my favorite analysis of YIIK, and I doubt any others will ever beat it.
You put into words the same concerns I have, the same joys I have, the same colorful mentality I have for the game. So many people either wholeheartedly praise or lambaste it in white-and-black terms, not acknowledging BOTH aspects that are present in the game. It's a colorful game- in ALL aspects. It's not black-and-white, and I don't think everyone's feelings on it should be.
You capture that, and I find that incredibly commendable. Thank you for your time and connection.
I have a guess on what happened with the story and even the inclusion of Elisa Lam.
They made the story of the game, maybe included an asian girl somewhat resembling Elisa. Then they found out about Elisa's story and decided to change it all to accomodate it. Because yeah that prototype final boss was way better fleshed out in terms of gameplay and the ending was much better for Alex's character development. But they seem to have blown all that away to make the game about something else. I think that for a main theme you should start from that theme, instead of adopt it midway, and that's why this game feels like a total mess.
BUT HEY THAT'S JUST A GUESS! A GAME GUESS! Thanks for reading I guess. HA! GUESS I GOT THE FINAL LAUGH.
This would a nice assumption.
Except, here's a quote from the dev regarding the case.
"I was very moved by the case of Elisa Lam. I really feel in her tragic passing. Her suffering was influential in the development of this game."
And because Sammy's apperance and death was eerily similar to Elisa's, it really makes for a rather mean-spirited moment.
Elisa Lam came first and then the game.
Being set in the 90s does nothing for this game because its clear it was written by someone with second hand information that glorifies the decade. Tons of writing inconsistencies like the economy tanking and Michaels "childhood" games being games released 3 years ago meanwhile he's like 20.
That and the fact every character constantly makes references to anime despite anime not becoming a mainstream thing until the early 2000s. They try to make Claudio represent the niche anime fanbase but his hobby is played off as a joke in a single scene and is never addressed again.
Not to be "that guy" but in gen 1 Pokémon you could rearrange your items by pressing select, scrolling to the slot, and pressing select again. There was no auto-sort but you could manually swap around your items. You could do this with your moves during battle too.
That was a wild ride thats for sure, that was a properly spent few hours
Having played the game to completion myself, even saw two endings. This three videos are by far the best videos on the game. and you sir have a new sub.
You mention unlikable protagonists and there's been some cases for it. Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes. Scott Pilgrim from the titular Scott Pilgrim comics Each of them have varying degrees of assholishness but there's something to them that has the people enjoy them. Furthermore, and why Alex comes off worse, is that they all comeuppance, whether it be eating shit or being humiliated in some way. Along with that, and most importantly, they have a major epiphany. Or two. Like Scott has his first come Nega Scott. He recognizes his actions without the rose tinted glasses he had on all this time. The second came after saving Ramona and seeing himself in Gideon. Travis has him recognizing just how much the assassin's life sucks and that revenge sucks. Oh, and the overall lesson that actions. Have. CONSEQUENCES. Why does NMH 2 happen? Travis' rampage in the first game had a random killed that actually had ties to a super powerful family that went and killed his best friend. Scott cheats on Knives with Ramona/vice versa. What happens? Everyone looks down on Scott in general but and Ramona leaves him in the penultimate comic.
Travis doesn't learn that shit and he's an overrated example. "I don't give a shit about your stupid ass family" sums up what people don't remember about him
i really like your analysis so far!! but, i gotta say i REALLY disagree about the way the game handles rory's suicide. i do agree that not showing it on screen made it feel a bit more respectful, and that a friend's suicide can really feel out of nowhere but... okay, i should probably mention that i haven't played the game myself, i just watched jack saint's playthrough of it, where apparently it happened because of a *bug*, since jack did 2/3 of the things you can do to prevent it (which is supposed to be enough afaik?), and actually really wanted to bring rory to look for the van but was confused about how to do it (i mean, the wording the game uses in this part is... really unclear about how you're supposed to find him)--so i guess the fact that i saw the player being as nice to him as they could but not being able to bring him along for one thing kind of colors my perception of it, since the route leading to it is *supposed* to be "alex being a dick to rory".
that being said though, even in the circumstances that are *supposed* to trigger his death, i still think it's handled really badly. for one, there's the way that the game barely acknowledges what happened after the scene where alex finds out about it, and it just... goes right back into silly jokes and lighthearted scenes, without anyone being visibly affected by it.there's just a blank space in the group scenes where rory would be, any dialogue that mentions him talks about him like he's still alive... and then there's the fact that the dialogue in multiple scenes ends up de-synced because he's not in them, which isn't necessarily disrespectful but just. weird??? it feels like the second playthrough of ddlc where reality kind of falls apart without sayori there, but i don't think it was intentional???
then there's the "alex blaming himself/implicitly blaming the player" thing, which is a little more... tricky. on the one hand, it's extremely common for people to blame themselves when someone close to them commits suicide, so that part is *realistic*, but... the thing is, that guilt is really detrimental and not a healthy way to cope with the grief, and if you have suicidal tendencies too, it can just make that worse (you know, like it did with rory!). and the way the the cutscene treats it, the message of alex's monologue seems to be, "you know, sometimes things really ARE your fault!" and i think that's a REALLY irresponsible message to send, intentionally or not
the suicide note is... kind of the worst part of it, imo. for one, it really feels like some sick joke and not additional characterization or explanation. especially the part at the end, it just sounds like the writers making a homophobic joke at his expense... but for the rest of it... well, this is definitely subjective, but it just feels *too* out of character for him? like, sure, being in a really terrible mental state can make people act different from how they normally would, but i feel like it's a bit of a stretch to explain it that way. the note basically rants about how "normal people" are just shallow, mindless zombies, how he hates the people around him and blames them for his suicide, stuff that... kind of sounds like something an incel would write, for lack of a better description. but that's just totally incongruous with like, *everything else* we see of him in the game. he's a pretty mild-mannered pacifist who *really* doesn't seem like the type to look down on people in that way. and whenever he talks about his mental health problems, it's pretty clear that a lot of it has to do with his sister's suicide, guilt, and self-hate, and the note doesn't reflect any of that. it just feels like it was written for another character or as a separate thing and was just thrown in there at the last minute...
OKAY SORRY THAT GOT REALLY LONG i just. have a lot of thoughts about this :')
Aside from the surreal backgrounds, the music is probably the one aspect that I would say is really consistently good. It can be a bit cheesy like the disco battle music, but then you got Toby Fox jamming an epic track called Into the Mind. I seriously am upset that it wasn't used in a better game because it is actually great and would have fit in with Deltarune's soundtrack.
The thing that sours me the most about the game is not so much the game itself but rather the Dev's attitude towards people who didn't like it; Not that I've played it myself but that's mostly what's stopping me (more so than the plethora of negative reviews I've seen...) That said, I thoroughly enjoyed these videos :). Probably the most unbiased (and even educational) take on this game I've seen so far.
Side Note:: I was shocked to find out that "Yuri of Wind" was a voice actor in this game. As a casual fan of his, I kind of wonder how he feels about all this...
he might be distancing himself from it like toby did.
he has not mentioned the game once since it came out.
I kinda fall into the 20s living with thier family rent free category and its not because i don't try for independence its that im just in a place where im just stuck no car, no real way to commute and living in fuck all no where
Bruh if they kept the original ending, the problems I’ve had with this game’s story would’ve gone down by 30%
3:56 this part is also a reference to a game called VA-11 HALL-A where vella and essentia show up as cameos (technically they’re cosplayers but whatever). suprisingly neither of them are wearing an “ask me about YIIK” pin.
43:15 Oh...just one correction about the place where Sammy vanishes at. It's a factory, not a hotel, and it's somewhere around New Jersey (as Vella vents about working "at a New Jersey arcade"). But those are pretty much the only differences.
(I know Frankton being in New Jersey might still not make sense given how the world map looks, but said map also doesn't acknowledge any countries directly north of America, so who knows.)
I didn't agree with 100% of the opinions in this video series, but they were all well-researched and formulated and considered the game from a fair perspective. I'm fascinated by the potential YIIK had, how it even had aspects that executed on that potential. I wonder how it would've turned out with a good, thorough editor. Would it have been great? Or just risen to the level of mediocre and completely forgotten? Thanks for all your hard work, 3ish hours well spent.
Why is Alex's living room the living room from Full House? That seems... anachronistic... San Francisco, sure, but, still, what?
I never heard of this game until youtube recommended me this essay. Love your work.
I wanted to give you a bit of an update on this game. As of last year, they started fixing the bugs & are also updating the game by fleshing out the story, tweaking the combat system so it's not quite the slog it originally was, & they've also made other changes like having Alex as a silent protagonist & giving Rory a counterattack mechanic in battle. I don't know where they're going with all of this, but I take the bug fixes as a good sign. (Even more so considering that they didn't listen when it came to fixing the bugs for their "Two Brothers game.) I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now as I'm curious about where they're going with all this.
Who said you had to look like the character for the character to be a self-insert?
While I don't like this game as much as others do, I have to agree the route where Rory commits suicide wasn't one of the bad parts. Yes, it's annoying almost everything in this game revolves around Alex, but his actions causing Rory's suicide isn't one of those annoying bits. A lot of people on the verge of commiting suicide can seriously be triggered by off-hand comments from friends and family. Yes, it's irrational, but it's not YIIK being poorly-written, some suicidal people really do react like that, and it fits Rory, since he's already suffering from feeling nobody is taking his grief seriously.
To be fair, I would 1000% rather go on crazy adventures and put my bodily integrity at risk than do job searching.
the journalists likely didnt catch the two brothers reference, its a pretty obscure game ya kno
Considering how much the devs were whining about Two Brothers not being a hit, it's kinda hilarious that even their attempt to complain about it not being noticed... wasn't noticed.
Whattt, you just blew my mind with the yuri of wind part....wow! I love that man!
Rory was mishandled so badly. He's never mentioned again and the only change made is his removal from the party and all scenes he would be in. Matter of fact the only time he's recognized is the Alt ending where in the KNN Building there's a graveyard where Rory tells you it wasn't your fault. DESPITE THE FACT IT'S TRIGGERED BY ALEX BEING A TERRIBLE PERSON TO HIM. Another issue is his note. It feels less like a suicide note and more like a parody of edgy teens being sad. It's a paragraph of what can basically be summed up as "Sad teens are sad because they are sad and other sad teens are sad". it's written entirely in leet which is not only inaccurate as leetspeak didn't get popular until the 2000s.
22:00 this was blown way out of proportion. It wasn't anything revolutionary. I think it was pretty obvious it was Alex's own subconscious. Like Cartman and Clyde Frog
yeah it's not really that mind blowing of a twist considering nobody else talks to or reacts to panda, panda doesn't even have that much screentime. alex is a dickhead and panda is just a snarky teddie from persona 4 so it's not like the player has any attachment to these characters
The Bartender next to that R.O.M reference is also from another game, which also references YIIK, fyi.
um...
pianists are... piano players...
its what you call someone who plays the piano/keyboard
i know it sounds haha peepee funny, but its the name, why would he call a pianist anything but a pianist?
also still no r at the end of idea
EDIT- oh hey cool its got the VA11-HA11-A bar in it
I've never heard someone have his voice crack into a falsetto
After watching all 3 parts, all I can say is
My god, their next game may be glorious
They're so close man
If a 3 part video essay can be made about your game, you're doing alot of things right
Good double movie long video
I agree. Part of me dislikes the devs for their pretentious attitude but I also know that the attitude of the devs doesn't changed the quality of the product and you can tell they're so on the cusp of a profound game if they can get past being bitter about Two Brothers and keep working.
3:55 Also, VA-11 Hall-A is a reference to another game made by Sekuban Games (I probably spelled that wrong), and the bartender is the main protagonist.
Edit: That game is how I found out about Yiik in the first place, by referenced them too by mentioning, if I remember correctly, a remake/sequal of the game being made sometime between now and 2072. Boy did that statement not age well.
Best video you've made for sure. I'm super glad with how this came out brah!
This is the most fair look into YiiK I've seen yet.
Most other analysis of the game just devolve into "le ebin soy xd" in the first 5 minutes and don't let go of that for the rest of the video.
Props to you for these videos. Great stuff!