Take the RING CHALLENGE - ruclips.net/video/V67SvbAwZcg/видео.html Backing up this video might be a good idea as it might end up needing some alterations or vanishing entirely if it gets hit with any incorrect music claims because there's just so much music.
hi mr. mandalore i thought it important to inform you that i had a 10 hour long fever dream about this game this week. i immediately woke up and vomited. thank you so much i love you
@@MandaloreGaming I sent this video to friend of mine who's a Twitch streamer. He said he watched it while high with a buddy of his and his reply to me was "That hurt my brain"
@@MandaloreGaming I got on the weird train about middle point. I had no idea wtf was going on to the end. Thank you Mandy, I blame the [gnome] for this.
'Wotan may be the God of Gods but I am the Dwarf of Dwarfs' I really wish Alberich was the game protagonist all the way through, all his lines have such rich character.
His voice actor is clearly having the time of his life being an awful little man out to make problems on purpose for everybody around him, and bless him for it. EDIT: Looking at the etymology of Der Ring des Nibelungen (hear me out) and how the Nibelungs are basically what dwarfs are called - the title in English is The Ring of the Nibelung - and since Alberich is a Nibelung and he made the Ring, making the title effectively "Alberich's Ring" (comically deep breath) There actually is a strong argument to be made for an adaptation of this epic opera told entirely from Alberich's perspective.
@@thefool8224 If Robert Gasman wouldn't be available (yes, Alberich is played by the man who would go on to be the voice of Rayman) to play him again in a remake, then absolutely Gianni would be a close contender. He's got that megalomaniac energy down pat.
I know. We've gotten so familiar with the "protagonists" of Limbo of the Lost, Mystery of the Droods, and Haze that it's shocking that Alberich is only playable on the first game's first part. Edit: Anonymous Agony, not Haze. Guy's name and that other terrible game made me say it wrong.
She looks like a character from twinsen's odyssey that was scaled up to 150% but only on the vertical axis. Even for 90's early CG she looks so low effort.
@@mightypingas2108 anonymous agony! and yeah those 3 vids are my comfort vids i'll put on when i'm having trouble sleeping lol. that and pathologic. hopefully i'll be able to add this one to the roster.
same cause some games deserves a hour long video and if the quality is watcahble thats good enough i know that game bard's tale can work cause all the cutscene and story progression
Honestly I think one of the most surprising things about this entire fever dream is how the voice actors still give it 110%, no matter how nonsensical whatever they're saying is. It makes me insane, I love it.
Unironically Ring 1's voice acting is what would make me wanna keep going. It's like a dream where what you're seeing makes no sense but for some reason you find it compelling enough to keep going.
This is the Great secret about performance. If you buy into your performance, your audience will buy into your performance. No matter how stupid the mind and matter of that performance may be.
I'll note that the replacement actor for Alberich in Ring 2, was in the first Ring, as the Chief Miner Dwarf (aka, the Gachimuchi Volus, as Mandelore called him in the review) so there may be something to be said for that theory.
God, the idea that he somehow revived the union leader dwarf’s corpse and disguised him as himself, and just sent him out to face the wrath of whatever deities want him dead is perfectly in character. As an extra little bit of punishment for daring to disrespect him.
@@ryokiritani4187 Halligan is a Chaos God by freak accident (by account of being poorly written) Alberich is a Chaos God by choice. It's up to you to judge which is worse - a Chaos God who knows the harm they cause and gleefully perpetuates it, or a Chaos God who doesn't even understand what they're doing is Chaos; it's just another day at work.
You could actually do a loose retelling of the Ring Cycle from the perspective of Alberich and it'd be justified by the canon. Nasty little fella giving the gods and mankind grief and misfortune; siring and raising up Hagen, seeing the Twilight of the Gods unfold and surviving to tell the tale. There's drama to be mined from the exploits of a legendary archetypal villain. Just, you know, tone down the Jewish coding, eh? Don't need anymore of that antisemitism.
@@traewilson5127 That might actually be the better way to go for this game. It’s already diverging heavily from the opera, and made Alberich a much cooler character (I think, I only read the plot synopsis of the opera), so why not go all the way and make something more special?
@@michaeltan7625 alberich is much cooler in this game, yes. In the original, he originally goes to the Rhinemaidens to... well, fuck them. It's the reason he manages to steal the gold; they're so convinced he's to busy trying to get them they don't see him steal the gold. Also, here he loses a fight against Loge (who is a fucking god) and thus loses the gold, but in the original he is tricked by Loge into turning into a frog, then threatened by Wotan to give up everything. He's a much cooler man in here.
@@ryokiritani4187 Getting a hold of a collection of the complete opera (because when I get hyperfocused on something I gotta analyze EVERY ASPECT of that obsession) there's a weird detail the first Ring game leaves out about Alberich and Loge - they used to be friends: cousins even - but Loge betrayed him in some way, so Alberich has particular disdain and mistrust for him over even Wotan. Quote (translation, obviously, not the original German): Loge: "Well do you know me, childish dwarf? Who is't? Now say, at whom you would snarl? In frigid lair, where freezing you lay, where were your light and warming illume, if on Loge you had not looked? What aid were your hammer if I ne'er heated the forge? Cousin you may be; once friend of mine - no more than these are thy thanks?" Alberich: "With the light-elves laughs now Loge, the cunning rogue! Art thou as falsely their friend, as my friend thou wert once? Haha! That'st pleasing to me! Then nought needs't I fear of them." Loge: "I'm surely worthy your trust?" Alberich: "In thy untruth trust I; not thy truth! But dauntlessly I defy you all." There's opportunity there to expand on the melodrama Wagner only teased and hinted at before. Something worth bearing in mind to anyone who might toy with the idea of a new take on Der Ring des Nibelungen today.
@@cc1093 Because his goofy armour makes him nearly as round as he is tall. Trying to move around in that would make anyone waddle, especially if they're dwarf-sized. Cute attention to detail from the animators.
29:58 He's not kidding when he says slide puzzles are his kryptonite. I think he spent at _least_ half an hour on this. Shammy showed up in chat and started yelling instructions and threatening to come over and solve it for him.
it gets even better he can agree to scre them but tells them straight up it's a sideshow to his gold heist and yes he can screw all of them then reject them for zero consequences
i watched the vod on youtube of his ring playthrough. Votan and Loki had excellent power in their voiceovers. also, the sliding puzzle? took him 45 minutes
10:50: It cracks me up that Alberich is singing music from The Ring Cycle, while the soundtrack plays music from _a different part of_ The Ring Cycle. It's such a bizarre choice, why did they do it that way?
@@notinspectorgadget Most of the weird things are weird answers to complicated questions, like "What is our game about?" or "How should we write Alberich this time?". The mismatched music is a weird answer to a _simple_ question.
2 месяца назад+2
Because Alberich does not give a single flying fuck.
I like how you say the original opera is split up over 4 nights *so the audience can survive it* . Like every single person in the production are government created super actors made to be able to perform and support said performance for days on end, but they're capped at only a few hours per showing to save the humans watching them
Heck, they would manage to do it. Like not in any way that was healthy for them or remotely good after the first 10 hours. But they would somehow manage.
I'm reminded of a presentation I did on cyberpunk literature that I almost did sleep deprived on copious energy drinks, as an exercise in sorta, method acting. I had put off the work until the day before the presentation, and had finished reading Neuromancer. The beginning of that book where the main character's addicted to amphetamines made me think it could be interesting. Didn't end up doing it. Also turns out I probably wouldn't come off like a tweeker because I had undiagnosed ADHD, those drinks just make me focus at best, and feel tired and sick at worst.
I’ve heard of group doing near back to back Les Mis performances, and at least this is a fifteen hour story not a four-five hour one acted over and over like you’re in stage play Groundhog Day.
"that was one of the worst dragon slayings I've ever seen" There was this German story where a dude kicks a dragon in the dick so hard it shit itself and died.
I watched Dune Part Two in the theater yesterday and every time Charlotte Rampling was on screen I had to suppress a giggle because I was reminded of all the gibberish she had to say for this game with a straight face, thanks Mandy.
I FUCKING LOVE ALBERIC. The meme sounds every time after he disses one of the water women is amazing ahahahaha. You madea great editing choice there Mandalore. Truly, you did.
Last year I watched you through tears as I was packing up my things from my house and getting ready to be homeless. This year I peacefully fell asleep in the middle of the video in a comfortable warm bed. Thank you for keeping me company both times.
Yeh I remember seeing the stream being on, was like "oh interesting, whats that", and just whitnessed misery xD Fun video tho! Would never play the game personally, so its neat to see whats up with Ring. I just remember ad's for it in german computer magazines a long time ago.
I still can't get over the fact that Alberich's voice actor, David Gasman, is the same voice actor behind Rayman, Twinsen (from Little Big Adventure 2), Cutter Slade (from Outcast), Pey'j (from Beyond Good & Evil), and at least a third of David Cage's games. The guy has impressive range.
This feels less like Mandy talking about a strange little game and more him begging us to share in his agony to prove to himself it was actually real and not a fever dream
Yeah no other video of his has come across quite so "please watch this I need some justification for the insanity I chose to inflict on myself" as this one.
"Why did you adapt a play containing norse mythological characters into a space opera and then take out the plot?" "BEACUSE IT IS MY GOOD PLEASURE, YOU ROTTEN LITTLE CABBAGE"
@@chopperjoe1998 I don’t think you heal from this. I think you just learn to live with what you saw and did with the Ring and Ring 2. The pain will always be there, you just learn to live with it.
Video game developers in most parts of the world in the 90s: *_Attempting to make competent, entertaining, coherent titles_* Meanwhile, french devs: "Yeet the plot! Eh, add random stuff. More, more! And every character must be completely irrational! Let me see that cut-scene recording... no, no. We need all the people playing the english version to be groaning in pain as their feeble minds try to make sense of the endless streams of gobbledygook we're going to pour down their poor little ear-holes!"
I can literally feel the knowledge of this game being burned away from my brain as I watch this. Every time something happens the data just goes in and I can feel it immediately get fried
Ring is made of the junk information our brains filter out automatically to make room for actual thoughts. There's no sense, no information, nothing that can be learned or absorbed. It's mental static. Watching it for too long probably does have some kind of real life infohazardous insanity-inducing effect, and I'm not even saying that as a joke. I really do think this game could impair your ability to tell the junk information from the real information.
Even after all the pathways into darkness Mandy has led us through, from Marathon to Warhammer, Haligan to Haze, and even the cycles of guilt, this is it. This is Mandy’s kryptonite, his own personal w'rkncacnter, his alpha and omega. Those god damn sliding puzzles got him.
41:05 I got you. The hologram is Brunhilde's sister, one of the valkyries. Since it comes back later, and since only one of the other valkyries shows up again in the play, we can assume that the hologram is Waltraute. She's basically explaining that Nemesis is a title, not a name, and that by opposing Odin's wishes and going against his plans, Brunhilde has also attained this title. Granted, it's a Greek one that's been stuffed in here, but it serves a purpose since Brunhilde's path to destroying Valhalla and bringing down Odin starts with trying to spare Siegmund for Odin. Thus, "Deep down, this is all HIS fault." 43:44 I think the 'greater game' is supposed to imply that in this version of the story, Waltraute manipulated the events here and that Brunhilde, ISH, and even the player are thus fulfilling her destructive childish nature and destroying Valhalla for her, much like how she's blaming the doll for breaking things when you first meet her. You are her 'different doll'.
Mandalore realising the second game worked now for him was hilarious, but imagine the sheer physical and emotional horror for the man actually living that moment.
Alberich being an avatar of Tzeentch who gets his kicks by insulting space-river maidens and repeatedly kicking people in the balls makes FAR more sense than it has any right to.
What's kinda funny is that Alberich's story is basically cut in half, and we're getting the second half. Alberich started out as a decent guy, but various circumstances turn him into the guy he is at the start of the game. He basically becomes utterly disillusioned and decides that love, kindness, etc. are for suckers and that he should only care about himself. Without context, Alberich is a funny villain guy. With context, he's the end result of a tragedy.
Alberich sounds incredibly similar to Zenos in FFXIV. Honestly surprised Mandalore didn't mention it given his knowledge of both games and anything Japanese-origin seems to be nigh-on encyclopedic.
"Your days will be grey, and your wife ugly" is possibly one of the best insults I have ever heard. When I heard this it felt like someone pummeled me in the face with the handle of a sword and then spat between my eyes as I fell flat in a muddy pigsty. You cannot get anymore medieval than that.
Well, until now I thought 'The Mystery of the Druids' and 'Anonymous Agony' were quite sophisticated examples of human capabilities, but you have just opened the portal into the new dimension.
“Come, drink peace, happiness and oblivion from my breast.” “I have no taste for peace and happiness, and as for oblivion, my little fishy... You're already history.” What a chad.
By the end of that sequence it really becomes a case of: Ring Maiden: "if you stay with us you will find love, happiness, and have every earthly need or want you could ever have catered to instantly through actual godly magical powers." Alberich: "I don't want power to make myself happy, little fishy. I want it to make everyone else miserable!" Alberich is the sigma grindset embodied, and used for pure evil.
The fact they offer oblivion sounds like to me he will have happiness and then death, practically instantly maybe. I wouldn't accept oblivion from any guardians.
@@thespanishinquisition4078 Trusting gods and spirits in Norse mythology is such a massive coinflip that turning them down is the reasonable pick regardless of motivation.
i bought this as a small child because i thought it had something to do with lord of the rings i might have suffered brain damage, all the character models are etched into the deepest recesses of my subconscious and appear in dreams to torment me
I love games like this, where the passion behind it far outweighed both the limits of the medium and the technical skill needed to pull it off. The concept art, the writing of the lines, the voice actors, it really seems like there was a grand vision for all of it, there were people who really wanted to transform a dramatic 14 hour long opera into something great. That being said, I'm glad you played and recorded this so that nobody else would have to, because the game sure seems to suck hard.
I actually thought Ring 2 was substantially worse specifically because it felt like the ambition and soul had been extinguished by the first games' failure. It feels like a sequel made out of obligation to finish telling the story and get it over with, not the next part to an ambitious magnum opus. That special spark that turns a merely bad game into something at the very least worth remembering is gone. It compromised on all of its memorably gonzo story decisions - excising that stuff about the Four and the live-action girl and all that - so now it's just Der Ring des Nibelungens, but it has a slight sci-fi aesthetic. The first game was more than that, but its vision was let down by unapologetically bad game design. Games like Ring need remakes FAR FAR FAR more than friggin' The Last Of Us. Take these ambitious failures and polish them so that their strengths are easier to see and their weaknesses are at the very least lessened. *Do it for Alberich, Dwarf of Dwarfs!*
There is a passion behind this game, that much is unmistakable. The issue is, Wagner comes with a lot of baggage and his fans tend to be... let's say problematic. It is not always a sure thing, but in this particular case I can say with 99% certainty that the creative team behind the story are closeted Nazis.
@@traewilson5127 real talk though. What the fuck do you even do to make any of this work? The level of effort surpasses the concept of a remake at that point, you're just trying to do the same thing again but ideally better. Then again some things just don't translate into games very well without extensive modification. One of the many sins the original game commits is trying to do both at the same time.
@@The1337guy1 That's probably what you'd have to do. Either try the same concept again, but with good game design. OR something very heavily inspired by it, but going in a different direction. Like, an adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly, set in post-apocalyptic Japan with designs by Katsuhiro Otomo. Something gonzo like that.
Where does Mandalore find all this shit? This is stuff you would never play in a million years but having it presented to you by Mandalore is the most entertaining thing ever. Truly the King of Limbo
Albrech is perfect. His voice acting, his animation, his character model, his insults. He is this best part of this game. I have returned to this video like ten times just to watch him. I love him.
Alberich really is the promise of Ring personified: removing the antisemitism prevalent in Wagner's original, making him this borderline Saturday morning cartoon villain devouring the scenery and pummeling anyone who talks back. But he becomes more than some mustache twirling villain with some surprisingly profound quotes showing the twisted mentality that leads one to behaving so monstrously. Alberich succeeding at the trials of virtue set before him, but harboring warped views on those virtues says a lot about how society values certain virtues, without understanding how actual people can have completely grotesque views of him. That line, something to the effect of "There is something to be said for sacrifice. After all, I, without a moment's hesitation, would gladly sacrifice anyone to get what I desire!" Is honestly chilling. A line where he compares fear of a tyrant to religious faith, both being matters of discipline of the masses, is way more profound a line then you'd expect from a game that has this same character call a child of a goddess a watery trout then surf away awkwardly on his space surfboard. If the game met the promise set by its one perfect element, Alberich, this game would've been a true cult classic.
@@romanboi3115 I didn't *say* Iraqis; I said Jewish people. Richard Wagner was a hardcore German nationalist antisemite which is reflected in the way Alberich looks and how his presence is demonized in both the text and the presentation, as well as in other works by Wagner (he did write more things than Der Ring, you know) There's a reason he was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite artists, and why his works were considered non-degenerate, Aryan art under the Nazi regime. For fuck's sake, he wrote an essay in 1850 called Der Judenthum in Der Musik, or, as you might be able to parse out, Jewishness in Music. It's not exactly a non-biased history of Jewish people and Jewish culture influencing the music world, let's put it like that. Dude was a hardcore antisemite, and his beliefs influenced his art, as the beliefs of any artist invariably influence their art.
Maybe it's the music, but this is the ultimate rewatchable chill video. I've seen this maybe 45 times as a conservative estimate and I enjoy it every time. It's my comfort video.
An interesting point of note: when I was researching this game, many European video game review sources gave this game an 8/10, while many American review sources gave this game a 2/10. Of the 600,000 copies sold, 200,000 were sold in France alone. So yeah, go figure: only in France is this game considered a "masterpiece and work of modern art".
It's more that public libraries and clueless parents wanted to buy an 'educational'/'artistic' game but didn't know shit about games. Plus the comics artist was popular in France so his fans probably count for half of those sales.
Doesn't surprise me. Ticks all kinds of French boxes: Shoehorned in socialist rhetoric? Check. Based on an operatic epic? Check. Classical music? Check. Up its own ass with how deep and poetic it thinks it is? Check.
11:25 If you close your eyes right before the train hits, your brain will think that you have died. Some people find calmness in this. I admittedly do like the idea of Alberich having to partake in good deeds and then fully admit he has no intention on taking the actual lesson to heart. Any old asshole can punch people in the face for status. It takes a special kind of villain to know he can get the status like a normal person and then CHOOSE to continue punching people in the face. Dude openly admits he's a fool, but goddamn it he's a fool that is fulfilled. As for Ring 2, I agree Fafner is one of the best designs of the game. In fact, the Jotun in general are a fun idea. They're "frost giants" because they're literally space-faring dwarf-adjacent giants in biomechanical mech suits, so of course they'd be absurdly cold. And whatever Alberich's curse did to Fafner seemingly mutated him so badly his organic parts began overtaking the mechanical.
Druillet is a fucking legend, one of the original founders of Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal), and an absolute madlad artist. He's adapted a classic work into scifi before at least once, called "Salammbo", which is a 19th century novel based on one of the Punic Wars. He just chucked that story into his batshit insane "Lone Sloane" scifi oddysee series. He also has at least once story (Yragael-Urm) which is DELIBERATELY incompherenshible. Characters speak, and do things, but nothing connects. It's literally just a purely creative exercise, and I enjoyed looking at the art because it's cool. So, you know, interesting guy.
Okay so as a fan of the actual operas - it is admittedly kind of mind-boggling just how much of the basic threads of the story they do actually feed you through in these two games. The aesthetic of Space Opera is a wonderfully bizzare choice for it and this tickles me in a very special way. Of ALL of the genres to try and adapt these monsters into though - a moon-logic point and click game with a bizarre rift between incredible/incredibly camp voice acting and some of the most ear grating shit ever isn't even just the wrong choice, it's the most wrong choice they could possibly have made. Someone, somewhere could maaaaaybe cut together a semi-cohesive adaptation from some of these cutscenes and it be somewhat entertaining but some of the magic would be lost in the ether. This just screams of someone not being told no enough, and a creative team that was so excited to work with the artist that they didn't really care what form that had to take. You're so right in that this could never be made today - but at the same time, it is so representative of the weird zeitgeist it came out of that I'm so glad it still has a chance to exist - even as abandonware.
On another note entirely @mandalore - I can highly recommend checking out the new point and click game "Mozart: Requiem" for multi-platform release. It tries to turn Mozart into like a weird DaVinci Code kind of adventure and it is so bizzare that it warrants at least a look!
This is a really underrated comment. This game reeks so much of people with genuine artistic drive, excited as hell to be working with some of the immense talents they had on this project, having a blast mapping this absurd sci-fi take on an ancient opera, talking about their ridiculous ideas over beer, writing down every idea no matter how ridiculous; nothing off the table. ...But then they actually had to make the thing. And came to the terrible realization they only made one game before this, and a project like they envisioned might be too much for them to chew. They persevered, and yet, predictably, they choked. Studio soared straight into the sun and burned up with all the speed and intensity of Alberich crashing into a wall.
eloquently put. the idea is absolutely tremendous; the execution, although accurate to the artist's vision, is shoddy, sloppy, and not really thought out
The key to me, I think, is the truly *astonishing* mismatch of subject matter to format. I've tried to come up with a game genre that is a worse fit for what they were trying to do and I honest to god cannot think of one. Like, remember how in between sequences in the opera the production pauses so the audience can solve some slide puzzles? The atmosphere of the game is really memorable and it contains what I think are some genuinely great scene - which then instantly have all of the air let out of them by the constant pausing to wander around and solve puzzles/pixel hunt. I can envision a universe in which this game was made as a forgettable shooter or a beat-em-up or something - or, hell, even a platformer. Like, imagine this as something like Visceral's Dante's Inferno, something where you can turn your brain off during the gameplay that carries you from story sequence to story sequence. It wouldn't be high art, exactly, but it would mean that what you remember about the game is the pretty unique campy adaptational elements -as opposed to the part where you had to solve a slide puzzle or the part where you tried to walk past some trees but your character suddenly died every time. Just a magnificently misbegotten and poorly-conceived piece of art, in a way that's endlessly interesting to me because of it.
I love meme's last line of dialogue, where he's saying how much meme cared for sigfried with a😡 and then changing the emoji mid sentence to asking for mercy with😔
Honestly, by this point there's so much nonsense going on in this game that I had just accepted the fact the bear flosses. He knocks down the door and then flosses. It didn't stand out as bizarre or anachronistic. Thank you for pointing this out.
Warframe did it pretty well. I think its designs were inspired by old Dune's, the batshit insane future evolutions of humanity with cultures unrecognizable to us
Fun fact: Alberich has unique dialogue for accepting each of the Rhinemaiden's propositions in this scene. Being Alberich, Dwarf of Dwarfs, even when he's indulging them, he's no simp. When accepting the first maiden: *"The company of women should be sought with due care; relished unto excess (HMHMM) and forgotten in an instant. However NOW is the moment of excess. Come, let me relish you..."* The second maiden: *"Ooooh, you have all the charms of a woman; all the sensuality of the river's flowing waters. Hm hm hm hmm, I could not refuse you, my beautiful enchantress..."* And the third: *"These words make my head spin, can...can they be true?"* (Yeah that's it) And no, accepting their offers isn't a Game Over; you get a small decidedly unsexy animation, and you'll be blocked because you don't get the first key. It doesn't lock you in a failstate either; you can just surf your way on back to the start of the sequence and tell the little fish off with zero consequences.
I'm mad at how "fighting a Stand user with an air conditioner" sounds like something that would 100% happen in the manga Fuck it a Stand that IS an air conditioner or a rock bug that takes the form of one except it distributes mustard gas.
i'm so sad that you didnt include the scene of you trying to finish that slide puzzle for half an hour, giving up and calling your girlfriend to help, just to accidentally finish it while explaining it to her.
I feel like Ring's main problem is that it has too many things going on at once and at the end of the day none of them are really relevant at all. It's an adaptation of the Ring but in a Sci-fi setting, a literal space opera. Okay, that's neat. But it also wants this meta-narrative of a galactic conflict/slave rebellion/holy war between Humanity and some unseen alien god like beings. Which in itself might be a "Fuck you for playing" thing going by the line on how human culture and stories are used by said unseen alien beings as cheap entertainment, in the same way the player is playing an adventure game rendition of 1000+ years of Germanic mythology. But wait, there's even a meta narrative within the meta narrative with the little hologram girl who tells you the "none of this is real, you're just a puppet and this is a game" shtick. But it's also not clear if she's apart of Ish's story, the "threat" Ish speaks of, or something else entirely. And also none of this matters because it all gets dropped in favor of just making a straight Space-Fantasy adaptation of the rest of the cycle in Ring 2. I feel like the dev team started with the concept of "Ring, but with a twist", but everyone had a different idea on which twist to go with so they just threw everything at the wall and hoped that something would stick. All of the elements are interesting on their own, but none of it meshes together in a cohesive way (and I'm considering the possibility that a lot of the meta "Turn the game console off now!" stuff is just trying to justify that).
I suppose the only reason they'd want the 'you're a human learning about the four stories of the Ring' wraparound in the first place is because it's easier to put a 'you learned your lesson, now we can end the game' moment to it, whereas the four stories just kind of peter out.
And as disappointing as it is to see ham go to waste... His second characterization DOES accurately reflect the nature of those that call themselves Sigma or Girlboss.
You gotta love that they had the epic Wagner music going during their stealth section but dead silence during the fight with a fucking dragon and Odin.
Take the RING CHALLENGE - ruclips.net/video/V67SvbAwZcg/видео.html
Backing up this video might be a good idea as it might end up needing some alterations or vanishing entirely if it gets hit with any incorrect music claims because there's just so much music.
You're always so great with the explanations, thanks Mandy!
Edging Your Audience: 101
Yeah, you say that now, Mandalore.
I know what your game is; you're trying to play the algorithm Spiffing Brit Style.
Also, are you the same Mandalore who did the music video to Commander Shepard back in the day? Or was it another Mandalore?
@@AndrewD8Red no, it’s the same guy. It’s still up on the channel
hi mr. mandalore i thought it important to inform you that i had a 10 hour long fever dream about this game this week. i immediately woke up and vomited. thank you so much i love you
That just means it's working properly
@@MandaloreGaming face it, the only thing that has come from this is a single meme:
Minerals for Glug.
@@MandaloreGaming My Legs are OK! You gain Brouzouf
@@MandaloreGaming ahh like looking at the sun gotchya
@@MandaloreGaming I sent this video to friend of mine who's a Twitch streamer. He said he watched it while high with a buddy of his and his reply to me was "That hurt my brain"
The moment Mandalore got Ring 2 to work is somehow as exciting as it is terrifying of a video plot twist.
One benefit of the premiere was no one knew the length so that was fun to see.
@@MandaloreGaming I was settling in for a nice 38 minute video. Now I feel like I'm coming down from a drug trip.
@@MandaloreGaming I got on the weird train about middle point. I had no idea wtf was going on to the end. Thank you Mandy, I blame the [gnome] for this.
As i kid i could never figure that game out, and it claimed all my harddrive space had to let that game go.
@@Sagalink that’s funny cause this became available just as I was going on one.
The Dwarf King insulting a woman and then surfing off may be the funniest thing I've seen in a while.
Alberich is the only Sigma Manlet
Very GIF-worthy indeed
Begone trout
Time stamp?
@@julianblandi4195 15:05
I'd buy a game where Alberich, Briggs, and Halligan team up to have Scooby Doo adventures.
Provided they don't kill each other first, purposefully or not lol.
Screw that the side characters are golden as hell mash all the universes together and add in moment of silence since it's in the druids universe.
Alberich: Ego
Halligan: Id
Briggs: Superego
They'd really from pretty balanced force.
Which one is Briggs from again?
@@maxdragon5043 Alberich perhaps could try to kill Halligan, but it contantly backfires on him while Briggs finds it all pretty amusing.
'Wotan may be the God of Gods but I am the Dwarf of Dwarfs'
I really wish Alberich was the game protagonist all the way through, all his lines have such rich character.
His voice actor is clearly having the time of his life being an awful little man out to make problems on purpose for everybody around him, and bless him for it.
EDIT: Looking at the etymology of Der Ring des Nibelungen (hear me out) and how the Nibelungs are basically what dwarfs are called - the title in English is The Ring of the Nibelung - and since Alberich is a Nibelung and he made the Ring, making the title effectively "Alberich's Ring" (comically deep breath) There actually is a strong argument to be made for an adaptation of this epic opera told entirely from Alberich's perspective.
It was the gianni of his time
I’m going to start threatening people with my lack of height.
@@thefool8224 If Robert Gasman wouldn't be available (yes, Alberich is played by the man who would go on to be the voice of Rayman) to play him again in a remake, then absolutely Gianni would be a close contender. He's got that megalomaniac energy down pat.
I know. We've gotten so familiar with the "protagonists" of Limbo of the Lost, Mystery of the Droods, and Haze that it's shocking that Alberich is only playable on the first game's first part.
Edit: Anonymous Agony, not Haze. Guy's name and that other terrible game made me say it wrong.
The segment where Albrecht takes the time to dunk on the Rhine maiden in triplicate only to surf away clumsily will never not make me scream laughing
The vine booms are just the cherry on the top.
Pure sigma chad energy
The most based thing I've seen all year, I think.
Based Alberich
Alberich reminds us all of the most important saying in our times, "Stay Safe Kings."
Ring 1 being finished and there still being like half the video left has the same energy as "why is there a second health bar?"
It's like beating the Guardian Ape in Sekiro and not being able to progress.
@@DcCock What?
@@lLenn2 Guardian ape is a boss in Sekiro that, after you "kill it", comes back to life without the head; the one that you just happened to hack off.
@@screescree3621 What?
Yep, those games are like Dark Souls bosses hitting on your sanity, even in review
“Freya, sweet Freya,”
*closeup on her oblong head*
“Ugh”
I’m dying lol
Same
She looks like a character from twinsen's odyssey that was scaled up to 150% but only on the vertical axis. Even for 90's early CG she looks so low effort.
She’s fully default posing whenever the camera isn’t focused on her
I've rewatched the the limbo of the lost and mystery of the druid vids like 5 times. Can't wait for this man
Don't forget that edgy agony game with the bpd teenage serial killer guy!
@@mightypingas2108 anonymous agony! and yeah those 3 vids are my comfort vids i'll put on when i'm having trouble sleeping lol. that and pathologic. hopefully i'll be able to add this one to the roster.
same cause some games deserves a hour long video and if the quality is watcahble thats good enough
i know that game bard's tale can work cause all the cutscene and story progression
@@mightypingas2108 don't forget S M O O T H I E T I M E
@@pradipayogyartha328 YEA YEA *looping rap melody*
I will never not be left in stitches from Alberich and Loge slamming into the wall at mach speed with completely blank expressions on their faces
They didn't even have a time to react. Lol
25:10 - Timestamp for when Loge gets gamer throned.
with the sound of, as Mandy put it, a cat hitting a piece of cheap sheet metal.
END OF THE FIRST PART
@@capscaps04 If they did, I reckon that Alberich would have muttered "bollocks" before getting turned into potted pork.
Honestly I think one of the most surprising things about this entire fever dream is how the voice actors still give it 110%, no matter how nonsensical whatever they're saying is. It makes me insane, I love it.
I love them for that.
Unironically Ring 1's voice acting is what would make me wanna keep going. It's like a dream where what you're seeing makes no sense but for some reason you find it compelling enough to keep going.
@@TheBonkleFoxliterally just had a dream that was exactly like the ring part 1 and I think this video is directly responsible
This is the Great secret about performance. If you buy into your performance, your audience will buy into your performance. No matter how stupid the mind and matter of that performance may be.
Reminds me Mystery of the Druids, which also has way better voice acting than you would expect from such a fever dream.
"What's with the artillery?"
I think it's Tchaikovsky, envious that he doesn't get a game.
Not Rossini?
Underappreciated comment.
I thought the same
That joke is as high as highbrow gets
7:06 that's the church bells then i reckon?
As soon as alberich's segment was over, the game collapsed. My mind is shattered. This will surf on in my mind for days.
Just like Alberich surfed after dunking on those fish ladies
@@leonardorossi998 *vine boom sound*
@@Intestine_Ballin-ism Fuck off, I hate being happy.
*kracc bracc fart sounds bass boosted*
Their deadpan faces as they smash into solid walls will never not be fucking hillarious to me.
i can't decide if i should bet that this is going to be in Jojolands
the first time caught me so off guard i thought it was the game crashing but i fucking lost it when it happened again
The thumbnail is the final frame of Alberich impacting the wall. RUclips suggested it and I actually took them up on it.
@@MandaloreGaming amazing
@@MandaloreGaming No wonder the thumbnail seems so different from the rest. How can you improve upon perfection?
The 🗿 sound affect after each time rejecting the women is peak comedy
I love using that emoji to describe it 😂
And the way he surfs away after literally killed me, and it's the same animation each time
Sigma grind set
Timecode?
Alberich woke up and chose violence
I'm convinced that the Alberich we see in the second game is just a double he hired and then abandoned to all his consequences.
actually given that alberich in the opera survives to the end, this is pretty damn likely.
I'll note that the replacement actor for Alberich in Ring 2, was in the first Ring, as the Chief Miner Dwarf (aka, the Gachimuchi Volus, as Mandelore called him in the review) so there may be something to be said for that theory.
God, the idea that he somehow revived the union leader dwarf’s corpse and disguised him as himself, and just sent him out to face the wrath of whatever deities want him dead is perfectly in character. As an extra little bit of punishment for daring to disrespect him.
The team is complete - Alberich, Briggs, Halligan and Haze are our Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Man I think even Halligan is outmatched in terms of evil when compared to alberich
The four chaos gods.
@@m-gmustata I gotta admit it crossed my mind about 12 hours after making the comment and it does fit better.
@@ryokiritani4187 Halligan is a Chaos God by freak accident (by account of being poorly written)
Alberich is a Chaos God by choice. It's up to you to judge which is worse - a Chaos God who knows the harm they cause and gleefully perpetuates it, or a Chaos God who doesn't even understand what they're doing is Chaos; it's just another day at work.
Someone needs to make that one spiderman meme with these characters.
Fun fact: Alberich is the only major character (beside the Rhine maidens) to survive the entire Ring cycle in the actual opera. He is JUST THAT GOOD!
You could actually do a loose retelling of the Ring Cycle from the perspective of Alberich and it'd be justified by the canon. Nasty little fella giving the gods and mankind grief and misfortune; siring and raising up Hagen, seeing the Twilight of the Gods unfold and surviving to tell the tale. There's drama to be mined from the exploits of a legendary archetypal villain.
Just, you know, tone down the Jewish coding, eh? Don't need anymore of that antisemitism.
@@traewilson5127 That might actually be the better way to go for this game. It’s already diverging heavily from the opera, and made Alberich a much cooler character (I think, I only read the plot synopsis of the opera), so why not go all the way and make something more special?
@@michaeltan7625 alberich is much cooler in this game, yes. In the original, he originally goes to the Rhinemaidens to... well, fuck them. It's the reason he manages to steal the gold; they're so convinced he's to busy trying to get them they don't see him steal the gold. Also, here he loses a fight against Loge (who is a fucking god) and thus loses the gold, but in the original he is tricked by Loge into turning into a frog, then threatened by Wotan to give up everything. He's a much cooler man in here.
@@traewilson5127 Oh fucking hell
@@ryokiritani4187 Getting a hold of a collection of the complete opera (because when I get hyperfocused on something I gotta analyze EVERY ASPECT of that obsession) there's a weird detail the first Ring game leaves out about Alberich and Loge - they used to be friends: cousins even - but Loge betrayed him in some way, so Alberich has particular disdain and mistrust for him over even Wotan.
Quote (translation, obviously, not the original German):
Loge: "Well do you know me, childish dwarf? Who is't? Now say, at whom you would snarl? In frigid lair, where freezing you lay, where were your light and warming illume, if on Loge you had not looked? What aid were your hammer if I ne'er heated the forge? Cousin you may be; once friend of mine - no more than these are thy thanks?"
Alberich: "With the light-elves laughs now Loge, the cunning rogue! Art thou as falsely their friend, as my friend thou wert once? Haha! That'st pleasing to me! Then nought needs't I fear of them."
Loge: "I'm surely worthy your trust?"
Alberich: "In thy untruth trust I; not thy truth! But dauntlessly I defy you all."
There's opportunity there to expand on the melodrama Wagner only teased and hinted at before. Something worth bearing in mind to anyone who might toy with the idea of a new take on Der Ring des Nibelungen today.
What happened to Albrecht was nothing less than character assassination.
The second game's interpretation is propaganda created and perpetuated by Ish and his word of mouth.
The voice acting on the first game really is mesmerizing, and by the way why was he limping?
@@cc1093 Because his goofy armour makes him nearly as round as he is tall. Trying to move around in that would make anyone waddle, especially if they're dwarf-sized. Cute attention to detail from the animators.
i could have accepted that the loss of the ring, kingdom and frogiffication broke him, but not like this
I'm 80% convinced that if Albrecht was like his chad first title self, he'd have been able to salvage Ring 2 from sheer meme energy alone.
29:58 He's not kidding when he says slide puzzles are his kryptonite. I think he spent at _least_ half an hour on this. Shammy showed up in chat and started yelling instructions and threatening to come over and solve it for him.
i hope alberic will become a recurring part of the "MandalorGaming cinematic universe"
God I hope so, he's such a fucking legend
Sigma asf.
*Sees the second time a character rides the gaming chair into a wall, immediately understands this is going to be a thing.*
I think I had a brain aneurysm the first time around..
Ah yes, the saga of the hour long sliding puzzles.
Mandy's time of reckoning is here.
He mentioned publishing this video "without alterations". The entire middle is probably gonna be a long scene from an 80s porno
"15 minutes of him repeatedly saying he's not an idiot as he methodically scrambles a puzzle which was a handful of moves from completion"
All he had to do was to talk to his girlfriend. That solves everything.
watching that for the first time was one of the few times i've laughed loudly enough to elicit concern from my neighbors
He eventually solved it and we learned red is real. What a night
"Your days will be gray and your wife ugly" Damn dude knows how to formulate chilling threats.
*vine boom*
Alberich effortlessly resisting the Rhine maidens by insulting them and surfing away was passing the alpha test with flying colors.
Hitting that Sigma Grind
The vine booms made me cry tears dude
it gets even better he can agree to scre them but tells them straight up it's a sideshow to his gold heist and yes he can screw all of them then reject them for zero consequences
He's just into males, easy pass.
Its the best part of the game
"Who or What was Ring made for?"
-Fantasy Opera
-Mechanical Aesthetic
-Unhinged Puzzles
Ring was made for The Machine Elves
It was made as part of an incomprehensible deal humanity made a long time ago that the devs unconsciously fulfilled.
Have you ever tried DMT
Feels like a Sseth intro.
mandalore it was made for you personally
This game feels like it was found on a mysterious disc deep in one of the Dwemer ruins from Elder Scrolls.
the biggest issue with this game is that they hit gold with Alberich's character but failed to continue the streak with anything else.
True but it's not like they were trying to make a meme game. In the first place
the gold was stolen and cursed tbh
i watched the vod on youtube of his ring playthrough. Votan and Loki had excellent power in their voiceovers.
also, the sliding puzzle? took him 45 minutes
@@ildathet lol
LOOK AT WHAT THEY DID TO MY BOY
10:50: It cracks me up that Alberich is singing music from The Ring Cycle, while the soundtrack plays music from _a different part of_ The Ring Cycle. It's such a bizarre choice, why did they do it that way?
WHY DID THEY DO ANY, *LITERALLY ANY* OF THE THINGS THEY DID, THE WAY THEY DID?!
@@notinspectorgadget Most of the weird things are weird answers to complicated questions, like "What is our game about?" or "How should we write Alberich this time?". The mismatched music is a weird answer to a _simple_ question.
Because Alberich does not give a single flying fuck.
Alberich being recast is the most tragic plot-twist that I’ve ever had to endure.
I read recast as racist and i had to stare at the screen in shock for a while
The second voice actor sounds like he went on to work on Oblivion.
@@DaughterOfFerrix embarrassing
@@DaughterOfFerrix dwarf supremacist
@@DaughterOfFerrix why would that be a surprise
Imagine coming to the end of your life, closing your eyes for the last time in acceptance, only to be hit with the Ring 2 death screen
That's when Mandalore knows he's going to hell.
It's a toss up between that and MꚛRTIS
I’m sure that’s what happened to my dad when he died of a heart attack two months ago
Nah because if that was the case, death would have no consequence and I'd respawn at the last scene.
I can only hope.
“Eder Valsong now wants you to find a piece of the Norn’s thread…”
I like how you say the original opera is split up over 4 nights *so the audience can survive it* . Like every single person in the production are government created super actors made to be able to perform and support said performance for days on end, but they're capped at only a few hours per showing to save the humans watching them
To be fair I have met theatre kids both actors and production staff who would attempt to do it the full 15 hours.
Heck, they would manage to do it.
Like not in any way that was healthy for them or remotely good after the first 10 hours. But they would somehow manage.
Have you met theater kids? They absolutely would do the full 15 hours, if they could.
I'm reminded of a presentation I did on cyberpunk literature that I almost did sleep deprived on copious energy drinks, as an exercise in sorta, method acting. I had put off the work until the day before the presentation, and had finished reading Neuromancer. The beginning of that book where the main character's addicted to amphetamines made me think it could be interesting. Didn't end up doing it. Also turns out I probably wouldn't come off like a tweeker because I had undiagnosed ADHD, those drinks just make me focus at best, and feel tired and sick at worst.
I’ve heard of group doing near back to back Les Mis performances, and at least this is a fifteen hour story not a four-five hour one acted over and over like you’re in stage play Groundhog Day.
I can't get over the "crashing-face-first-into-mine-shaft-wall" ending.
The complete lack of expression on the character’s face is what sells it for me.
*End*
*of the first part*
More than once btw.
@@CegeRoles the fact both Alberich and Loki can do it makes it funnier...
What gets me is that there are _multiple_ endings, for multiple characters, in the same mineshaft, with the same solution.
"that was one of the worst dragon slayings I've ever seen"
There was this German story where a dude kicks a dragon in the dick so hard it shit itself and died.
What are you talking about, that's friggin' amazing!
The author must've grabbed the F.A.T.A.L. book while trying to reach for the D&D manual for mistake
"Oaauuuugh my dragonstones!" *wet_fart.mp4*
"The dragon be slayed"
I mean, fair, if I got kicked that hard I'd probably die too
now i wanna see that
I watched Dune Part Two in the theater yesterday and every time Charlotte Rampling was on screen I had to suppress a giggle because I was reminded of all the gibberish she had to say for this game with a straight face, thanks Mandy.
She was in Dune Part One and Two!? Holy shit that was not a connection between this and Dune I was expecting
She was in one of the later seasons of Dexter too, and it was awful.
"Consider what you are about to do, Ish"
"SILENCE!!!"
I FUCKING LOVE ALBERIC. The meme sounds every time after he disses one of the water women is amazing ahahahaha. You madea great editing choice there Mandalore. Truly, you did.
Last year I watched you through tears as I was packing up my things from my house and getting ready to be homeless. This year I peacefully fell asleep in the middle of the video in a comfortable warm bed. Thank you for keeping me company both times.
I'm glad you made it.
Yeh I remember seeing the stream being on, was like "oh interesting, whats that", and just whitnessed misery xD
Fun video tho! Would never play the game personally, so its neat to see whats up with Ring. I just remember ad's for it in german computer magazines a long time ago.
Glad for you stranger from the internet
@@Usual_User thank you stranger whose name I’ll never be able to pronounce
@@scollio6505 We’re all sons of the internet now. Good fortunes, stranger.
This game makes a bit more sense if I imagine this as a representation of what opening and reading an Elder Scroll would do to your mind.
Aw thank you, this surprisingly helps a lot.
You just cured my autism.
I still can't get over the fact that Alberich's voice actor, David Gasman, is the same voice actor behind Rayman, Twinsen (from Little Big Adventure 2), Cutter Slade (from Outcast), Pey'j (from Beyond Good & Evil), and at least a third of David Cage's games.
The guy has impressive range.
I think you mean to say David Cage's Movies at the end there.
@@tomtheconqerur "David Cage's Interactive Cinéma"
*fify
David’s Cage is more accurate honestly.
He also voices Goku in the hilariously godawful Big Green Dubs of DBZ
And also apparently like twenty different people in Code Lyoko?
11:27 Alberich wall impact scene.
25:15 Loge wall impact scene.
Thank you
Blessed be your soul
@mandaloregaming please edit the video to only include these parts, thank you.
Well done, soldier.
Loges blank stare in that scene is sooo good xD
This feels less like Mandy talking about a strange little game and more him begging us to share in his agony to prove to himself it was actually real and not a fever dream
Yeah no other video of his has come across quite so "please watch this I need some justification for the insanity I chose to inflict on myself" as this one.
This explains why this video is just a blank screen for more than an hour.
*It only happened in his diseased mind.*
"Why did you adapt a play containing norse mythological characters into a space opera and then take out the plot?"
"BEACUSE IT IS MY GOOD PLEASURE, YOU ROTTEN LITTLE CABBAGE"
I laughed to tears at this so I know I've not recovered from Ring yet.
@@MandaloreGaming Such trauma requires much healing, my friend.
@@chopperjoe1998 I don’t think you heal from this. I think you just learn to live with what you saw and did with the Ring and Ring 2. The pain will always be there, you just learn to live with it.
Video game developers in most parts of the world in the 90s: *_Attempting to make competent, entertaining, coherent titles_*
Meanwhile, french devs: "Yeet the plot! Eh, add random stuff. More, more! And every character must be completely irrational! Let me see that cut-scene recording... no, no. We need all the people playing the english version to be groaning in pain as their feeble minds try to make sense of the endless streams of gobbledygook we're going to pour down their poor little ear-holes!"
@@MandaloreGaming 200% based
The description “Playable RUclips-Poop” seems way more accurate than it has any right to be.
The problem is that Ring isn't really that funny, and most YTPs are meant to be comedic.
@@HelghastStalkerit’s like watching a ytp in a foreign language
"I would love to know how Ring was committed."
This like a war crime, must be committed
They started a war on sanity and the existence of "this" is the war crime.
Ironically, if you play this, you also have to be committed.
@@koenvandamme6901 After watching this, I feel like I should be committed.
I can literally feel the knowledge of this game being burned away from my brain as I watch this. Every time something happens the data just goes in and I can feel it immediately get fried
your brain is autonomously protecting itself
@@Delicouspie I dont even remember making this comment it was working
This might be the only true memetic hazard I have ever came across... but I wish I could remember why
Ring is made of the junk information our brains filter out automatically to make room for actual thoughts. There's no sense, no information, nothing that can be learned or absorbed. It's mental static.
Watching it for too long probably does have some kind of real life infohazardous insanity-inducing effect, and I'm not even saying that as a joke. I really do think this game could impair your ability to tell the junk information from the real information.
we as a species are not advanced enough to truly grasp the meaning of this work
Can I just say I appreciate the thumbnail being Alberich's unflappable ugly mug racing towards a stone wall?
I love that apparently mandy didn't even pick that manually; youtube just chose it for him.
@@TheBonkleFox That makes it a thousand times better, rofl!
@@TheBonkleFox RUclips algorithm: You know what... I hand something good for you this time.
Every time I hear the female goddess' voice saying "What have you learned, my son?"
I get reminded of "Where did you learn to fly?"
The comedic timing for every time Siegfried dies is incredible
also holy shit Alberich is unironically amazing
I don't know how much of that is Mandy's work and how much of it is Ring 2 just being that way.
It was his voiceover getting interrupted by each death that raised it from annoyance to comedy.
Even after all the pathways into darkness Mandy has led us through, from Marathon to Warhammer, Haligan to Haze, and even the cycles of guilt, this is it. This is Mandy’s kryptonite, his own personal w'rkncacnter, his alpha and omega.
Those god damn sliding puzzles got him.
🤣😂😁🤌
i have to admit, they got me too.
41:05 I got you. The hologram is Brunhilde's sister, one of the valkyries. Since it comes back later, and since only one of the other valkyries shows up again in the play, we can assume that the hologram is Waltraute. She's basically explaining that Nemesis is a title, not a name, and that by opposing Odin's wishes and going against his plans, Brunhilde has also attained this title. Granted, it's a Greek one that's been stuffed in here, but it serves a purpose since Brunhilde's path to destroying Valhalla and bringing down Odin starts with trying to spare Siegmund for Odin. Thus, "Deep down, this is all HIS fault."
43:44 I think the 'greater game' is supposed to imply that in this version of the story, Waltraute manipulated the events here and that Brunhilde, ISH, and even the player are thus fulfilling her destructive childish nature and destroying Valhalla for her, much like how she's blaming the doll for breaking things when you first meet her. You are her 'different doll'.
I cannot even fathom the amount of insanity you endured to bring us this knowledge: thank you sir
deepest Ring lore from the "weakest" Ring fan.
This man had stared into the abyss and grinned back.
after reading this i kinda want to see the play
you may have been the first person to understand this game, either that or you became mad searching for it's meanings. Regardless, thank you.
Mandalore realising the second game worked now for him was hilarious, but imagine the sheer physical and emotional horror for the man actually living that moment.
It had to be like discovering that Pennywise had returned in IT lol
It's like the dude who realized he may have accidentally opened the Demon Core
I love how at the end, Mandalore doesn't ask how the the Ring game was made, he asks how it was committed. Its very existence is a crime.
Wilhelm Richard, is that you? Are you still salty that the Frenchies didn't follow your costume notes and stage directions to the letter?
Wasn't the first time something German committed a war crime, won't be the last.
Committed in this context has entered my lexicon.
Ring cutscenes are what psykers see when they take perils from the warp
Explains a lot LOL
NEVER let the gellar fields shut down.
That explains the mortal wounds in a way nothing else could.
Kek
Alberich being an avatar of Tzeentch who gets his kicks by insulting space-river maidens and repeatedly kicking people in the balls makes FAR more sense than it has any right to.
Brutality, Glug and Minerals. All a man needs in life.
Love me brutality
Love me Glug
Love me minerals
'Ate fish
'Ate Mime
'Ate being happy
Simple as
What's kinda funny is that Alberich's story is basically cut in half, and we're getting the second half. Alberich started out as a decent guy, but various circumstances turn him into the guy he is at the start of the game. He basically becomes utterly disillusioned and decides that love, kindness, etc. are for suckers and that he should only care about himself. Without context, Alberich is a funny villain guy. With context, he's the end result of a tragedy.
Reverse Kung Fu Hustle
'...decides that love, kindness, etc. are for suckers and that he should only care about himself.'
Explains why the hoes are all over him.
I’m just awaiting the “surfing away from wenches like a chad 🏄🏻♂️” scene.
Based Gigachad XD
…. Now that the vids out.
I wasn’t expecting ring 2s surfing suicide ending. 🏄♀️ RIP
@@grandmasgopnik9642 i mean if you know the story of der ring des nibelung....
The guy voicing Alberich in the first game is incredible.
His monolouges are just the most fascinating examples of reading quotes like that.
It should be voiced by David Gasman
Alberich sounds incredibly similar to Zenos in FFXIV. Honestly surprised Mandalore didn't mention it given his knowledge of both games and anything Japanese-origin seems to be nigh-on encyclopedic.
Can we just for a moment appreciate that this game too has a salt arc?
"Your days will be grey, and your wife ugly" is possibly one of the best insults I have ever heard. When I heard this it felt like someone pummeled me in the face with the handle of a sword and then spat between my eyes as I fell flat in a muddy pigsty. You cannot get anymore medieval than that.
The medieval and renaissance eras had some of the most raw disses you’ll ever hear.
It's not really an insult though. He was just telling him what his fate was going to be if he didn't beat the next fireball.
just hits you in the soul
Sick Burn!
some insults are so brutal they feel like murder
Well, until now I thought 'The Mystery of the Druids' and 'Anonymous Agony' were quite sophisticated examples of human capabilities, but you have just opened the portal into the new dimension.
Limbo of the Lost comes pretty close.
@@jakelee7083 Oh yes, I forgot this masterpiece, it is much closer to "The Mystery of the Druids" though
Agony was incredibly cringe. At least this doesn’t hurt my atoms to watch.
@@AnimeManiacAndres yeah, the other adventure are just batshit fun the makes you wonder but anonymous agony just makes you lose faith in humanity
'Armed and Delirious' is waiting further down the rabbit hole...
“Come, drink peace, happiness and oblivion from my breast.”
“I have no taste for peace and happiness, and as for oblivion, my little fishy... You're already history.”
What a chad.
BARS
i heard PISS but ok
By the end of that sequence it really becomes a case of:
Ring Maiden: "if you stay with us you will find love, happiness, and have every earthly need or want you could ever have catered to instantly through actual godly magical powers."
Alberich: "I don't want power to make myself happy, little fishy. I want it to make everyone else miserable!"
Alberich is the sigma grindset embodied, and used for pure evil.
The fact they offer oblivion sounds like to me he will have happiness and then death, practically instantly maybe. I wouldn't accept oblivion from any guardians.
@@thespanishinquisition4078 Trusting gods and spirits in Norse mythology is such a massive coinflip that turning them down is the reasonable pick regardless of motivation.
The possibility of this video disappearing into the void is such a perfect match for the madness of this game
This is, without a doubt, the Frenchest game the French never made
Oui
Even more french than Rayman?
@@MinscFromBaldursGate92 rayman isnt nonsensical. ya can follow that plot.
The fact that I can't tell if the flossing bear at 1:03:13 is really in-game or edited in is a testament to this game's masterpiece status.
I thought it was a reference to Colin's bear animation but it's just regular flossing
@@Mordoras1379 thanks for nothing
I received my answer at 1:20:11
Openly states he ruined his computer trying to record the game, but goes through with asset ripping the bear and making it do the floss
Albrecht dunking on the Rhine maidens and then surfing away needs to be it's own meme.
It is there’s versions that exist
Albrecht, the OG Sigma male
15:05
It is here now: ruclips.net/video/RTS8mr_nAlE/видео.html
I'm not a bot.
The part with him surfing literally had me crying laughing lmaoo
Gigachad Alberich
@@koenvandamme6901 More Sigma.
i bought this as a small child because i thought it had something to do with lord of the rings
i might have suffered brain damage, all the character models are etched into the deepest recesses of my subconscious and appear in dreams to torment me
I love games like this, where the passion behind it far outweighed both the limits of the medium and the technical skill needed to pull it off. The concept art, the writing of the lines, the voice actors, it really seems like there was a grand vision for all of it, there were people who really wanted to transform a dramatic 14 hour long opera into something great.
That being said, I'm glad you played and recorded this so that nobody else would have to, because the game sure seems to suck hard.
I actually thought Ring 2 was substantially worse specifically because it felt like the ambition and soul had been extinguished by the first games' failure. It feels like a sequel made out of obligation to finish telling the story and get it over with, not the next part to an ambitious magnum opus. That special spark that turns a merely bad game into something at the very least worth remembering is gone. It compromised on all of its memorably gonzo story decisions - excising that stuff about the Four and the live-action girl and all that - so now it's just Der Ring des Nibelungens, but it has a slight sci-fi aesthetic. The first game was more than that, but its vision was let down by unapologetically bad game design.
Games like Ring need remakes FAR FAR FAR more than friggin' The Last Of Us. Take these ambitious failures and polish them so that their strengths are easier to see and their weaknesses are at the very least lessened.
*Do it for Alberich, Dwarf of Dwarfs!*
There is a passion behind this game, that much is unmistakable. The issue is, Wagner comes with a lot of baggage and his fans tend to be... let's say problematic. It is not always a sure thing, but in this particular case I can say with 99% certainty that the creative team behind the story are closeted Nazis.
@@traewilson5127 real talk though. What the fuck do you even do to make any of this work? The level of effort surpasses the concept of a remake at that point, you're just trying to do the same thing again but ideally better.
Then again some things just don't translate into games very well without extensive modification. One of the many sins the original game commits is trying to do both at the same time.
They'll never do better with the Ring Cycle than Chuck Jones did.
@@The1337guy1 That's probably what you'd have to do. Either try the same concept again, but with good game design. OR something very heavily inspired by it, but going in a different direction.
Like, an adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly, set in post-apocalyptic Japan with designs by Katsuhiro Otomo. Something gonzo like that.
Where does Mandalore find all this shit? This is stuff you would never play in a million years but having it presented to you by Mandalore is the most entertaining thing ever. Truly the King of Limbo
Albrech is perfect. His voice acting, his animation, his character model, his insults. He is this best part of this game. I have returned to this video like ten times just to watch him. I love him.
Alberich really is the promise of Ring personified: removing the antisemitism prevalent in Wagner's original, making him this borderline Saturday morning cartoon villain devouring the scenery and pummeling anyone who talks back.
But he becomes more than some mustache twirling villain with some surprisingly profound quotes showing the twisted mentality that leads one to behaving so monstrously. Alberich succeeding at the trials of virtue set before him, but harboring warped views on those virtues says a lot about how society values certain virtues, without understanding how actual people can have completely grotesque views of him. That line, something to the effect of "There is something to be said for sacrifice. After all, I, without a moment's hesitation, would gladly sacrifice anyone to get what I desire!" Is honestly chilling. A line where he compares fear of a tyrant to religious faith, both being matters of discipline of the masses, is way more profound a line then you'd expect from a game that has this same character call a child of a goddess a watery trout then surf away awkwardly on his space surfboard.
If the game met the promise set by its one perfect element, Alberich, this game would've been a true cult classic.
@@traewilson5127 I dont know how or why this play could be against Iranians or Iraqis
@@romanboi3115 I didn't *say* Iraqis; I said Jewish people. Richard Wagner was a hardcore German nationalist antisemite which is reflected in the way Alberich looks and how his presence is demonized in both the text and the presentation, as well as in other works by Wagner (he did write more things than Der Ring, you know) There's a reason he was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite artists, and why his works were considered non-degenerate, Aryan art under the Nazi regime.
For fuck's sake, he wrote an essay in 1850 called Der Judenthum in Der Musik, or, as you might be able to parse out, Jewishness in Music. It's not exactly a non-biased history of Jewish people and Jewish culture influencing the music world, let's put it like that. Dude was a hardcore antisemite, and his beliefs influenced his art, as the beliefs of any artist invariably influence their art.
@@romanboi3115 hilarious
@@HelghastStalker hey look! it’s a true, out and out anti-semite in the open! how embarrassing.
Maybe it's the music, but this is the ultimate rewatchable chill video. I've seen this maybe 45 times as a conservative estimate and I enjoy it every time. It's my comfort video.
People like you keep me up at night!
@@bluecaptainIT 😂
The music makes this feel like an old Disney animation I never saw.
bro same, i've rewatched this shit like 15 times and i still notice new random shit because it's Ring. soooo soothing
57:10
Easily the best part! This boss fight is complete madness mixed with Conan the Barbarian Philosophy.
Alberich is such a fun character. I wish I could have his level of confidence when bragging about his height
An interesting point of note: when I was researching this game, many European video game review sources gave this game an 8/10, while many American review sources gave this game a 2/10. Of the 600,000 copies sold, 200,000 were sold in France alone. So yeah, go figure: only in France is this game considered a "masterpiece and work of modern art".
It's more that public libraries and clueless parents wanted to buy an 'educational'/'artistic' game but didn't know shit about games. Plus the comics artist was popular in France so his fans probably count for half of those sales.
That's what happens when you spend over half your life with a bicycle seat digging into your gooch.
@@natedash11wow so funny 😐
@@natedash11 I'd take a bicycle in the gooch over a car exhaust pipe in the mouth.
Doesn't surprise me. Ticks all kinds of French boxes:
Shoehorned in socialist rhetoric? Check.
Based on an operatic epic? Check.
Classical music? Check.
Up its own ass with how deep and poetic it thinks it is? Check.
"and as for oblivion, my little fishy . . . you're already history" is the rawest fucking line I've ever heard in a video game holy shit
11:25
If you close your eyes right before the train hits, your brain will think that you have died. Some people find calmness in this.
I admittedly do like the idea of Alberich having to partake in good deeds and then fully admit he has no intention on taking the actual lesson to heart.
Any old asshole can punch people in the face for status. It takes a special kind of villain to know he can get the status like a normal person and then CHOOSE to continue punching people in the face. Dude openly admits he's a fool, but goddamn it he's a fool that is fulfilled.
As for Ring 2, I agree Fafner is one of the best designs of the game. In fact, the Jotun in general are a fun idea. They're "frost giants" because they're literally space-faring dwarf-adjacent giants in biomechanical mech suits, so of course they'd be absurdly cold. And whatever Alberich's curse did to Fafner seemingly mutated him so badly his organic parts began overtaking the mechanical.
I felt like you had paralysed me in my chair to make me watch this all in one sitting. Not once did I feel safe or comforted, thanks for this
I don't think Mandalore felt safe or comforted either.... I think this broke him a little.
Alberich being yeeted into a fucking wall and it instantly ending the first part of the game has me in stitches
So fucking same
When the first line is "We have completed Valhalla" you know shit's going to be good
That immediately preceded by the Doom door stock sound effect made my head spin
Druillet is a fucking legend, one of the original founders of Metal Hurlant (Heavy Metal), and an absolute madlad artist. He's adapted a classic work into scifi before at least once, called "Salammbo", which is a 19th century novel based on one of the Punic Wars. He just chucked that story into his batshit insane "Lone Sloane" scifi oddysee series. He also has at least once story (Yragael-Urm) which is DELIBERATELY incompherenshible. Characters speak, and do things, but nothing connects. It's literally just a purely creative exercise, and I enjoyed looking at the art because it's cool. So, you know, interesting guy.
The second I heard his name mentioned, I knew this game would look cool and make absolutely no sense.
@@halkiierid4084 Hahah, yup, pretty much! XD
Half expected Alberich to shout "your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries" and launch a cow at his subjects
Ah, I see a person of true culture.
Okay so as a fan of the actual operas - it is admittedly kind of mind-boggling just how much of the basic threads of the story they do actually feed you through in these two games. The aesthetic of Space Opera is a wonderfully bizzare choice for it and this tickles me in a very special way. Of ALL of the genres to try and adapt these monsters into though - a moon-logic point and click game with a bizarre rift between incredible/incredibly camp voice acting and some of the most ear grating shit ever isn't even just the wrong choice, it's the most wrong choice they could possibly have made. Someone, somewhere could maaaaaybe cut together a semi-cohesive adaptation from some of these cutscenes and it be somewhat entertaining but some of the magic would be lost in the ether. This just screams of someone not being told no enough, and a creative team that was so excited to work with the artist that they didn't really care what form that had to take.
You're so right in that this could never be made today - but at the same time, it is so representative of the weird zeitgeist it came out of that I'm so glad it still has a chance to exist - even as abandonware.
On another note entirely @mandalore - I can highly recommend checking out the new point and click game "Mozart: Requiem" for multi-platform release. It tries to turn Mozart into like a weird DaVinci Code kind of adventure and it is so bizzare that it warrants at least a look!
This is a really underrated comment.
This game reeks so much of people with genuine artistic drive, excited as hell to be working with some of the immense talents they had on this project, having a blast mapping this absurd sci-fi take on an ancient opera, talking about their ridiculous ideas over beer, writing down every idea no matter how ridiculous; nothing off the table.
...But then they actually had to make the thing. And came to the terrible realization they only made one game before this, and a project like they envisioned might be too much for them to chew. They persevered, and yet, predictably, they choked.
Studio soared straight into the sun and burned up with all the speed and intensity of Alberich crashing into a wall.
eloquently put. the idea is absolutely tremendous; the execution, although accurate to the artist's vision, is shoddy, sloppy, and not really thought out
@@traewilson5127 Amazingly well put, and enough said.
The key to me, I think, is the truly *astonishing* mismatch of subject matter to format. I've tried to come up with a game genre that is a worse fit for what they were trying to do and I honest to god cannot think of one. Like, remember how in between sequences in the opera the production pauses so the audience can solve some slide puzzles? The atmosphere of the game is really memorable and it contains what I think are some genuinely great scene - which then instantly have all of the air let out of them by the constant pausing to wander around and solve puzzles/pixel hunt.
I can envision a universe in which this game was made as a forgettable shooter or a beat-em-up or something - or, hell, even a platformer. Like, imagine this as something like Visceral's Dante's Inferno, something where you can turn your brain off during the gameplay that carries you from story sequence to story sequence. It wouldn't be high art, exactly, but it would mean that what you remember about the game is the pretty unique campy adaptational elements -as opposed to the part where you had to solve a slide puzzle or the part where you tried to walk past some trees but your character suddenly died every time. Just a magnificently misbegotten and poorly-conceived piece of art, in a way that's endlessly interesting to me because of it.
Ok, it's such a small thing but whoever added the emojies to Albepoor's subtitles is a treasure
ALBEPOOR 🤣🤣💀💀💀💀 Will call him that from now on, at least design-wise. Still a gigachad tho.
Emojis being used to indicate tone for the captions is very nice tbh
I love meme's last line of dialogue, where he's saying how much meme cared for sigfried with a😡 and then changing the emoji mid sentence to asking for mercy with😔
The bear flossing at 1:03:12 after he one shots a door gives me life.
Honestly, by this point there's so much nonsense going on in this game that I had just accepted the fact the bear flosses. He knocks down the door and then flosses. It didn't stand out as bizarre or anachronistic. Thank you for pointing this out.
You’re laughing, a door was destroyed and the bear flossed and you’re laughing!
I've seen this video at least 8 times and I've never noticed the flossing bear before: I'm currently sat in bed sobbing laughing. Thank you 😂
1:26:11 After Limbo, Druids and AA I thought Mandy was unbreakable but I see now he is human after all.
Now we finally have the 4 horsememes. God save us all...
HUMAN
ROBOT
HUMAN
ROBOT
HUROMABOTN
Fortunately, after playing Ring he's not going to be human for much longer.
Mr mandalore... Was defeatable.
AA?
The late 90s early 00s obscure video game sci-fi aesthetic is something that can never be replicated.
I genuinely love the artstyle. It's so uncanny, kind of unsettling but it always makes me curious what more I can discover.
@@necosupr It's a unique combination of the boundless ambition of the time period combined with the hard limits of the technology and low budgets.
Warframe did it pretty well. I think its designs were inspired by old Dune's, the batshit insane future evolutions of humanity with cultures unrecognizable to us
I agree, and I also feel like Morrowind hi-jacks the aesthetic for a fantasy setting. Because it gives the same surreal and truly alien vibe.
@@necosupr More unsettling, at times, than H.R. Giger.
I mean, the OG Tomb Raider freaked me out and that wasn't even sci-fi.
I have never ever heard anyone pronounce nemesis as "Nemeesis". Also the Pathologic soundtrack use in that scene fit way too well
They pronounced it that way in billy owens
I was not prepared for the Haze jumpscare at 25:08 💀💀
Actually scared the shit out of me cause I blinked and he was suddenly on screen
On god
hey hey-yey
The absolute legend insults fish women and the surfs away. I love it.
And she NEVER got over it! She demanded sigmund bring the dwarf to her for revenge
The rejection that transcended time and space
This makes me think Mandy and Sseth are two different people, because I know Seth is a man of culture and loves big mommy fish milkers.
Fun fact: Alberich has unique dialogue for accepting each of the Rhinemaiden's propositions in this scene. Being Alberich, Dwarf of Dwarfs, even when he's indulging them, he's no simp.
When accepting the first maiden: *"The company of women should be sought with due care; relished unto excess (HMHMM) and forgotten in an instant. However NOW is the moment of excess. Come, let me relish you..."*
The second maiden: *"Ooooh, you have all the charms of a woman; all the sensuality of the river's flowing waters. Hm hm hm hmm, I could not refuse you, my beautiful enchantress..."*
And the third: *"These words make my head spin, can...can they be true?"* (Yeah that's it)
And no, accepting their offers isn't a Game Over; you get a small decidedly unsexy animation, and you'll be blocked because you don't get the first key. It doesn't lock you in a failstate either; you can just surf your way on back to the start of the sequence and tell the little fish off with zero consequences.
in short he tells straight up he's just treating this as a sightseeing sidenote for his gold heist
"The company of women should be sought with due care; relished unto excess and forgotten in an instant"
gigachadgrinning.jpg
He may be under 4 ft tall. But got the big dick energy
Wait you can accept their propositions? I didn't know that!
Wow, kinda wild that the game acknowledges how impotent that security scheme was by just letting you do both
I'm mad at how "fighting a Stand user with an air conditioner" sounds like something that would 100% happen in the manga
Fuck it a Stand that IS an air conditioner or a rock bug that takes the form of one except it distributes mustard gas.
It so would happen, it literally already has in Part 3.
@@Dragonatrix With a hairdryer in the Devo fight right?
And in part 5 the AC is important too for the train fight.
Ozone Baby in a nutshell
I think, I didn't quite get wtf his ability is
they fight aqua necklace with a humidifier in part 4
A AC Stand can only truly be called 「Wind Of Change」
When your interaction options are “mineral” “brutality” and “glug” you know you are in for a ride.
Nothing has made me laugh harder than the sudden closeup and THWACK that comes whenever a character slams into a wall, followed by the gameover screen
Hunding's voice hits me like a train
"HUUUUUUUH" *ba baaaaaa*
That Pathologic music when the plot breaks down is absolutely spot on
It's an allusion to children being behind it all
Its playing right now!!
When did the plot "break down"?
timestamp?
@@cumpanions8105 40:35
i'm so sad that you didnt include the scene of you trying to finish that slide puzzle for half an hour, giving up and calling your girlfriend to help, just to accidentally finish it while explaining it to her.
HE CUT THE MONKE NOISES HE MADE AFTERWARDS! That's the real travesty
I feel like Ring's main problem is that it has too many things going on at once and at the end of the day none of them are really relevant at all. It's an adaptation of the Ring but in a Sci-fi setting, a literal space opera. Okay, that's neat. But it also wants this meta-narrative of a galactic conflict/slave rebellion/holy war between Humanity and some unseen alien god like beings. Which in itself might be a "Fuck you for playing" thing going by the line on how human culture and stories are used by said unseen alien beings as cheap entertainment, in the same way the player is playing an adventure game rendition of 1000+ years of Germanic mythology.
But wait, there's even a meta narrative within the meta narrative with the little hologram girl who tells you the "none of this is real, you're just a puppet and this is a game" shtick. But it's also not clear if she's apart of Ish's story, the "threat" Ish speaks of, or something else entirely. And also none of this matters because it all gets dropped in favor of just making a straight Space-Fantasy adaptation of the rest of the cycle in Ring 2.
I feel like the dev team started with the concept of "Ring, but with a twist", but everyone had a different idea on which twist to go with so they just threw everything at the wall and hoped that something would stick. All of the elements are interesting on their own, but none of it meshes together in a cohesive way (and I'm considering the possibility that a lot of the meta "Turn the game console off now!" stuff is just trying to justify that).
I suppose the only reason they'd want the 'you're a human learning about the four stories of the Ring' wraparound in the first place is because it's easier to put a 'you learned your lesson, now we can end the game' moment to it, whereas the four stories just kind of peter out.
"He has now digivolved into an awful fusion of Kratos and Caillou."
Oh boy, this one had me choked up laughing.
We have options to either call him Kraillou, or straight-up Shitfried.
Alberich is the man, the world isn't ready for him
The Dwarf*
The Dwarf of Dwarves.
Sigma AF
And as disappointing as it is to see ham go to waste... His second characterization DOES accurately reflect the nature of those that call themselves Sigma or Girlboss.
Lmao at the spider at 1:05:58 pegging it back to kill Siegfried like the sea-bear attacking Squidward
😳
@@_Lumiere_ Your mind is dirty and needs a thorough scrubbing.
Pegging is another way to describe brisk movement.
Should've drawn the anti-sea-bear circle lol
Cubed, sliced is fine.
I unironically want to have the confidence that Ring 1 Alberich has. Its actually kind of inspiring to a degree.
You gotta love that they had the epic Wagner music going during their stealth section but dead silence during the fight with a fucking dragon and Odin.