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Fantastic video! Thanks again for your hard work!!!

Ok the final ekki grace at the end of the video got to me a bit ^^ Thank you for this video, I just finished the game and it was perfect to put things is the right order with their full implications. Great commentary and storytelling on a game which has those same qualities

The GAMEplay needs a squeal, not the writing. If they hire competent writers this game probably would've gotten more traction through word of mouth. It hurts my soul to think someone approved most of this script.

"And someone must _tend bar_ " got a great snicker out of me

Not pokemon style...

Hey Matt, just wanted to say thank you for this wonderful deep dive. We need more thoughtful video essays like these for special games. Nier Automata seems like a natural follow-up to this essay, but I’d actually love to see your deep dive into Alan Wake 2 and how storytelling shapes identity

They need to fix the controller bug

I highly recommend this game and I’ve only played for a few hours so far

There were so many plot elements that I completely missed that I didn't even know who to choose or not to choose at the end. Thanks for the explanation, which gives me a pretty good idea of the game's story.

I master the grind loop a month ago and this the best marvel game I played in a long time, I’m addicted to the Photo Booth

I did not allow myself to play like a dragon before I beat at least two or three games in the mainline series of yakuza. It was not a bad experience since I loved both kiwami's and zero but I felt kind of silly afterwards. Thanks for talking about this issue, it's very worth addressing!

I've never seen anyone use the word "sheepishly" as much as in Citizen Sleeper..

13:30 There's another line, spoken by sick-Jiao, saying that she doesn't want to become a photo like her father. My interpretation was that they'd developed AI technology enough to emulate loved ones after their death and stuffed it into electronic photo devices. On a larger scale, the occupants were beautiful representations of new, unpredictable, trauma. Grandmother, Clara, and Iris each subconsciously prepare their daughters to handle the trauma their mother inflicted on them. But each generation ran away from their mother and encountered new trauma, so their mothers' teaching is rendered useless. Grandmother raised her children to excel in a corrupt bureaucracy; Clara drives Iris to overachieve, only to see the organized world crumble; and Iris raises her daughters as an attempt to enforce order in that world, only to see Watcher/Youngest rebel and destroy it. Each mother attempted to destroy their daughter's identity and insert their own; each one failed. Each daughter proceeded to weaponize their generation's trauma on the previous and the one they gave birth to. The occupants COULD have been anything--disease, technologically-advanced invaders, a competing Orchard... but I appreciated the context of aliens driven here by their own trauma, attempting to make their own connections, just like Grandmother, Clara, Iris, and the sisters. In life, the hurt we experience is rarely inflicted by truly evil people. Most of the time, it is inflicted by people who are also stumbling through life, trying to reconcile their present and future selves to the past. And, given their lack of knowledge about humanity's history, their gifts to Iris could only ever have unintended consequences.

It was the artstyle 1000%

It has as much chance of a sequel as XCOM 3.

I really appreciate how you synced up the game music with the tonal shifts in your review like the game often does with battles and locations! a lot of care went into this review

Thanks for a great spoiler cast of the story. But I don't think you should label this video a review.

“Crisis system” seems VERY apt! Editing to also add how great that presentation of the Queer Art of Failure was

It honestly pains me so much that this game surely would become a "wow why have i never heard about this game, it's spooo good! Why didn't you tell me when it came out?" kinda game. Cause i had pretty similar reaction despite knowing about it and about its high quality (Thanks Jacob Geller as usual.) It took me around 3 days to finish the game and it blem me away with pretty much every aspect from visuals to narrative and writing. Now i honestly have no clue how to play other games i have in my backlog and it would probably continue for some time. I'm glad i still have my disco elysiums and Kentucky routes... Absolutely incredible analysis! It really felt like something i wanted to hear after finally finishing the game. It hit most of the points i was feeling myself during the game. Thank you for the video! I still don't understand my feelings fully but i really wanted to give Principle a chance to live in the world truly without Iris. I want to think that while moving forward we still need adress the trauma not just cut it away. Maybe naive but i really wanted Principle to be a proof that sisters could truly move forward. That even she could move forward. And after epilogue i wanna believe it's true.

Wow this is a beautiful way to review a game

Excellent execution and production as usual 😊

I played it on Nintendo switch

Love this video! So many good ideas. Halfway through I was wondering which I could make time for in a busy phase of life and then you dropped Balatro. Okay, okay!! 😂

This game is awesome the warrior sneak is a bit annoying, but I've completed the game 3 times it is such a fun, interesting game

Finally back after having given the game a playthrough

I think for the meantime I really need some mods. Like if mods could add new characters, without just reskinning the ones there. At least for the missions.

I adore this game. The combat and overall gameplay loop is genuinely some of my favorite in any game ever, to the point where I didn't even mind that the writing was very much not my speed, so I just skipped all of it

Really good explanation of the game. I can tell this came from a place of love. I, too, loved the game. I put heaps of effort into making (what i thought would be well received) Content. **Cue sounds of crickets** 😂 But i thoroughly enjoyed the combat. It felt like a Jake game, and he knows what works. It felt like a mix of Mass Effect and firaxis X-Com

This was great video, glad Ben Hanson shouted it out!

i knew the confusing layout of the orchard had to be intentional and that bit from the other essay about seeing Hong Kong everywhere in the game made it finally click what they were going for also i made the exact same choices at the end that you did

What makes me super sad tbh, other than the whole Doom thing at the end for a sequel, is how good of an idea this type of game was and the potential to use it for other titles. Like an Xmen game set in the Academy with an overhaul on the lifesim/base mechanics. Perhaps taking more inspo from games like Persona in a way. Having your customizable mutant MC just doing Xmen stuff. It sounds so peak.

The one song by the BedQuilt Ramblers at the end of act 4 sounds like Red House Painters

1000xRESIST reprezent. hekkin fuckin grace sister but i also disagree, there is still SO MUCH TO SAY 1000xRESIST.

I can't be happy enough about waht indie scene delivers for the latest years. Sable, Citizen Sleeper, Kentucky Route Zero, 1000xResist and dozens of other games telling meaningful stories through the medium. Indie games bring me back the joy of playing video games.

Game was underrated af

"Maybe when you don't know how to process trauma a disease that forces you to relive your saddest moments until you cry so much that your body can no longer function just won't have an effect." Just superb. Excellent analysis overall. Big props!

“Kingdom Hearts 2” moment absolutely killed me xD

ever thought that Others are the chinese government? faceless, omnipotent, (streaching it a little) spreading a pandemic by a mistake and, well, red. there is a star and a star and a dengerous gravity. they will collide in 2047.

You rock. Beautiful words for a beautiful game.

Your style of video with not choosing a real number 1 is so my shit. Great video!

Hi, I'm the Kastel here with the funny username. It's surreal to hear my writing be read out by someone else like other quotes and hear that my writing is something worth aspiring to. That was cool. 1000xRESIST is such an interesting title. I've been waiting for a video essay that dives deep into the plot and themes that I didn't explore. For example, I consciously avoided the Occupants because I didn't know what I should say about it. Every essay I write is like weaving a narrative or perspective on how I read something, and the Occupants just didn't match the diasporic narrative I'm trying to weave. I'm more interested in the "motherland" aspect that you've laid out in the Iris section. Thanks for making the video. This was a cool watch!

I did this game twice its that good

Hekki list

I 100% agree with what Spiderman says in this game, "Nobody told me that becoming a superhero would be like high school all over again.". With how they decided to write these characters, they frankly should've written an X-Man game. At least that way Nico and Magik had an excuse to act like 14 year olds instead of acting like that as a 20 something, along with a couple of the other characters acting the same way. I'm struggling to finish it because of these interactions being such a core part of this story, and I'm supposed to sympathize with them instead of being able to tell a quarter of the cast to act their age and get over themselves.

Great Video, Matt! There's always so many good games with their own merrit and things that make them special, so I think highlighting them without pitting them against another in a ranking is a great approach. And not just because I'm personally too indecsive to pick a favorite in anything. Happy new year!

such a great video and analysis. subscribed! by the way i just wanted to know (though i know many things are left open to interpretation)... were the sisters really sent to the other side to fuck the occupants? or was that just principal saying shit out of "fixer"'s mouth in the first communion she hacked? because there were a lot more references ie. mimi talking about iris being inseminated or "getting close" and even the youngest/ancient sister asking if she was sleeping with the keepers. i was really curious about your/others' take because i can't find concise information on this online as far as i can see and if principal really did generate a whole bunch of jiao clones to do "work" on the other side being non consenting sex work well then it definitely makes her irredeemable in my book, even though she was already pretty irredeemable before.

The games this video covers and how you discuss them is lovely. I hope you have a great 2025!

Amazing video, great references to book, studies and quotes from game perspective, also I really like citizen sleeper. I always been struggling with the expectations from society in general so I love this way to embrace failure from game design. Thanks!

A lovely way to wrap up the year, hope you enjoyed that beach time! Definitely going to check out some of these games because of your recommendation, happy 2025 (:

great video, as always! added way too many things to my backlog though, whoops