I feel like he’s not reaching his full potential here. It would be nice for him to do a video that’s a bit on the longer side. I’m thinking maybe 20 - 21 hours long.
45:51 - So I watched this series on a whim, and after 8 hours I randomly see myself. I enjoyed your series but that was the funniest part to me for sure. Thanks man.
I like Dark Souls, but i've only played 3 and Bloodborne... I still watched it, just so i can hear him completely obliterate this random RUclipsr i've never even heard of :D
I think the thing that H.bomb misses about Matt's video is that he says it's still a pretty good game. Also if you read the description on the video, he clarifies that it's a CRITIQUE meaning he is going to focus on the negative parts of the video. I also find it funny, as you said, he only responds to 2% of the video. He doesn't say anything to back up the points he made against the covenants, the lack of shortcuts in regards to level design, abundance of bonfires etc. While I have a large amount of respect for Matt, that doesn't necessarily mean I blindly have to agree with him or disagree with him. I mean, he's one of the reasons of why the anti-Skyward Sword circlejerk exists. (I vehemently disagree with that video.) But if I was to create a video in the same structure to H.bomb, I wouldn't be disrespectful.
Wait; you disagree with his Skyward Sword video? Why? A lot of his points are well-founded. The game being split into closed-off sections is a downgrade from the interconnectedness of OOT, MM and TP and the open world of Wind Waker. The sky is barren of content. The only things there are Skyloft, a boss in Thunderhead, and two other locations. The game really should have come with an option to play Link left-handed to make things equal for lefties. The amount of backtracking is crazy; even Ocarina of Time made you only go through the same places twice, and even then, there were differences between Hyrule as Adult Link and Hyrule as Young Link. There's an insane amount of fetch quests, including fetch quests that are mandatory parts of the story. I can't remember a single fetch quest in OOT or Wind Waker. I don't mind optional hand-holding for struggling players; that's the whole point of Link's companions. The problem with Fi is that her explanations are not optional in quite a few areas. What's the point of an orchestral soundtrack if the good music only gets heard once in cutscenes or certain areas? There really should've been options for the different controls. Imagine, for example, that someone is disabled in some way that affects their wrists, and they can play a normal game very well with the buttons, and they can even handle Link swordfighting because they move their arms, but they can't fly the bird or insert the boss key because of the problem with their wrists. Should they really be locked out of content? Link having a cap robs value from the Minish Cap's story. The hat is supposed to be a tribute to Ezlo. I'm a fan of the Zelda series. But I'm not blind to the faults in any of the Zelda games. But I agree about a lot of Matthewmatosis' points. His arguments are very well reasoned and constructed.
@@matthewmuir8884 One other point about Skyward Sword, which was one of the worst offenders, in my opinion: all the duplicated content. Several bosses are just repeated throughout the game, like Girahim, the scorpion (forget its name), and the Imprisoned. It came off to me as padding out the content of the game to make the playtime longer. I was groaning by the time I had to go back to fight the Imprisoned for the third time. I found it especially disappointing because, in my opinion, the unique boss battles are the peak of the Zelda games. I'm in the same boat as you. I love Zelda, and I even enjoyed Skyward Sword, but I'm not blind to the ways the games could be improved, and I definitely think Skyward Sword is one of the weaker entries in that franchise. As for the original comment that Matthewmatosis is "one of the reasons of why the anti-Skyward Sword circlejerk exists," I firmly disagree. Personally, I was aware of many of Skyward Sword's flaws before I ever even knew about Matthewmatosis, and I know I'm not the only one who had that experience. I also have a lot of respect for Matthewmatosis, and I'm also rational enough to not blindly agree with everything he says. Not only do I agree with pretty much all of his criticisms of Skyward Sword, but I also think he worded them way more elegantly than I could, which makes for a nice viewing experience. He also covered some points that I never considered on my own playthroughs (like the accessibility concerns). Incidentally, I also feel the same way about Matthewmatosis' critique of Dark Souls II. When I first played DS2, I had a good time with the game, but I did feel a little bit frustrated with some of the flaws I noticed, especially when compared to its predecessor, which I still find to be a more enjoyable experience overall.
About three weeks ago I got DS2, Scholar of the First Sin. My friend already had it and had been playing it for about 50 hours. I myself have only now played about 25 hours, and most of that time was spent playing coop. The only problem was that he spoiled most of the bosses and the experience that comes with, so I related a bit to the "friends" that Hbomber mentioned. At first I was amazed by the game and thought it was one of the greatest games ever. Frustrating at times but fun. I wanted to play it more and more. I recently went on a trip and wanted to play DS2 so badly and searched for some DS2 content on youtube. I found Hbomberguy's channel and watched his defense of DS2. I really liked his video and agreed on a lot of his points, not having much experience with the game. Then I found your channel. I started watching your RE serie and was shocked. Not only by how glorified the game was in my mind, but by how empty and subjective Hbomber's arguments were. When you showed how he tried to undermine Matthew I was horrified. Thanks to you a lot of problems came to my mind. Things I had felt in the game but couldn't quite put my finger on. DS2 is the first Soulsborn game I've played for more than 3 hours and I had nothing to compare it to, so I thought that the spam was natural. Regardless I will probably still enjoy the game, only I won't ever think of it as "perfect" again. Since discovering you I've watched most of your videos. I'm now a subscriber and if I was old enough I would support you on patreon. I hope you will make a lot more content with as much work and effort put in. Cheers. (Sorry for any grammatical errors, english is not my first language)
CKB Creeps I suggest tou try out Dark souls 3 it’s gonna be the closest “good” dark souls game with 60 fps little bugs and a somewhat decent PC port until we get Dark souls remastered that is.
Start Para Jogar lol i regret my statement dearly, remastered is cash grab, for all of you who wants the true dark souls experience, stick to the original, it controls maybe bad, but it really was the original vision of miyazaki, not the downgrade that is the “remastered”.
I'm beginning to hate the word "Expectations." When The Last Jedi came out, this was the excuse people made for it: "You just didn't have the right expectations." What expectations, exactly, should I have? Should I have expected answers to my questions? Should I have expected a gripping, heartfelt story that dealt with Luke's failures learning how to teach a new generation of Jedi, and Rey's coming to terms with herself as a character? Because those expectations weren't met. Should I have expected a strong narrative and a coherent story? Because those expectations weren't met, either. Should I, in short, have expected a good Star Wars film from the 8th numbered entry in the series? Because I think it's safe to say that expectation certainly wasn't met. Expectations are what we develop when we find something we like. And playing to or subverting those expectations is a key element of making a good sequel. What is a bad sequel is when you look at those expectations, and then throw them out the window. The Last Jedi is bad because it took all of the expectations "The Force Awakens" fostered, then shot them into orbit where they circled around the sun. Dark Souls 2 is bad because it assumed players wanted to die a lot and experience a hard game, rather than a challenging one, and then went about making something lazy but "hard" due to shoving as many enemies into every encounter as they could get away with, going for cheap deaths, bad controls, and so on and so forth. In both cases, the people responsible for creating these things made garbage with a varying degree of laziness (For example, why bother training Rey when you can just say that the Force will make her as strong as she needs to be to beat Kylo?) and then tried to blame fans and "fanboys" for hating on it because it was "different" and didn't meet their expectations. Fans didn't hate your crap because it was different. They hated it because it was crap.
Worse yet, when people try to criticize these films or games constructively, they are shot down for reasons that have nothing to do with the argument being presented. Such as Rey being a “Mary Sue” and people who defend the movie say that you just “don’t like a strong female lead” or when you propose that Dark Souls 2 is a bad game objectively so they insert poor ideas for you being wrong such as “You are playing it wrong” or as you said “You had the wrong expectations” if you propose anything that someone disagrees with they can’t formulate a strong argument that presents facts instead of opinions. Thankfully we have people like Mauler who try not to do this as much as possible.
I love how his attempt to discredit Matt's video could just as easily be used as a reply to his own Fallout 3 video. "But Harris, games journalists loved Fallout 3 and gave it game of the year, stop expecting it to be like the first one!" It's what happens when you think your beliefs are inherently true and so never have to be examined for contradictions.
He's really an hypocrite. I recall he brought up the critics that gave Fallout 3 high scores and gave it a GOTY and he said they were wrong. But suddenly for Dark Souls 2 the critics are actually right now for some reason, just because he loves Dark Souls 2.
@@okagron what really makes him a hypocrite is that in one of his videos he goes on to say something along the lines of: "yes, it might be hard to admit that you are wrong, but you should do it before its too late because thats how we learn."
okagron In his video he does bring up that point... but says that in this specific case the journos are right. How is he a hypocrite if he literally brought up that point?
Notice how in this entire "defence of" video, Bomber never mentions the torch mechanic. Of course, acknowledging a broken mess like that would severely undermine his conclusion, that Dark Souls 2 is borderline perfect and the first game is less in every regard. Another really great video Mauler, only a few minutes in so far, hope this is as good as the other parts.
It was underdeveloped and disappointing. I like the light mechanics in Dark Souls, Tomb of the Giants is one of my favorite areas, so to see DS2 abandon that mechanic half way was frustrating. From Soft might as well have stuck a note in the box saying "Just fuck with the brightness fam".
It really should have occupied a weapon slot. They could have kept the timer. Needing to light it on something was fine too, but the real problem was the lighting engine making the torch completely pointless except in around 2 areas in the game. I did like the idea of using the torch to scare away enemies, like the spiders and the big arm things in the Cove. From really should have included more enemies and situations like that, since their lighting engine fucked over any chance of people using the torch to actually see. Imagine a boss that was afraid of fire in its first phase. That could have been very unique and interesting.
I find that interesting, because, if I recall his bloodborne video correctly, he wasn't saying shields are bad; he was saying (incorrectly... I think; I still haven't played Dark Souls 1 yet) that they encouraged blocking and only blocking, and that many people he watched who reviewed the first game and didn't like it were using the spear & shield, block & attack approach, and weren't exploring other options like parrying, rolling, dual-wielding or using a weapon two-handed. I actually found it jarring when, for his Dark Souls 2 video, he reduced it to "shields are bad". Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm really shocked Bomber made all those references to God Hand, then ignored that it was trashed by critics. In fact, there's plenty of examples where critics gave negative reviews to highly influential bits of media, not even just in video games. The first four Sabbath albums, John Carpenter's The Thing, Resident Evil's tank controls. There's likely even more examples of critics who gave overly positive reviews to media that aged like shit or wasn't good to begin with. You should always question what a critic has to say on art or media, as Bomber himself did with God Hand no doubt. I've a feeling I've made this exact point before on another video too but his Fallout 3 video is a direct contradiction to this one. Bomber honestly changed his argument as soon as it suited him and never addressed or dispelled his previous point. It's also laughable how he separates Yahtzee out, I guess because he's slightly more independant and has a different style to your average IGN reviewer.
Keep in mind that Citizen Kane lost best picture Oscar to the film "How Green is My Valley" which most people have never seen and do not remember. Criticism is a crapshoot and anyone is both allowed to and liable to twist it for their own gain so you really should take all criticism with a grain of salt. It's generally better to find a single critic or set of critics you find you have a similar taste profile to and follow them than to appeal to any "mass" of critics.
Another great example of stupid critics is Alien: Resurrection on the PS1. Quoting a gamespot review that appears in Civvie 11's video on the game, "The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up or down." This is an actual critique of the game from a random games journalist in the year 2000, describing the "terrifying" control scheme of some movie tie-in game that would go on to become a staple of most console games.
Tremendously disappointed at Harris' response to you on twitter, and the way his fans laugh off such educational and well thought out, expertly argued content by simple virtue of its length. You actually taught me some valuable skills when it comes to argument and conversation that I now use daily in this series. Thank you for that, you should look into law school.
that would be MY response though If someone made an 8(!) hour video only to tear apart opinion I posted on a video game I'd laugh at their autism, because there's no way they could have made it shorter and less nitpicky if they had useful things to say
@@whade62000 But it was a RESPONSE. That's the point of this series, to break apart his opinion and see where he's lacking or misinterpreting something to fit his view.
I realize this video is roughly three years old at this point, so no one will probably ever see this, but I just wanted to say -- incredible job on this video. I'm a relatively new fan, and found you from your unbridled rage videos. I really love your long forum style and how you dissect every positive or negative about the topic at hand. I put watching this series off for awhile. For one, because it is extremely long, but also because I had already seen Hbomber's original video and really liked it. As much as I like to think of myself as an objective person, I think we all struggle to hear views that go against what we already believe -- some more than others. I am *so* glad I finally decided to give this series a shot. I'm not a massive fan of the soulsborne series in the traditional sense. I love the lore, I love the themes, discussions about the games, watching other people run through it and I've consumed hours of dark souls content via RUclips. However, I've never played a single one all the way through. The furthest I've gotten in any of them was defeating the Cleric Beast in Bloodborne, and that took me a long time to get through (as in a week or more). And while it was extremely satisfying, I just didn't have the patience for it. Along side that, the feeling of being completely lost and not having a clear waypointed objective is so foreign to me it literally struck fear in me. It seems weird to say, but it's true. I was so incredibly anxious exploring past the Cleric Beast that I stopped playing all together. I end up returning back to Bloodborne once every few months in the hopes that I'll actually see it through, and I hope some day I'll grow enough as a person and as gamer to be able to do that. I say all this needlessly personal shit to give context. Because I hadn't played through all the games, and hadn't really watched a full run of DS2, I had no idea just how much he lied in order to prove his own narrative, and considering I loved his bloodborne video, if you do see this I ask that you make a video on that as well, because I'd love to know exactly how wrong he was there too. So thank you, for showing me just how badly his arguments were, and how unnecessarily rude and condescending he had been in his video. I'd also like to thank you for presenting what I believe to be a masterclass on deconstructing someone's argument. I absolutely adore the format of playing his video and showing his quote in text along side it. Having it in writing to really digest what he was saying was enough for me in some cases to realize how weak his arguments were and how uncritical I had been while watching his video on my own. But you went one step further. Honestly my only complaint with this series would be that you didn't point out your highlighting system sooner, which was fucking genius and extremely helpful. Additionally, your ability to not once insult or ad hom this pompous asshole is remarkable and is a great example on how to debate. Not once did you openly attack _him_ ; instead, you attacked his argument. And if you did point out how much of a jackass he was being you would say something like, "hey, other people say you're a smug jackass because of things like X" (obviously paraphrasing). This is an even more incredible feat with the additional context of how absolutely wrong and smug he was being, and how insulting he was being to.. Mathew, I believe the name was(?). As someone who's been engaging in online forum "debates" and "discussions" so far as youtube comment sections and reddit can even be classified as such, focusing more on the other person's argument and spending less time trying to make witty jabs is something I've been working on lately as I've grown as a person. Seeing you do it so flawlessly is honestly, in a word: an inspiration. I'll wrap this wall of text by saying keep doing what you're doing, and I'm glad to see your channel has grown since the measly "few hundred people who will see this video." I hope your channel continues to grow to be the size of some of these other youtube critics and analysts. You legitimately deserve it. I hope you or someone else appreciates this drawn out comment, but for now, I have your final DS2 video to enjoy.
Just want to say, I absolutely encourage you to try Bloodborne again. It does take a good deal of patience, but there is so much satisfaction to be had
This vid came out 3 years ago. Your comment was posted 2 years ago. Meaning that the vid was 1 year ago when you wrote the comment. But you say its 3 years old. Are you a time traveler?
18:00 "hard to recommend already" yeah sure Harris. This global phenomenon that every RUclipsr and their mother is playing is too daunting for the normies.
"I liked Crown of the Old Iron King's gimmick..." Harris then procceeds to show footage from the Ivory King DLC. GG, Harris you really proofread your script. What's more is that he doesn't even mention that this can provide an interesting option for the player as well as make a speedrun much faster if you're skilled enough; either go the other way to make the boss easier or just jump in and attempt to fight invisible Alva. Christ he's bad at defending the game.
The saddest thing, I don't hbomberguy will ever realize his mistakes. He advocated for living in an echo chamber and he spent a major part of video to "destroy" the main criticsm. A guy like that will never learn.
theultimates12 what really sucks about all this is he can just blame all the dislikes on his video by saying "it's just because i was standing up for the black sheep in the series!"
Here's HBomberguy's way of doing things: Make a controversial video -> Get called out for being wrong -> Create strawman version of your critics -> Pretend he is just doing it for "intellectual" reason so he can get his fan's sympathy. He has already done it to MauLer's video. He picked just one line and create an entire narrative of MauLer's videos are just nitpicking. Then pretend he didn't mean anything bad.
I think he realizes his mistakes, I just think he doesn't care about being right, and just wants to feel validated instead. So yeah, you're right, a guy like that will never learn, he doesn't even want to.
The real sad fact is that not only will he not learn how to function and act properly here on RUclips and just the internet over all, but more importantly he won't be able to function properly in life. The kind of person that makes videos like he does is most likely also the kind of person who is just super problematic in their day to day life.
So Hbomberguy's only defence to your response is "This is 9 hours long, who does that, he even puts what I say on the screen to make a point" proving that he's the type of person who can't be reasoned with, he's already decided what he likes, it is right, and nothing will change that, ever.
LMAO HE PULLED A FUCKING SARGON? That's hilarious, to be honest, though - nine hours is ridiculously excessive. And comes off as a bit obsessive, imo - but it's still pretty funny that Hbomb pulled a Sargon.
Dadko Sargon doesn't respond well to criticism. If you criticize him, he basically just insults you and go around slandering you. The reason why this is amusing is because Hbomberguy regularly criticizes Sargon and Sargon's tactics, but here he is doing the same.
"...he even puts what I say on the screen to make a point..." As opposed to cutting off the parts that he can't disprove / argue with and misrepresent the person and the arguments he's trying to critique?
I watched Bomberguys video because I wanted some help getting invested in the game . I previously rage quit after being killed for about the 7-8th time by a dead enemy who had barely started their wind up. What I got was insulted for liking DS1 and using a shield, I gave up on the overly snarky spiteful review about halfway through. I agave up as it seemed obvious he wasn't going to introduce any real points about why DS2 stands on it's own as a great game. He instead would tear at DS1 to try to drag it down to DS2 while raising DS2 up without substance, just saying things are "cool" and "nice". Even without watching the context I thought the video he slated had some good points and Bomberguy insulted him rather than addressing the issues, Thank you for re-convincing me to skip this chapter of the souls games.
Binged this on a plane. Lmao. To be honest, I don't like Harris and I think he argues like someone who genuinely has narcissistic personality disorder here. His tweet responding to this was dismissive and predictable.
They aren't m8, his political videos take his self-assured smugness to 100. Yeah its funny seeing him shit on fallout 3 but lets be real here, if you've played it recently you'd probably realize how dumb it is.
No fucking way I found a comment from you and here of all places. I’m literally in shock. Been a fan for a while, never would have guessed your @username. Great job with your videos, they are truly amazing.
You know, I still think about this series every now and then. You really tore him a new one so hard he seethed with rage and basically said "lalalala I can't hear you".
I watched this entire series starting with the scholar video. Wanting to be upset because you would be complaining about what is my favorite game in the series, but you have a great ability to remain objective about stuff, even if your friend playing didn't realize the jester robes prevent backstabs. I am now aware of flaws I unwittingly ignored because i liked other stuff about it. This is very well made. And i will probably binge all your other videos because of this. Great work.
I don't know if you're still paying attention to the comments on this video but I wanted to get this out anyway. I found your channel through Rags' video response to I Hate Everything's Star Wars: The Last Jedi video. I watched your critique on The Last Jedi and loved it. You give solid arguments and evidence for most if not every point you make. When i checked your channel and found this series (and noticed how long it was) I was ecstatic. I had already seen HBomberguy's defense video and Bloodborne video and I agreed with him for the most part so I wanted to see what kind of counter-arguments you made. I watched the first part all the way through to the fourth in one night, and subsequently finished the rest of the series the next day. I wanted you to know that through your thorough and well constructed responses, you have swayed my perspective both on the Dark Souls series, and good game design as a whole. Furthermore you have demonstrated what good analysis and critique look like, and I am grateful for that. I appreciate the time and effort you put in, in order for your videos to have such a high quality. Keep up the good work!
+MauLer I am dumbfounded at the amount of research and work you've put into this whole series and i find it criminal that all of them can't even pass a 3000 viewership number. I sincerely hope you find yourself a bigger audience, because you deserve it.
11:21 I actually admire the fact that you're able to criticise something for so long and this thorough. I'm currently watching every video you made so far and it's really worth it. I even think that I learned a couple things.
I went into this series for the meme value and came out a subscriber. These are unironically the most well constructed video essays and criticisms I've seen on youtube in a long time- perhaps ever- and I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Hats off to you
I don't know how active MauLer still checks this RUclips channel, but really want to put this out there. After playing DS: Remastered a couple of years ago, I decided to give DS2 a shot, even though I know many recommend skipping right to DS3. I am close to getting the platinum trophy (currently working my way through NG+) and found my experience to be remarkably different (not really in a positive way) from playing the first one. But I had a hard time putting my finger on it, other than the health reduction upon dying and an impression that the boss runs seemed to have become significantly more challenging, resulting in me having to clear the way to some of the boss fights (in terms of resource management, I hadn't quite realised how broken the Life Gems are and always tried to go into a boss fight with near max Estus Flask charges, which I often turned out not to need, because so many of the boss fights were so underwhelming). Anyway, I really wanted to find out why my experience with DS2 was so different and went on a bit of a journey through the RUclips-sphere and found several very enlightening videos that demonstrated to me what my issues were with the game, both mechanically and design-wise. And then I struck upon MauLer's cleverly sarcastically "In Defense of Dark Souls 2"-video, which I enjoyed a lot. When I noticed he did an entire series apparently responding to another video, I thought I'd give it a try. What a ride! I have zero regrets. On the contrary, this is an absolute gem of a series. In a day and age where everything needs to be as short as possible to retain viewer interest, it was a true breath of fresh air to find someone willing to take the time to be so meticulous and deliberate in their work and arguments. I very much appreciated your step-by-step, sentence-by-sentence critical response to Hbomberguy's video. It is a true masterclass in developing a convincing argument/counter-argument and I think many people would stand to learn a lot from watching a series like this, even those not necessarily familiar with the game. So, in short, many thanks, MauLer, whoever and wherever you are. Thank you for your diligence, hard work, and your willingness to share it with your viewers. I look forward to watching some of your other videos.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do something that absolutely needed to be done. HB's video has disgraceful and demanded a response like this. I believe Matthew was correct to ignore and not dignify his mess of an argument with a response, but this still needed to be done and you deserve many new subscribes for breaking this all down.
Just watched this whole thing in a single day. I really appreciate the time you put into this and the research you did. Dark Souls 1 is my favorite game by far, so seeing the way you've answered Harris' "arguments" put a big smile on my face. Praise the sun!
I know this is super old by youtube's standards, so chances are this comment will never be seen, but I felt the urge to comment on just how fantastic this series was. I'm glad that Mauler mentioned it in other livestreams. I recently played through all the DS games after playing Elden Ring as my first Fromsoft game. I fell in love with Elden Ring, and wanted to play the games that I had missed out on. While I had a similar love for DS1, DS2 had actually dumbfounded me in how poor of a game it was. Hail to the Longman, you make me want to make videos. This kind of content is what should be promoted on youtube.
Beautiful series. It's funny how Harris brought up Yahtzee's review of Demon's Souls-I do love that guy, and overall enjoy his snappy reviews-he does fail to mention how his review on Dark Souls was actually really positive, and he loves the Dark Souls trilogy as a whole-although he does fully admit that Dark Souls 2 is the weakest and that Dark Souls 3 should definitely be the last in the series-he even admitted that he should go back and try Demon's Souls again, so I am not entirely certain as to why that was brought up at all. Then again, this is to be respected from a person who cherry picks his way through something in order to make a misrepresentation of the final product.
either it's 'elden ring is gud because it copies dark souls 2' or he will reuse every fucking argument he did here such as non-linearity and then bring up why ds3 is bad somehow.
Hours of clay modeling and minecraft builds while listening to this and now its over... This series is a testament to critique done to perfection, or as close to one gets to perfect critique. Bravo, Mauler deserves all of the success he has garnered since he made these videos, it's awesome to see him rewarded for his efforts now that he has gained the following he has.
Friend of mine bought Scholar of the First Sin recently for PS3. He was talking about his experience with me and he mentioned he was looking for an ember for a blacksmith. He could only mean the Dull Ember so I found it odd he didn't find it since he had also mentioned getting to the Lost Bastille using the bird. So I just told him it was right next to the bonfire when he got there. It wasn't there. After some research we found out the PS3 version has none of the technical changes just the added DLC and Aldia. Why even release such a version? Were they trying to be misleading? The whole SotFS situation just reeks
"Why even release such a version?" - i think many publishers do this with games that got expansions/DLCs at a later date, so people can get the complete version (often called "Game of the Year Edition" lol), and don't have to buy the main game + its DLCs individually.
Problem is that it's being presented as SotFS version. Having "complete versions" is already confusing enough but having something presented as the revised version but then being just the complete version seems shady. Or I guess even shadier than SotFS already was.
I'd like to point out that when you said that the jump to the asylum was hard, its not actually needed to jump only a roll is required which makes it almost impossible to fail unless you roll unreasonably early. Aside from that misinformation which wasn't that relevant to Harris' video I have no other complaints.
I hope you know how appreciated this video series was. It is one of my favorites to return to; seeing one man break down arguments (I am a Philsophy ((psychology)) Major) really makes me feel good about the world. I feel bad because I haven’t watched your other stuff, but this video series alone is a masterpiece and it has affected me very positivelh
Originally watched the Star Wars critiques several times, ignored these because I couldn’t care less about Dark Souls. I am glad I decided to try this series out as well, it’s amazing! Now I’m waiting for part 5 of «The Force Awakens» critique, and wonder what to binge next.
So, you answered a lot of questions, but the one thing I don't understand... What is dark souls? Is it like a movie or something? one of those anime I keep hearing about?
Just finished this entire series. I must say, very well done. I first resonated with Harris but now I understand how many things he skipped on purpose just to argue for dark souls 2. Thank you for putting in the work and being this thorough, appreciate it :)
Thank you for making these videos man, for years I've come back to Hbombers video on Dark souls 2 and I've never been able to get past the 25 minute mark because of how clearly biased and wrong he was. This has made it enjoyable enough for me to finally be able to get through it. Just wish I'd found your videos sooner!
I watched the whole thing and I would like to wholeheartedly thank you for all the examples on how to have a debate, make statements and even how to use English language. Especially as a non-native English speaker, this is invaluable to me, thank you again
That was quite the ride. Watched all of this over the course of the day, but it was worth it. I'd probably appreciate it more if I had actually finished Dark Souls 2 myself (especially after having recently beaten Dark Souls 1 for the first time a little over a month ago), but between hearing Matthewmatosis' critique in his video and your responses to Hbomberguy's criticisms here, it really put into words what I was feeling while playing this game.
Your critique of Scholar made me go back and play vanilla DS2. Not only for nostalgia, as it was my first souls game, but to find all/most the complaints levied against it for myself. Since it was the first one I played, it taught me to be very cautious of my surroundings and not to underestimate my opponents. It also gave me the misunderstanding that this is was what a Souls game was.... Your critique simply made me realize the game was forcing awful mechanics and gameplay, the only saving grace being it imbued (forcefully developed) caution towards the Souls Franchise as a whole whenever exploring something new. (Thankfully I learnt better from 1, 3 and Bloodborne) Thanks for the great content, keep at it but don't strain yourself.
There comes a time when I feel drawn back to this and your other earlier series - and I am always amazed at the quality. Like others have said, I wish this series was longer. Thank you for putting in so much thought, time and effort Mauler!
Never heard of Harris or even played Dark Souls, I'm just relatively new subscriber who was absolutely blown away by MauLer's handy work. This is something I have been looking for, food for the mind.
I've slept on this series for way too long. I've been aware of it for about as long as it's been around because I tend to rewatch Matthew's DS2 video quite a lot and had seen comments about it. That video is very near and dear to me because of something you even mentioned once or twice; It perfectly summarized all my feelings on DS2 so perfectly in a way I couldn't formulate myself. It was really cathartic to have someone like Matthew, who's opinion I value a lot, mirror my disappointment in that game. And now, 8 hours later, I would say that feeling extends to you as well. Anyone that can so decisively refute everything in an argument like you've done is very much a legend, and you're thoroughly earned my sub.
i like dark 2's fashion souls, i like the fact that some of dark ones cheeses were removed, but that and the royal swordsman set aint enough to cover up the games flaws, also soul memory is cancer.
@Natty a little late, but soul memory is a track record of all the souls you picked up during gameplay. The bad part is that for pvp the game pairs you based on that instead of your level, which lead to people having trouble getting matches as they naturally picked up more and more souls, to the point they had to add a ring that negated the effects of soul memory.
Own a sword for manor defence, since that's what the Magna Carta intended. Four heathens break into my cottage. "What in the Lord's name?" As I grab my aventail bascinet and windlass arbalest. Punch a bolt through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Throw a pot of naft at the second man and miss entirely since it's a hand thrown grenade in the dark and burns down the neighbour's harvest causing them to starve in the winter. I have to resort to the pot of boiling oil at the top of the hay loft "Deus Lo Vult!" The boiling oil completely drenches two men and cause them to scream in agony and writhe on the ground, racked with incomprehensible pain. The screams of pain frightens horses in nearby stables. Draw sword and charge the last terrified infidel. He bleeds out with no one to assist him since this is Feudal Europe and nobody gives a shit. Just as the Magna Carta intended.
@@pingas469 for consoles maybe, but they still charged people for it on PC when the game (without mods) wasn't what it should have been on PC. As I understand there was at least a cheaper upgrade/discount for owners, but it should have been free.
I don't understand the hate for dsr. It's a port of the game on ps4/ xbox1/switch. The problem is deleting ds1 from steam, Not releasing dsr at 40 bucks. Also, FS has nothing to do with dsr.
One I graduated Highschool I came to a realization; I can enjoy things that are bad. I can play a terrible game and still have fun with it. I don't need to make my head spin with mental gymnastics and delude myself into thinking that a piece of media is amazing simply because I enjoyed it. Terrible media exists, like the Pick of Destiny, and yet I can still laugh and have a good time with it. Dark Souls 2 is a bad game, but I played over 100 hrs of it and remember most of it fondly.
Quite. For example, I'm still an avid fan of Megaman X6 for a lot of things I LIKE about the game, but objectively the game is a piece of hot garbage. No one should ever play that game to completion unless they're a weirdo like me who likes enough of it to force themselves past the insufferable majority of the rest of the game. If Harris kept this in mind, there wouldn't be an issue. But sadly that is not the case.
This series is a testament to good youtube criticism. The arguments are concise and the evidence well sourced. The opinions, and further, the factual agreement with them, are even better because they are well thought, scripted with care, and researched well which is seen in the evidence provided. Thanks Mauler, for leaving quality and masterful content to be consumed by a future audience to get completely enthralled by. Great work!
The work ethic that went into this series is revitalizing. My family on my dads side are all Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophers and teachers, and the rigor that goes into understanding, not just arguing, but actually understanding what you’re talking about, from an idea that your mind abstracted, from your sense experience with Harris opinions and executions of his own ideas about the reality of soulsborne, is how I’ve been instructed and taught to do, to read, to act, to listen, and how to approach life in general. I gave up on people treating things like this; attributing such precision in understanding, equal to how much they talk about loving whatever it is they are interested in. You not only do so out of obligation to staying true to your mind, but you are successful and actually have a fan base. Thats amazing to me. Thank you my friend. I wish I could grab a beer with you, or a coffee, Or tea or whatever it is you happen to drink. I would have a lot to say, and a lot to talk with you about. The best to you and yours. -Elijah.
Just finished watching all 8 parts of your response to Harris (DW, ill be watching your defense on DS2 as well, and i can say im very excited.), and i think it was extremely well put together. My starting expectation was, "this is probably going to be malicious", but instead, this was extremely refreshing! For insight, ive been a fan of Harris as well and i just stumbled upon your content because i was re-watching his DS2 defense video. I appreciate the amount of time you put into, not only giving well thought out responses, but your research into what is probably the longest and most time consuming installment of the souls-borne series!! So GOOD FUCKING JOB, FUCKING IMPRESSIVE!!!
This series got me through writing an essay and I have to thank you since that saved me time trying to find other videos to watch (I don't like doing anything without some background noise). I'm really glad I found a The Last Jedi critique that linked to your critique and now I can come over here when I have a whole slew of work and listen to you for hours.
Rewatching this in 2019 and have to say that the "official gaming press" Harris is praising for falling over for dark souls 2 went even more down the drain... Kind of amusing, really.
I came into this series long after watching Harris's videos on both DS2 and Bloodborne and it made me realize that I need to consider arguments from even my favorite content creators more carefully. This series was fantastic and I appreciate the level of detail put into it. Thank you sir.
I like how Harris, like many defending DkS2, will always fall back to saying that the game was initially received well. Only when Matthew's video gained popularity did the game become the black sheep. Personally, after my honeymoon period with DkS2 was over, I began to look at it more critically. I had completed my first playthrough and maintained a sense of boredom throughout it's entirety. Playing through it again revealed all of it's flaws. I'm a big PvPer, and I cannot describe my feeling over disbelief and dread when I slowly discovered that Soul Memory was actually a mechanic. A whole video can be dedicated to how Soul Memory destroys quality builds, novelty builds, and PvP in general. Alas, I digress. The point I'm making is that we in the community have the intelligence to understand the differences among the games, whether subtle or blatant. I was stunned at how Matthew literally stated EVERY problem I had with the game and more in his well presented critique. Having said that, DkS2 would still be the black sheep of the series even without Matthew's video for reference. Suggesting otherwise feels like condescension towards the community as a whole.
I know this series has been available for a while but thank you for this quite extensive and thorough response series, it has made think about reviews I have left in the past and how I could have put more time into them so that others may find them useful and informative rather than vague
In his Fallout 3 video Harris rightfully called out Bethesda for their scummy practices in regards to dlc, so I’m surprised to see him praise Scholar for the same things.
Got Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin edition after playing and enjoying Bloodborne. I nearly rage quit after Hiede's Tower of Flame and when I got to the Old Iron Keep, I had rage quit for fear of popping a damn blood vessel over the INFINITE ganking. Then I later picked up DS3 and enjoyed it. I will pick up the Dark Souls 1 remaster, mostly because I'm hoping they really fix the performance issues on PC. Love this video series HBomberguy to me always came off as smug but at first, I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but after seeing you utterly (and rightfully) rip his video a new one, I understand. I know others have already said it, but this is a well-done video (actually that doesn't do justice) the amount of work and effort you had to put into this 9 Part series is amazing.
3 years ago I watched this Hboomerguy's video because dark souls 2 was the first dark souls game I played and didn't know why people hated it so much and 13 years old me needed someone to tell me to feel my opinion liking the game wasn't wrong, but when he got to the "the word being unrealistic is mysterious" I closed the video and never heard about him again. Ever sense that day I tried myself to find why I liked the game and everything came crashing down as I never was able to to force myself to play the game again and I honestly started hating it and wondered how I actually was able to like the game from the start. TLDR: the video is so dogshit that it opened my eyes to the flaws of DS2 that I wasn't able to see before
Context: Ripped through and thoroughly loved Demons Souls like a decade ago, started but never finished both DS1 and 2 on their respective releases. Inspired by Sekiro, I finally went back like two weeks ago to finish off and platinum DS1, figured I might as well do DS2 as well. When I finished DS2 I was so burnt out by how shit it was, so many poor choices when directly compared to the first, and even Demons Souls. Felt like most enemies had too much HP and there were too many. Healing was both frustrating in how slow it was and brokenly OP in how abundant it was. Bosses were mostly insanely lazy and boring. World design was just as absurd as I remembered it. I've not watched Matt's video, came up with those problems on my own. I went online to see if I could have someone convince me as to why the game wasn't utter shit when compared to DS1 and found HBomb's video... Oh boy... Instantly noticed a series of terrible contradictions in his video, then the outright lies about enemy placement, ignorance of lock-on mechanics and weapon types, his complete disregard for world-consistency and structure, his obsession with and failure in tearing down DS1 just to try to make DS2 look better, etc.. The video was horrendous. I got through about half, but noticed your Part 1 linked on the side bar and decided fuck it, I hate my life and want to waste 8 hours of it. So glad I did, so glad I'm not crazy and I'm not the only one who found HBomb's video to be one of the absolute best examples of how to outright fail at objective criticism. Can't wait to watch your video on actually defending DS2, maybe it can remind me of some of the positives where Hbomb outright failed. Obviously your channel has grown in these two years, but honestly keep it up man you've gained a sub.
Awesome series so far. I'm a huge souls fan but only a occasional player. SotFS is actually my favorite but your series made me reflect on it in a way I hadn't before. Anyway, you've talked about DS1 and DS2 extensively thus far so my question is this: Are you gonna do a separate series on DS3? Looking forward to watching the next part!
Really appreciate the comment but I feel as though I would have to give several months to DS 3 to do it justice and in terms of an assessment of quality. Currently I have been working on my new script and responding to the comments about this series, while I am happy to talk about it, I am so burnt out on Dark Souls as a whole so I have made a goal to create the series once I have a larger audience, which should hopefully coincide with a reinvigorated passion to play the series. Hope you enjoy the finale tomorrow :) /
You mentioned you completed DS2 like 14 times for this series? Yeah I understand you might be a bit burnt out. Definitely looking forward to whatever you've got in the works right now.
Well done. I didn't think I would find an in-depth analysis of one specific given argument this entertaining. You sir, have earned my respect and admiration as a content creator, and I will be keeping my eye out for your future videos. Godspeed.
Thank you for helping me learn to converse debate and provide objevtive vs subjective agurments without letting my emotions blur my judgement @MauLer thank you so much love your content
It’s almost funny hearing you apologize for the length of this series. I’ve been rewatching it during Quarantine, and since I’m in the US, I’m watching it during the riots too. Ive been inside for weeks. The perfect time for a ten to twelve hour video series.
This series has been amazing. I have huge amounts of respect for you for putting the work in. It is very appreciated. I think this series went beyond a video game, to a question of language, argument and logic. It has been incredibly educating AND interesting for me. Definetely earned my sub. Keep doing what you're doing!
Ok, so I've watched all 8 videos now and here's my opinion. First of all I'm only playing DS (BB included) for fun and I've finished all of them multiple times, trying out different builds, SL1 runs etc. DS2 is the only one I've finished once. I've played it out of curiosity after hearing so much shit about it, and Harris' video actually made me eager to try it out. The ganks took all of the FUN away from it and I couldn't stand to go through it again, especially on a SL1 run (god, it took me 20+ tries to get through Iron Keep... never again) So all in all it's my least favourite of the bunch, but I have to admire the things it did well, in my opinion. It's the only game where NG+ actually brings something new. With all of the spambushes, adding new NPC invaders makes it even more annoying, but at least it's a new challenge. Bonfire ascetics were nice if you wanted to get the +2 rings in your first playthrough, or farm human effigies from the skeletons in majula. Those were good ideas, but implemented poorly. It's sad they didn't keep them in DS3, especially because they kept the +1 +2 rings. The game is too ganky, adaptability sucks and the DLCs are the weakest in the series (with some excepions of course, like Alonne, Fume Knight and Burnt Ivory King). It was only a fun one-time experience for me
Mihnea Zoican The variety in weapons, armours and spells is what keeps me coming back to DS2, as well as a still active PVP community. While I know that DS1 is the better game (still haven't played DS3 yet), it doesn't keep pulling me back like DS2.
i've come to enjoy this series. I am neutral on hbomber and you. I stumbled onto his video as it was suggested on the youtube home and decided i had time and gave it a whirl, since i am a fan of Dark Souls III, stopped halfway on Dark souls 2, and never played dark souls 1 and demons souls. I was confused as i thought it was going to be an opinion piece but, like wat you urself stated, he was quite... aggressive on his views. So then after i watched the video, i looked to the side and i see these 4 similar looking thumbnails with just numbers being different. 8 videos later, i have learned many things, not about dark souls, but debate, subjective vs objective, argument structuring, etc. This series have given me insight and broaden my mindset on how i view things. I thank you for this series good sir. TL:DR- I came here just to see Dark souls opinions, but came out learning debate. Pretty satisfied.
Fantastic series Mauler. I really enjoy your reals before feels methodology, it's refreshing in this day and age. I don't always sit down to watch multiple hours worth of Dark Souls and Star Wars analyses, but when I do it's probably a Mauler series.
I mean, he says shit so baffingly stupid some times... I was just watching Ja's DS2 review. At one point he says "It is unfair to criticise the sequel for something that the first game also does badly." Fucking sequels should be used to build on the game that came before.
@@RexVergstrong I'm not a fan of that guy. He keeps on passing subjective experiences as facts and misses the mark when it comes to developer intentions and stuff. He literally criticized Hollow Knight for being too easy with the pure nail and passed it off as a flaw when many people on the internet complain that the last couple of bosses and challenges in the game are ruthlessly difficult. He completely ignored the carefully crafted progression leading up to the mothwing and just said that it should have been given to you from the start in order to make movement more interesting when in reality it would overwhelm new players and movement less rewarding. He had a positive opinion of the game, but I don't care about that. He could hate it, but as long as he could make an honest and careful critique I'm all set.
This series taught me not only about Dark Souls and Video Games, but also how to structure a good essay and argue your points well. I feel like I've learned a lot. For reference, I've only ever played the first Dark Souls, and I didn't get very far.
How the hell did you make this series without going absolutely insane?! I feel like if I spend god knows how hours re-listening to HBomberguy’s bullshit I’d be wearing a muzzle and strait jacket in a padded cell constantly muttering “HARRIS” over and over again.
"Y'all have rose-tinted glasses for DS1 and blindly attack DS2, while I have rose-tinted glasses for DS2, and blindly defend it by attacking DS1, because I am a professional, an intellectual, and an auteur." - Harris...people aren't "blindly attacking" DS2 when they take the time to go through it 100 times to quantify why exactly it seems inferior. That's the opposite. It's like saying "I loved all the previous Corvette's, but this new one feels off..." and then they do a hundred tests, tear it down, and compare it to a previous, torn-down, Corvette. And you then barge in, having driven it once around the block calling everyone "stupid" and "friendless" and how "blind" they are to the genius of the new car. "You see, the new Corvette is missing door panels on purpose, as it's telling you that nothing is more important than the driving experience." I swear, these arguments are what has led to the "Lockdowns have ruined the economy...and that's a good thing!"-type articles. Or the "People Who Work Out and Eat Healthy are Problematic"-type articles. Considering that Harris is a theater-kid with smug, faux-moral superiority narcissism that preaches Leftist political propaganda in a demeaning way...none of it is surprising.
When people deliberately lie about Dark Souls 2 and also get many details about it just plain wrong... They really are blindly attacking it. Just look at all of the time Mauler is shit at the game and blames it for his own shortcomings like a child.
Oh man. I made it through the whole thing. Great stuff man. I'm a big fan of Harris myself, but his defence of dark souls 2 video has always struck me as incredibly weak and flawed compared to most of his stuff. I never would have been able to articulate to myself all the reasons why without watching this series. I'm also going to check out Matthew matosis for the first time due to your recommendation. So yeah, thanks all around guy.
My one criticism of this response series is that it was too short
i clicked this and was saddened to not see a part 9 or 10. a bit on the short side.
I feel like he’s not reaching his full potential here. It would be nice for him to do a video that’s a bit on the longer side. I’m thinking maybe 20 - 21 hours long.
THANK YOU! Someone else said it. Im not crazy.
Where’s the DLC MauLer?
Where’s Hbomberguy is wrong: SOTFS?
@@samjohnson8353 I would love to see a Scoffer of the First Smug update to this series
45:51 - So I watched this series on a whim, and after 8 hours I randomly see myself. I enjoyed your series but that was the funniest part to me for sure. Thanks man.
Logicked
Holy crap!!!
Logicked, what are you doing here!!!
Oh, Mauler and I are superbestfriends now and also getting married.
Congratulations
Lol
Whoah it's a small world
Logicked when's the wedding
Oh, god. I watched it all in one day. I feel closer to the cosmos.
...I don't even like Dark Souls.
God help me, there's one more part.
TriplePalindromous Welcome, please leave your sanity at the door.
I like Dark Souls, but i've only played 3 and Bloodborne... I still watched it, just so i can hear him completely obliterate this random RUclipsr i've never even heard of :D
I have only played 3h of the third souls game and Im trying to understand everything. I just like MauLer generally.
denius1704 well than this is proof on why you should skip 2
"The bad hitboxes are actually a metaphor for how even small things can have a big impact on the world around them!"
- Harris, probably
Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s
@@AtreyusNinjaNo it’s still pretty shit
@@AtreyusNinjanah man just finished watching his vids and it's a very bad rebuttal
@@AtreyusNinja reported for spam.
@@samueldawkins reported for id1ot
I think the thing that H.bomb misses about Matt's video is that he says it's still a pretty good game. Also if you read the description on the video, he clarifies that it's a CRITIQUE meaning he is going to focus on the negative parts of the video. I also find it funny, as you said, he only responds to 2% of the video.
He doesn't say anything to back up the points he made against the covenants, the lack of shortcuts in regards to level design, abundance of bonfires etc.
While I have a large amount of respect for Matt, that doesn't necessarily mean I blindly have to agree with him or disagree with him. I mean, he's one of the reasons of why the anti-Skyward Sword circlejerk exists. (I vehemently disagree with that video.) But if I was to create a video in the same structure to H.bomb, I wouldn't be disrespectful.
Wait; you disagree with his Skyward Sword video? Why? A lot of his points are well-founded.
The game being split into closed-off sections is a downgrade from the interconnectedness of OOT, MM and TP and the open world of Wind Waker.
The sky is barren of content. The only things there are Skyloft, a boss in Thunderhead, and two other locations.
The game really should have come with an option to play Link left-handed to make things equal for lefties.
The amount of backtracking is crazy; even Ocarina of Time made you only go through the same places twice, and even then, there were differences between Hyrule as Adult Link and Hyrule as Young Link.
There's an insane amount of fetch quests, including fetch quests that are mandatory parts of the story. I can't remember a single fetch quest in OOT or Wind Waker.
I don't mind optional hand-holding for struggling players; that's the whole point of Link's companions. The problem with Fi is that her explanations are not optional in quite a few areas.
What's the point of an orchestral soundtrack if the good music only gets heard once in cutscenes or certain areas?
There really should've been options for the different controls. Imagine, for example, that someone is disabled in some way that affects their wrists, and they can play a normal game very well with the buttons, and they can even handle Link swordfighting because they move their arms, but they can't fly the bird or insert the boss key because of the problem with their wrists. Should they really be locked out of content?
Link having a cap robs value from the Minish Cap's story. The hat is supposed to be a tribute to Ezlo.
I'm a fan of the Zelda series. But I'm not blind to the faults in any of the Zelda games. But I agree about a lot of Matthewmatosis' points. His arguments are very well reasoned and constructed.
I would like your comment, but you're at the infamous 69 so have my like in comment form.
@@matthewmuir8884 One other point about Skyward Sword, which was one of the worst offenders, in my opinion: all the duplicated content. Several bosses are just repeated throughout the game, like Girahim, the scorpion (forget its name), and the Imprisoned. It came off to me as padding out the content of the game to make the playtime longer. I was groaning by the time I had to go back to fight the Imprisoned for the third time. I found it especially disappointing because, in my opinion, the unique boss battles are the peak of the Zelda games.
I'm in the same boat as you. I love Zelda, and I even enjoyed Skyward Sword, but I'm not blind to the ways the games could be improved, and I definitely think Skyward Sword is one of the weaker entries in that franchise. As for the original comment that Matthewmatosis is "one of the reasons of why the anti-Skyward Sword circlejerk exists," I firmly disagree. Personally, I was aware of many of Skyward Sword's flaws before I ever even knew about Matthewmatosis, and I know I'm not the only one who had that experience.
I also have a lot of respect for Matthewmatosis, and I'm also rational enough to not blindly agree with everything he says. Not only do I agree with pretty much all of his criticisms of Skyward Sword, but I also think he worded them way more elegantly than I could, which makes for a nice viewing experience. He also covered some points that I never considered on my own playthroughs (like the accessibility concerns).
Incidentally, I also feel the same way about Matthewmatosis' critique of Dark Souls II. When I first played DS2, I had a good time with the game, but I did feel a little bit frustrated with some of the flaws I noticed, especially when compared to its predecessor, which I still find to be a more enjoyable experience overall.
Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s
About three weeks ago I got DS2, Scholar of the First Sin. My friend already had it and had been playing it for about 50 hours. I myself have only now played about 25 hours, and most of that time was spent playing coop. The only problem was that he spoiled most of the bosses and the experience that comes with, so I related a bit to the "friends" that Hbomber mentioned. At first I was amazed by the game and thought it was one of the greatest games ever. Frustrating at times but fun. I wanted to play it more and more.
I recently went on a trip and wanted to play DS2 so badly and searched for some DS2 content on youtube. I found Hbomberguy's channel and watched his defense of DS2. I really liked his video and agreed on a lot of his points, not having much experience with the game.
Then I found your channel. I started watching your RE serie and was shocked. Not only by how glorified the game was in my mind, but by how empty and subjective Hbomber's arguments were. When you showed how he tried to undermine Matthew I was horrified. Thanks to you a lot of problems came to my mind. Things I had felt in the game but couldn't quite put my finger on. DS2 is the first Soulsborn game I've played for more than 3 hours and I had nothing to compare it to, so I thought that the spam was natural. Regardless I will probably still enjoy the game, only I won't ever think of it as "perfect" again.
Since discovering you I've watched most of your videos. I'm now a subscriber and if I was old enough I would support you on patreon. I hope you will make a lot more content with as much work and effort put in. Cheers.
(Sorry for any grammatical errors, english is not my first language)
CKB Creeps I suggest tou try out Dark souls 3 it’s gonna be the closest “good” dark souls game with 60 fps little bugs and a somewhat decent PC port until we get Dark souls remastered that is.
@@manhphuc4335 HA, this didnt age well
Start Para Jogar lol i regret my statement dearly, remastered is cash grab, for all of you who wants the true dark souls experience, stick to the original, it controls maybe bad, but it really was the original vision of miyazaki, not the downgrade that is the “remastered”.
@@manhphuc4335 Good job coming back to correct a comment you made 6 months. Genuinely impressed.
Faisal Khan I like keeping opinion up to date, besides any poor souls who went hollow because of me would make me whip myself to death.
I'm beginning to hate the word "Expectations." When The Last Jedi came out, this was the excuse people made for it: "You just didn't have the right expectations." What expectations, exactly, should I have? Should I have expected answers to my questions? Should I have expected a gripping, heartfelt story that dealt with Luke's failures learning how to teach a new generation of Jedi, and Rey's coming to terms with herself as a character? Because those expectations weren't met. Should I have expected a strong narrative and a coherent story? Because those expectations weren't met, either. Should I, in short, have expected a good Star Wars film from the 8th numbered entry in the series? Because I think it's safe to say that expectation certainly wasn't met.
Expectations are what we develop when we find something we like. And playing to or subverting those expectations is a key element of making a good sequel. What is a bad sequel is when you look at those expectations, and then throw them out the window. The Last Jedi is bad because it took all of the expectations "The Force Awakens" fostered, then shot them into orbit where they circled around the sun. Dark Souls 2 is bad because it assumed players wanted to die a lot and experience a hard game, rather than a challenging one, and then went about making something lazy but "hard" due to shoving as many enemies into every encounter as they could get away with, going for cheap deaths, bad controls, and so on and so forth. In both cases, the people responsible for creating these things made garbage with a varying degree of laziness (For example, why bother training Rey when you can just say that the Force will make her as strong as she needs to be to beat Kylo?) and then tried to blame fans and "fanboys" for hating on it because it was "different" and didn't meet their expectations.
Fans didn't hate your crap because it was different. They hated it because it was crap.
Thank you. I completely agree.
Worse yet, when people try to criticize these films or games constructively, they are shot down for reasons that have nothing to do with the argument being presented. Such as Rey being a “Mary Sue” and people who defend the movie say that you just “don’t like a strong female lead” or when you propose that Dark Souls 2 is a bad game objectively so they insert poor ideas for you being wrong such as “You are playing it wrong” or as you said “You had the wrong expectations” if you propose anything that someone disagrees with they can’t formulate a strong argument that presents facts instead of opinions. Thankfully we have people like Mauler who try not to do this as much as possible.
I was certainly expecting a good movie. They subverted those expectations masterfully.
Chris Maloney in a good way or a bad way?
@@chrismaloney7562
Meh, Luke was a bit of a marty stu.
(Gary stu?)
But at least he was shown recieving training.
I love how his attempt to discredit Matt's video could just as easily be used as a reply to his own Fallout 3 video. "But Harris, games journalists loved Fallout 3 and gave it game of the year, stop expecting it to be like the first one!"
It's what happens when you think your beliefs are inherently true and so never have to be examined for contradictions.
Nice Renon avatar.
He's really an hypocrite. I recall he brought up the critics that gave Fallout 3 high scores and gave it a GOTY and he said they were wrong. But suddenly for Dark Souls 2 the critics are actually right now for some reason, just because he loves Dark Souls 2.
@@okagron what really makes him a hypocrite is that in one of his videos he goes on to say something along the lines of: "yes, it might be hard to admit that you are wrong, but you should do it before its too late because thats how we learn."
okagron In his video he does bring up that point... but says that in this specific case the journos are right. How is he a hypocrite if he literally brought up that point?
@@acceleration4443 that makes him even more of a hypocrite that he actually acknowledged it.
Notice how in this entire "defence of" video, Bomber never mentions the torch mechanic. Of course, acknowledging a broken mess like that would severely undermine his conclusion, that Dark Souls 2 is borderline perfect and the first game is less in every regard. Another really great video Mauler, only a few minutes in so far, hope this is as good as the other parts.
You sound like a person who is going to love Part 9 :D
SoupCann Mind explaining the problems with the torch?
It was underdeveloped and disappointing. I like the light mechanics in Dark Souls, Tomb of the Giants is one of my favorite areas, so to see DS2 abandon that mechanic half way was frustrating. From Soft might as well have stuck a note in the box saying "Just fuck with the brightness fam".
It really should have occupied a weapon slot. They could have kept the timer. Needing to light it on something was fine too, but the real problem was the lighting engine making the torch completely pointless except in around 2 areas in the game. I did like the idea of using the torch to scare away enemies, like the spiders and the big arm things in the Cove. From really should have included more enemies and situations like that, since their lighting engine fucked over any chance of people using the torch to actually see.
Imagine a boss that was afraid of fire in its first phase. That could have been very unique and interesting.
Totally agree. The torch is only useful in two areas and even then, you can easily get through without it.
Wait at 38:29 he's... using a SHIELDS??? I thought he said if you use Shields you aren't playing it right
EXPOSED!!!!
I find that interesting, because, if I recall his bloodborne video correctly, he wasn't saying shields are bad; he was saying (incorrectly... I think; I still haven't played Dark Souls 1 yet) that they encouraged blocking and only blocking, and that many people he watched who reviewed the first game and didn't like it were using the spear & shield, block & attack approach, and weren't exploring other options like parrying, rolling, dual-wielding or using a weapon two-handed. I actually found it jarring when, for his Dark Souls 2 video, he reduced it to "shields are bad".
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Matthew St. Cyr haven't seen his bloodborne video, all I hear is someone saying shields are bad when he's obviously using one
Give him a Shield back up!
No he said using shields was fine, he just thought there was an over dependence.
I'm really shocked Bomber made all those references to God Hand, then ignored that it was trashed by critics. In fact, there's plenty of examples where critics gave negative reviews to highly influential bits of media, not even just in video games. The first four Sabbath albums, John Carpenter's The Thing, Resident Evil's tank controls. There's likely even more examples of critics who gave overly positive reviews to media that aged like shit or wasn't good to begin with. You should always question what a critic has to say on art or media, as Bomber himself did with God Hand no doubt.
I've a feeling I've made this exact point before on another video too but his Fallout 3 video is a direct contradiction to this one. Bomber honestly changed his argument as soon as it suited him and never addressed or dispelled his previous point. It's also laughable how he separates Yahtzee out, I guess because he's slightly more independant and has a different style to your average IGN reviewer.
Keep in mind that Citizen Kane lost best picture Oscar to the film "How Green is My Valley" which most people have never seen and do not remember. Criticism is a crapshoot and anyone is both allowed to and liable to twist it for their own gain so you really should take all criticism with a grain of salt.
It's generally better to find a single critic or set of critics you find you have a similar taste profile to and follow them than to appeal to any "mass" of critics.
+The Nile Ue Ue Fly
I think it depends on the critic some are smart and ahead of there time while others are stupid
Moonie
Another great example of stupid critics is Alien: Resurrection on the PS1. Quoting a gamespot review that appears in Civvie 11's video on the game, "The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up or down." This is an actual critique of the game from a random games journalist in the year 2000, describing the "terrifying" control scheme of some movie tie-in game that would go on to become a staple of most console games.
Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s
Tremendously disappointed at Harris' response to you on twitter, and the way his fans laugh off such educational and well thought out, expertly argued content by simple virtue of its length. You actually taught me some valuable skills when it comes to argument and conversation that I now use daily in this series. Thank you for that, you should look into law school.
"DUDE, NINE HOURS!!?!?! HOLY SHIT MAULER'S SO BUTTHURT :DDD" Absolute peak performance.
It's too hbombs long
that would be MY response though
If someone made an 8(!) hour video only to tear apart opinion I posted on a video game I'd laugh at their autism, because there's no way they could have made it shorter and less nitpicky if they had useful things to say
@@whade62000
Wow that’s petty.
@@whade62000 But it was a RESPONSE. That's the point of this series, to break apart his opinion and see where he's lacking or misinterpreting something to fit his view.
I realize this video is roughly three years old at this point, so no one will probably ever see this, but I just wanted to say -- incredible job on this video. I'm a relatively new fan, and found you from your unbridled rage videos. I really love your long forum style and how you dissect every positive or negative about the topic at hand. I put watching this series off for awhile. For one, because it is extremely long, but also because I had already seen Hbomber's original video and really liked it. As much as I like to think of myself as an objective person, I think we all struggle to hear views that go against what we already believe -- some more than others. I am *so* glad I finally decided to give this series a shot.
I'm not a massive fan of the soulsborne series in the traditional sense. I love the lore, I love the themes, discussions about the games, watching other people run through it and I've consumed hours of dark souls content via RUclips. However, I've never played a single one all the way through. The furthest I've gotten in any of them was defeating the Cleric Beast in Bloodborne, and that took me a long time to get through (as in a week or more). And while it was extremely satisfying, I just didn't have the patience for it. Along side that, the feeling of being completely lost and not having a clear waypointed objective is so foreign to me it literally struck fear in me. It seems weird to say, but it's true. I was so incredibly anxious exploring past the Cleric Beast that I stopped playing all together. I end up returning back to Bloodborne once every few months in the hopes that I'll actually see it through, and I hope some day I'll grow enough as a person and as gamer to be able to do that. I say all this needlessly personal shit to give context. Because I hadn't played through all the games, and hadn't really watched a full run of DS2, I had no idea just how much he lied in order to prove his own narrative, and considering I loved his bloodborne video, if you do see this I ask that you make a video on that as well, because I'd love to know exactly how wrong he was there too. So thank you, for showing me just how badly his arguments were, and how unnecessarily rude and condescending he had been in his video.
I'd also like to thank you for presenting what I believe to be a masterclass on deconstructing someone's argument. I absolutely adore the format of playing his video and showing his quote in text along side it. Having it in writing to really digest what he was saying was enough for me in some cases to realize how weak his arguments were and how uncritical I had been while watching his video on my own. But you went one step further. Honestly my only complaint with this series would be that you didn't point out your highlighting system sooner, which was fucking genius and extremely helpful. Additionally, your ability to not once insult or ad hom this pompous asshole is remarkable and is a great example on how to debate. Not once did you openly attack _him_ ; instead, you attacked his argument. And if you did point out how much of a jackass he was being you would say something like, "hey, other people say you're a smug jackass because of things like X" (obviously paraphrasing). This is an even more incredible feat with the additional context of how absolutely wrong and smug he was being, and how insulting he was being to.. Mathew, I believe the name was(?). As someone who's been engaging in online forum "debates" and "discussions" so far as youtube comment sections and reddit can even be classified as such, focusing more on the other person's argument and spending less time trying to make witty jabs is something I've been working on lately as I've grown as a person. Seeing you do it so flawlessly is honestly, in a word: an inspiration.
I'll wrap this wall of text by saying keep doing what you're doing, and I'm glad to see your channel has grown since the measly "few hundred people who will see this video." I hope your channel continues to grow to be the size of some of these other youtube critics and analysts. You legitimately deserve it. I hope you or someone else appreciates this drawn out comment, but for now, I have your final DS2 video to enjoy.
Oh people will always see these comments 😁
Just want to say, I absolutely encourage you to try Bloodborne again. It does take a good deal of patience, but there is so much satisfaction to be had
This vid came out 3 years ago. Your comment was posted 2 years ago. Meaning that the vid was 1 year ago when you wrote the comment. But you say its 3 years old. Are you a time traveler?
@@daguts3590 or did he know we would be here in the future to see it...
@@bengale9977 hmmmmmmm🤔🤔
24:00 wait wait, is he using a shield? oh bless it seems like someone didn't wanted to unlearn what he learned in dark souls 1
Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s
42:28
Mauler: "humans love stories"
GoT season 8: "write that down, write that down!!"
WHO HAS BETTER STORY THAN BRAN THE BROKEN!
That’s immediately what I thought about lmao
@@matiasluukkanen7718 Literally almost everyone else.
Domo3000 is showing how wrong is Mauler about DS2, and he is doing an amazing job. s
18:00 "hard to recommend already" yeah sure Harris. This global phenomenon that every RUclipsr and their mother is playing is too daunting for the normies.
"I liked Crown of the Old Iron King's gimmick..." Harris then procceeds to show footage from the Ivory King DLC. GG, Harris you really proofread your script. What's more is that he doesn't even mention that this can provide an interesting option for the player as well as make a speedrun much faster if you're skilled enough; either go the other way to make the boss easier or just jump in and attempt to fight invisible Alva. Christ he's bad at defending the game.
The saddest thing, I don't hbomberguy will ever realize his mistakes. He advocated for living in an echo chamber and he spent a major part of video to "destroy" the main criticsm. A guy like that will never learn.
theultimates12 what really sucks about all this is he can just blame all the dislikes on his video by saying "it's just because i was standing up for the black sheep in the series!"
Here's HBomberguy's way of doing things: Make a controversial video -> Get called out for being wrong -> Create strawman version of your critics -> Pretend he is just doing it for "intellectual" reason so he can get his fan's sympathy.
He has already done it to MauLer's video. He picked just one line and create an entire narrative of MauLer's videos are just nitpicking. Then pretend he didn't mean anything bad.
I think he realizes his mistakes, I just think he doesn't care about being right, and just wants to feel validated instead.
So yeah, you're right, a guy like that will never learn, he doesn't even want to.
I think he could eventually learn, but it will be hard for him.
The real sad fact is that not only will he not learn how to function and act properly here on RUclips and just the internet over all, but more importantly he won't be able to function properly in life. The kind of person that makes videos like he does is most likely also the kind of person who is just super problematic in their day to day life.
So Hbomberguy's only defence to your response is "This is 9 hours long, who does that, he even puts what I say on the screen to make a point" proving that he's the type of person who can't be reasoned with, he's already decided what he likes, it is right, and nothing will change that, ever.
LMAO HE PULLED A FUCKING SARGON? That's hilarious, to be honest, though - nine hours is ridiculously excessive. And comes off as a bit obsessive, imo - but it's still pretty funny that Hbomb pulled a Sargon.
@@fuzzydunlop7928 "pulled a Sargon" What does that mean?
Dadko Sargon doesn't respond well to criticism. If you criticize him, he basically just insults you and go around slandering you. The reason why this is amusing is because Hbomberguy regularly criticizes Sargon and Sargon's tactics, but here he is doing the same.
@@harry426 He also only has an attention-span of 5 minutes.
"...he even puts what I say on the screen to make a point..."
As opposed to cutting off the parts that he can't disprove / argue with and misrepresent the person and the arguments he's trying to critique?
I watched Bomberguys video because I wanted some help getting invested in the game .
I previously rage quit after being killed for about the 7-8th time by a dead enemy who had barely started their wind up. What I got was insulted for liking DS1 and using a shield, I gave up on the overly snarky spiteful review about halfway through. I agave up as it seemed obvious he wasn't going to introduce any real points about why DS2 stands on it's own as a great game. He instead would tear at DS1 to try to drag it down to DS2 while raising DS2 up without substance, just saying things are "cool" and "nice". Even without watching the context I thought the video he slated had some good points and Bomberguy insulted him rather than addressing the issues,
Thank you for re-convincing me to skip this chapter of the souls games.
Binged this on a plane. Lmao. To be honest, I don't like Harris and I think he argues like someone who genuinely has narcissistic personality disorder here. His tweet responding to this was dismissive and predictable.
This video is the only way I'm able to listen to Harris with out going for a gun I'm sure some of his videos are good but I'm ok with never knowing.
They aren't m8, his political videos take his self-assured smugness to 100. Yeah its funny seeing him shit on fallout 3 but lets be real here, if you've played it recently you'd probably realize how dumb it is.
source please? I suck at twitter so I can't find it
twitter.com/hbomberguy/status/946416169564672002?lang=en
The replies are sycophantic. It's a serious shame given that this video dissects every word so well.
Very entertaining and throughout. The hours watching this were worth it.
holy crap. fancy meeting you here
No fucking way I found a comment from you and here of all places. I’m literally in shock. Been a fan for a while, never would have guessed your @username. Great job with your videos, they are truly amazing.
@@minecraftgravityguy lol heya. I'm glad you liked my videos.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
You know, I still think about this series every now and then. You really tore him a new one so hard he seethed with rage and basically said "lalalala I can't hear you".
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
these are great. thank you for these.
love the little toot-edits on the dragon riders
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
I watched this entire series starting with the scholar video. Wanting to be upset because you would be complaining about what is my favorite game in the series, but you have a great ability to remain objective about stuff, even if your friend playing didn't realize the jester robes prevent backstabs.
I am now aware of flaws I unwittingly ignored because i liked other stuff about it.
This is very well made. And i will probably binge all your other videos because of this. Great work.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
Harris calling ANYONE a fanboy broke my irony meter. I don't know if I will ever recover.
I don't know if you're still paying attention to the comments on this video but I wanted to get this out anyway. I found your channel through Rags' video response to I Hate Everything's Star Wars: The Last Jedi video. I watched your critique on The Last Jedi and loved it. You give solid arguments and evidence for most if not every point you make.
When i checked your channel and found this series (and noticed how long it was) I was ecstatic. I had already seen HBomberguy's defense video and Bloodborne video and I agreed with him for the most part so I wanted to see what kind of counter-arguments you made.
I watched the first part all the way through to the fourth in one night, and subsequently finished the rest of the series the next day. I wanted you to know that through your thorough and well constructed responses, you have swayed my perspective both on the Dark Souls series, and good game design as a whole. Furthermore you have demonstrated what good analysis and critique look like, and I am grateful for that. I appreciate the time and effort you put in, in order for your videos to have such a high quality. Keep up the good work!
I've never seen someone so efficiently and systematically plow another guy into the ground.
I love this series.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys' videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing.
+MauLer I am dumbfounded at the amount of research and work you've put into this whole series and i find it criminal that all of them can't even pass a 3000 viewership number. I sincerely hope you find yourself a bigger audience, because you deserve it.
Thanks man, appreciate it, these videos can be a nightmare to make haha :D
This has aged very well indeed, how wholesome
He didn't do any research. Domo debunked ALL of his false arguments
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
@@jakubSwapsnot after domo3000 videos, it aged like untreated milk lmaooooo rekt
11:21 I actually admire the fact that you're able to criticise something for so long and this thorough.
I'm currently watching every video you made so far and it's really worth it. I even think that I learned a couple things.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing.
Watch that if you really want to learn something
This was an awesome series, I'm glad I found your channel
I went into this series for the meme value and came out a subscriber. These are unironically the most well constructed video essays and criticisms I've seen on youtube in a long time- perhaps ever- and I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Hats off to you
Gamespot "I like fallout 3"
HBOMBERGUY- GAMING PRESS IS DEAD
oh hey they like the game i like. They are so credible.
I don't know how active MauLer still checks this RUclips channel, but really want to put this out there. After playing DS: Remastered a couple of years ago, I decided to give DS2 a shot, even though I know many recommend skipping right to DS3. I am close to getting the platinum trophy (currently working my way through NG+) and found my experience to be remarkably different (not really in a positive way) from playing the first one. But I had a hard time putting my finger on it, other than the health reduction upon dying and an impression that the boss runs seemed to have become significantly more challenging, resulting in me having to clear the way to some of the boss fights (in terms of resource management, I hadn't quite realised how broken the Life Gems are and always tried to go into a boss fight with near max Estus Flask charges, which I often turned out not to need, because so many of the boss fights were so underwhelming). Anyway, I really wanted to find out why my experience with DS2 was so different and went on a bit of a journey through the RUclips-sphere and found several very enlightening videos that demonstrated to me what my issues were with the game, both mechanically and design-wise. And then I struck upon MauLer's cleverly sarcastically "In Defense of Dark Souls 2"-video, which I enjoyed a lot. When I noticed he did an entire series apparently responding to another video, I thought I'd give it a try. What a ride! I have zero regrets. On the contrary, this is an absolute gem of a series. In a day and age where everything needs to be as short as possible to retain viewer interest, it was a true breath of fresh air to find someone willing to take the time to be so meticulous and deliberate in their work and arguments. I very much appreciated your step-by-step, sentence-by-sentence critical response to Hbomberguy's video. It is a true masterclass in developing a convincing argument/counter-argument and I think many people would stand to learn a lot from watching a series like this, even those not necessarily familiar with the game. So, in short, many thanks, MauLer, whoever and wherever you are. Thank you for your diligence, hard work, and your willingness to share it with your viewers. I look forward to watching some of your other videos.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do something that absolutely needed to be done. HB's video has disgraceful and demanded a response like this. I believe Matthew was correct to ignore and not dignify his mess of an argument with a response, but this still needed to be done and you deserve many new subscribes for breaking this all down.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
Just watched this whole thing in a single day. I really appreciate the time you put into this and the research you did. Dark Souls 1 is my favorite game by far, so seeing the way you've answered Harris' "arguments" put a big smile on my face. Praise the sun!
I really love hearing you ramble on about how small your channel was at the time this series was made knowing the behemoth it’s become.
I know this is super old by youtube's standards, so chances are this comment will never be seen, but I felt the urge to comment on just how fantastic this series was. I'm glad that Mauler mentioned it in other livestreams. I recently played through all the DS games after playing Elden Ring as my first Fromsoft game. I fell in love with Elden Ring, and wanted to play the games that I had missed out on. While I had a similar love for DS1, DS2 had actually dumbfounded me in how poor of a game it was. Hail to the Longman, you make me want to make videos. This kind of content is what should be promoted on youtube.
Beautiful series. It's funny how Harris brought up Yahtzee's review of Demon's Souls-I do love that guy, and overall enjoy his snappy reviews-he does fail to mention how his review on Dark Souls was actually really positive, and he loves the Dark Souls trilogy as a whole-although he does fully admit that Dark Souls 2 is the weakest and that Dark Souls 3 should definitely be the last in the series-he even admitted that he should go back and try Demon's Souls again, so I am not entirely certain as to why that was brought up at all. Then again, this is to be respected from a person who cherry picks his way through something in order to make a misrepresentation of the final product.
Rewatching all of these and loving it. Can’t wait for H bomber to say some stupid shit about Eldin Ring and the Long man’s 12 part measured response
either it's 'elden ring is gud because it copies dark souls 2' or he will reuse every fucking argument he did here such as non-linearity and then bring up why ds3 is bad somehow.
Hours of clay modeling and minecraft builds while listening to this and now its over... This series is a testament to critique done to perfection, or as close to one gets to perfect critique. Bravo, Mauler deserves all of the success he has garnered since he made these videos, it's awesome to see him rewarded for his efforts now that he has gained the following he has.
Friend of mine bought Scholar of the First Sin recently for PS3. He was talking about his experience with me and he mentioned he was looking for an ember for a blacksmith. He could only mean the Dull Ember so I found it odd he didn't find it since he had also mentioned getting to the Lost Bastille using the bird. So I just told him it was right next to the bonfire when he got there. It wasn't there. After some research we found out the PS3 version has none of the technical changes just the added DLC and Aldia. Why even release such a version? Were they trying to be misleading? The whole SotFS situation just reeks
"Why even release such a version?"
- i think many publishers do this with games that got expansions/DLCs at a later date, so people can get the complete version (often called "Game of the Year Edition" lol), and don't have to buy the main game + its DLCs individually.
Problem is that it's being presented as SotFS version. Having "complete versions" is already confusing enough but having something presented as the revised version but then being just the complete version seems shady. Or I guess even shadier than SotFS already was.
I'd like to point out that when you said that the jump to the asylum was hard, its not actually needed to jump only a roll is required which makes it almost impossible to fail unless you roll unreasonably early. Aside from that misinformation which wasn't that relevant to Harris' video I have no other complaints.
I hope you know how appreciated this video series was. It is one of my favorites to return to; seeing one man break down arguments (I am a Philsophy ((psychology)) Major) really makes me feel good about the world. I feel bad because I haven’t watched your other stuff, but this video series alone is a masterpiece and it has affected me very positivelh
Its funny how he says he hates shields yet in the Shulva segments of his videos, he's using the sanctum knight shield. Nice one Harris.
I will forever hear that fart sound when i kill a Dragonrider. Thank you.
Originally watched the Star Wars critiques several times, ignored these because I couldn’t care less about Dark Souls. I am glad I decided to try this series out as well, it’s amazing!
Now I’m waiting for part 5 of «The Force Awakens» critique, and wonder what to binge next.
When Harris says "funny moments" I assume the falconer's run animation.
Tear of Grace had a fucking field day with that animation. I think it was like 1~2 minutes of gut-busting laughter.
That is the best moment in the entire game
42:30 in "humans love stories" MauLer predicted Bran the Broken as King confirmed!
So, you answered a lot of questions, but the one thing I don't understand... What is dark souls? Is it like a movie or something? one of those anime I keep hearing about?
Yes
If you believe the people who have milk beards from blowing it so hard you’d think it was the apex of art
Just finished this entire series. I must say, very well done. I first resonated with Harris but now I understand how many things he skipped on purpose just to argue for dark souls 2. Thank you for putting in the work and being this thorough, appreciate it :)
Thank you for making these videos man, for years I've come back to Hbombers video on Dark souls 2 and I've never been able to get past the 25 minute mark because of how clearly biased and wrong he was.
This has made it enjoyable enough for me to finally be able to get through it. Just wish I'd found your videos sooner!
“I liked Broom Tower because it was vertical”
Oh, so, like... the Great Hollow?
I watched the whole thing and I would like to wholeheartedly thank you for all the examples on how to have a debate, make statements and even how to use English language. Especially as a non-native English speaker, this is invaluable to me, thank you again
That was quite the ride. Watched all of this over the course of the day, but it was worth it. I'd probably appreciate it more if I had actually finished Dark Souls 2 myself (especially after having recently beaten Dark Souls 1 for the first time a little over a month ago), but between hearing Matthewmatosis' critique in his video and your responses to Hbomberguy's criticisms here, it really put into words what I was feeling while playing this game.
"Humans love stories."
"Everyone loves a good story..."
It was foretold.
Your critique of Scholar made me go back and play vanilla DS2. Not only for nostalgia, as it was my first souls game, but to find all/most the complaints levied against it for myself. Since it was the first one I played, it taught me to be very cautious of my surroundings and not to underestimate my opponents. It also gave me the misunderstanding that this is was what a Souls game was.... Your critique simply made me realize the game was forcing awful mechanics and gameplay, the only saving grace being it imbued (forcefully developed) caution towards the Souls Franchise as a whole whenever exploring something new. (Thankfully I learnt better from 1, 3 and Bloodborne)
Thanks for the great content, keep at it but don't strain yourself.
There comes a time when I feel drawn back to this and your other earlier series - and I am always amazed at the quality. Like others have said, I wish this series was longer. Thank you for putting in so much thought, time and effort Mauler!
Never heard of Harris or even played Dark Souls, I'm just relatively new subscriber who was absolutely blown away by MauLer's handy work. This is something I have been looking for, food for the mind.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
I've slept on this series for way too long. I've been aware of it for about as long as it's been around because I tend to rewatch Matthew's DS2 video quite a lot and had seen comments about it. That video is very near and dear to me because of something you even mentioned once or twice; It perfectly summarized all my feelings on DS2 so perfectly in a way I couldn't formulate myself. It was really cathartic to have someone like Matthew, who's opinion I value a lot, mirror my disappointment in that game. And now, 8 hours later, I would say that feeling extends to you as well. Anyone that can so decisively refute everything in an argument like you've done is very much a legend, and you're thoroughly earned my sub.
Dunno how you do it; I just binged all parts of this and you didn't bore me at all which is crazy for an 8hr watch. Great job of course.
i like dark 2's fashion souls, i like the fact that some of dark ones cheeses were removed, but that and the royal swordsman set aint enough to cover up the games flaws, also soul memory is cancer.
@Natty a little late, but soul memory is a track record of all the souls you picked up during gameplay. The bad part is that for pvp the game pairs you based on that instead of your level, which lead to people having trouble getting matches as they naturally picked up more and more souls, to the point they had to add a ring that negated the effects of soul memory.
@@DaveBlackrose it just ate your souls.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
Own a sword for manor defence, since that's what the Magna Carta intended. Four heathens break into my cottage. "What in the Lord's name?" As I grab my aventail bascinet and windlass arbalest. Punch a bolt through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Throw a pot of naft at the second man and miss entirely since it's a hand thrown grenade in the dark and burns down the neighbour's harvest causing them to starve in the winter. I have to resort to the pot of boiling oil at the top of the hay loft "Deus Lo Vult!" The boiling oil completely drenches two men and cause them to scream in agony and writhe on the ground, racked with incomprehensible pain. The screams of pain frightens horses in nearby stables. Draw sword and charge the last terrified infidel. He bleeds out with no one to assist him since this is Feudal Europe and nobody gives a shit. Just as the Magna Carta intended.
You... seriously made an 8+ hour long response to a 1,5 hours long video... this is like the ouroboros of youtube content.
bartholen You missed the opportunity to say its "the dark souls of your content"
Elvick this is the dark souls of RUclips coments
Lol yes, sometimes it takes longer to dissect something then it is to create it. I enjoyed the videos so far
@@takoberu3992 saying the oroboro of youtube content is already the other way of saying dark souls of something
@@davids7646 Ah, got it.
"Do not encourage shit like Scholar of the first sin"
DS Remastered: I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that
To be fair, DS without lag is a totally different game.
DSR came out 10 years after the original and made ds1 playable on 8th gen consoles. Completely different scenario
@@pingas469 for consoles maybe, but they still charged people for it on PC when the game (without mods) wasn't what it should have been on PC. As I understand there was at least a cheaper upgrade/discount for owners, but it should have been free.
I don't understand the hate for dsr. It's a port of the game on ps4/ xbox1/switch. The problem is deleting ds1 from steam, Not releasing dsr at 40 bucks. Also, FS has nothing to do with dsr.
I AM NOT A FAN BOY
I AM NOT A FAN BOY
Harris screech as he slowly turns into a corncob
One I graduated Highschool I came to a realization; I can enjoy things that are bad. I can play a terrible game and still have fun with it. I don't need to make my head spin with mental gymnastics and delude myself into thinking that a piece of media is amazing simply because I enjoyed it. Terrible media exists, like the Pick of Destiny, and yet I can still laugh and have a good time with it. Dark Souls 2 is a bad game, but I played over 100 hrs of it and remember most of it fondly.
Quite. For example, I'm still an avid fan of Megaman X6 for a lot of things I LIKE about the game, but objectively the game is a piece of hot garbage. No one should ever play that game to completion unless they're a weirdo like me who likes enough of it to force themselves past the insufferable majority of the rest of the game. If Harris kept this in mind, there wouldn't be an issue. But sadly that is not the case.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing.
This series is a testament to good youtube criticism. The arguments are concise and the evidence well sourced. The opinions, and further, the factual agreement with them, are even better because they are well thought, scripted with care, and researched well which is seen in the evidence provided. Thanks Mauler, for leaving quality and masterful content to be consumed by a future audience to get completely enthralled by. Great work!
46:25 "I find it really important that I criticize you on this. And not in a tweet."
Hbomb should've taken that clip to heart lmao
The work ethic that went into this series is revitalizing. My family on my dads side are all Aristotelian and Thomistic philosophers and teachers, and the rigor that goes into understanding, not just arguing, but actually understanding what you’re talking about, from an idea that your mind abstracted, from your sense experience with Harris opinions and executions of his own ideas about the reality of soulsborne, is how I’ve been instructed and taught to do, to read, to act, to listen, and how to approach life in general. I gave up on people treating things like this; attributing such precision in understanding, equal to how much they talk about loving whatever it is they are interested in. You not only do so out of obligation to staying true to your mind, but you are successful and actually have a fan base. Thats amazing to me. Thank you my friend. I wish I could grab a beer with you, or a coffee, Or tea or whatever it is you happen to drink. I would have a lot to say, and a lot to talk with you about. The best to you and yours.
-Elijah.
"Hey what if I binged a 5 year old response series about game I never played... for the 3rd time"
Sometimes my brain is on some shit, oh boy.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
Just finished watching all 8 parts of your response to Harris (DW, ill be watching your defense on DS2 as well, and i can say im very excited.), and i think it was extremely well put together. My starting expectation was, "this is probably going to be malicious", but instead, this was extremely refreshing! For insight, ive been a fan of Harris as well and i just stumbled upon your content because i was re-watching his DS2 defense video. I appreciate the amount of time you put into, not only giving well thought out responses, but your research into what is probably the longest and most time consuming installment of the souls-borne series!! So GOOD FUCKING JOB, FUCKING IMPRESSIVE!!!
This is the best review of a review of a sequel of a spinoff of a video game that I've ever watched.
This series got me through writing an essay and I have to thank you since that saved me time trying to find other videos to watch (I don't like doing anything without some background noise). I'm really glad I found a The Last Jedi critique that linked to your critique and now I can come over here when I have a whole slew of work and listen to you for hours.
Rewatching this in 2019 and have to say that the "official gaming press" Harris is praising for falling over for dark souls 2 went even more down the drain...
Kind of amusing, really.
I came into this series long after watching Harris's videos on both DS2 and Bloodborne and it made me realize that I need to consider arguments from even my favorite content creators more carefully. This series was fantastic and I appreciate the level of detail put into it. Thank you sir.
I like how Harris, like many defending DkS2, will always fall back to saying that the game was initially received well. Only when Matthew's video gained popularity did the game become the black sheep. Personally, after my honeymoon period with DkS2 was over, I began to look at it more critically. I had completed my first playthrough and maintained a sense of boredom throughout it's entirety. Playing through it again revealed all of it's flaws. I'm a big PvPer, and I cannot describe my feeling over disbelief and dread when I slowly discovered that Soul Memory was actually a mechanic. A whole video can be dedicated to how Soul Memory destroys quality builds, novelty builds, and PvP in general. Alas, I digress. The point I'm making is that we in the community have the intelligence to understand the differences among the games, whether subtle or blatant. I was stunned at how Matthew literally stated EVERY problem I had with the game and more in his well presented critique. Having said that, DkS2 would still be the black sheep of the series even without Matthew's video for reference. Suggesting otherwise feels like condescension towards the community as a whole.
I know this series has been available for a while but thank you for this quite extensive and thorough response series, it has made think about reviews I have left in the past and how I could have put more time into them so that others may find them useful and informative rather than vague
In his Fallout 3 video Harris rightfully called out Bethesda for their scummy practices in regards to dlc, so I’m surprised to see him praise Scholar for the same things.
Got Dark Souls 2 Scholar of the First Sin edition after playing and enjoying Bloodborne. I nearly rage quit after Hiede's Tower of Flame and when I got to the Old Iron Keep, I had rage quit for fear of popping a damn blood vessel over the INFINITE ganking. Then I later picked up DS3 and enjoyed it. I will pick up the Dark Souls 1 remaster, mostly because I'm hoping they really fix the performance issues on PC. Love this video series HBomberguy to me always came off as smug but at first, I couldn't quite put a finger on it, but after seeing you utterly (and rightfully) rip his video a new one, I understand. I know others have already said it, but this is a well-done video (actually that doesn't do justice) the amount of work and effort you had to put into this 9 Part series is amazing.
3 years ago I watched this Hboomerguy's video because dark souls 2 was the first dark souls game I played and didn't know why people hated it so much and 13 years old me needed someone to tell me to feel my opinion liking the game wasn't wrong, but when he got to the "the word being unrealistic is mysterious" I closed the video and never heard about him again.
Ever sense that day I tried myself to find why I liked the game and everything came crashing down as I never was able to to force myself to play the game again and I honestly started hating it and wondered how I actually was able to like the game from the start.
TLDR: the video is so dogshit that it opened my eyes to the flaws of DS2 that I wasn't able to see before
Context: Ripped through and thoroughly loved Demons Souls like a decade ago, started but never finished both DS1 and 2 on their respective releases. Inspired by Sekiro, I finally went back like two weeks ago to finish off and platinum DS1, figured I might as well do DS2 as well. When I finished DS2 I was so burnt out by how shit it was, so many poor choices when directly compared to the first, and even Demons Souls. Felt like most enemies had too much HP and there were too many. Healing was both frustrating in how slow it was and brokenly OP in how abundant it was. Bosses were mostly insanely lazy and boring. World design was just as absurd as I remembered it. I've not watched Matt's video, came up with those problems on my own.
I went online to see if I could have someone convince me as to why the game wasn't utter shit when compared to DS1 and found HBomb's video... Oh boy... Instantly noticed a series of terrible contradictions in his video, then the outright lies about enemy placement, ignorance of lock-on mechanics and weapon types, his complete disregard for world-consistency and structure, his obsession with and failure in tearing down DS1 just to try to make DS2 look better, etc.. The video was horrendous. I got through about half, but noticed your Part 1 linked on the side bar and decided fuck it, I hate my life and want to waste 8 hours of it. So glad I did, so glad I'm not crazy and I'm not the only one who found HBomb's video to be one of the absolute best examples of how to outright fail at objective criticism.
Can't wait to watch your video on actually defending DS2, maybe it can remind me of some of the positives where Hbomb outright failed. Obviously your channel has grown in these two years, but honestly keep it up man you've gained a sub.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
Awesome series so far. I'm a huge souls fan but only a occasional player. SotFS is actually my favorite but your series made me reflect on it in a way I hadn't before. Anyway, you've talked about DS1 and DS2 extensively thus far so my question is this: Are you gonna do a separate series on DS3?
Looking forward to watching the next part!
Really appreciate the comment but I feel as though I would have to give several months to DS 3 to do it justice and in terms of an assessment of quality. Currently I have been working on my new script and responding to the comments about this series, while I am happy to talk about it, I am so burnt out on Dark Souls as a whole so I have made a goal to create the series once I have a larger audience, which should hopefully coincide with a reinvigorated passion to play the series.
Hope you enjoy the finale tomorrow :) /
You mentioned you completed DS2 like 14 times for this series? Yeah I understand you might be a bit burnt out. Definitely looking forward to whatever you've got in the works right now.
Well done. I didn't think I would find an in-depth analysis of one specific given argument this entertaining. You sir, have earned my respect and admiration as a content creator, and I will be keeping my eye out for your future videos. Godspeed.
20:06
Well, this point is fair.
The dragonslayer really did drop the ball.
(Almost as hard as Harris did.)
Thank you for helping me learn to converse debate and provide objevtive vs subjective agurments without letting my emotions blur my judgement @MauLer thank you so much love your content
It’s almost funny hearing you apologize for the length of this series. I’ve been rewatching it during Quarantine, and since I’m in the US, I’m watching it during the riots too.
Ive been inside for weeks. The perfect time for a ten to twelve hour video series.
This series has been amazing. I have huge amounts of respect for you for putting the work in. It is very appreciated. I think this series went beyond a video game, to a question of language, argument and logic. It has been incredibly educating AND interesting for me.
Definetely earned my sub. Keep doing what you're doing!
Ok, so I've watched all 8 videos now and here's my opinion. First of all I'm only playing DS (BB included) for fun and I've finished all of them multiple times, trying out different builds, SL1 runs etc. DS2 is the only one I've finished once. I've played it out of curiosity after hearing so much shit about it, and Harris' video actually made me eager to try it out.
The ganks took all of the FUN away from it and I couldn't stand to go through it again, especially on a SL1 run (god, it took me 20+ tries to get through Iron Keep... never again)
So all in all it's my least favourite of the bunch, but I have to admire the things it did well, in my opinion. It's the only game where NG+ actually brings something new. With all of the spambushes, adding new NPC invaders makes it even more annoying, but at least it's a new challenge. Bonfire ascetics were nice if you wanted to get the +2 rings in your first playthrough, or farm human effigies from the skeletons in majula.
Those were good ideas, but implemented poorly. It's sad they didn't keep them in DS3, especially because they kept the +1 +2 rings.
The game is too ganky, adaptability sucks and the DLCs are the weakest in the series (with some excepions of course, like Alonne, Fume Knight and Burnt Ivory King). It was only a fun one-time experience for me
Mihnea Zoican The variety in weapons, armours and spells is what keeps me coming back to DS2, as well as a still active PVP community.
While I know that DS1 is the better game (still haven't played DS3 yet), it doesn't keep pulling me back like DS2.
i've come to enjoy this series. I am neutral on hbomber and you. I stumbled onto his video as it was suggested on the youtube home and decided i had time and gave it a whirl, since i am a fan of Dark Souls III, stopped halfway on Dark souls 2, and never played dark souls 1 and demons souls. I was confused as i thought it was going to be an opinion piece but, like wat you urself stated, he was quite... aggressive on his views. So then after i watched the video, i looked to the side and i see these 4 similar looking thumbnails with just numbers being different. 8 videos later, i have learned many things, not about dark souls, but debate, subjective vs objective, argument structuring, etc. This series have given me insight and broaden my mindset on how i view things. I thank you for this series good sir.
TL:DR- I came here just to see Dark souls opinions, but came out learning debate. Pretty satisfied.
"REAL critics liked it so it has to be 100% good. You plebs just don't understand it."
H E H
He makes his own counterpoint, critics also liked Fallout 3, which isn’t very good, so why can’t they also be wrong here?
I binged all the responses today. Awesome to hear a voice of reason. Day well spend!
"I sat on my ass for hours and decided it was an accomplishment" - Me, 2018
Fantastic series Mauler. I really enjoy your reals before feels methodology, it's refreshing in this day and age. I don't always sit down to watch multiple hours worth of Dark Souls and Star Wars analyses, but when I do it's probably a Mauler series.
Christ you got a bone to pick with Joseph Anderson. I want to see your response to his SOMA video now.
I mean, he says shit so baffingly stupid some times... I was just watching Ja's DS2 review. At one point he says "It is unfair to criticise the sequel for something that the first game also does badly."
Fucking sequels should be used to build on the game that came before.
@@RexVergstrong I'm not a fan of that guy. He keeps on passing subjective experiences as facts and misses the mark when it comes to developer intentions and stuff. He literally criticized Hollow Knight for being too easy with the pure nail and passed it off as a flaw when many people on the internet complain that the last couple of bosses and challenges in the game are ruthlessly difficult. He completely ignored the carefully crafted progression leading up to the mothwing and just said that it should have been given to you from the start in order to make movement more interesting when in reality it would overwhelm new players and movement less rewarding. He had a positive opinion of the game, but I don't care about that. He could hate it, but as long as he could make an honest and careful critique I'm all set.
This series taught me not only about Dark Souls and Video Games, but also how to structure a good essay and argue your points well. I feel like I've learned a lot.
For reference, I've only ever played the first Dark Souls, and I didn't get very far.
How the hell did you make this series without going absolutely insane?! I feel like if I spend god knows how hours re-listening to HBomberguy’s bullshit I’d be wearing a muzzle and strait jacket in a padded cell constantly muttering “HARRIS” over and over again.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys' videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
My god sir you are a legend, I binged this whole series, as i finished my DS2SotFS 100% but thank you for tearing his video down and destroying it.
"Y'all have rose-tinted glasses for DS1 and blindly attack DS2, while I have rose-tinted glasses for DS2, and blindly defend it by attacking DS1, because I am a professional, an intellectual, and an auteur."
- Harris...people aren't "blindly attacking" DS2 when they take the time to go through it 100 times to quantify why exactly it seems inferior. That's the opposite.
It's like saying "I loved all the previous Corvette's, but this new one feels off..." and then they do a hundred tests, tear it down, and compare it to a previous, torn-down, Corvette. And you then barge in, having driven it once around the block calling everyone "stupid" and "friendless" and how "blind" they are to the genius of the new car.
"You see, the new Corvette is missing door panels on purpose, as it's telling you that nothing is more important than the driving experience."
I swear, these arguments are what has led to the "Lockdowns have ruined the economy...and that's a good thing!"-type articles. Or the "People Who Work Out and Eat Healthy are Problematic"-type articles. Considering that Harris is a theater-kid with smug, faux-moral superiority narcissism that preaches Leftist political propaganda in a demeaning way...none of it is surprising.
When people deliberately lie about Dark Souls 2 and also get many details about it just plain wrong...
They really are blindly attacking it.
Just look at all of the time Mauler is shit at the game and blames it for his own shortcomings like a child.
Domo3000 debunked all of this guys' videos lmao got owned. 9 hours of videos amounted to nothing
Oh man. I made it through the whole thing. Great stuff man.
I'm a big fan of Harris myself, but his defence of dark souls 2 video has always struck me as incredibly weak and flawed compared to most of his stuff. I never would have been able to articulate to myself all the reasons why without watching this series. I'm also going to check out Matthew matosis for the first time due to your recommendation. So yeah, thanks all around guy.