*Amendments* * I unfairly threw Ratatoskr under the bus. I included him here because that video embodies a review of a game that only talks about the negative aspects really succinctly. But there is a difference between his work and the other critics I talk about. Although I dislike that video because I'm more interested in his whole opinion than the 0.2%, I don't think he's guilty of the same style of critique that I'm really addressing here. I should have made a clearer distinction. He's been cut from the intro. His thumbnails show up a couple times in the vid but please know I'm not equating him with the other people I'm talking about. Sorry, Ratatoskr. * Seems like I fell into the very common trap of calling Nietzsche a nihilist. He's a more complex guy than that and my interpretation of his work was shallow. My interpretation in the video still stands as an analogy to the game and it's still important to show Feeble's misquotation and lack of sources. Even if my interpretation was flawed, I argue that it's still stronger and better researched than Feeble's one. But please do dig into Nietzsche's work yourself because I don't represent his ideas super well here. Sorry, Nietzsche. *Unfortunately, in the "difficulty was never the point" section it looks like I've attributed a quote in one article to Miyazaki that was actually paraphrased by the writer of the article, Keza MacDonald. Here's the full quote with Miyazaki's actual direct quote included. Demon's Souls was born out of a desire to return gaming to its fundamentals - that is, to re-embrace the trial and error and difficulty that we used to take for granted, and leave the player to work things out for themselves. "From the outset, we started making it based on a 'back-to-basics' concept," says Miyazaki. "We wanted a 'game-like game', something that was fun in the way games used to be, and we were confident that we could do it". (The sentences without quotation marks are Keza MacDonald. The sentences with quotation marks are Miyazaki.) My sincere apologies on this one. A commenter pointed this out for me. This is not a direct quote from Miyazaki. Sorry, Miyazaki. *Death of the Author - A commenter correctly pointed out that Death of the Author is not concerned with the theory that the author has intended you to do whatever you want. The core of the idea is that the intention of the author is irrelevant. It's not their intention anymore. It doesn't matter what they intend. I've sort of conflated both authorial intent and death of the author in the point I make. The point still stands that you can play the game however you want, even if it goes against what you may perceive as developer intent. *Please don't use this video as justification to say git gud or skill issue. As I've said a couple times, I don't like that discourse. I say it to Joe and Feeble in respect to their critiques as a bit of a snarky dig but I don't condone the kind of argument that waves away a person's opinions with an accusation that they are bad at the game. I think Joe reacted badly to those comments but I still don't condone the use of them. It's not about skill it's about mindset. But even so, it's not okay to say that it is someone's "fault" for not liking the game. People are allowed to dislike things in the same way you are allowed to like things. You don't need to convince them they're wrong. That's not what this video is about. *On the great rune thing. Really surprised that so many people have taken issue with it because I thought it was a minor point. I realise now that it's sandwiched between two much bigger arguments which makes it seem like I'm equating it to be the same. It's not. It was a bridge between arguments and not the argument itself. I used it as an example to show that sometimes subjectivity isn't implied, objectivity is, because Joseph says "objectively bugged". My argument was that it can't be that either the rune is objectively bugged or the text is wrong. If it's either or, then neither is objective, because we don't know which is which. I'm sure it's Joe being hyperbolic but words are important. Regardless, I spent too much time on it because I thought it was funny how mad Joe was about it years after he talked about it in the base game review. The text is definitely misleading. My argument wasn't that Joe is silly because the system is actually clear. Regardless, it's unimportant to my overall argument and I'm happy to take the L on it. Honestly, if I had another edit, I'd cut it out because it distracts from the larger points I'm making. Important to note! Obviously not all the reviews/critiques of this game are negative. Responses are overwhelmingly positive from mainstream video game journalists. I don't think this game is an underrated gem or anything. The base game won Game of the Year. It's clearly a very successful and acclaimed series of games and contrarian discussion is healthy and necessary. I'm talking here about a very specific form of critique that is very very common in the souls community in particular, and why I don't like that form of critique. You're allowed to dislike it. You're allowed to think it is a flawed masterpiece. I just want to hear more about the "masterpiece" and less about the "flawed". When I discuss opinions on the game and make claims that they are "wrong", I am addressing interpretations of developer intent that I believe don't hold up well under scrutiny. Even so, when I say something is "wrong", and I am talking about an interpretation, that is my opinion. Subjectivity is implied ;) Keep the discussion civil. I don't mean ill will to the people I talk about in this video even if I am quite harsh and snarky throughout. This is a discussion of art and ideas. It's also a genuine plea for self-reflection. This isn't a take-down. It isn't content cop. You're allowed to not like things. I'm allowed to like things. Let's be cool about it. We are currently accepting new members to join the Cult of Fromsoft. Praise be, Surrogate-All-Father Miyazaki. He who satisfies our victim complex Gred
Just finished the intro, and saw this comment... You should watch Noah Caldwell-gervais videos on Elden Ring if you wanna hear about the masterpiece parts of the "flawed masterpiece".
@@GredGlintstone I was also going to mention Noah Caldwell-Gervais. There is also a part of his recent Elden Ring video in which he addresses negative comments, which you may find pertinent.
@@GredGlintstonei second Noah’s content. It’s some really great stuff. Very personal, very balanced. You won’t be questioning how he actually feels about the thing by the end.
"I never said I dislike the death knights, I just included them in a list of enemies and NPC fights I disliked and everyone assumed." This might be the funniest, stupidest thing I've ever heard
How is it stupid? Its like liking a mustang as a car or just for its looks, but not liking driving one. The countach actually has that reputation, looks cool but you probably wont like driving one.
@@sandertu8366Well, If the only thing he mention about the Death Knights on the entire video is something negative, is fair to assume that he didn't like them. The "reskinned Death Knights" is one of his reason why he though SotE was the worst DLC is basically what he said on his first video. He never even said that his problem was only that two appears.
@@sandertu8366 > Says there's a list of bosses he didn't like > Puts Death Knights on the list Feeble: "I didn't say I disliked Death Knights." ??? How is it not stupid lmfao. Don't you see the contradiction?
@sandertu8366 tirle: top 5 worst cars ever. "I never said the car was bad, I just listed it in an article about bad cars and people assumed" Nah dawg, you actually did tho
Besides the fact it’s a bold-faced lie (he literally changed his Elden ring base game opinion) it’s also just sad. Does he do absolutely no growing as a person or critic? My opinions on stuff I like and dislike and “critique”(lmao) change every day. Feeble is just embarrassing.
@@liquidreality472 If you need proof that most people are easily manipulated by just knowing how to present your opinion in a confident manner, you can take Joseph Anderson as the biggest example
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.” Such a good quote it’s still accurate in this current age.
@@PumpkinWarlock idk critics risk a lot I think, generally speaking. And that line also discounts critique as a form of art which I’m also not comfortable with.
@@MoreLoreThenThereSeemsa work of art, imo, is a creation made by a talented person (or group of people) in a field such as writing, painting, architecture, videogames, etc that shows said person's view or philosophy on the world and life that can be understood in isolation from other forms of human expression. There can be "bad art" as it can lack technical expertise, but authentic art cannot be "lazy" or "half-hearted" because it should represent the honest efforts of the author. A critique of art cannot be understood in isolation because it is a commentary on someone else's work, and thus its entire existence depends on that.
Regarding that bit at the end where you show that extremely rude response Joseph makes to that fan, I find it very concerning that at least 184 people looked at that and said "Yeah, that's a response I like, better go give it positive feedback."
@@chaoticgoodcreations947 with how his reddit is, i can say with confidence that they werent. most of them display actual toxic positivity about joeseph anderson. if the witcher 3 video never comes out, they will still be waiting in bated breathe for it.
I wonder if you know "Beginners Guide". If not then maybe playing it (or watching it, even on Joseph Anderson second channel) could actually help you understand the issue. Some "support" can be rude if person didn't ask for it, even worse when specifically said they don't want it - and it isn't new trope.
I like how you emphasized that simple mechanics doesn't mean boring. Sekiro got Game of the Year but in my opinion it's Game of the Decade. That parry is so satisfying. And yet if you reduce it, it's really just "press parry at the right time". Simple but elegant.
I got an even deeper appreciation for the combat of Sekiro after installing some super boss mods like the elden arts mod. I highly recommend downloading some of you haven't.
Reminds me of the "Stand still and let thing resolve" joke/meme/mockery from the FF14 community. When you think about ti life is about standing still and letting thing resolve.
My favorite example of Feeble King’s hubris is when he declares that he knows exactly what experience Fromsoft wanted us to have, when he doesn’t even know how Fromsoft intended you to deal with the Putrescent Knight’s grounded flame hitbox.
One of the things that bothers me the most about the stupid arguments of that Feeble King guy is that he insists that his way of playing is the correct and only valid way and that using any tool that the game gives you is not valid
My favorite example of FK Hubris is to the end of his first critique when he said that if you defend these bosses is probably because you use summons, therefore your opinion isn´t valid.
Big agreement with your artistic scenery point. I just can’t figure out why people play video games and instantly try to reduce the experience down to a number crunching game. It’s so bizarre to me…..why not just code or do arithmetic?
No one is doing that. He uses numbers to prove that his (and many others) subjective experience is correct. Such as in the Mario oddyssee video where actually counting proves that the game is mostly copy-pasted events. This is evidence to back up the subjective experience he and I both have that the game is lifeless, uninspired and tedious.
Please stop posting everywhere about it! Our community of human man game players is already getting too popular & I don't want the next Olive Garden game to flatten the human man game mechanics like Skyrim or turn into super-soldier play. Don't you remember when we started all the games naked + helpless??? I miss the good old days when human man games were niche + old school.
Both Sekiro and Elden Ring literally reinvented the genres and were completely different in design from the games that preceded them, suggesting they're coasting by is honestly baffling.
@@DelgadoKenway The biggest downgrade in quality since DS2 won GOTY over the highly anticipated sequel to the 2018 GOTY. That's not to say winning GOTY is the end-all be-all, there are duds, like TLOU 2 beating DOOM: ETERNAL, Ghost of Tsushima, and Hades, but I think it's still pretty telling of ER's quality.
Brief comment on the Sisyphus point brought up around 1 hour in, i dont believe sisyphus would be happy because of the merit of his work, and his ability to perfect/improve pushing the boulder eternally. His happiness derives from the fact that he could stop at any time, but that would let the Gods win. He has deadlocked himself to an eternity of monotony and repetition all on his own. As long as sisyphus rolls the boulder, the gods are wrong, and that means he wins. The second he gives up, they win. Sisyphus enables his own hell, and he is content with that.
Hey about sisyphus, while i do agree that Camus brings up the concept of "revolt" a lot, the point Camus makes isn't that Sisyphus is happy because he could stop at any time, it's not a revolt against the gods that casted him in this hell. It's a revolt against the absurdity of existence itself. So Sisyphus doesn't become happy throught conflict and confrontation, he becomes happy through creativity ; by finding meaning where there is none and for exemple by "leaving a trace" behind the boulder he pushes, each time the trace is different. Then, he transcend his condition, he isn't bound by the punishment of the gods, he doesn't create in spite of them.
@@cosimomedicis8094 Yes, this is more accurate. There is no purpose to his struggle and he's forced to repeat it forever. It's a living hell unless Sisyphus can learn to embrace the absurdity of his situation and find happiness anyway.
This perspective resonates with me so well. When I first gained... self autonomy? Like my life isnt just me on autopilot, I fell into despair, realizing were just tiny flesh bags living on a rock in the middle of nowhere. No meaning has value and everything is meaningless. Yatta Yatta Yatta. Until last year I decided to change this nihilistic viewpoint as its toxic and not helping at all. I've now come to the conclusion, Life may be meaningless, but how would I know if I didn't look for it? Who am I to determine the value of meanings and if there is an actual meaning? If death is the inevitable truth, then life is a powerful protest. To live despite its purposelessness, isn't that admirable?
There are a ton of "very serious game critics" who are constantly bemoaning the inflammatory discussion surrounding their writing, but nearly without exception the uproar is invited because their work is actually the lowest rung of possible critique (essentially a product review). The problem they seem incapable of diagnosing, is that no matter how flowery your prose is, or how close to the 6 hour mark you get, that doesn't mean the actual content of the writing is anything other than a rather simple 'value judgement' (used in the critical definition, not the moral definition). So the problem becomes that the most interesting thing you can say in response to a video like Joseph Anderson, or Ratatoskr (who despite your pinned comment, is guilty of this type of discourse) is "I think your value judgement is wrong". This is why so many of these types of works have entire sections addressing the audience with: "you're allowed to disagree, but please behave". Or in the latter's case "I'll probably piss you off, so be sure to dislike this video and argue in the comments". These disclaimers can't generate a theoretical "ideal discussion" around their "critique" because the critic himself has failed to write anything that has a primary quality more complex than "this is good or bad imo"-- and thus the response can only be "thank you for agreeing with me," or "nuh-uh". It's like laying out honey and then becoming cutely exasperated that you caught flies. The root of this mistake is deciding: "this is what I thought this artwork should be," and then structuring the critique by analyzing the distance between what [was] and what the writer [imagined it should've been.] Next time you watch a game critique, notice how much the critic is actually addressing the game itself, VERSUS, how much time is spent using an imaginary ruler to compare the game that exists in the writer's imagination to the actual work. In some essay critiques, this is upwards of 90% of their content. Now, this is typical of a product review (you are evaluating a purchase for other customers, and an imaginary "ideal product" is something you need to assume is possible-- but this is not serious criticism, it's an economic service). Instead, (and this is the proper job of criticism)-- a more interesting critique can always be achieved by analyzing what [was] and what [happened because of that.] All serious works of critique developed in the western canon (that have value on their own) possess it because the writer sought to understand and perform a taxonomy on the work's entire shape, rather than dressing up an IGN review in big-boy clothes and pretending it's a scholarly work. JA is actually just ignorant on a base level because he's under the delusion that a critic's job is to "make the work better"-- and in order to refute him, I'll just quote Northrup Frye because it's way easier: "Value-judgements are subjective in the sense that they can be indirectly but not directly communicated. When they are fashionable or generally accepted, they look objective, but that is all. The demonstrable value-judgement is the donkey's carrot of literary criticism, and every new critical fashion, such as the current fashion for elaborate rhetorical analysis, has been accompanied by a belief that criticism has finally devised a definitive technique for separating the excellent from the less excellent. But this always turns out to be an illusion of the history of taste." In any case, the idea that something could in any way be "flawless" is a critical void, so we can extend from that that the analysis of "flaws" compared to "triumphs" is at best a starting point for a real critique, rather than the end goal. To continue to reference Frye, imagine if "Fearful Symmetry" was 300 pages of him talking about the "flaws" of William Blake's poetry and comparing them to the "triumphs" of it-- it would be completely infantile.
This is a great comment. Well articulated. I'm currently working on a script that speaks a little on this. The appreciation of art goes beyond value judgment. Internet discussion can be so much more than arguing over if something is "mid" or not.. I want to talk about feelings. I want to talk about meaning. I need heart.
@@GredGlintstone it's a topic I feel needs to be covered by someone! You should check out the book "Anatomy of Criticism" and at least read the polemical introduction, which is the first chapter. I feel like the discourse it goes through there is exactly what you'd be interested in.
Something not mentioned is that even outside of beating the Putrescent Knught rewarding you with the Trina questline/moment, you literally get a Remembrance for a unique boss weapon like every other main boss.
@@harkaranbrar2342explain the thought process behind reading a comment that explicitly states "even OUTSIDE of st . Trina quest you still get such and such " And still thinking the discussion is about st . Trina's quest . 😂
Feeble literally says in that Bloodborne video that playing the game started to feel like a job and I was like "dude, aren't you getting paid to play this?". It is your job.
It's also sad when people show their feet on webcam purely for a job, without appreciating the artistic nuance and the human implications of the scenario.
@@randomguy6679 I don't know how the word "seriously" squirreled its way into this comment of yours, but i'm going to be generous and suspect an overabundance of seriousness in the bloodstream.
Also you're wrong about Nietszche, he wasn't a nihilist, he hated nihilism, his great life-long project was articulating the catastrophe that was nihilism in 19th Century Europe. He believed profoundly that life was and is meaningful, and that we have almost a moral duty to ourselves to be true to ourselves, so that our loves could be meaningful. Your whole idea about him believing life was innately meaningless and that it becomes meaningful in self-overcoming is totally anathema, really, to what nietszche articulated throughout his works. I recommend reading anything from his middle period, eg the gay science, to get a better idea of what he really believed. You're sort of correct when you say that Nietszche said that suffering creates meaning, but what he tended to say was actually that it made us more *interesting*. Nietszche believed that self-inflicted suffering was a major phase in the history of our psychological development, and associated it with Christianity. The geneaology of morality expounds on this. Fun video, I'm glad you made it, it certainly made my chores more enjoyable. Sorry to jump down your throat, but i gotta protect my dude against misrepresentation.
It seems you're absolutely correct and I've fallen prey to what looks like a pretty common misconception about the man. I was basing my argument on an interpretation that is very likely flawed. That being said, I still think my point in this section stands because: a) Feeble still misquoted the man and didn't provide his sources. b) My interpretation (while shallow and likely inaccurate to Nietzsche's authorial intent) is still a good analogy for the game. I do appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I'll do more reading on Nietzsche. He's an interesting dude.
I’m a huge Joseph Anderson fan (admittedly more his streams than his critiques) so I appreciate you giving all this feedback. At this point I’ve heard ‘subjective’ misused so much that I’ve gradually lost track of the meaning myself. I also really enjoyed your point about gamers being so focused on the reward rather than the experience with visuals, sound and vibes. I admit I do like games being replayable once the first experience wears off, but FromSoft have always been good at finding a balance of both.
Subjective and objective aren't binary. There are degrees in between. "Mario odysee is lifeless and tedious" uses two subjective words to describe it, which is a must when doing a review or critique. They have some objectivity to them if you also explain why. And they have a lot of objectivity to them when you count how much of the content is actually copy-paste. I'm sure you know what I mean.
The “Gank Boss” at the end of the shadow of the erdtree DLC gives you the option to summon in the NPC’s you’ve befriended along the way. Which NPC’s you summon also change depending on how you interacted with the NPC’s in the world up until that point. Narratively this is the best NPC fight I think FromSoftware has ever done, and to reduce it to “just another gank fight” is both inaccurate because it doesn’t have to be 1 vs 3, but also ignores narratively what makes the fight so impactful
@@jojameson5264 by this same logic, it matters less because you can fail npc quests. 2 of 5 won’t even show up if you don’t finish their quests. And neither of the summonable characters get their quests broken by fuckin walking somewhere.
You can literally turn that fight into a 5v5 if you use the Jolan and Anna ashes, by doing that you can also turn the fight into a 5v2 "reverse gank" if you just don't do any of the npc quests.
@migaeldewet6074 Well, it isn't if you refuse to try out a single weapon from the dlc, and it's useless to use it for runes since he claims he has already hit the soft caps for his stats(not true lol)
1:30:24 "The only meaningful difference between most songs is the notes, the note order, how long they're played, and the tempo" One of my favorite parts about SotE was the weapon variety and the fact that I could so easily level them up to 19 or 20ish. I used a dex build and I swapped constantly between the new dual backhand swords, a twinblade, a katana, and a great katana. I was having a blast and each weapon felt completely different
@@Zythrylhe’s pointing out how stupid that line of thought is. He agrees with the comment and is using a ridiculous example to further enforce the point.
I argued with feedle king once when elden ring originally released. One of the worst people ive ever spoken with about it, youtuber or otherwise. I stuck to discussion about the game. I pointed out that he was blatantly contradicting himself and not making sense. I simply asked him to make sense. He called me stupid, told me i lacked a high school education, blocked me from speaking on his channel and then deleted all his replies where he lost composure because he didnt have any explanation for the nonsense he was saying about the game. All the replies he made where he completely abandoned any semblence of discussion and devolved into childish insults were removed. But the fromsoft fans are toxic... 🤦 I wont ever bother listening to what he has to say again. Youve given him more credit than he deserves by calling what he made a review or calling him a reviewer.
Hey I’ve read the affairs between you & him, he even did that to me, he deleted my replies to him where I ratioed him so hard, I don’t even get hostile at all, I like to keep it very respectful while being as impartial as I can, but he kept throwing ad-hominems at me all the time & hasn’t discussed my points at all. He’s just a toxic person with an inflated ego. I thank you for your time in trying to deconstructing these “critics.”
@@SpoonyBard88 Someone who likes to lie and contradict himself constantly. And no, this is no ad hominem, he actually says one thing, then changes his mind and then claims to have never said the first thing and that he never changes his mind.
Yeah also loopine has a video saying critique’s deserve criticism to keep them in check, he was saying that because he was puzzled as to why Joseph Anderson gets a pass saying shit like “fromsoft have fell on their heads” and that they don’t know how to make bosses anymore, unfortunately I can’t remember the video so I can’t link it
@@MoreLoreThenThereSeems another British fellow who uses it for good is hbomber guy but he is a rare uploader. But a good one. Like the one time he made a whole channel or two built on stealing others work get thanos snapped. One of them faked their death and created a thirst account under a new name.
@@christianlangdon3766 Hbomb doesn't sound posh, if anything because he screams so much it kinda loses the poshness. Abigail from Philosophy Tube on the other hand... wow, NOW we're talking.
I’d rather have a British or an Aussie RUclipsr narrate every video instead of hearing another guy from the Midwest with a nasally voice that you have to get used to after watching a WhiteLight video lol
I knew something was up with the latest Joseph Anderson video when most of the intro was him half jokingly explaining delusions of grandeur and railing on the souls community. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought it.
Way to not get the point. That said he shouldn't do that because it's pretty boring for people that appericiate his content and the people like you will take it seriously no matter how clearly he explains it's a joke.
I really appreciate the point being made here. Even given the title of the video, I still partially expected a "this person disagreed with my take on a game, and therefore: me angry" video. I was truly surprised by the level of detail, research, and understanding regarding the material being spoken about. You aren't disagreeing with people's opinions, you are disagreeing with the way the opinions are stated and their overall implications. It isn't often you see something of this quality on RUclips. Subscribed.
absolutely tired of that same "flawed masterpiece" title that atp i roll my eyes so far back in my head that i can see my own fucking brain people are so afraid of liking something, or god forbid loving something, that it's become mind-numbingly infuriating to see
While I think that It may be less excesive and there are instances where It could be though better, I also considerate that the people complaining about reusing assets on an open world have a fundamental misunderstanding of how these games are actually developed. On a Game as Big as Breath of The Wild, for instance, they had the Big Challenge to fill a map 5 times bigger than a linear Game, with a limited amount of budget and a limited amount of time. Apart of the main story points, they had to fill an insanely Big world with worthy stuff. And is there are upcomings and shortcomings over a Big open world to a short open world, same as It happens Within a metroidvania and a linear Game. And these are not flaws, just advantages or disanvatanges that someone could consider them weighty enough to make their veredict. Elden Ring has by far the biggest roster of Boss fights of any Fromsoftware Game, having the amount of DS1 and DS3 Bosses combined. Bosses that actually have a lot of effort behind, hell, a lot of minibosses are as complex and Varied as DS1 lategame bosses or DS3 middle bosses. I do not consider this a flaw, hell, I would say I consider this an archievement.
Meh, content creators are always going to piggyback off popular titles, before this it was hbomberguy's "Noun is Adjective (And Here's Why)", popular things get copied because they're popular and people will click on them anyway, no one values originality as much as they think they do imo
@@JoseViktor4099 exactly. I don’t get why people think asset reuse is only a negative thing. Take rgg (the yakuza studio) and their games. They’re able to be made quick (gaiden was made in 6 MONTHS and it’s a great game) without sacrificing quality because they reuse many assets when they can, even entire areas from previous games, to save on development costs and time.
My problem with the Elden Ring DLC cook books is that I think there were just too damn many of them. Nearly every single one only unlocked only one single new item to craft; if you cut the number of cook books in half and made every book give you a couple items instead of only one, it wouldn't be quite so noticeable.
"Love isn't about ignoring something's faults, it's about loving it in spite of them." This is why Drakengard is one of my favorite games. Sure it's monotonous and grindy and tonally hostile in every aspect. But I still love it. Hell, I love it FOR that. It is unapologetically itself, it is deranged and unhinged and wondrous for it.
Whenever i think of Joseph Anderson responding to criticism, i remember how DangitJM made a fairly tame response to Joe's comments about unfair boss design of Margit, and Joe commented in the video before even watching; a bunch of arguments that werent being made, and then ended up saying "well i guess i just dont have a very good build" as a response in the comment chain to people summarizing the video as a response to the comment, as if that is somehow Fromsoftware's fault. Then i watched his Lies of P review where he praised the game for "listening to its fans" when they made a bunch of changes, then childishly said that thats how he knows it wasnt made by Fromsoftware, and i was like "oh. thats what this video is going to be about" and yeah
Omg I saw that comment and almost brought it up. That idea of "I haven't watched this yet but this is what I think it's about" is so weird. Just watch it lol. I hope this isn't how he plays games.
@@GredGlintstone some joe lore that i think humanizes him more in my eyes is how he has talked on his stream about how him and a bunch of other unpublished/selfpublished authors would write stories and post them to places like reddit to try and get feedback from each other. i think that thats how he's approaching his "critiques" and its very improv classroom, where you and your peers are trying to make a good joke to use at a standup setting or when writing for a sketch comedy group. There are so many differences between that and what he's doing from the fact that peer to peer critique is more personal and private and helps mainly because after you build some good rapport with your peers, they try to understand and work with you rather than just say what they dont like about your set.
@@AnInvalidEgg 100%, "Joe" very much sees saying that sort of stuff in that way as something very casual and very unproblematic, maybe due to how he used to talk a lot on writing forums like you said, and that kind of shaping how he goes about his casual criticisms on things.
I heard, so take it with a grain of salt, that he played Armored Core and absolutely refused to change his build. You know in the game where that is the whole appeal. I do like his reviews generally, but some of his opinions seem really strange, like just criticism for the sake of criticism. I remember his Bloodborne review being more criticized than his reviews are now.
@@Romapolitan He did, and he did lol, I fucking love armored core and that really killed me whilst I watched him play it lol. It's just not his sort of game at all really, I think he may have said that whilst playing but I can't quite remember. His perspective on it is that if it's so easy to switch and stumble into what works and what doesn't, and there are some weapons which are so much more viable than others to the extent it can trivialize the game, he'd rather just have the game give him a balanced experience in which he doesn't need to play a balancing game of a build being useable, and it being too good that the game becomes trivial, and that as that isn't the case and the customization isn't for him, that he'll just go with the first things he finds which work better than what he was using. He used dual Zimms lol.
On the whole subjectivity/objectivity thing, as something that's always bothered me about how people with little philosophical literacy talk about such things: Subjectivity is only implied when a statement is in regards to something that cannot be anything other than subjective. If a person says, "(I think) chocolate tastes better than strawberry ice cream(in my opinion)", even if they were to drop the linguistic markers of subjectivity, we recognize the subjectivity because it isn't clear in what sense a thing could taste better(a qualic feature of the subjective experience) than another in objective terms. However, most statements are not, in fact, clearly subjective. They're composite statements, consisting of part empirical observations/claims, syllogistic features(A and B, therefore C etc), and value judgements(reports of subjective experience), and as such, are prone to being wrong on levels of the empirical claims or reasoning regardless the subjective elements. If a person says, "In Norway, people have long holidays and a relaxed work culture, therefore (I think) Norwegians are more happy," that's not "just an opinion", and, if someone were to question whether Norwegians do in fact have long vacations and a relaxed work culture, or how that entails happiness, no-one gets to just dismiss that with some vacuous appeal to opinion or subjectivity. Almost every statement that comes out the mouth of critics(and indeed most people in general) are synthetic, and therefore subject to possible errors of judgement worthy of scrutiny and critique. Using appeals to opinion or subjectivity to obfuscate that or reject criticism is disingenuous and/or displays a fundamental lack of understanding of rhetoric and linguistics. To be fair though, some of this probably comes from the fact that the word "opinion" itself isn't used in a particularly narrow and clear fashion. Fundamentally, we should probably only refer to subjective value judgements as "opinions", but we do not, except when disingenuously trying to defend faulty statements from critique. The aforementioned synthetic statements are regularly referred to as "opinions". But, if we accept them as such, then opinions aren't merely subjective statements and as such, the delineation between them and empirical claims in general is meaningless. On a related note on language, and a tiny nit-pick: There's no such thing as a "wrong fact" or "incorrect fact". That's oxymoronic. Either something is a fact, or it isn't. A "wrong fact" is just a false claim or error =P
Great comment and well spoken. You've said a lot of things here that I struggled to. Very valid nit pick. I really debated what terminology to use there. The intention was to show that they are not opinions because they can be verified and are just objectively wrong, not subjective. But you said it better than I did.
@@GredGlintstone No worries. I think you got the point across and I was just very enthused to see one more person in this space actually adress it, because damn it, has it become common for people to use "opinion" as a shield for their faulty logic or dubious factual claims. The nit-pick was mostly facetious 😅
The problem is that most people don't utilize the higher parts of the mind; all they know of "thinking," is simply opinions about feelings they have and nothing deeper. I call people out for hiding behind "it's just my opinion" or "it's subjective" all the time. You can't say "the way the artist used the color blue in this painting is bad," and then say "that's just my opinion". You made a statement, either delve deeper into the facts of the matter and (at least attempt to) make a definitive statement about how they used blue, or say "I think" or "I feel". Maybe the blue clashes with other colors and detracts from the rest of the image, then say that. It's not that hard.
It seems that a far more acceptable title would simply be "My thoughts on Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree" if all they're gonna do is say it's their opinion when they feel as if they're going to be challenged on certain points lol. "Maybe it's just me but I feel as if x is overtuned in terms of difficulty" is much better wording if you're not interested in being challenged. It may also invite likeminded people to comment "It isn't just you, I thought that too" rather than having arguments about what is considered good game design and how the uploader actually sucks at video games therefore their critique is invalid.
In Matthew's dark souls 2 review, after he says that miyazaki claimed difficulty was never the point he says that the point is to pull the player into the world and deliver climatic moments. When i searched for interviews where miyazaki expressed his opinion on difficulty i found this quote, "When I’m playing these games, I think, This is the way I’d want to die - in a way that is amusing or interesting, or that creates a story I can share." This sounds quite similar to what Matthew was saying about climatic moments. In another interview he said "I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes." In this quote he directly says that the games aren't difficult for the sake of being difficult which is a statement i think could be reasonably summarized as "difficulty isn't the point." Matthew's paraphrasing of the ideas miyazaki has expressed into "difficulty was never the point" has been misattributed as being a direct quote from miyazaki so many times not because it is an outright lie that people have heard and falsely believed, but because it is a short and simple distillation of one of the principles behind the souls series. here are the two articles i quoted 80.lv/articles/dark-souls-creator-explained-why-fromsoftware-games-are-so-difficult/ www.pcgamer.com/elden-ring-director-miyazaki-says-he-doesnt-want-new-players-to-stress-about-difficulty/
@@dedstring ^ Already seeing people go to Matthew's video complaining about him "making up quotes", likely only seeing as much of his video as is shown in this one.
Not wanting thier games to be difficult for the sake of it isn't the same as difficulty not being the point, it is like Miyazaki said numerous times about given a fair consistent challenge that the player can learn and adapt with, it doesn't mean the games aren't hard or that their difficulty isn't a big appeal/part of the experience
"Not difficult for the sake of being difficult" is not the same as saying "difficulty was never the point". It's just saying there's a purpose for the difficulty, which is giving the players a sense of accomplishment. Even so, you're ignoring ALL the other times Miyazaki said that difficulty WAS the point, that the difficulty is one of the main, INTENDED appeals of his games.
He's only saying that there is a purpose for the difficulty, he didn't say difficulty wasn't the point. He still said Miyazaki said that the difficulty wasn't the point "over & over again" (which is another lie), which isn't true, Matthew should've said HIS OWN interpretation of Miyazaki's thoughts on difficulty by starting with "My own interpretations...", it's really that simple, but not as if he is reading his words verbatim, if we collected most of Miyazaki's interviews around every game release, you'd find that Miyazaki hasn't directly said anything close to what Matthew understood from him, actually it's on the opposite, he advocates for higher & higher difficulties, there are many other interviews that would support Gred's point, in an interview with EDGE Magazine in 2011 around Dark Souls 1, Miyazaki said "I have no intention to make the game easier. In fact, I want it to be more difficult. The way I put it to my team is that we are trying to make the most difficult game that is possible to make, which at the same time can be conquered by those who persevere. It has to be firm, but fair." Now you can interpret this how you want, because if you applied that same quote above to DS2's difficulty, it would fit it perfectly, if I were to counterargue Matthew in the defense of DS2, I'd always bring up this interview, always, and I have the direct quote right there, which would cement my point much stronger than Matthew's. It's why I would side with Gred more than Matthew. Also if you listened to Gred carefully, Gred was calling this BS because most people would bring up those words from Matthew's video as if it's from Miyazaki in order to try & criticize & berate Elden Ring's difficulty, which is a very difficult game, but is absolutely fair, so Elden Ring's difficulty would easily slide within Miyazaki's 2011 EDGE interview, so when we face much more difficult games than DS1/2/3/BB, like Sekiro & Elden Ring, we shouldn't even begin to bring up this fake quote from Miyazaki which Matthew created out of thin air, it created a false narrative, it caused a lot of people being misinformed.
I’m so happy that this is being talked about because its been so annoying listening to critics hide behind Schodinger’s subjectivity. Its objective untill they get pushback and suddenly it was never meant to be objective in the first place and you (the audience) are dumb for interpreting it like that.
It’s almost as if these RUclipsr “critique” channels were waiting to absolutely eviscerate & tear this DLC apart only for RUclips engagement, it was really obvious, Feeble’s video came out less than 2 weeks after the DLC’s release, he was even inadvertently saying that playing through & finishing the DLC felt like a job, gee I wonder why lol. 😝
@@HeyTarnishedyeah , i think their criticisms a lot of the time are terrible especially since as someone looking to get into game design i have been reading / watching a lot of different people and it's always good to see different perspectives, but videos like those just seem snobish / nit picky / hostile / sometimes just plain wrong and then hiding behind the it's subjective guys ( or even when it's positive it's not very useful for someone wanting to learn and understand games )
@@lynackhilou4865 Yeah I get it, the gaming communities can get pretty weird & aggressive at times, it's scary to even think of designing video games or coming up with great games when games like Elden Ring & Zelda TOTK (2 of the best games of this decade) are getting torn apart by many RUclipsrs that want engagement farming, when in reality, millions of players are enjoying their games & these 2 games are always in their list of best games of all time (Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time).
@@HeyTarnished finally someone has some empathy towards devs. Unfortunately the zelda dev teams were pressured by the criticism that there latest title "echoes of wisdom" brought back a lot of classic zelda elements to please the toxic older fans. Although echoes of wisdom does a great job at blending new and old zelda some of it still feels forced and I think the toxicity of the old zelda fanbase is the blame.
I also want to mention that after awhile I just stopped caring about critique videos. I don't really care what other people think but the thing that worries me is these people negatively impacting the developers. So I think it is still important to call out people with a big influence like Joseph Anderson.
Don't you trust developers to know what is good or bad for their game, and to be able to say if they agree with a critique or not? Individual critiques are not what change follow up games or creative projects, it's the general community opinion and takes more than anything else that can change a game for the worse, and have the most power to change a game end of.
@@repnir7428 People can be swayed really easily these days and developers will be forced to listen to them. They have to create games that they are less passionate about. Maybe fromsoftware isn't one of those devs because since the beginning they've been criticized heavily but they still kept on doing their thing. It's the indies I'm worried about. I've always wanted to create my game but my biggest fear is that people will start hating it and specifically the parts that I loved about it. So either I have to remove the parts of the game I loved or ignore the hate. People have a have time accepting that if they don't like something doesn't mean its bad. With people like Joseph Anderson, being able to sway the population into his opinion, out there it just scares me.
why tf would the devs care, they already have a cult like fanbase that calls every tiny thing that comes out of the company peak, we need more of these critical youtubers who actually use their brains and arent biased
@@SuleX00-ov5ip "I've always wanted to create my game but my biggest fear is that people will start hating it and specifically the parts that I loved about it." That's the nature of making any creative work, it's unavoidable. Only advice you'll really get about that worry from other creatives is that you just need to put up with it, or ignore it. Either way the answer is a different variation of just toughen up unfortunately. Also, just remember, you never make your dream project as your first project.
With the putrescent night debacle I think we’re missing one key thing: you get a remembrance from the boss. You know, a big reward for beating it??? You get a cool spell and a weapon with a unique weapon art??? Hello????
My god this has to be my favourite video on this entire website. Its been a trend for years to only talk about the negatives of a game and I never understood why anyone who enjoys games would ever feel satisfied creating something like that. Aside from the obvious fact that negative content performs better in YT. Either way i really hope this video gets a lot of eyes kn it because i really believe that gaming discourse and critique needs to change
Nothing wrong with honest negative videos, this video isn't even advocating for less negative videos. They're fun (especially when it's short and to the point) and are sometimes meaningful and insightful. Only talking about the negatives is not inherently a bad thing, ironically enough. What's wrong from Joseph Anderson-styled video is that they're claiming to be a balanced critique when it's really not, say that the game is good (masterpiece, even) but spends the majority of the video on the game's flaws that may or may not be true, and then went self-victim mode when they get totally deserved criticisms.
Sometimes it's because of frustration, for example pokemon Pokemon fans are so tired of the downwards trend in quality of the games ever since gen 6 that released more than 10 years ago Gen 6 was decent, ORAS was good, gen 7 was a breath of fresh air with new systems, but the constant hand holding soured the experience, also didn't help that USUM was just the original SM but with a slightly revamped story, so you ended up buying a whole new game for little extra content. Then sword and shield released and was super disappointing for the first switch title, legends arceus was another breath of fresh air but underdeveloped, then gen 9 came out as the first big open world pokemon game, however the open world design with gyms and other challenges not accomodating to your level, so the difficulty of your playthrough could vary a lot if you didn't follow the pre determined path of a supposed open world game All these pokemon games have their positives and negatives and while gen 9 is definitely better and a step forward compared to gen 8, it doesn't change the fact that pokemon fans have been hopeful that the games would capture the essence of the first 6 gens, gen 4 and 5 especially sense those had a pretty good narrative, gen 6 had the novelty of 3d graphics and mega evolution, legends arceus the novelty of a more action combat gameplay in addition to slightly revamped turn based combat, but other than those games, no pokemon game really comes close to doing something new or groundbreaking for the series That's kinda why I think we love to point out negatives, to show what could be changed, however we should also point out positives to show what should be kept, for example the constant praise gen 4 and 5 get to their story or gen 6 with the mega evolution mechanic, or legends arceus with the catching pokemon on the field, without entering combat with them
@@pralenkaman8105 the thing is that modern pokemon DOES capture the "essence" of the old games, which is something the community forgets. Pokemon is a customizable pet raising rpg like it has always been, and it has always been fantastic and special in that regard. That is not changed by a national dex, or battle frontier, which is partially why those features were chosen for the chopping block in the first place. The issue is that gamefreak has to balance quality with ambition in a realm where many other games can beat them in both. It's not necessarily a downward trend of quality, but a relocation of an already mediocre quality.
Ya I 100% agree, I don't want fluff positive critics but honestly there isn't much to complain about Elden Ring other than performance. Same thing happened in the Zelda community, for some reason most of the essay videos on Tears Of The Kingdom are all negative. Despite it being one of the best games and a masterpiece in the medium. Most of the critics were just nitpicking small points and basically ignoring all the good stuff which makes your essay look way too biased .
@@tamim3319 to be fair, and I'm not saying tear of the kingdom is a bad game, far from it, but the game did plenty wrong The underground is very empty, with little to do besides getting armor that isn't even new, most armor in the underground is the dlc armors from breath of the wild. Other than that, all the underground has to offer is zonyte to build vehicles and po souls to use at po statues, there's little side quests there besides the master kogha ones and the spirit temple one too Then there's the overworld that's pretty much the same as it was in breath of the wild, yes the major regions are changed slightly, but they return to normal once you defeat the temple's boss Then there's the sky islands, which are cool, but very far between and some of them are very.... VERY small, others are copy paste puzzles, which is understandable, open world and all, but still very unfortunate due to how few there are Of course there's also the stiry which doesn't take in considerstion what happened in breath of the wild.... but at the same time it does? Like it's very inconsistent, the champions of each region know who you are, but then some other villages like kakariko, people don't even recognize you as the co-owner of what is now zelda's house, even though you're the guy that helped rebuild that house and that side quest is canon due to terry town existing, this game is very inconsistent with its narrative Now I want to say it again, tears of the kingdom is an amazing game, I definitely had my fun with its mechanics, the vehicles were fun and made exploration feel much better, even with the reuse of the open world there were still some fun mysteries like the whereabouts of zelda and the master sword, the dungeons were a breath of fresh air and the fuse mechanic made fighting higher tier enemies actually worthwhile This game is great and it can be even greater... if you haven't ayed breath of the wild, because its biggest hinderence is the exploration being too familiar to its predecessor
Thank you for the video, I am pretty much in full agreement! Initially I even groaned at the idea of watching a 2 hour video seemingly about Elden Ring DLC critique because I expected this to be exactly the type of video you're criticising, lol! Thankfully I watched it and I'm very happy for it, since it resonated with thoughts I've had about this for a while. Game critique of popular games has been so deeply poisoned on the internet that I am usually just indisposed to even engage with it, which is a terrible shame since I think there are so many interesting ideas we could be discussing about those games instead of what we usually get with those videos.
Your conversation about rewards was very interesting. One review of SotE I watched was from a smaller creator, I can't remember their name, but I do remember some of their comments in regard to complaints about areas like Cerulean Coast and Charo's Hidden Grave. They suggested that we, as players familiar with open world games, often interpret emptier areas as automatically being 'bad'. We're used to the general norm of open worlds being cluttered and constantly giving us things to do and find, that an area deciding to use open space in a possibly more poignant sense registers as poorly made or having nothing to find. It really struck a chord with me, as has your video. I've been an ardent defender of the Consecrated Snowfield for this very reason. Sometimes it's just the atmosphere, the immersion of a wide-open yet well-hidden space that acts as its own reward. I think it's fine to critique the more tangible rewards, of course. But I also think sometimes it's better to ask 'what is this area trying to do/make me feel?' as opposed to 'what does this area have that can personally benefit me?'
Love how Miyazaki inherits Team Ico games' DNA and preserve these beautiful open spaces tradition in Elden Ring. Now while that's all well and good, I still wish riding Torrent is more than just a "hold left stick" affair. These areas works much better when the traversal mechanic is also engaging, such as riding Agro in Shadow of the Colossus or the funky walking mechanic in Death Stranding. Big open spaces _feels empty_ mostly because you can't really do much of anything in it. This is why I despise modern Assassin's Creed where traversal is mind-numbing, as opposed to the older games where you still have to activate neurons in your brain to navigate through the world.
You could look at this the opposite way. "What do I gain from spending an hour riding through a nearly empty area with reused enemies I don't get from fighting those same enemies else where already?" Games are about the gameplay and one of the biggest complaints about Elden ring is how empty or effectively empty the open world is. You just run past enemies to get to locations, so the DLC repeating it isn't what people were looking for. Especially not from a hidden area or multiple hidden areas reusing the same assets as is the case with the fingers. And while you may enjoy the scenary, there are players like myself who really wanted to see what the finger areas were about when we see them in the distance and we got nothing when we arrived there. There was nothing to do but run past enemies and bone out with the horn. But we didn't know that so we still spent time investigating. And then had to do it a second time. You can say it made you feel something but feelings are so subjective you can't lean into them as a reason for content like this to be in the game. If people say "I don't want to eat more pasta" you can't say "but this pasta will make you feel something" and expect them to be happy when you shove more pasta in front of them. The DLC and base game suffer massively from the side of open areas and no meaningful way to engage with them. So making hard to reach secret areas double down on that thing was objectively a bad idea. If your player base complains about it and you repeat it several more times in something they're paying more for, you should expect them to be pissed off they didn't listen to your feedback.
@@FleshCloud-ey5ro you are also projecting your own feelings onto the game. Conversation is driven by feelings, there's no need to use "objective" jargon.
About the end. It is kind of sad that Joe had to create strawmans in that reddit post to subvert his own created deadline that no one in any seriousness was holding him to.
"You can use a Rune Arc to give even greater benefits to your equipped Great Runes." - implies that there is a benefit to equipping Great Runes, before using a Rune Arc.. and that using a Rune Arc makes that benefit even greater. I'm genuinely trying to interpret that in another way, but I can't. Remember, some people haven't played Dark Souls. If you didn't already know that's how Great Runes worked, would you really interpret the description any differently?
The argument isn't whether I interpret it differently or even if it is reasonable to assume it could be read in a different way. It is not objective if it isn't a fact. You can say that the text is really confusing. You can't say that the feature is objectively bugged. Two very different criticisms.
@@GredGlintstone My man, theres alot of hills to die on, Fromsofts conveyance of their item effects and mechanical information is not one of them, Even Miyazaki has said there is room for improvement on their end.
I agree that this is indeed a misleading tooltip - especially if one has not played any souls game - and this fooled me as well. However from context the natural conclusion to me is that this is not a bug, but more likely either a mistranslation or a leftover from previous designs due to a mistake. I think this is also overall a small issue, and that getting super-mad about it like in the original video is an overreaction, bordering into the "literally unplayable" meme territory.
@@sasaki999pro I don't think he's dying on that hill though? I just read your thread here. You agree with one another. You both agree that poor conveyance/confusing tooltip is the problem. I agree with that too btw. I thought for a fair bit of time that equipping the rune had a base effect.
@@albertoorsomariaiorio2823 within context the mechanic of rune arcs is trash if it is indeed supposed to work like that. Time to die in this game is simply too fast for rune arcs to work
@@licota11Whop Whop Whop Whop Whop that'll teach 'em all Whop Whop Whop Whop Whop bad game they called Why bother pick up a phone you retard yea Try to flick a thumb but its prolly S K I L L I S S U E..............
My hot take I guess is that I don't think anybody has ever actually had their opinion changed by a review or essay. Not when it comes to things like a game and whether said game is any "good", at least. People just value reviews because it gives them the rhetorical tools to better explain their own feelings. They have already reached a conclusion as a result of having experienced the game, they just want somebody to offer an explanation as to HOW that conclusion was reached. It's why I think arguing the nitty gritty details of a popular review's argument is a bit futile, as it's making the mistaken assumption that the viewers who agree with the opinions being expressed only do so on the condition that said opinion is wholly factual. Which just isn't the case, more often than not. People echo the sentiment because they share that sentiment. Look no further than this video's comment section, where replies range from counter-arguments from those clearly unmoved to people feeling like they've finally been seen because somebody has made an essay that validates their own feelings. You cant logic somebody out of position if logic didn't place them there in the first place, after all. Which is not to say that any one side is the "logical" one here, as art and what art means to you isn't really something you're meant to view through a purely "logical" lens. I'm also not even really accusing you of believing you can change people's minds or anything, this is just something I've been thinking about a lot whenever I started seeing these back and forths about Elden Ring.
100% agree. I think you can have your opinion changed but you can't make someone "like" something by convincing them it's good or "dislike" something by convincing them it's bad. Thinking of making a video about it. It's why the discourse is so toxic. People are trying to win a war of objective truth about art which is impossible.
@@GredGlintstone Part of why I personally like Joe's videos so much is that I disagree with him often, but he explains his own feelings and their roots in the game very effectively. Sometimes I agree with all or nearly all of his points and felt the same things he did, those thoughts were just overshadowed by elements I enjoyed to result in a more positive overall experience . His BotW review, for example, hits on basically every criticism I have of the game, but the parts of the game I enjoy outshine those criticisms so thoroughly and are so unique to BotW and the games that have been inspired by it that it is still one of my favorite games.
"You cant logic somebody out of position if logic didn't place them there in the first place, after all" This line is so good man. This applies to almost everything, not only video games.
One thing I have noticed about myself is that constant back-and-forth negativity tends to exhaust me really quickly, and I end up avoiding the subject of discussion because I have a negative association with it now. It's not really about the criticism, though, just the tone of discourse.
I honestly think Joe was traumatised by Jonathan Blow outright saying that he didn't understand The witness. I remember him being audibly emotionally distraught even though he'd seen the clip before. So I guess you could say everything was heading downhill from the very beginning.
Blow said "he didn't get it", but he only watched the first 30 seconds of the video and turned it off. It's such a baffling reaction on Blow's part. Joe's point about the story being intentionally pretentious indeed falls apart when you see Blow, who's otherwise a brilliant programmer, acting like such a simpleton. It seems that Blow really thought he was being clever? Like, really?
@@anonisnoone6125 By being a single attack used by an optional superboss with plenty of ways to deal with (you can literally run and jump it from point blank). It is one instance yet Joseph acts like the entire game is filled with situations like this. Calling stuff like the bestial clergyman's swipe attack unreactable, when that's far form the truth.
@@anonisnoone6125Waterfowl Dance can be evaded by sprint jumping the 1st flurry, then iFrame roll the 2nd one, finally just stand under the 3rd one, it’s really simple. Joe acted like the game has a bunch of unavoidable attacks which is categorically wrong, there isn’t any single unavoidable attack in the game except the NIHIL attack, which is a very cool way to do it, it deserves that aspect, and there’s a physick tear that can protect you from it, it’s what made that attack memorable.
I pretty much deal with waterfowl by anticipating it. I will attack Malenia till she reaches 80% and then I will play super passive and stand at a distance, sometimes running forward and then running backwards in order to bait it out. After baiting it out and sucessfully avoiding it, I will play very aggressive for a while as the move is on cooldown. It was a bizarre strategy that somehow worked very effectively and felt kinda satisfying to pull off.
I just gotta through this out there... The fromsoft fan base is not the most toxic worst fan base. It's the competitive pokemon fan base. As a man that has had an unhealthy obsession with both franchises I can say hands down that the competitive pokemon fanbase is the worst.
@@Glitchedsoulsborne how bad are we talking? I've never been in Pokemon that deep. Though as a former RuneScape player, I'd wager their fanbase is so much worse than the Souls community, given there are people who would commit literal crimes if you so much as slight particular people. Not to mention ddosing, and doxxing. Soulsbros will, at worst, call you names or slurs. It does not compare at all.
@@user-pn4px5lr8w I didn't realize runescape community is like that either wow. Ya the worst the souls community does is say git gud and throw a dung pie at you haha.
@@Glitchedsoulsborne ya it's absolutely rotten. It's partly why I've distanced myself from the game, though mostly the gameplay stopped appealing to me.
I find it weird that you’re catching so much harsh criticism from what i assume to be JA fanboys. This is your first big essay. Sure it’s a bit rough around the edges, but it’s still very effective at getting your points across, most of them being very solid points.
Gred made Some good points , Some incredible points, and other not that good like his Matthew interpretation or how he explained the runes arc situation. I think is fine.Internet discussion can be somewhat cringe, and people often ignore what you had to say to search for flaws in your commentary, the best you can do is to not let It get over your skin.
It's all good! I invited it. My whole point is that critics aren't immune to criticism. That includes me. I'm actually surprised by how well its been received because its pretty harsh and directed to some very popular figures on the platform. Overall, even JA fanboys have been pretty good about it. Only a vocal minority are upset about it which they have every right to be.
I paused after the Matthewmatosis section because I felt something was missing. I wish you had included the full quotation from his Dark Souls 2 Critique, because it sheds light on the larger argument that he is making. In comparing and contrasting the approaches to difficulty in Dark Souls 2 as opposed to its predecessors, Matosis argues that Dark Souls 2 is difficult in a manner that is unfair to the player while Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are difficult in a way that is fair and which reinforces the themes and philosophies of those games. Here is the rest of the quote: “… Miyazaki has been asked to comment on the difficulty of the Souls games, and the answer that he gives, over and over again, is that difficulty was never the point. The games weren’t designed to be challenging just for the sake of it. It was a way to pull you into the world, and the peaks and dips in difficulty can be used to effectively set up a climactic moment like with Orenstein and Smough.” Here Matosis cites Orenstein and Smough as an example of how DS1 uses its difficulty to create a memorable experience whereas DS2 does not take such considerations into account before replicating punishing gameplay patterns. He then goes on to cite differences in level design/environment, enemy placements, enemy design/attack patterns, boss designs, and more for why Demon’s Souls and DS1 are, indeed, difficult games, but whose difficultLes are both educational and fair to the player. When presented in this context, many of the quotes you show by Miyazaki actually reinforce Matosis’ argument: 51:04 “Demon's Souls was born out of a desire to return gaming to its fundamentals - that is, to re-embrace the trial and error and difficulty that we used to take for granted, and leave the player to work things out for themselves.” www.eurogamer.net/souls-survivor ^(This is not actually Miyazaki’s quote. This is a quote from the article’s body. His quote after this sentence reads: “From the outset, we started making it based on a 'back-to-basics' concept. We wanted a 'game-like game', something that was fun in the way games used to be, and we were confident that we could do it.” Please actually attribute Miyazaki’s quotes to him properly if you are going to make an argument about misrepresenting quotes.) 51:23 “Yes, Demon's Souls was known for its incredible difficulty. With Dark Souls, there is no intention to decrease the difficulty at all. Actually, we intend to increase the difficulty of the game but not simply by making the game more difficult but by giving players the freedom to strategise freely and conquer that difficulty, and to be rewarded accordingly.” soulslore.wikidot.com/das1-variety-is-the-spice-of-death ^(Once again you don’t provide the full quote. The full statement arguably reinforces Matosis’ point. Stop doing this.) 52:28 “I have no intention to make the game more difficult than other titles on purpose! It's just something required to make this style of game. Ever since Demon's Souls, I've really been pursuing making games that give players a sense of accomplishment by overcoming tremendous odds. We've added new items and weapons over the course of the series, and having a certain level of difficulty adds value to those because they incentivise players to experiment more with character builds and weapon load-outs.” www.wired.com/story/dark-souls-3-hidetaka-miyazaki-interview/ ^(Again, you cut out the first part of Miyazaki’s quote which states, in no uncertain terms, that he did not design these games to be more difficult than others on purpose. Seriously, stop doing this.) 52:46 “With Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, we always wanted players to feel a sense of accomplishment. That’s the only reason we went with a higher difficulty.” www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2017/01/interviews.html?m=1 ^(Again, this is not the full quote. Miyazaki continues on this point: “And in this game [Bloodborne] we want players to feel that sense of accomplishment. In order to make that feeling even stronger than before, we needed another pillar other than just a high difficulty. To allow for players to feel that sense of accomplishment, the difficulty must be set at a level that players can overcome. Difficulty isn't something that you can just endlessly raise.”) 53:13 “If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn't the right approach. Had we taken that approach, I don't think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy - which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.” www.gamesradar.com/games/action-rpg/hidetaka-miyazaki-says-games-like-elden-ring-have-to-be-hard-if-we-really-wanted-the-whole-world-to-play-the-game-we-could-just-crank-the-difficulty-down/ ^(So this is an article quoting from a Guardian interview with Miyazaki. You didn’t exactly present this statement out of context, but Keza MacDonald and Miyazaki are discussing how Elden Ring’s open world design makes it “more approachable than other FromSoftware games.” Miyazaki then says: (“It’s certainly part of the intention. Elden Ring, by its open world nature and game design, lends the player more freedom. At no point during the game did we want players to feel claustrophobic or overly limited in the scope of what they’re able to do and experience in that world. Instead of the very grim, dark fantasy that you may be used to from past FromSoftware games… it still has that same harshness and coldness, but we wanted to have these moments of beauty. That’s where a little bit of high fantasy comes in, conceptually. Both in terms of the difficulty and the learning curve, as well as the world setting, you feel that you can come up for air.” www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree) Following your list of quotes, you claim you proved that the Souls games were always about difficulty and trial and error, but I believe here you begin to conflate the arguments made by Matthewmatosis with the misinterpretations of Matosis by Anderson and Feeble King. Matosis never argues to the contrary, and, in fact, he frequently agrees with this both in the DS2 Critique and his other Souls videos. Again, it’s the methodology of DS2’s difficulty that he is criticizing as compared to the more methodical approach taken by Demon’s Souls and DS1. Also, Matthewmatosis never quotes Miyazaki or claims to be taking a direct quote from him, so to phrase this as him lying prescribes a malicious intent. I know you address this moments later, but at 57:57 you repeat that he’s being dishonest by ignoring other quotes of Miyazaki’s and that’s just not true. Taken Matosis’ argument as a whole, I would argue that he is correct in claiming that Miyazaki’s approach to difficulty is not about difficulty for the sake of itself (as is his argument in context), but, rather, as these interviews attest, for the sake of immersion, which is one of the factors key to the sense of accomplishment Miyazaki mentions repeatedly. Matosis certainly could have worded himself better, though. That I will agree. 56:15 Likewise, you go on to claim that you cannot find the exact phrase “difficulty was never the point,” but then show a quote from Miyazaki expressing a similar statement. (You never link your source for this forum in the description.) Although you challenge the viewer to find a quote exactly like the one Matosis describes, this is a complete non-point. None of the quotations you present ever say “difficulty was the point” in those exact words. You are arguing semantics. Rather than nitpicking Matosis here, I believe it would have been in your better interest to take the larger argument he makes in his DS2 Critique and emphasize how Anderson, Feeble King, and other community members misrepresent Matosis’ original point. This video is supposed to be about formalism, so lumping Matosis in with much worse critics due to a point he would actually agree with you on is just losing the plot.
Thanks for the long thoughtful comment and I applaud you taking a look at all these sources in detail. I actually had no idea that wasn't a direct quote from Miyazaki and it was instead the writer of the article. I really appreciate you pointing that out. Somehow I missed the lack of quotation marks and took it as a direct quote when it wasn't. Big mistake on my part and I've made an amendment in the pinned comment. In regards to your other points, the issue isn't how Matthew's quote "difficulty was never the point" could be interpreted with the sources I provided. It's that HE didn't provide HIS sources. Just as you've done with the sources I've cited, you were able to go and look through those articles to get a greater context for what I was arguing. You didn't agree with what I was arguing, and that's fine. But I gave you that opportunity. Matthew did not. We don't know which articles he referenced to make that quotation. He says Miyazaki echoes this sentiment in "practically every interview he's ever taken" but isn't able to produce one example. That is the issue. And although you've interpreted that quote to mean that it is satisfaction that is the point, and not difficulty, many didn't. The issue is that quotation has been used as an argument for a good deal of people online saying these games were not meant to be difficult. You can chalk that up to a lack of critical thinking but the problem is that Matthew didn't provide the opportunity for people to form their own view with Miyazaki's own words. That's why citing your sources is important, as you have found while looking through mine. Again, really appreciate you catching that misattribution of the quote. That was a real blunder and I do apologise.
@@GredGlintstone That’s a fair complaint to have, and I sympathize with it, but you end up projecting malicious intent onto Matosis for problems he never intended to cause or incite, and this ends up going beyond criticism mischaracterization. If he knew people were doing this, I have no doubt he’d be embarrassed and annoyed. Personally, it feels as though you misidentify the source of your gripes and pick an inappropriate battle that, in my opinion, damages your own argument by way of echoing the reactionary content of Anderson and Feeble King. Also, I remember replying to my own post with more stuff on the matter, but I no longer see it so I’ll just copy and paste it below. Apologies in advance. It was supposed to have been read with the original comment and offered a larger critique of your approach. Feel free to just disregard or ignore it: - This is already a long comment and I feel like I’ve made my point, but you challenged the viewer to find quotes similar to what Matthewmatosis said. Ignoring the ones that I feel you misquoted or misrepresented, here’s what I found: “I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes. We don’t want players to feel like the game is unfairly punishing, but rather that there’s a chance to win a difficult encounter and make progress.” blog.playstation.com/2022/01/28/an-interview-with-fromsoftwares-hidetaka-miyazki/ “I personally want my games to be described as satisfying rather than difficult. However, I suppose gamers do not particularly prefer easy games. What they want is interesting and worthwhile games to play, so I think it is natural that hindrance or stress that does not attribute to such interesting and worthwhile elements will be removed in the end.” www.gamespot.com/articles/dark-souls-director-says-difficulty-serves-satisfaction/1100-6394583/ “Well, there were of course several moments where I had to stop things and take a step back and consider the difficulty. But it's not necessarily that I say 'oh, this is too difficult,' but instead the term I usually use is 'unreasonable.' So, that's the term I tend to use when I have these conversations with the development team…. When you think about it, the difficulty in the Dark Souls franchise so far has been something that players have eventually been able to overcome. So when I show concern to the development team members, that's why the term I use is unreasonable - basically, we don't want to go too far. It's about striking a balance. www.vg247.com/dark-souls-3-miyazaki-bloodborne-interview “‘Dark Souls without challenge, that cannot exist,’ Miyazaki said, responding to a commonly asked question about whether this new Dark Souls will be any more or less difficult than past games. But he said he prefers not to use the word ‘difficulty’ when talking about Dark Souls games. Instead he talks about players overcoming challenges.” www.polygon.com/2015/8/10/9115299/dark-souls-3-hidetaka-miyazaki-interview-gamescom ^(Admittedly not really a direct quote, but I think Miyazaki’s own avoidance of the word “difficulty” still says a lot in Matosis’ favor.) This video was disappointing. You begin seeming to promise a proper formalist critique of bad games reviewers like Anderson and Feeble King, and you kind of provide that, but after a certain point the video adopts similar rhetorical strategies to those you’re critiquing that is, at times, pedantic to the point of complete irrelevance (the sections about Camus and Nietzsche), argumentation about opinion rather than about the presentation of said opinions (the sections about Elden Ring’s improvements), excessive repetitiveness and redundancy, and low insults aimed at your subjects of critique (deserved but still eye rolling). Your depictions of Matthewmatosis here are really what broke the video for me, because you end up adopting the same shallow interpretations that Anderson has of Matosis’ arguments and use that as a basis for critiquing Matosis himself. Avoid imitating the people you are attempting to critique if possible. Be the better critic and don’t stoop to their level if you want to prove a point. I understand this video aims to be catharsis for yourself and others (like me) who detest awful YT critics like Anderson, but it only makes you seem every bit as juvenile in thought and execution. Sorry if this is a harsh critique. Best of luck in future videos.
@@thehornswoggler4619 I appreciate you feel that way but my intent wasn't malicious. I found out about the quote while researching Feeble and seeing him quote Matthew as a mouthpiece for Miyazaki cemented for me the damage that lack of citation caused. I understand that could lead Matthew to feeling embarrassed and annoyed but it still needed to be said. Matthew is conflated into this larger point that I make about critics arguing developer intent without doing their research. He catches some stray fire for sure. But he is an important figure in the conversation because of how many critics I mention are influenced by him, and particularly how this quote has been repeated by Feeble and others. I do try to make clear however that Matthew is not the primary subject of the video. He comes up but he isn't the focus. Yes, I do imitate in some ways the critiques I am critiquing. The intent was to critique their critiques in their own style. It is in some ways a meta-commentary. Cynical, yes. But that's how I felt I needed to make this video at the time. No need to apologise for harsh critique. I do a good deal of that myself in the video and I am not immune.
@ My criticisms probably go beyond the scope of this video, so I appreciate your responses. I personally tend to be skeptical of critique that imitates its targets, because, at a certain point, depending on the quality, it stops feeling like an act or a parody and becomes a simulacra indistinguishable from the object of ridicule in question. Granted, you acknowledge this with the “they digress, so shall I” bit, but I’m just not sure if retroactively this approach will make viewers believe your own debunking isn’t fallible in the same way as Anderson or Feeble’s pseudo-analyses. I guess I’m also arguing about intention at this point, though, so maybe this is, in equal measure, a form of conjecture.
I think what most people need to realise is that critics, alongside their criticisms aren't immune to being criticised and that they aren't immune to being wrong at times. Many often just goes with the loudest opinion too and that for some reason just instantly kills their ability to think critically
I agree with most of your points, but i really believe that you're misinterpreting Matthewmatosis and calling him a liar seems unfair and wrong. You left out what he said after "difficulty was never the point", he continues: "... the games weren't designed to be challenging just for the sake of it, it was a way to pull you into the world and the peaks and dips in difficulty can be used to effectively set up a climactic moment like the fight with Ornstein and Smough" My interpretation of the full quote is that Matthewmatosis just points out that Miyazaki sole intent wasn't to make the games hard, but the point is how the challenge of the games affect the player in different ways, with the purpose of the player finally overcoming the challenge. In my opinion this correlates with the quotes you mention from Miyazaki. I can give you that Matthew paraphrased a bit loosely, but does that really justify you calling him a liar?
I had the opinion as you at first, but after looking at the interviews, I believe Gred knows it and decided to cut quotes mid-sentence to favor his interpretation. The Souls Lore 2011 one, for example: 51:23 "Yes, Demon's Souls was known for its incredible difficulty. With Dark Souls, there is no intention to decrease the difficulty at all. Actually, we intend to increase the difficulty of the game" Gred, for some reason, thought it would be appropriate to just cut the sentence, even without using "(...)" at the end to indicate that there was more, especially when the rest of that sentence is this: "(...) but not simply by making the game more difficult but by giving players the freedom to strategise freely and conquer that difficulty, and to be rewarded accordingly." So, making the reasonable assumption that he read the interviews he linked, I find it hard to believe he didn't do this intentionally. There are examples of Miyazaki essentially making the same point in the Bloodbornewiki and the Keza MacDonald interviews as well.
@@Tearatom95Huh, and this is quite weird because this could even benefited Gred argument for ER defense as well, as they never changed that mentality. Increasing difficulty is the point, always that the player gains new options to strategice and overcome the challenges, is just not for the sake of messing Up the players. I seriously not sure why did he even removed that Part, It makes his argument against Matthew a bit worse.
@@JoseViktor4099 Yeah, this is what I find frustrating about Gred here. He could have made a stronger argument by first acknowledging MM point and saying both of them agree in the essence of the point, the difficulty is not just how high it is but how and why as well, but the way MM said it multiple times gave people the wrong impression. Maybe mention why MM said it like that was because he was trying to overcompensate for the push of Nanco and DS2 of high difficulty, which sadly might have created another problem. But I guess he thought it would be more impactful if he constructed a scenario to say Matthew lied, which is especially egregious for a video that has a "Set the record straight" vibe and a critique of youtubers being overly destructive.
@@Tearatom95 Yeah, and is a shame, becuase his points were very good otherwise, and seems to acknowledge some of his mistakes. Although, Idk if I read for him that he though his Matthew point was the worst as well, to the point it would had been heavily modified. Perhaps this was he was talking about?
@@JoseViktor4099 If the modification is about changing "MatthewMatosis is lying" to "MatthewMatosis wrong interpretation effects on the community" then I guess it is. He still accusing him of lying, tho. So I hope Gred says that in the future. The funniest thing about all this, though, is that Gred himself made the exact same mistake he is accusing MatthewMatosis of doing. In same way that Miyazaki never said the words "Difficulty was never the point" he also never said "Difficulty is the point". Both of these are reasonable interpretations. The former is incorrect if the person thinks difficulty is not important at all, and the latter is wrong if they think difficulty is everything and can be raised without consideration. The issue is that Greds point of Matthew,in the way presented in the video, just makes no sense. His central claim is that Matthew is lying about Miyazaki saying in multiple interviwes in the past that "Difficulty is not the point." Gred is being very sneaky here because the scenario he presented was Matthew saying Miyazaki said ,literally the words, "Difficulty was never the point" multiple times. And in that scenario, that is the truth. However, Matthew never said that. For example, if someone says something like this: (This is an interview Gred presented, the Bloodbornewiki one) "And in this game, too, we want players to feel that sense of accomplishment. In order to make that feeling even stronger than before, we needed another pillar other than just a high difficulty. To allow for players to feel that sense of accomplishment, the difficulty must be set at a level that players can overcome. Difficulty isn't something that you can just endlessly raise." Let's say, after reading this, you make the statement: "Miyazaki is saying that difficulty is not the point." Unless the person says Miyazaki literally said those words, this is an interpretation of his quote. With that in mind, you can still can be seen as a liar, if your interpretation is wild and not reasonable. Now it's time to ascertain if that judgment is. If someone said that to me, I would think this person's opinion is about how the sense of accomplishment is the point. Difficulty is important, but it needs to be connected to ways the players can do it in a way the developers think is worthwhile. However, if the person that gave me this judgment said, after hearing my opinion of his take, said that I'm wrong and what they actually think is that Miyazaki is saying difficulty is not important at all. Then I would say that they are insane or just a lying. Matthew never says that difficulty is not important, and nothing that Gred showed demonstrated as such. So MM never lied about the quotes, and Matthews interpretation of Miyazaki point is totally reasonable. So unless, Gred thinks difficulty * is * something that can be endlessly raised, both of them agree here. And this is why Greds argument should have been about how the way MM phased it and how over the years it snowballed into something that he could have prevented, or something like that.
Correction: Nietzsche wasn’t a nihilist, but he probably would love souls games. Nietzsche was all about strength and overcoming, and fighting as an individual to explore new ideas that went beyond social convention. His writing is full of contradiction, but apart from early interest in Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was a philosopher who aimed to affirm life, to affirm that which you experience and say yes to your sufferings and your joys (hence “das Schwerste Gewicht”-the greatest weight part of The Gay Science). To the bit just after: This is from the Genealogy of Morals, where Nietzsche is trying to refute Christian morality that gives a meaning to the suffering of the lowly-blessed are the meek, the poorest go to heaven etc. He sees his entire social culture as having been produced by what he deems a sickly morality that in this way affirms suffering. This critique is a part of his broader project of transvaluation, to reevaluate and move past present morals and create a culture of life affirming values that seek to excel and to overcome. He believed this was a task that would only be done by a few individuals who were true free thinkers and brave enough to reject social conventions and basically pursue the unknown. So here, he is accusing European society of having created false meaning for suffering, when in reality suffering has no higher purpose and what we must do is struggle to overcome it or at least affirm it/see it’s merits and better ourselves through it. (Which again….supports a Souls approach.)
I think a lot of these creators have interpreted “critique” to mean “point out all the flaws in something and ignore the positives in the name of artistic improvement” and not “provide a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a piece of artwork for the benefit of the broader discussion of the piece”, and the implied exclusivity of “critique” helps them feel more comfortable in sticking to their guns and not taking any criticism themselves. I’ve felt put off by Joseph’s work for a while now and couldn’t put my finger on why, but I think the “my job is to provide criticism for creators and I’m doing them a favor” mindset is exactly the problem
Critique can mean anything you want it to mean. There is no codified set of laws which require a critique to take a balanced view of a game, or to also point out positives. As a player I want to know what someone's time is like with a game. That can start with objective things such as how good is the options menu, how usable is the UI, do you have a good system but yet are getting poor frame rate issues. Everything else about the game is subjective. Was it fun, was it easy, did you enjoy certain sections and so on. Hearing what you didn't like is more valuable to me as a player because i can determine whether your concerns are anything like the same as mine. What I don't need is a puff piece extolling every last virtue of the game. We already have "game journalists" who do that. People like to hear nice things being said about the games they love, its the equivalent of someone being told they're pretty. There's nothing wrong with that, but you learn nothing by hearing that, except your opinion for liking a game is validated. However the negatives are far more valuable to you. Ultimately its up to the individual viewer to find a variety of views, you should never take a single critiquer's views as the gospel. You need time and experience with any given critiquer to know whether they run negative, positive or somewhat in the middle. As long as they are consistent and you know their biases then you can use them as a valuable resource. Critiquers who are not consistent are worthless.
@@Blackened30 It is very much widely accepted that 'critique' means a COMPREHENSIVE analysis of an artistic piece, philosophical theory, etc. Even so, you yourself used a strawman argument here. The guy didn't say "I want puff pieces"; he said "a thorough and comprehensive analysis", which in no way implies hearing only the positives. Furthermore, "I want to know what someone's time is like with a game" and saying you want to hear predominantly the negatives can lead to antithetical results. It can result in a critique that convinces you the critic had a bad time, even if his opinion might be overwhelmingly positive. Few people are going to exclusively follow a critic to the point they get their 'language', style, and unspoken implications. You use another strawman argument when talking about puff pieces and "the equivalent of being told you're pretty". To say (or imply, because you did) there's little to no nuance and a failure to evoke artistic understanding in talking about the positives is blatantly false, not to mention... IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! If it was that easy to make something good, and thus to analyze why that thing is good and how it manged to invoke strong positive feelings, everybody would be doing it. This especially applies to something as complex and with as many components as video games. The same work of art not only can but WILL be adored by different people for different reasons; hell, that applies to individual bits within that work. There's plenty of nuance and exploration in understanding why something succeeded for the critic and reasons to express that appreciation in the hopes of expanding on the discussion around that something. Besides, the validation point you mentioned can absolutely apply to the negative-focused critiques. I'm not saying talking about the positives is inherently better, because it isn't. But that applies the other way around as well. I hate this myth of 'all positive critiques are the same, all negative critiques are negative in their own way'. Furthermore, you won't find most critics of any artistic medium try to offer suggestions to the artist, nor be expressly negative for a work they predominantly enjoyed, for the simple reason that they understand what their job is. Even if it isn't codified (a statement with very questionable validity), there is in fact a strong understanding of the role of the critic within art.
@@ThroughfulGamer95 My view is that game critique is different than any other form of artistic critique because there are so many variables involved. What does a comprehensive analysis of a game mean? Do you need to complete it? Do you need to complete it on every difficulty, as well as new game plus modes, find all the secrets and kill every optional boss? Do you need to do every last thing possible? Very few games critics who cover a wide variety of games have time to do that, let alone come back to it 6 months later after several patches have dropped. The single game or single genre critic or the ones who release a large video every 6 months can do that. The retrospective game critic looking at a 5 year old game that's "finished" might do that. An art or book critic has a much easier job since any single piece they analyze will never change over time. The term "game critic" can cover anything from someone who's played a few hours and is now giving you their opinion on that time to the 6 hour in depth analysis. One of those is of more worth to me before I buy a game, and one is of more worth to me after I do. Where the line stops between a review and critique is blurry. Critics are rarely that positive about games because its not their job to be, in the same way that movie critics can spend 20 minutes bringing up all the faults and missed opportunities and in the end say they enjoyed their time with it. The idea of being critical is to find fault, all of them, even in the most wonderful of games. I don't take it to mean that the critic didn't enjoy their time unless they specifically state that. For me its them saying here is what I feel is wrong, see if it matters to you. I find that extremely valuable, especially from a valuation perspective of whether something is worth my time and money. A retrospective critic working to understand the actual value of a project is an entirely different animal, with an entirely different frame of reference where they may go more into the positives and negatives and dive deeply into all facets of a game. These are the ones who are more likely to talk about the game as art, instead of the functional nuts and bolts that make a game worth playing. Critics making suggestions to game developers isn't something that bothers me, everyone has an opinion on what makes for a better game, and everyone is free to share that. To touch on positive critiques for a moment, I appreciate it when a critic tells me they enjoyed their time with a game and why they did. I appreciate when they tell me yes these are the faults, but that didn't stop me from loving the overall. When I say I learn from the negatives, I mean the other 2 hours they just spent tearing apart the mechanics are more informative to me. There's also nothing wrong with someone writing what amounts to a love letter to their favorite games with only minor criticism or none at all. You can argue about whether that constitutes a critique or not, but I don't find those to be learning pieces. They feel good to watch, and that's all. True puff pieces come from professional games journalists primarily for reasons that I find disingenuous much of the time.
@@Blackened30 A lot of what you said is based on what I think are false or flawed premises, the primary being that there isn't a very recognizable, identifiable differentiation between review and critique. There very much is. The point of a review is endorsement for a product or the lack of it; it serves an economical purpose. A critique is comprehensive analysis of an artistic piece (and other things) achieved through critical thought and an informed perspective. Joe himself has echoed that same idea, and stated that his critiques are intended for those who have already experienced the games, not as a review for those going in blind. Yes, I'd argue it borders on inarguable that in a critique, the critic at least completed a regular run of the game, and not necessarily NG+ or all the difficulties. I agree that with games, 'comprehensive' can be a bit hard to define in SOME cases, but let's not stretch that to the point of meaninglessness. Furthermore, you're confusing why critics are called critics. It's not because 'being critical' means showcasing the unfavorable elements, but because they're trying to build appreciation for a piece through critical thought and analysis. Yes, that also means pointing out what they see as shortcomings, but I've still rarely, if ever, heard a movie or music critic be almost exclusively negative in their reviews of works they've mostly enjoyed. Another premise I think is flawed is the idea that more positive critiques have no educational value. Again, the main point of artistic critique is to invoke artistic appreciation, whether that ends up being positive, negative or a mix of both. Expounding on the positives absolutely can offer deep insight into how one achieves such great accomplishments, and indirectly, where further improvement could be implemented to achieve even greater heights. Furthermore, finding shortcomings in mechanics, the "functional nuts and bolts" as you said, will not provide an objectively more valuable evaluation because it is NOT objective. Unless we're strictly talking about the driest of facts like bugs and frame data, the ultimate evaluation will still be subjective, because a game critic observes those objective elements - of how the game's mechanics fundamentally work - and finds subjective meaning in the whole. Two action game critics could make vastly different evaluations on the same action game, like many did with Sekiro for example. A critic making negative evaluations on that front is thus no more or less inherently educational or significant than the critic making positive ones. In part, because there is another false premise here, which is that positive evaluations do not go just as in-depth into the nitty-gritty as the negative ones. Finally, negative critiques have absolutely been rightfully accused of being disingenuous, farming engagement, and acting on bad faith. I've seen my fair share. Hell, professional games journalists do such things all the time, too. Not to mention using game journalists to comparatively devalue positive critiques makes little sense in the context of the wider internet and business of critical evaluation. They're monetarily incentivized to be more positive then they ought to for those future review codes, like you implied. However, in the world of freelance critics and RUclips, where negativity and rants are proven stronger tools to accrue audience engagement, it would make more sense that negative evaluations have a higher chance of being disingenuous, with the opposite being true for more positive ones.
@@ThroughfulGamer95 A review can certainly be endorsement or lack of endorsement for a product, but it doesn't need to be. A review for me is a simplistic view of a game that can be gleaned in a quick video or small article. It exists to give an explanation and possibly a viewpoint of a game that's bite sized. It can end with a meaningless score out of 10 or with an endorsement or lack thereof, but it doesn't have to. It could simply end with someone saying they enjoyed the game, which you could take as endorsement if you're so inclined. The only mandatory requirement of a review is that the person reviewing finished the game. Not 100% completion of all optional content, but you do need to know what you're talking about to evaluate a whole game. People tend to get angry when a reviewer admits they didn't play the whole game. You could refer to a review as a quick and dirty critique, because judgement of the various games systems as well as the story and how well it all worked together as a whole is implied. Between the review and the 6 hour no-holds-barred entirely comprehensive critique of a game sits a wealth of analysis videos. RUclips has made it possible for people to really get down in the weeds if they wish. A creator could make a 2 hour video containing commentary on only the first 15 minutes of a game. They could talk extensively about the first encounters, the layout and graphical style, the effectiveness of the opening cinematic and a whole host of other analysis, comparisons and overview of how well it all worked for them. I would label this a critique of that section of a game. Its absolutely comprehensive in its subject matter, albeit with a narrow focus on a sub-section of the game. This is where I mean the definition of critique in the gaming sphere is not defined, and I think still evolving. This is subjective, so if your opinion is a critique has a narrower definition then fair enough. You are right to say that mechanical analysis doesn't provide more objective evaluation, which was not a point I intended to make. There are very few, if any objective evaluations within any video game critique that can be made. There is a subset of the viewing audience who scream about such things, but I think it always has to be understood that what you're watching is someone's opinion on something that's already as subjective as a video game is in the first place. Of course mechanics such as how fast a move can be used or how smooth movement feels is going to vary between people, which is why getting a variety of viewpoints on a game is critical. My own view is I find more value in the negative opinion of a given system or element of a game because people do expand on it more. They feel the need to defend that viewpoint, so tend to wax much longer on those points. For me the more information you give me about how you feel about a certain element the more I learn and understand about your view of things. I love mechanics, its something I've always enjoyed since the earliest days of my tabletop gaming days. I care very much about how and why something works for a given individual. If some element of a game isn't brought up in a given video then I assume its something that is liked, or isn't notable to that creator. Its also much more obvious to me why something is liked then why its disliked, and that's why I want to hear a 20 minute derailment of someone's main point as they go into exactly what it was that didn't work for them. Its probably just me and who I am, and if others find the positives as interesting then fair enough. For me, I simply learn more from what is disliked. So its not going to bother me if someone spends three hours shredding a game I love, because I already know why it works for me. I want to know why it didn't work for you. For me the mechanics are in many ways the core of any game, so its vitally important. Games as art and whether all games are art or not is a whole other subject, though I think games are more than art and it can be limiting to think of them in only one way. As to accusations of creators being disingenuous, every creator at one time or another faces accusations. I imagine every video has its detractors. I don't have an opinion on that. I don't have the ability to see into anyone's mind and determine their intent. I'm generally fine with taking a creator's opinions stated as their true opinion because it frankly causes no harm to believe so. If they state they're playing Devil's Advocate or very obviously saying something provocative because they know it will get a rise, again that doesn't bother me. Trying to get a rise out of your audience to create engagement is as old as humanity I imagine. Professional game outlets and their stock of rostered staff I tend to view differently.
As I'm listening to this video I keep thinking back to Joseph Anderson's Lies of P video where he constantly makes asides with saying how "embarrassed" he is that he keeps praising the game and even admits he doesn't like the format where he pulls the "criticism trigger" for more than half the runtime. I think that really makes me think you have a serious point with all this.
As a fan of Joseph's videos, I thought I was going to disagree with a lot of the points from this video because I usually agree with him, but I was surprised to get a better understanding of Miyazaki's intent for the Souls series and see how so many RUclipsrs misconstrue that design as just a way to demonstrate their own skills, that if they die, that's a failure on the game's part. Viewing the games as wanting the player to experiment with different playstyles because their first option may not work all the time makes a lot of sense and I'm surprised that Matthew's misinterpretation of that design influenced so many people, even many channels that I like. I haven't seen Joe's video on Elden Ring because I haven't played the game yet (it sounds like a game I would absolutely love to play but there are so many games these days and I'm slowly appreciating older games from my backlog for now), but from what I hear, it's the kind of critique video that gives a disclaimer that it's his favorite game of all time, but then he spends hours focusing on negatives of the game. I don't think this style of video is bad entirely, I love playing games that stay in my mind so much that I have to seek every piece of information I can find on it (Dark Souls, The Last of Us, PT, Undertale, The Beginner's Guide, Hollow Knight, Celeste, Outer Wilds, etc etc), even including what other people dislike about it, but if that kind of video is the first experience someone has with a game, I can definitely see it negatively impacting their own impression of the game before they've even played it, which sucks for everyone in that situation; the person viewing, the uploader who thought he was doing a service for his favorite game, and the developers of the game because now they lost a potential player. I can definitely understand the mindset behind it, "I love a game so much that I'm comfortable enough to deconstruct it and criticize it", but I wish videos gushing about good games trended more or played a bigger part in these critique videos. Maybe from their perspective, they wrote positive comments in their scripts but edited them out because it made the flow of the video weird. Maybe they know why they love a game and they feel like others feel that same way too so they don't feel it's necessary to bring up the positives. Maybe they read a negative comment on one of their last videos that stayed in their mind for so long they felt they needed to respond to it in a grand comprehensive way, when the commenter probably didn't think about it anymore after positing it. Most of these channels definitely want to be game designers, but hell, I would love to be a game designer too, so I can't fault them for thinking this will help them get to that point. To give Joseph credit, he makes a big deal at the start of most of his videos that if you haven't played the game yet, stop the video now and do that as soon as you can, even giving some games multiple warnings since he knows there will be people that ignore that first warning but the game is really worth playing. Those disclaimers made me try so many different games that I would end up loving, so I really appreciate that. I really agree that this style of video is becoming way overplayed now. For me it was new, interesting, and thought provoking when Matthew Matosis started it over decade ago, but now that there are hundreds of channels copying that style, either doing it worse or being far too negative, and that it's evolved over the years from 20-40 minute videos into 10+ hour videos, I've just started ignoring them more and more when they show up in my feed. A lot of these creators have the idea that if they keep adding to the length of the video, the more impressive it would look to their audience, but it just makes me think that the video will be bloated with unrelated side tangents or just be a complete retelling of the story. The Witcher 3 video has been Joseph's white whale for years, but I don't really care about The Witcher series, and I suspect that Joe stopped caring for the series too. At least, I hope he has. I don't want Joe to spend years on a project all about criticizing a 10 year old game that hundreds of other RUclipsrs have already made multi-hour long critiques about. I'd rather watch him stream games for fun like Paper Mario or Kingdom Hearts or whatever other weeb games his audiences recommends him. I might have gotten tired of the essays, but his streams are always a lot of fun, and I think he knows that too considering he's only uploaded 3 videos on his main channel in the past four years, deleting his Patreon a few years back as well. I could argue that you were a bit too harsh on him or other RUclipsrs that make these style of videos (like Feeble, I don't know him but I don't want to assume he's a bad guy because I watched one video showing where he was wrong), we all make mistakes, we're all learning what works and what doesn't on RUclips together, these creators aren't just single-minded video essay machines, etc, but on the other hand, this is giving these critique channels a taste of what they usually do to games, unrelentless criticism for art that was just intending to entertain. Maybe/hopefully this video will influence RUclipsrs to focus on more positive and fun projects, rather than concentrating negativity. It must be weird of me to leave a such an extensive comment on a review of a review of a review of a game I don't know much about, but the video isn't really about Elden Ring, it's about critique videos that I've watched hundreds of before, so I was invested the whole way through. Sorry for the long stream of random thoughts. I thought this comment was going to be a paragraph long but I just kept writing.
Appreciate the thoughtful comment. I was definitely harsh and I don't think they're bad guys. I just don't like what they're doing. Really happy you approached it with an open mind as a Joe fan.
One aspect of criticism that I've seen of the DLC that rubbed me the wrong way was the "Marvel Expectations" that a lot of creators had about the dlc. So many of them were so excited for the DLC not as the next chapter/conclusion of the story of Elden Ring but because it could fill a wishlist of seeing their favorite lore characters finally be someone that they could meet (and probably battle). This isn't bad to want but when you don't get your fan fiction come true you can't just get pissed that From Soft didn't include a character thet you placed too much importance over their actual relevance to the story. This goes especially for Godwyn, The Gloam Eyed Queen, and Melina because there was some genuine rage from the fans that they weren't given entire textbooks of lore in the DLC despite just not being as relevant as theh thought. Of course we're not going to bring up the entire encyclopedia of single mention Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro characters because this is totally the first time FS hasn't followed up on a character's story *cough* Velka *cough*. I distinctly remember Ziostorm breaking down the design of the curseblades when they were first teased and he kept relating their design back to Godwyn despite them not remotely being related lore-wise now that the DLC is out. Im not saying that people can't have theories and speculation but I'm so tired that fandoms will now treat theories and speculation as gospel even if it goes against actual cannon, I like Vaati as much as the next guy but he shouldn't be treated as fact just because he's the most popular. And what pisses me off the most about this is that the story of Elden Ring as we know it was only 1/3rd of the way uncovered and was still being pieced together a while after the game came out but a ton of people looked at the DLC lore for like a week to put everything together, made their lore videos and called it a day and then complained that it was "too shallow". I'm still mad about a post I made on a forum trying to discuss some of the thematic and lore implications of the Final Boss of the DLC but because the final boss was considered "bad" I got a bunch of responses telling me that it "wasn't that deep" and I was "coping on a meta level", when the entire point of the vagueness of souls games is about the speculation and themes of the game itself (TBF some sections of the ER lore community are so media comprehension starved that they thought the genocide of the Hornsent and their culture was completely justified). Someone made an entire video essay diving into the color symbolism of Elden Ring but it's crazy to think that FS may have put more than five minutes of thought into the final boss of the DLC even if the choice of boss wasn't 100% agreed with by everyone in the community.
@@anonisnoone6125 No, no. Calling the lore lackluster after not exploring it is not valid, it's just being impatient. You know one thing I heard back in 2022? that ER itself had lackluster lore. Now that 2 years have passed it's just the DLC that failed to provide. It's cyclical, people are impatient and take their visceral reaction to things as the absolute truth, then it's left for the actual lore channels to explore it and suddenly things change. I'm new to this community but apparently this cycle is old enough that it also happened in Dark Souls 3.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd one of the most cited reasons for the dlc's lore being "bad" is that Radahn being Miquella's consort doesn't make sense because if Radahn likes killing things why is he siding with a supposed god of peace. The explanation is incredibly obvious. The npc that said "Radahn only likes killing things" is wrong. (It's her word against Jarren's and Jarren is much more trustworthy)(also her loyalty is to Miquella, not Radahn, and she's trying to justify Miquella's actions in reviving Radahn). Radahn is siding with Miquella because he can act as a protector of the realm, similar to his idol Godfrey. More importantly, Marika had her share of enemies and she was backed by the creator of the universe. Miquella is going to have enemies and he knows it because the history of the Lands Between is a circle. More importantly, this is entirely happening because the community doesn't want to see Radahn as anything less than a hero.
@@puncherofbread That cited reason has a very easy explanation - Radahn's consent is entitely a mystery. He wasn't in on this vow entirely willing - he had to die for it, for one, but for another - Miquella is the damn demigod of charm, he has pulled stunts like this several times over, in the basegame alone.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd I always thought it was clear that Radahn rejected Miquella's offer to be his lord. The memory we see at the end of the fight is Radahn's with miquella talking to him. He tells him that he's going to become a god and begs for Radahn to be his consort, in which nothing is said. Radahn rejected Miquella, and his charm (which the boss armor talks about). Miquella was obsessed with Radahn and would do anything to have him, going so far as to have Malenia suicide bomb him. Once Radahn was dead Miquella can put his soul into a body that was already charmed and control him like he's always wanted. Everything Radahn does from halting his own fate with the stars, refusing to die in Caelid, and his ideology points towards Radahn being forced into the role against his will. This is all just one possible conclusion to come to with the DLC and it's really disheartening when people say it doesnt make sense and undeservingly dunk on it when this is some of the best and most complex lore FS has put out
@@xXTallertechXx People were tunnel-visioned into Godwyn being a figure Miquella also looked up to, which meant the Radahn reveal made no sense to some people.
I'm grateful for this video. The pseudo-intellectual multi-hour RUclips review-as-essay has been the worst trend in games criticism. It's the same material as we've always had, just stretched over hours and presented as well thought out by merit of being long. The irony of praising a video over 2 hours long isn't lost on me. Also the Miyazaki misquote (fauxquote?) has annoyed me for years and I'm very glad you took the time to call it as such.
After watching some of Loopine's videos around the same topic regarding Feeble King and others, seeing this video in my recommendations and giving it a watch has truly vindicated my entire mindset about these sorts of creators. I remember giving both Anderson and Feeble's videos a watch when Elden Ring released, fully believing most of what they talked about, buying into pretty much all of it. As a new fan to these games because of Elden Ring back then, I didn't think much of it, but these last 2 years and the release of the DLC really opened my eyes as to just how awful so many online self-proclaimed "game critics" are at critique. Honestly, the problem extends outside video games as well, as other media are plagued by very similar bad faith or terrible critics, and this topic could've extended far beyond just the extent of Elden Ring and Soulslikes in general. The entire landscape of online media "critique" has been, in my opinion, over saturated with individuals just like Anderson and Feeble. Bad at proper critique, negativity centered, and filled with lies, disingenuous arguments, or hypocritical statements. Honestly, the moment that broke me more than anything was Feeble's DLC video and his disregard for getting to see St. Trina, and saying the "real" reward was just a cookbook. As someone who loves the lore of Elden Ring, that blatant hand waving away of one of the game's most important and enigmatic characters in the lore felt, to me, more disrespectful to the people who worked on the DLC than just calling them lazy. Calling them "absurdly lazy" is one thing, but to do that, not even acknowledging the artistry of her design, the somber music, the revelation of getting to see someone the community had been speculating about for over 2 years, not even a passing mention of her was a more direct level of disrespect that showed, right then and there, how shameless his "critique" was. Edit: misspelled "Loopine"
I loved reading through your comment, I agree with everything, don’t worry, there are a lot of people like me and you who appreciate the game’s artistry while not being too negative, Elden Ring with its DLC is my favorite game of all time and I’m a huge Soulsborne guy that has been playing their games for years now.
On "oversaturation of ... negativity ...": Negativity sells, and RUclips becoming a viable source of income for many these days may have played into that. I don't have any scientific sources rn but I'm confident enough that we can find papers on that easily, since drama and outrage has been a mainstream media staple for long. Just from a layman's perspective, videos that take a negative approach almost always has a higher view count than the positive ones. Channels like CinemaSins took advantage of this to great effect. Heck, the 2 videos on Gred's channel that blew up are discussing destructive behavior, and I only have found him because of this video. But yeah, I think humanity could benefit from a bigger push on focusing on the 'wins'. I make a habit of praising independent authors' (whether that's a musician, artist, game developer, or challenge-runner matters not) work, articulating details that they've clearly put effort in, etc. What they're doing is usually thankless and speaking of experience, one single thought-out compliment/constructive critique can mean a lot.
Feeble and many others (like myself) don’t care about the lore. There isn’t a good gameplay reward for defeating that boss. Someone whose experience is far more gameplay centric would of course have that opinion.
@@pphaver871 Yet there is a gameplay reward. The boss's remembrance which gives you either its weapon or a sorcery, runes to be used for whatever purpose you want, access to the rest of St. Trina's quest which gives you more item rewards, and the cookbook which gives you access to new crafting items. Whether or not you deem that as "good gameplay rewards" is entirely up to personal opinion, but it's still rewards for defeating the boss.
@@Stellos812 I’d say a secret area that leads to Stone Coffin Fissure, which is a moderately-sized level, that has unique enemies with unique discoverable weapons (St. Trina eternal sleep sword), plus a huge remembrance boss, a number of cookbooks, more Scadutree fragments, and a big lore revelation that solves a questline is probably the best instance of rewarding exploration I’ve ever seen in any Souls game, including Elden Ring itself, a game which excels at exploration & rewarding the player. It’s really funny with the way some on here come about this, since when did Souls games ever give you as much rewards as Elden Ring? Bloodborne when you beat Orphan of Kos, what the heck did they give you as a reward? Nothing, just a trash useless weapon “Kos Parasite”, what did DS3 give you after beating Sister Friede, just her Soul that gives you her weapon, nothing else. What did the game give you after beating Midir? Just his soul, that’s it, you fall down a big hole and you find him, that’s it lol. And Orphan of Kos & Sister Friede are part of the main path, Putrescent Knight is a FREAKING SIDE path, and it gives you more rewards than the main course in Bloodborne & Dark Souls 3. 😭😭 I can go on and on…
I'm pretty disenchanted by the negativity pervasive in media critique. Why aren't more video essayists articulating why they love the media that grabs them? Don't we all want to better understand all the subtleties and patterns that supported an authentic catharsis? It's frankly more fulfilling to make a case for why something activates your passion than your rage, and audiences do show up for it. The catch; I think honest, positive critique requires a greater level of vulnerability than constructive/destructive criticism, and *some* creators just don't want to be vulnerable. I'va also gotta figure it's just more profitable to be destructive. I worry people growing up on this style of "critique" will come to believe that greatness rests in the absence of things to criticize. I worry "constructive" criticism is going to inhibit the ambition of creatives and their publishers.
Still thinking about this video and about trends in this kind of criticism. And, yup, thinking about the future does bring about a little bit of anxiety. Because, yeah, if the current style of “critique” is structured so that it’s only really about seeking reasons to discount a work, seeking out rhetorical ammunition supplied by the work to use against it, this will just lead to reducing the sum of all works of art down to a list of like ten “flawless” “perfect” works, defined by being unimpeachable. Whereas if you go about criticism the opposite way, seeking out things in works of art that are beautiful, you’ll end up realizing that, out of the sum of all works, it’s really only like ten total works that have absolutely nothing compelling going on. No inspirations, no ideas being communicated. So, then, this kind of criticism via positivity would basically end up being about balancing the total amount of good things in works versus how impactful those things are. The worry most people have about wanting to go about the latter method, just a guess, is probably that they don’t want their takes to accidentally be categorized as “toxic positivity”. Like, if all you do is “ignore the bad”, “only look at the good”, like what someone cynical would reduce this mode of evaluation to, then you risk finding false positives, or, you might accidentally find things you think are beautiful artistic ideas in actually just ugly things, like snuff films or something. Though, if you want to be reductive the other way, and say “no, just find things to be nitpicked”, that would mean you might accidentally deem something secretly beautiful to be ugly and terrible in the worst way; you might dismiss something you really shouldn’t have. …oh well. It’s up to everyone to personally figure out the approach that balances the merits and risks of these extremes of criticism for themselves. If you ask me for a bet, my bet is, these young gamers now, and the new young gamers who will come after them, will get tired of the cynicism, start to agree with the post-ironic “BILLIONS MUST SMILE” sentiment, and the pendulum will swing the other way. We’ll get people who just want raw, scathing, experimental works of art, and want to appraise the new art by identifying the good, real, inspiring ideas by these new artists-then, the audience-at-large will get a little sick of the sweetness again, and start to notice “bad” works being treated as though they’re better than they really are, then we’ll get an uptick in criticisms about identifying flaws in the best new works of art, and the pendulum will swing again, and so on and so forth. Maybe the bet of cycles, the pendulum, is *actually* the cynical take. Cynical… cyclical. Maybe it’s not. Anyway. Sure, it’s fine to worry about how the criticisms we’re all here to think about are going to affect future art, but at the same time… don’t worry too much. “Worry” might end up being a strong word. If there’s a pendulum, then it means people will figure themselves out. If they don’t, it still won’t mean your art or opinions would end up being meaningless. It’s all good. People will end up wanting to love great works of art. Here we are, expressing that that’s what we want to do, proving it.
I get recommended Joseph Anderson videos all the time, and every time I click them, I just can't figure out the appeal. He has his own way of playing games, and he's good at making his own fun, but then he wields his expectations like a weapon to attack the game in his discussions of them. Tutorial says X or can be interpreted to teach X, and so he needs to spend an absurd amount of energy trying to find out if there is anything in the game which contradicts X. And then when he inevitably finds a contradiction, he criticizes the game for the contradiction. The problem, most often, is that X is his subjective interpretation or expectations of something, and he doesn't interrogate whether that interpretation or expectation was flawed in the first place. But the weirdest part is that he seems to legitimately enjoy the process of poking and prodding at the game under these conditions. He has fun with it. He then points these supposed contradictions out and uses them as supporting evidence of a game's flaws. And then after all that, makes his "subjectivity is implied" video to hide his lack of introspection. He enjoys playing a game. Then collates a list of grievances which appear to be an argument for why the game is bad. Then tells you that his list of grievances can't be wrong because they're subjective anyway. But that, simultaneously, his subjective opinions are correct. If I could distill my problem with him into a single idea, it's that when he encounters a situation where his experience did not match his expectations, his answer to why that happened is always that the situation was poorly designed, and never that his expectations were mistaken or unrealistic. If he had been the one designing the game instead of the developers, then he would have designed it such that it matched the expectations he had as a player. But of course he would, he just misses that the developers might have been designing for an expectation other than the one he had.
he says "it could just be me" all the time, what are you talking about You people that take everything at face value to the heart are the problem. You see a guy make a critique and you can't take it for what it is, a subjective critique. You take it to face value and blame the critic for not being objective in his subjective opinion I played ER, agreed with a lot of what Joseph said about ER I played the DLC, agreed and also disagreed a lot with what he said Feeble I just disregarded as his experience was not even close to mine And that's it, thats how it's supposed to go
"But that, simultaneously, his subjective opinions are correct." When does he say this? Or even imply it? Joe spends more time qualifying his opinions than maybe any other video game critiquer I know on RUclips, and even made an entire video dedicated to the topic. He has takes I disagree with, and he loses his temper and acts irrationally when argued with sometimes. But I have never seen him say or even imply that his subjective views are correct. This is especially present if you watch him play a game on stream, where you see him voice opinions live, and he *constantly* second-guesses himself and how he is interpreting a game. "It could just be me" and "maybe I'm wrong about that" are two of his most spoken phrases when doing so. "If I could distill my problem with him into a single idea, it's that when he encounters a situation where his experience did not match his expectations, his answer to why that happened is always that the situation was poorly designed, and never that his expectations were mistaken or unrealistic." This is absolutely not the case. It is the case that he is far, far more likely to include it in a critique video if he thinks it was due to the design of a situation rather than a misaligning of his expectations (where that line can even be clearly drawn, anyways, seeing as there are no "wrong" expectations and expectations are as subjective as anything else when evaluating one's experience with art). He has spoken at length on-stream about instances of the latter, but his videos are so lengthy already, and such moments are just not relevant in a game critique other than to counter your criticism that this is his only answer to such feelings.
@@EndersupremE "he says "it could just be me" all the time, what are you talking about" "You people that take everything at face value to the heart are the problem." This is hilarious you are almost getting it, but still don't. Just because Joseph often says "maybe it's me" doesn't mean he believes it, especially when this "Maybe it's me" disappears when people disagree with him when his opinion was built on a faulty premise. Joe needs to be the smartest guy in the room, when he isn't the "Subjectivity is implied" comes out.
@@AceKuper oh so now you guys are Xavier from fkin X-Men lmao "I know Joseph Anderson's mind so well" And you call that an argument Also that's far from the case lol. People have disagreed with him in chat a lot and a lot of times he actually changed his mind about things. Stop smoking whatever gas station stuff ur on bro. It's just a guy that writes books and expresses some opinions on video games. It ain't that deep
Rewards for fighting the Putrescent Knight - Rememberance which can be used to make unique weapons - Runes - Access to Saint Trina and as a result continue a questline - Lore - The fight itself - Cookbook For people who call their detractors manchildren it really seems like critics expect constant affirmation and rewards, even for defeating one of the easier bosses in the DLC.
I dunno.. I just wanted to see what was in the big hole in the blue flower field. There was no point during that sequence that I thought... "What am I gunna get out of this". But that's the difference in intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. Feeble isn't "wrong" for wanting more out of that sequence, that's his subjective opinion, but he is wrong for saying the cookbook was the only reward. That's dishonest critique.
I honestly don't believe these people when they say they "love" these games, i think they hate games and shit talk them because it makes views but admitting they hate them would draw backlash.
Thank god finally someone speaks about the shit of online """"critics"""" thinking they know how an artpiece would be better. Yes, artist, allow me- internet rando No.2000- to tell YOU how YOUR art can be best without bothering to know or care about what YOUR intention with it was, I am very smart. And then a bunch of people who have never engaged with the artpiece parrot the points around and it makes talking about the artpiece impossible because how DARE you not mention Literally Every Single Flaw It Has Ever while making a twitter post abt how much you like the design of a character or something like that. Bad Faith Criticism has made fandoms 300 times more toxic because people INSIST that you HAVE to be negative to be "fair" about the artpiece, and as such it creates a hostile environment when ppl perma-fight over their opinions because not doing so risks an idea spreading so far that it can actually lead to harassment and hate to the artists. Cartoon fandoms have this massive issue bc the amount of RUclips video essays that actually give a fuck about the artistry of animation besides whatever Disney and Dreamworks movie is out are actually very slim. Entire creators have had to delete their social media and not interact with fans anymore bc of genuine hate because doing an artpiece that isn't perfect is now some sort of sin, is infuriating.
I think the worst thing about Joseph's videos is that many times he claims that his goal is to evaluate games as pieces of art and not as pieces products. Oddly enough he does the exact opposite of this. His only method to gauge whether or not a game is well designed, or has artistic value, is whether or not it appeals to his strict set of requirements. But explaining whether or not some game checks all your pre fabricated boxes is not art critique it's just a product review.
I mean he literally doesn't even talk once about any of the environments, he never mentions music, story, character designs, enemy design. Like Fromsoft are the goat at this and he never mentions of any of this. I would recommend watching youtuber Loopine's reply to Joseph Anderson's original essay. He goes in depth why Joseph is also wrong about alot of the mechanical/gameplay complaints he has.
I felt like I was going crazy while watching his video because it just seemed like he hated the game because he arbitrarily set his own limits and anyone who went out of those limits were just 'metagaming'
Nonsense. Evaluating something on his strict, narrow ideals isn't a product review, it's literally engaging with the art on a non-objective level. It doesn't matter if the critique is good or not, your overall statement doesn't make sense.
Do people really think “toxic positivity” just means really liking a video game? Toxic positivity pretty obviously refers to someone prioritizes being positive at the expense of any other emotions they or the people around them might have. Toxic positivity would have been telling Rosa Parks she should sit in the back of the bus and try to have a good attitude about it. This is a video game….
Where at the point where language is being altered, not naturally over time, but forcefully pushed by people with an agenda. See also, the world elitist.
Truth be told, I've had a difficult time connecting with how Joe approaches his views on games and media as a whole for years. I've found it challenging to find that he appreciates games at all with his laundry lists of complaints and jabs of everything that he looks at like he's a mechanic working on my crappy car. I have found that over my time listening to essays on this platform that the writers that stick with me the most are those who speak from the love of their subjects. I will always first think of the Jon Bois' and the Jacob Gellers of creative non-fiction that are looking to bring deeply interesting topics to our attention over long form criticism that often fails to speak of any passion other than hatred. This video has been saying what I've been feeling for years, I can't thank you enough. I too hope that people will more openly talk about how media truly makes them feel and free themselves from being algorithm beasts. Well done, I hope to hear you speak from love soon.
To even begin to equate what Joe does with "hatred" is bafflingly hyperbolic and inappropriate. I've been watching Joe for years (er, I mean when he was still regularly putting out videos), and I've always been able to sense his passion and love of the medium. He just biases towards what he feels are design flaws/incohesion. To compare him to Jacob Geller is also thoroughly bizarre, given they're so wildly different. No one goes to Joe for arty existential musings, and no one goes to Jacob for analysis of frame timing and mechanics execution. They're both great at very different things.
@@SabiJD >no one goes to Jacob for analysis of frame timing and mechanics execution. They're both great at very different things. What are you actually talking about here? You realize that this implies that Joes is good analyzing frame timing and mechanics, when one of the main things shown at the start of this video is that he is actually not good at that? If that wasn't your intention why not just say what Joe is actually good at and what people watch him for.
@@AceKuper So the fact that Joe was off by, what, 13 frames in one example in Elden Ring disproves all his examples of combat design in, say, a God Of War video? Don't be ridiculous. I love both creators (Joe and Jacob), but they're not even close to comparable, and gaming culture benefits from having both.
I cannot tell you how unbelievably gratifying it is to finally hear so many of the frustrations I’ve felt this year following SoTE’s release put into words so succinctly. Fromsoftware is a beacon, they deserve better from their “critics”.
Let's be clear, the text for great runes implies they do something without using rune arcs, since to have an "even greater benefit" you must have a benefit to increase. I'd wager a translation error is more likely than a bug but still, I'd argue it *is* an error.
@@GredGlintstone Yes, it's possible the game lies to you on purpose when it comes to rune arcs, but since the game doesn't lie to you on any other tooltip (that I remember). I'm leaning towards the there being an error in the tooltip. Unfortunately for us to know which it is for fairly certain we'd need a statement from FROM (most likely in the form of a patch note), and then we'd need to wait until there the support for the game stopped so we could be fairly certain the patch wasn't made in error. The problem with this approach is that you cannot objectively say anything without a hell of a lot of caveats. The title of your video "The Lost Art of Video Game Critique" is objectively wrong, unless no one knows how to make video game critiques anymore regardless of platform, regardless if it's public or not, regardless of any other factor that could measured and since it's apparently an art then it's also subjective as to what is a good video game critique so no one must think any video game critique anyone makes anymore is good. Does that make the video itself bad, probably not, but it is what it is.
@@GredGlintstone I do think it’s fair to say it’s objectively an error, for the same reasons as outlined by the comment above. The in game descriptions are not presented by a “character” narrator, and are never shown to have any demonstrable bias that could categorize them as an “unreliable narrator”. Being that it’s the only instance I can think of them being misleading, I find it difficult to argue this point could be interpreted subjectively. What exactly is the argument you would use to define it as “potentially subjective” in this case?
The players can't know what the intended behavior of the great runes are. We rely on the text to tell us what to expect, and if that text is written in a way that *appears* clear but doesn't reflect reality, that *is* an objective error. Either the developers didn't implement it to spec, or the writers of the original description made a mistake, or the mechanic changed and the description wasn't updated to reflect it, or the translators made a mistake. There is an error here. We don't know which one is the right one, but it's undeniable that *something* is wrong.
18:19 It is a really beautiful but tragic character design. She was basically torn out of Miquella and thrown into a pit of death and her sleep was warped into a kind of poison.
Regarding the minuscule mention of AVGN (James), I think people who imitate his video style forget that it is mostly a character. Undoubtedly a lot of the games AVGN plays are pretty low quality, but the idea that a nerd is driven to drink heavily because of a 40 year old NES game is the joke. There are even times he drops the act and gives his honest opinion on a part of a game (even sometimes admiring he could just be bad at the segment) that is outside of his Nerd persona. That said, I do think it is fair to critique AVGN’s videos on what is good and what is bad. His videos can give people an impression on games (even if most are not likely to play them). But to those who have imitated the Angry Nerd style of review, it should be noted that the anger is not the sole reason AVGN’s videos is loved.
I have never played a dark souls. I'm not part of the community. I don't even know who Joseph Anderson is. All that said, this video is the one that's motivated me to finally get into the series. Thanks dude.
That is great! I don't know who you are and what you like in games, but let me give you some advices when you go into them, and I'll be brief: 1. Never worry about dying and trying again. You have nothing to prove to anyone. You will die, that is 100% guaranteed. 2. Try different weapons. In early games especially. Movesets make more difference than anything. 3. If you start with Des or DS, and you struggle with the clunkiness, don't give up. Jump to DS3, if you fall in love with the formula, go back to earlier titles. 4. Enjoy the ride :)
2 месяца назад+53
8:39 I feel like this is a slightly disingenuous misconstruction of what he is actually referring to. I don’t think he’s referring to people saying he sucks. He’s probably referring to the general idea of people hijacking conversations with stuff like “skill issue” and “git gud” with the sole intention of preventing discussion from happening. It’s like people having a problem with people constantly calling other people nahzis or libtards and whatnot. It’s not about the nature of calling out people for bad behavior, it’s about how such terminology is often used in a deliberate attempt to shut down conversation and debate. Buzzwords basically, an excuse to try and delegitimize discussion with the idea of “well if you are a nazhi/libtard/need to git gud, I don’t HAVE to engage with what you are saying because you are OBVIOUSLY in the wrong”. It’s an attempt of resolving responsibility on the part of the people engaging with the media. Such terminology rarely comes from a place of an actual desire to discuss a topic in good faith. There is a difference between deliberating on why someone could be incorrect due to a lack of knowledge and skill and just saying “skill issue” as a shutdown response in an attempt to silence and discard what someone has to say. Just like you iterate in the video; perception is reality and just like how critique can warp the perception of those who watch it, the same can be said about people who open up the comment section/a discussion board and see hoards of “skill issue” and nothing else to add. Their perception of the media has been warped by the machinations of others, regardless of the merit of the media being discussed. You might have engaged with this point more later on but I thought I’d give my thoughts now as you brought up and discussed this.
You're 100% right about this, Joe says, minutes later in the same video, that he brings this up because "git gud" discourages criticism and he wants people to be able to criticize the game. It's definitely a misrepresentation, whether is disingenuous or a misunderstanding I'm not sure. Same with the "Denmark is the capital of Malaysia" thing, it's clearly different than saying "Elden Ring is a good game" because one of them is objectively false and the other is something that cannot be measured in any objective way. I don't understand how you can criticize the "Subjectivity is Implied" video without being able to distinguish between these two different kinds of statements.
I have a problem with the git gud/skill issue discourse too and I've made my thoughts on all that clear. But the discussion of "skill issue" is in most cases... about skill. That's a topic that's usually centred on the subject of difficulty but the changes that Joseph suggests in this video are irrelevant to that discussion. I also do think he's taking it personally and his reaction isn't justified.
2 месяца назад+35
@@GredGlintstone ehh I’ll agree to disagree on justification. Dude gets a-lot of harassment. Also, a good chunk of people who just comment “skill issue” and whatnot probably don’t even watch the video which probably makes it extra infuriating for him. That’s another issue, you don’t have to engage with the media in any substantial way to comment “skill issue” and whatnot. You can just read the title or look at the thumbnail, take 3 seconds to comment and then leave. It requires 0 analytical or critical thinking on their part.
@@GredGlintstone It's become an all-encompassing response to any criticism that even suggests you had a hard time with something. You can't bring up Gaius's terrible charge hitbox, or Metyr's laser that is outright unavoidable, without getting spammed by git gud and skill issue. And you're forgetting, the "toxic assholes" he was talking about are not anyone who has ever said someone is having a skill issue even when it's true, but rather someone who refuses to accept any fault in the game or have any discussion about whether something was fair or not, preferring to shit talk people who have opinions they disagree with by telling them they're just bad at the game.
I'm sure he gets more hate than what he talks about in the video. And I'm sure they're often really personal and mean. The internet sucks sometimes. But spending almost a third of your critique talking about comments you're receiving, or 90% in Feeble's case, is too far. Game journalists working for the big publishers get far more hate and don't take time in their reviews addressing it. It's not relevant to their analysis of the game. He's using an emotional topic to justify his suggested changes. But, yes, agree to disagree :)
Actually, Margit is the perfect tutorial boss because he teaches you the best lesson of all for Elden Ring: If you can’t beat it, go explore elsewhere and try again after some levels and stuff.
i lost my interest in Joseph Anderson when he started streaming and getting into arguments with his chat. The more I saw who he really was and his opinions while streaming, I knew he suffered from the dunning-kruger effect. he thinks he's way smarter than he is and even when there is enough evidence he still has to die on that hill he made for himself. I respect people who can show some humility and admit that they might be wrong.
Wow. I waded into this little idea of the direction that the video would take, honestly there was a point where I was skeptical that a commentary on a commentary's commentary would have much to say. Instead I have been blown away by how this video has been equally insightful and challenging but beautiful to experience. So thank you for that, I hope this video has been meaningful for you to make. Also the "Womb to tomb" line is an absolute banger.
@@GredGlintstonehonestly I would never have known you were newer to RUclips just based on this video. Incredibly well presented and you’re a great orator as well. Does your professional life/job include some crossover skills that help with RUclips? I just ask because you come across as pretty experienced in this stuff!
Feel like so many of these outrage bait gaming channels don't actually like games that much. They're actively hurting the games community with such hyperinflated, unreasonable reactions - roast comedy is the perfect description for what they do, but when it's dressed up as 'serious games critique' their cruel opinions absolutely get reflected back into broader gaming culture as a whole. As a dev it is fucking exhausting, and you constantly fear having the crosshair pointed at you.
my dude why are you comparing how gamers treat 70$+ games from multi million dollar decades old companies to how gamers will treat you as an indie dev do you realize how disconnected you sound
I think the point behind the "get good" discussion is that its the blanket, mindless response, not peoples real opinion. Theres no reason behind them saying it, so it adds nothing to the discourse.
And, I feel skill issue could still be seen as an insult? It literally means 'you are a poor skilled player'. I can 100% understand why people would feel insulted if the only response to them being frustrated with a mechanic was 'you suck'.
@@evilfungasIt's unfortunate, then, that it's almost never used in that context, and is instead used to discard valuable criticism because the recipient of the statement is "worse at video games" than the other person is.
You'll usually get hit with "skill issue" if you are obviously infuriated with a boss and claim things are impossible or badly designed. And even then there will probably be people explaining how to dodge it. Personally I've had criticism for many attacks but basically never got hit with "skill issue" or anything because I explain why I think something doesn't work. Mindless response to mindless criticism.
finally. this video is perfect for someone like me. I hate the current state of negative game “critique” so much 😭😭 feeblekings videos on shadow of the erdtree specifically were very frustrating
@@GredGlintstone What kinda logic even is that... lmao Saying you don't think a game is as good as people say it is ≠ being frustrated about people liking said game.
Only gripe with the vid is the slight misrepresentation of Matthew's vid (lost art of demon Souls) but overall a much needed video. It's so, so hard to find good video game commentary and critique. Everyone is rage-baiting and throwing out fancy terms with zero grasp on what they mean.
You think so? I thought I argued that he makes a lot of good points. I only took issue with a couple of his blanket statements about a lack of innovation and why dodge hit is boring. I think his argument about strategising for fights is actually really strong. It's why I bring it up because people always use the vid as evidence that the souls series has gotten boring but that's not what Matthew is arguing. I actually really agree with Matthew in that video for the most part. But really appreciate the nice words again. The fancy terms is a big one. I made sure to show my definitions. I was worried it would become more like a powerpoint presentation than a video essay but I felt like it was really important. I really don't like when people on youtube use fancy words but don't explain what they mean. It's really elitist imo.
@@GredGlintstone I was specifically thinking of the Micolash preference and "Bloodborne is more Demon Souls" part which wasn't what he said but you did end up clarifying later. The clarity on terms is a breath of fresh air. Didn't feel like a PP presentation at all. Well done.
I have been watching a lot of negative critiques for the game for a while now, and I always had problems with them. but I could never put my finger on it. You basically laid out all the problems i had with them that i wasnt even fully aware of. well done!
also anybody that calls shadow of the erdtree the worst from soft content needs to be trapped in the frigid outskirts for a week and then come back and tell me that they still think sote is as bad as they said it is
It occurs to me during the quotes on difficulty by Miyazaki that Joseph as a person, is fundamentally opposed to the very design philosophy of the games; Learning. In order for him to 'learn from his mistakes' he must be making mistakes, which is untenable to his massive ego which believes he has already achieved apotheosis at least when it comes to playing video games (but I would be shocked if this mindset didn't pervade his entire life). Hence every mistake he makes is actually an error or a bug on the developer's part. Which makes his video format make sense. They are all criticism because these are the moments which the game rudely interrupted his display of immaculate gameplay and therefore the developer should know that about these breakdowns. He is seemingly aware enough though to know that being honest about it would not be accepted so he lies and pretends it's critique.
Watching Joseph play Hitman 3 was sobering experience. Despite all the tutorials, he had a game comprehension of a six year old. One youtuber said a cool thing: "I'm not very good at videogames. If I was, I'd be just playing them like you, so instead I make youtube videos"
Thanks for making this. I despise the work of people like Joe and Feeble. They are rage/engagement farming vampires that suck all the life from things for profit or attention. People like them have infested almost every fandom. They’ve infested our politics. They do real harm. People like Joe killed Star Wars. It’s a dead IP walking. They’re trying to kill FromSoft. I thank the heavens every day Miyazaki is an artist with a vision and he’s in charge there. As soon as he’s replaced with someone more compromising, the Joe Andersons of the world will destroy FromSoft. This is a shout for sanity in the face of all that. Who knows what the future holds, but with this, the record shows that in the face of so much cynicism wrecking the world, at least some men stood for truth and quality.
"He loved you man". Damn that cut deep. I hope Joseph apologizes eventually. That user was a certified fanboy, someone who kissed the ground Joe walked on yet he still treated them that way. He should feel lucky to have fan as loyal as that, yet he threw them away like a piece of garbage.
@@thesnatcher3616 Honeslty I’d blame the fan more than Joseph (Joe is being a narcissistic prick as he always was), sorry for being rude, but the fan is stupid for lionizing another person like that. But I agree the “He loved you man” kinda cut deep for me too.
Considering JA's video on Soma was him missing the point for a lot of it and basically dooming us to things like rebirth since it was taken as gospel, it's not a shock he'd get this wrong too. Markiplier did a better job with SOMA than he did. No hate on mark since from what I can tell he's a genuinely nice guy, but you usually don't go to him for critique of a game if my point.
Very important video, I hope it trends. You gave much clearer words to describe my frustration with so many RUclips video game criticisers. The script was also well-written, with great word choice and acknowledgment of subjectivity/objectivity! I have never played Elden Ring or any Dark Souls game, but your points got across to me very well.
@@GredGlintstone Miyazaki clarifying that "a sense of accomplishment" is the top priority and that every player can "beat the game their way" completely aligns with Matthewmattosis' main argument that technical difficulty was never what made the series compelling. He argues for more clever puzzles, traps, careful planning, and creative strategies instead of just mashing the dodge button at the right time and abusing i-frames. I'm personally interested in being a careful knight traversing a dangerous environment, looking behind every nook and cranny. I'm not interested in learning every attack animation or frame timings. I'm not interested in projectiles turning into heat-seeking missiles. I'm not interested in bosses being protected from fall damage by invisible walls. That's the fundamental difference. I play Souls games for the sense of scale and adventure. If I was looking for an actual challenge or mechanical complexity, I'd just play Dota 2 instead.
@@phasmidjelly1429Yeah, that's valid complain and I agree but I also like the way elden ring did it so I guess maybe a bit of both in the next game. This video is more focus on how important making quotation, paraphrase, and sources. Messed this up, you will only spread misinformation despite it being not your intention. Especially when many said sources talks explicitly about how important the difficulity is even if the implicity of it can be interprate as "overcoming challenge" is the point and not the "difficulity" Making sure that the oral or source chain from quotation right to the source transparent is heavy common rule used by reaserchers and scientist when making a paper journal article or in this case video game "critique" (criticism). It's important and some people (not you) don't fully commit to this rule either out of laziness or pure ignorance.
@@phasmidjelly1429 Boss is the puzzle. And it has a solution that doesn't need you to learn every attack timing and frames. This is a strawman argument from all those "shattered masterpiece" garbage videos.
@@phasmidjelly1429 technical difficulty is a hill to overcome(you even have multiple ways you can do this) you also need to remember that elden ring is not dark souls as much as you want to see it that way.
Joseph Anderson immediately rubbed me the wrong way when his video on The Witness went viral and he got so many things patently wrong with the game. It was just him venting about why the game rubbed him the wrong way, and while it resonated with a number of other players, its success *also* confirmed a lot of preconceptions about the game from people who never played it. And that ultimately poisoned discourse and dominated discussions of The Witness for years. I never watched his takes on Souls games after that, but the examples in this video seem to share a similar incuriosity. It's a shame negativity takes up so much discourse in games - it's not like other mediums are free from critics not meeting artists where they're at (Roger Ebert famously hated lots of David Lynch films), but games can have so much content not even seen by the critic or interpreted differently by how difficult it is to complete, and it's silly how many of these video essay critics (with infinite time on their hands compared to a commercial reviewer) don't really spend the time to meaningfully interpret what they're critiquing. Matthewmatosis at least seems to stay away from roasting games and makes far fewer factual errors in his (rare) new videos - probably because he started making his own game.
This video almost had a big section on The Witness. I really dislike that video. I still have a lot of script talking about the Witness so I may make a video on it one day and take Joe out of it. I love that game and would love to convince more people to play it. It is a great game you should absolutely play.
@@GredGlintstone why cut the Joe part out? He’s such a huge voice, i think he honestly deserves a section in a video about any game he ruined with his presence. Like Soma for example.
@@GredGlintstone That's a great video title, lol. I think you're on the right track to take Joe out of a script - no need to spread the negativity when you can already point to this video to express your frustrations. (Plus I think there's already a circlejerk of reaction content to Joseph's Witness video.)
Similar thing happened with mario odyssey: exaggerated a handful of flaws in an otherwise fantastic game, which enforced people to overanalyze issues that were never all that important. It's hard to remember now though, considering how much of a turnaround the game got.
@@GredGlintstone I'd love a video on the Witness as I felt similarly. recently replayed it and had a blast. I really believe joe shouldn't be a part of it. he himself has commented on the video "the unbearable now", a relatively famous video on the game that his opinion has changed since making the video.
*Amendments*
* I unfairly threw Ratatoskr under the bus. I included him here because that video embodies a review of a game that only talks about the negative aspects really succinctly. But there is a difference between his work and the other critics I talk about. Although I dislike that video because I'm more interested in his whole opinion than the 0.2%, I don't think he's guilty of the same style of critique that I'm really addressing here. I should have made a clearer distinction. He's been cut from the intro. His thumbnails show up a couple times in the vid but please know I'm not equating him with the other people I'm talking about. Sorry, Ratatoskr.
* Seems like I fell into the very common trap of calling Nietzsche a nihilist. He's a more complex guy than that and my interpretation of his work was shallow. My interpretation in the video still stands as an analogy to the game and it's still important to show Feeble's misquotation and lack of sources. Even if my interpretation was flawed, I argue that it's still stronger and better researched than Feeble's one. But please do dig into Nietzsche's work yourself because I don't represent his ideas super well here. Sorry, Nietzsche.
*Unfortunately, in the "difficulty was never the point" section it looks like I've attributed a quote in one article to Miyazaki that was actually paraphrased by the writer of the article, Keza MacDonald. Here's the full quote with Miyazaki's actual direct quote included.
Demon's Souls was born out of a desire to return gaming to its fundamentals - that is, to re-embrace the trial and error and difficulty that we used to take for granted, and leave the player to work things out for themselves. "From the outset, we started making it based on a 'back-to-basics' concept," says Miyazaki. "We wanted a 'game-like game', something that was fun in the way games used to be, and we were confident that we could do it". (The sentences without quotation marks are Keza MacDonald. The sentences with quotation marks are Miyazaki.)
My sincere apologies on this one. A commenter pointed this out for me. This is not a direct quote from Miyazaki. Sorry, Miyazaki.
*Death of the Author - A commenter correctly pointed out that Death of the Author is not concerned with the theory that the author has intended you to do whatever you want. The core of the idea is that the intention of the author is irrelevant. It's not their intention anymore. It doesn't matter what they intend. I've sort of conflated both authorial intent and death of the author in the point I make. The point still stands that you can play the game however you want, even if it goes against what you may perceive as developer intent.
*Please don't use this video as justification to say git gud or skill issue. As I've said a couple times, I don't like that discourse. I say it to Joe and Feeble in respect to their critiques as a bit of a snarky dig but I don't condone the kind of argument that waves away a person's opinions with an accusation that they are bad at the game. I think Joe reacted badly to those comments but I still don't condone the use of them. It's not about skill it's about mindset. But even so, it's not okay to say that it is someone's "fault" for not liking the game. People are allowed to dislike things in the same way you are allowed to like things. You don't need to convince them they're wrong. That's not what this video is about.
*On the great rune thing. Really surprised that so many people have taken issue with it because I thought it was a minor point. I realise now that it's sandwiched between two much bigger arguments which makes it seem like I'm equating it to be the same. It's not. It was a bridge between arguments and not the argument itself. I used it as an example to show that sometimes subjectivity isn't implied, objectivity is, because Joseph says "objectively bugged". My argument was that it can't be that either the rune is objectively bugged or the text is wrong. If it's either or, then neither is objective, because we don't know which is which. I'm sure it's Joe being hyperbolic but words are important. Regardless, I spent too much time on it because I thought it was funny how mad Joe was about it years after he talked about it in the base game review. The text is definitely misleading. My argument wasn't that Joe is silly because the system is actually clear. Regardless, it's unimportant to my overall argument and I'm happy to take the L on it. Honestly, if I had another edit, I'd cut it out because it distracts from the larger points I'm making.
Important to note! Obviously not all the reviews/critiques of this game are negative. Responses are overwhelmingly positive from mainstream video game journalists. I don't think this game is an underrated gem or anything. The base game won Game of the Year. It's clearly a very successful and acclaimed series of games and contrarian discussion is healthy and necessary. I'm talking here about a very specific form of critique that is very very common in the souls community in particular, and why I don't like that form of critique.
You're allowed to dislike it. You're allowed to think it is a flawed masterpiece. I just want to hear more about the "masterpiece" and less about the "flawed".
When I discuss opinions on the game and make claims that they are "wrong", I am addressing interpretations of developer intent that I believe don't hold up well under scrutiny. Even so, when I say something is "wrong", and I am talking about an interpretation, that is my opinion. Subjectivity is implied ;)
Keep the discussion civil. I don't mean ill will to the people I talk about in this video even if I am quite harsh and snarky throughout. This is a discussion of art and ideas. It's also a genuine plea for self-reflection. This isn't a take-down. It isn't content cop.
You're allowed to not like things. I'm allowed to like things. Let's be cool about it.
We are currently accepting new members to join the Cult of Fromsoft. Praise be, Surrogate-All-Father Miyazaki. He who satisfies our victim complex
Gred
Elden Ring is a worse game than Barack Obama and the vegan diet
Just finished the intro, and saw this comment...
You should watch Noah Caldwell-gervais videos on Elden Ring if you wanna hear about the masterpiece parts of the "flawed masterpiece".
@@Taylor_Lindise Will do! Thanks for the recommendation.
@@GredGlintstone I was also going to mention Noah Caldwell-Gervais. There is also a part of his recent Elden Ring video in which he addresses negative comments, which you may find pertinent.
@@GredGlintstonei second Noah’s content. It’s some really great stuff. Very personal, very balanced. You won’t be questioning how he actually feels about the thing by the end.
"I never said I dislike the death knights, I just included them in a list of enemies and NPC fights I disliked and everyone assumed." This might be the funniest, stupidest thing I've ever heard
The best book example of "Gaslighting" I ever Heard.
How is it stupid?
Its like liking a mustang as a car or just for its looks, but not liking driving one.
The countach actually has that reputation, looks cool but you probably wont like driving one.
@@sandertu8366Well, If the only thing he mention about the Death Knights on the entire video is something negative, is fair to assume that he didn't like them.
The "reskinned Death Knights" is one of his reason why he though SotE was the worst DLC is basically what he said on his first video. He never even said that his problem was only that two appears.
@@sandertu8366
> Says there's a list of bosses he didn't like
> Puts Death Knights on the list
Feeble: "I didn't say I disliked Death Knights."
??? How is it not stupid lmfao. Don't you see the contradiction?
@sandertu8366 tirle: top 5 worst cars ever.
"I never said the car was bad, I just listed it in an article about bad cars and people assumed"
Nah dawg, you actually did tho
Time to change my entire world view about a subject based on the opinion of a video essayist until the next guy comes along and do it all again 😔
I can't think for myself, I need someone else to do it for me!!
@cookies_and_mustard6414 Heh, don't you know Chode466 disproved this thing you said. Here, I've linked their 7 hour video essay 😏
painful agreement man!
Lmao. Somehow every new Videos convinces till the next.
It’s better to have an open mind than “I have never changed my mind on a single game in history”.
“The Fromsoft community has become the most toxic fandom”
As an Overwatch player this feels like stolen valor.
fromsoft got nothing on overwatch lol
Or some anime Fandoms lol.
100%
The GTA fandom called, they wanna literally kill you.
The Overwatch community isn't toxic just depressed. I can name 5 communities more toxic than Overwatch's.
Wish I had something less cliche to say than this video is a masterpiece - the level of research, organization, and commentary really motivates me
Thanks so much dude! Really appreciate the support.
"I've never changed my mind about any of the games I've reviewed." Yeah, that's not the flex you think it is bro.
also he straight up lied. its a constant joke in Feebles fandom that he constantly changes his opinion and acts like he held it all along
@@darthgamer9861 crazy how he got a fandom in the first place.
Besides the fact it’s a bold-faced lie (he literally changed his Elden ring base game opinion) it’s also just sad. Does he do absolutely no growing as a person or critic? My opinions on stuff I like and dislike and “critique”(lmao) change every day. Feeble is just embarrassing.
And yet him and Anderson are "popular". This sh is crazy
@@liquidreality472 If you need proof that most people are easily manipulated by just knowing how to present your opinion in a confident manner, you can take Joseph Anderson as the biggest example
"This video is a masterpiece, you shouldn't watch it" Joseph Anderson.
South Park
This might be the perfect comment
@@nrudy which you shouldn't read
Basically
@@poorpchelique6210yeah brother u tell em what’s what’s dats rite brother
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.”
Such a good quote it’s still accurate in this current age.
@@PumpkinWarlock idk critics risk a lot I think, generally speaking. And that line also discounts critique as a form of art which I’m also not comfortable with.
Doesn't help Joe hates Ratatouille :V
(Based on an account of which he was watching movies with his kids)
@@MoreLoreThenThereSeemswell, that's because critique isn't a form of art. Not every creative activity or action is art.
@@angelamengualcortinas3614 what is your definition of art?
@@MoreLoreThenThereSeemsa work of art, imo, is a creation made by a talented person (or group of people) in a field such as writing, painting, architecture, videogames, etc that shows said person's view or philosophy on the world and life that can be understood in isolation from other forms of human expression. There can be "bad art" as it can lack technical expertise, but authentic art cannot be "lazy" or "half-hearted" because it should represent the honest efforts of the author.
A critique of art cannot be understood in isolation because it is a commentary on someone else's work, and thus its entire existence depends on that.
Regarding that bit at the end where you show that extremely rude response Joseph makes to that fan, I find it very concerning that at least 184 people looked at that and said "Yeah, that's a response I like, better go give it positive feedback."
To argue for the best fate interpretation possible, they may have just thought he was joking.
@@chaoticgoodcreations947 with how his reddit is, i can say with confidence that they werent. most of them display actual toxic positivity about joeseph anderson. if the witcher 3 video never comes out, they will still be waiting in bated breathe for it.
All e-celebs are in command of para-social cults. They are worse then the traditional company fanboys of old.
@@chaoticgoodcreations947 Even in the case it was a joke, it's still a blatantly horrible thing to say to someone
I wonder if you know "Beginners Guide".
If not then maybe playing it (or watching it, even on Joseph Anderson second channel) could actually help you understand the issue. Some "support" can be rude if person didn't ask for it, even worse when specifically said they don't want it - and it isn't new trope.
This is all Plinkett's fault, so that means it's all because of George Lucas. Jar-Jar is the key to all this.
What are you even talking about? Man, it sounds like you are in some kind on downward spiral mentally and now have lost it completely.
@@yucandui Guys, who's gonna tell him
@@yucandui it is a reference to RedLettermedia's reviews of the prequels
@yunuss58 Oh, I thought it was a reference to EmpLemon's most recent video. My bad.
The goongas
The goongas
The goongas
The goongas
The goongas
The goongas
The goongas
I like how you emphasized that simple mechanics doesn't mean boring. Sekiro got Game of the Year but in my opinion it's Game of the Decade. That parry is so satisfying. And yet if you reduce it, it's really just "press parry at the right time". Simple but elegant.
I got an even deeper appreciation for the combat of Sekiro after installing some super boss mods like the elden arts mod. I highly recommend downloading some of you haven't.
100%, Sekiro is so god dam fun.
I love watching Sekiro play-thrus. Gorgeous stuff there & I find the story gripping.
@@La0bouchere At the end, it's all about excecution not about how complex or philosophical it is
Reminds me of the "Stand still and let thing resolve" joke/meme/mockery from the FF14 community. When you think about ti life is about standing still and letting thing resolve.
My favorite example of Feeble King’s hubris is when he declares that he knows exactly what experience Fromsoft wanted us to have, when he doesn’t even know how Fromsoft intended you to deal with the Putrescent Knight’s grounded flame hitbox.
One of the things that bothers me the most about the stupid arguments of that Feeble King guy is that he insists that his way of playing is the correct and only valid way and that using any tool that the game gives you is not valid
Or the moons of Rellana
My favorite example of FK Hubris is to the end of his first critique when he said that if you defend these bosses is probably because you use summons, therefore your opinion isn´t valid.
@@JoseViktor4099 Meanwhile Miyazaki: I suck at video games and used everything I could get my hands on to beat Elden Ring
I have never seen his videos but did he actually claim that Putrascene Knight’s ground flame could not be dealt with? Because that would be wild…
Big agreement with your artistic scenery point. I just can’t figure out why people play video games and instantly try to reduce the experience down to a number crunching game. It’s so bizarre to me…..why not just code or do arithmetic?
No one is doing that. He uses numbers to prove that his (and many others) subjective experience is correct. Such as in the Mario oddyssee video where actually counting proves that the game is mostly copy-pasted events. This is evidence to back up the subjective experience he and I both have that the game is lifeless, uninspired and tedious.
Can't wait for Olive Garden to drop the next masterpiece in the emerging "play as a human man" subgenre.
That was my favorite joke and I’m so glad someone liked it.
I can't wait to finally play as a human man in a videogame, our species has been neglected for too long.
@@GredGlintstonebut what do you know anyway? You're just a guy named "buthole". 🤣
Please stop posting everywhere about it! Our community of human man game players is already getting too popular & I don't want the next Olive Garden game to flatten the human man game mechanics like Skyrim or turn into super-soldier play. Don't you remember when we started all the games naked + helpless??? I miss the good old days when human man games were niche + old school.
Imagine looking at the sheer scale and artistry of Elden Ring right after a release like Sekiro and thinking a studio is coasting
Both Sekiro and Elden Ring literally reinvented the genres and were completely different in design from the games that preceded them, suggesting they're coasting by is honestly baffling.
Seeing how ER is the biggest downgrade in quality since DS2 and the DS Remaster, it's really not hard to think that.
@@DelgadoKenway Bitches be complaining about anything nowadays
@@DelgadoKenwayAre you a professional clown?
@@DelgadoKenway The biggest downgrade in quality since DS2 won GOTY over the highly anticipated sequel to the 2018 GOTY. That's not to say winning GOTY is the end-all be-all, there are duds, like TLOU 2 beating DOOM: ETERNAL, Ghost of Tsushima, and Hades, but I think it's still pretty telling of ER's quality.
Brief comment on the Sisyphus point brought up around 1 hour in, i dont believe sisyphus would be happy because of the merit of his work, and his ability to perfect/improve pushing the boulder eternally. His happiness derives from the fact that he could stop at any time, but that would let the Gods win. He has deadlocked himself to an eternity of monotony and repetition all on his own. As long as sisyphus rolls the boulder, the gods are wrong, and that means he wins. The second he gives up, they win.
Sisyphus enables his own hell, and he is content with that.
That's a really good point and well articulated. He's creating the meaning for his suffering by making it his choice.
Hey about sisyphus, while i do agree that Camus brings up the concept of "revolt" a lot, the point Camus makes isn't that Sisyphus is happy because he could stop at any time, it's not a revolt against the gods that casted him in this hell. It's a revolt against the absurdity of existence itself. So Sisyphus doesn't become happy throught conflict and confrontation, he becomes happy through creativity ; by finding meaning where there is none and for exemple by "leaving a trace" behind the boulder he pushes, each time the trace is different. Then, he transcend his condition, he isn't bound by the punishment of the gods, he doesn't create in spite of them.
Based
@@cosimomedicis8094 Yes, this is more accurate. There is no purpose to his struggle and he's forced to repeat it forever. It's a living hell unless Sisyphus can learn to embrace the absurdity of his situation and find happiness anyway.
This perspective resonates with me so well. When I first gained... self autonomy? Like my life isnt just me on autopilot, I fell into despair, realizing were just tiny flesh bags living on a rock in the middle of nowhere. No meaning has value and everything is meaningless. Yatta Yatta Yatta. Until last year I decided to change this nihilistic viewpoint as its toxic and not helping at all. I've now come to the conclusion, Life may be meaningless, but how would I know if I didn't look for it? Who am I to determine the value of meanings and if there is an actual meaning? If death is the inevitable truth, then life is a powerful protest. To live despite its purposelessness, isn't that admirable?
There are a ton of "very serious game critics" who are constantly bemoaning the inflammatory discussion surrounding their writing, but nearly without exception the uproar is invited because their work is actually the lowest rung of possible critique (essentially a product review). The problem they seem incapable of diagnosing, is that no matter how flowery your prose is, or how close to the 6 hour mark you get, that doesn't mean the actual content of the writing is anything other than a rather simple 'value judgement' (used in the critical definition, not the moral definition).
So the problem becomes that the most interesting thing you can say in response to a video like Joseph Anderson, or Ratatoskr (who despite your pinned comment, is guilty of this type of discourse) is "I think your value judgement is wrong". This is why so many of these types of works have entire sections addressing the audience with: "you're allowed to disagree, but please behave". Or in the latter's case "I'll probably piss you off, so be sure to dislike this video and argue in the comments".
These disclaimers can't generate a theoretical "ideal discussion" around their "critique" because the critic himself has failed to write anything that has a primary quality more complex than "this is good or bad imo"-- and thus the response can only be "thank you for agreeing with me," or "nuh-uh". It's like laying out honey and then becoming cutely exasperated that you caught flies.
The root of this mistake is deciding: "this is what I thought this artwork should be," and then structuring the critique by analyzing the distance between what [was] and what the writer [imagined it should've been.]
Next time you watch a game critique, notice how much the critic is actually addressing the game itself, VERSUS, how much time is spent using an imaginary ruler to compare the game that exists in the writer's imagination to the actual work. In some essay critiques, this is upwards of 90% of their content. Now, this is typical of a product review (you are evaluating a purchase for other customers, and an imaginary "ideal product" is something you need to assume is possible-- but this is not serious criticism, it's an economic service).
Instead, (and this is the proper job of criticism)-- a more interesting critique can always be achieved by analyzing what [was] and what [happened because of that.] All serious works of critique developed in the western canon (that have value on their own) possess it because the writer sought to understand and perform a taxonomy on the work's entire shape, rather than dressing up an IGN review in big-boy clothes and pretending it's a scholarly work.
JA is actually just ignorant on a base level because he's under the delusion that a critic's job is to "make the work better"-- and in order to refute him, I'll just quote Northrup Frye because it's way easier:
"Value-judgements are subjective in the sense that they can be indirectly but not directly communicated. When they are fashionable or generally accepted, they look objective, but that is all. The demonstrable value-judgement is the donkey's carrot of literary criticism, and every new critical fashion, such as the current fashion for elaborate rhetorical analysis, has been accompanied by a belief that criticism has finally devised a definitive technique for separating the excellent from the less excellent. But this always turns out to be an illusion of the history of taste."
In any case, the idea that something could in any way be "flawless" is a critical void, so we can extend from that that the analysis of "flaws" compared to "triumphs" is at best a starting point for a real critique, rather than the end goal. To continue to reference Frye, imagine if "Fearful Symmetry" was 300 pages of him talking about the "flaws" of William Blake's poetry and comparing them to the "triumphs" of it-- it would be completely infantile.
This is a great comment. Well articulated.
I'm currently working on a script that speaks a little on this. The appreciation of art goes beyond value judgment. Internet discussion can be so much more than arguing over if something is "mid" or not..
I want to talk about feelings. I want to talk about meaning. I need heart.
@@GredGlintstone it's a topic I feel needs to be covered by someone! You should check out the book "Anatomy of Criticism" and at least read the polemical introduction, which is the first chapter. I feel like the discourse it goes through there is exactly what you'd be interested in.
I will! Thanks!
Nevermind I understand what you meant now I deleted the comment
you put into words what i couldn't for a long time, thank you.
Something not mentioned is that even outside of beating the Putrescent Knught rewarding you with the Trina questline/moment, you literally get a Remembrance for a unique boss weapon like every other main boss.
not to mention the runes, standard with every boss, remembrance or not
crazy glazing, st trina quest is the worst in the game
@@harkaranbrar2342explain the thought process behind reading a comment that explicitly states "even OUTSIDE of st . Trina quest you still get such and such "
And still thinking the discussion is about st . Trina's quest . 😂
@@harkaranbrar2342 no it ain’t
@@hamptonwooster explain what the quest offers, you die to her 5 times and you get 2 lines, literal trash tier quest line get tf off from softs dick
I see some people nowadays playing games like it is some kind of job. Not even stopping to appreciate anything that they are seeing.
Feeble literally says in that Bloodborne video that playing the game started to feel like a job and I was like "dude, aren't you getting paid to play this?". It is your job.
It's also sad when people show their feet on webcam purely for a job, without appreciating the artistic nuance and the human implications of the scenario.
@@squirrelsyrup1921You’re seriously comparing games to foot fetish videos?
@@randomguy6679 I don't know how the word "seriously" squirreled its way into this comment of yours, but i'm going to be generous and suspect an overabundance of seriousness in the bloodstream.
@@SianaGearz Ah, pretending your comment was satire and not meant to be taken seriously, a classic.
Also you're wrong about Nietszche, he wasn't a nihilist, he hated nihilism, his great life-long project was articulating the catastrophe that was nihilism in 19th Century Europe. He believed profoundly that life was and is meaningful, and that we have almost a moral duty to ourselves to be true to ourselves, so that our loves could be meaningful.
Your whole idea about him believing life was innately meaningless and that it becomes meaningful in self-overcoming is totally anathema, really, to what nietszche articulated throughout his works. I recommend reading anything from his middle period, eg the gay science, to get a better idea of what he really believed.
You're sort of correct when you say that Nietszche said that suffering creates meaning, but what he tended to say was actually that it made us more *interesting*. Nietszche believed that self-inflicted suffering was a major phase in the history of our psychological development, and associated it with Christianity. The geneaology of morality expounds on this.
Fun video, I'm glad you made it, it certainly made my chores more enjoyable. Sorry to jump down your throat, but i gotta protect my dude against misrepresentation.
It seems you're absolutely correct and I've fallen prey to what looks like a pretty common misconception about the man. I was basing my argument on an interpretation that is very likely flawed.
That being said, I still think my point in this section stands because:
a) Feeble still misquoted the man and didn't provide his sources.
b) My interpretation (while shallow and likely inaccurate to Nietzsche's authorial intent) is still a good analogy for the game.
I do appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I'll do more reading on Nietzsche. He's an interesting dude.
Heheh I'm a nietszche stan, i have no issue with your broader point at all lol
@GredGlintstone ❤
Really do appreciate the clarification. I'll put something in the pinned comment when I get a chance to get my facts straight and clear it up.
i like his piano stuff
I’m a huge Joseph Anderson fan (admittedly more his streams than his critiques) so I appreciate you giving all this feedback. At this point I’ve heard ‘subjective’ misused so much that I’ve gradually lost track of the meaning myself.
I also really enjoyed your point about gamers being so focused on the reward rather than the experience with visuals, sound and vibes. I admit I do like games being replayable once the first experience wears off, but FromSoft have always been good at finding a balance of both.
Subjective and objective aren't binary. There are degrees in between. "Mario odysee is lifeless and tedious" uses two subjective words to describe it, which is a must when doing a review or critique. They have some objectivity to them if you also explain why. And they have a lot of objectivity to them when you count how much of the content is actually copy-paste. I'm sure you know what I mean.
The “Gank Boss” at the end of the shadow of the erdtree DLC gives you the option to summon in the NPC’s you’ve befriended along the way. Which NPC’s you summon also change depending on how you interacted with the NPC’s in the world up until that point. Narratively this is the best NPC fight I think FromSoftware has ever done, and to reduce it to “just another gank fight” is both inaccurate because it doesn’t have to be 1 vs 3, but also ignores narratively what makes the fight so impactful
Nah that fight is ass
Would matter more if it wasn’t possible to break several NPC quests by walking too far in some directions.
@@ethanstanis5829how was it ass
@@jojameson5264 by this same logic, it matters less because you can fail npc quests. 2 of 5 won’t even show up if you don’t finish their quests. And neither of the summonable characters get their quests broken by fuckin walking somewhere.
You can literally turn that fight into a 5v5 if you use the Jolan and Anna ashes, by doing that you can also turn the fight into a 5v2 "reverse gank" if you just don't do any of the npc quests.
Really made me remember exactly why I grew to harbor such disdain for video critiques when I used to like watching them.
LOOPINE!!!! Found you! 😂❤
Thanks, legend.
What did you think of joseph andersons new dlc video?
Thanks for shouting out this great video in your community section on RUclips Loopine! Probably wouldn't have known about it if you hadn't.
How? This one is such a sh*tshow that he can't even make he's point without misrepresenting others.
isn't the remembrance that the putrescent knight drops, the reward for killing him.
Indeed, Feeble king is either disingenuous or dense.
@@TK_TK811 I'm thinking both. He comes off as a dumb guy with a big ego that's been made bigger by having a moderately-sized platform.
If you like a shxt spell or useless axe then yes
@@KNGDDDE Then eat it for runes dumbass
@migaeldewet6074 Well, it isn't if you refuse to try out a single weapon from the dlc, and it's useless to use it for runes since he claims he has already hit the soft caps for his stats(not true lol)
1:30:24
"The only meaningful difference between most songs is the notes, the note order, how long they're played, and the tempo"
One of my favorite parts about SotE was the weapon variety and the fact that I could so easily level them up to 19 or 20ish. I used a dex build and I swapped constantly between the new dual backhand swords, a twinblade, a katana, and a great katana. I was having a blast and each weapon felt completely different
the only difference between you and the sun is atomic composition. so, pretty much the same thing.
@@Pedro-xz6wtExplain how that analogy affects the idea that two songs of different genres are made of the same stuff, like, what are you saying here
@@Zythrylhe’s pointing out how stupid that line of thought is. He agrees with the comment and is using a ridiculous example to further enforce the point.
I argued with feedle king once when elden ring originally released.
One of the worst people ive ever spoken with about it, youtuber or otherwise. I stuck to discussion about the game. I pointed out that he was blatantly contradicting himself and not making sense. I simply asked him to make sense.
He called me stupid, told me i lacked a high school education, blocked me from speaking on his channel and then deleted all his replies where he lost composure because he didnt have any explanation for the nonsense he was saying about the game. All the replies he made where he completely abandoned any semblence of discussion and devolved into childish insults were removed.
But the fromsoft fans are toxic... 🤦
I wont ever bother listening to what he has to say again. Youve given him more credit than he deserves by calling what he made a review or calling him a reviewer.
Hey I’ve read the affairs between you & him, he even did that to me, he deleted my replies to him where I ratioed him so hard, I don’t even get hostile at all, I like to keep it very respectful while being as impartial as I can, but he kept throwing ad-hominems at me all the time & hasn’t discussed my points at all.
He’s just a toxic person with an inflated ego. I thank you for your time in trying to deconstructing these “critics.”
Who the HELL is "feeble king?" I have literally never heard of him before this video.
@@SpoonyBard88 a guy who says he loves souls games but doesn't know how to play them
@@SpoonyBard88 Someone who likes to lie and contradict himself constantly. And no, this is no ad hominem, he actually says one thing, then changes his mind and then claims to have never said the first thing and that he never changes his mind.
@@HeyTarnished
Yeah, I've never seen you be toxic to anyone in any capacity... I didn't know he treated you that way that's kinda fucked TBH.
Yeah also loopine has a video saying critique’s deserve criticism to keep them in check, he was saying that because he was puzzled as to why Joseph Anderson gets a pass saying shit like “fromsoft have fell on their heads” and that they don’t know how to make bosses anymore, unfortunately I can’t remember the video so I can’t link it
Yeah, I've seen it. He's right!
@@GredGlintstone also, Aussie detected🇦🇺🫡
@@northwoodsjjd8454 apparently Mattosis gets a pass too, even to where he could be considered an authority when he's as fallible as the rest of us.
“Bad Criticism is Worse than Bad Art” is the video title :)
Lupine was so GOATED for those videos. Breaks them down and just corrects them lol.
I would just like to appreciate how somebody is finally using the posh British accent video essay voice for good instead of evil for once.
Haha, it's Australian but thanks for calling me posh. I feel so fancy.
@@MoreLoreThenThereSeems another British fellow who uses it for good is hbomber guy but he is a rare uploader. But a good one. Like the one time he made a whole channel or two built on stealing others work get thanos snapped. One of them faked their death and created a thirst account under a new name.
@@christianlangdon3766 oh yea I watch him! Already! So this is a good recommendation lol
@@christianlangdon3766
Hbomb doesn't sound posh, if anything because he screams so much it kinda loses the poshness.
Abigail from Philosophy Tube on the other hand... wow, NOW we're talking.
I’d rather have a British or an Aussie RUclipsr narrate every video instead of hearing another guy from the Midwest with a nasally voice that you have to get used to after watching a WhiteLight video lol
I knew something was up with the latest Joseph Anderson video when most of the intro was him half jokingly explaining delusions of grandeur and railing on the souls community.
Glad I wasn't the only one who thought it.
tony4you spotted!!!
Way to not get the point. That said he shouldn't do that because it's pretty boring for people that appericiate his content and the people like you will take it seriously no matter how clearly he explains it's a joke.
I really appreciate the point being made here. Even given the title of the video, I still partially expected a "this person disagreed with my take on a game, and therefore: me angry" video. I was truly surprised by the level of detail, research, and understanding regarding the material being spoken about. You aren't disagreeing with people's opinions, you are disagreeing with the way the opinions are stated and their overall implications. It isn't often you see something of this quality on RUclips. Subscribed.
Thanks! That's exactly my point yeah. Their opinions are absolutely valid. They're just being really weird about how they say them.
@@GredGlintstonethose reviews sound like Twitter posts. Opinions that think they hold more weight than they do.
These youtubers criticizing elden ring for reused assets but who's gonna criticize them for reusing the same "________ masterpiece" title.
Facts.
absolutely tired of that same "flawed masterpiece" title that atp i roll my eyes so far back in my head that i can see my own fucking brain
people are so afraid of liking something, or god forbid loving something, that it's become mind-numbingly infuriating to see
While I think that It may be less excesive and there are instances where It could be though better, I also considerate that the people complaining about reusing assets on an open world have a fundamental misunderstanding of how these games are actually developed.
On a Game as Big as Breath of The Wild, for instance, they had the Big Challenge to fill a map 5 times bigger than a linear Game, with a limited amount of budget and a limited amount of time.
Apart of the main story points, they had to fill an insanely Big world with worthy stuff.
And is there are upcomings and shortcomings over a Big open world to a short open world, same as It happens Within a metroidvania and a linear Game. And these are not flaws, just advantages or disanvatanges that someone could consider them weighty enough to make their veredict.
Elden Ring has by far the biggest roster of Boss fights of any Fromsoftware Game, having the amount of DS1 and DS3 Bosses combined. Bosses that actually have a lot of effort behind, hell, a lot of minibosses are as complex and Varied as DS1 lategame bosses or DS3 middle bosses.
I do not consider this a flaw, hell, I would say I consider this an archievement.
Meh, content creators are always going to piggyback off popular titles, before this it was hbomberguy's "Noun is Adjective (And Here's Why)", popular things get copied because they're popular and people will click on them anyway, no one values originality as much as they think they do imo
@@JoseViktor4099 exactly. I don’t get why people think asset reuse is only a negative thing. Take rgg (the yakuza studio) and their games. They’re able to be made quick (gaiden was made in 6 MONTHS and it’s a great game) without sacrificing quality because they reuse many assets when they can, even entire areas from previous games, to save on development costs and time.
My problem with the Elden Ring DLC cook books is that I think there were just too damn many of them. Nearly every single one only unlocked only one single new item to craft; if you cut the number of cook books in half and made every book give you a couple items instead of only one, it wouldn't be quite so noticeable.
I don't think this would be a bad idea. I think it would also be a good idea if the item description told you where exactly you got that cookbook.
@SpoonyBard88 they do, you have to open up the description to see what it gives you.
Edit: replied to the wrong thing
@@spub1031 His comment mentioned the location of each book, not the recipe you get
@@draskirondaar ah mb.thanks for the correction
"Love isn't about ignoring something's faults, it's about loving it in spite of them."
This is why Drakengard is one of my favorite games. Sure it's monotonous and grindy and tonally hostile in every aspect. But I still love it. Hell, I love it FOR that. It is unapologetically itself, it is deranged and unhinged and wondrous for it.
Whenever i think of Joseph Anderson responding to criticism, i remember how DangitJM made a fairly tame response to Joe's comments about unfair boss design of Margit, and Joe commented in the video before even watching; a bunch of arguments that werent being made, and then ended up saying "well i guess i just dont have a very good build" as a response in the comment chain to people summarizing the video as a response to the comment, as if that is somehow Fromsoftware's fault. Then i watched his Lies of P review where he praised the game for "listening to its fans" when they made a bunch of changes, then childishly said that thats how he knows it wasnt made by Fromsoftware, and i was like "oh. thats what this video is going to be about" and yeah
Omg I saw that comment and almost brought it up. That idea of "I haven't watched this yet but this is what I think it's about" is so weird. Just watch it lol. I hope this isn't how he plays games.
@@GredGlintstone some joe lore that i think humanizes him more in my eyes is how he has talked on his stream about how him and a bunch of other unpublished/selfpublished authors would write stories and post them to places like reddit to try and get feedback from each other. i think that thats how he's approaching his "critiques" and its very improv classroom, where you and your peers are trying to make a good joke to use at a standup setting or when writing for a sketch comedy group. There are so many differences between that and what he's doing from the fact that peer to peer critique is more personal and private and helps mainly because after you build some good rapport with your peers, they try to understand and work with you rather than just say what they dont like about your set.
@@AnInvalidEgg 100%, "Joe" very much sees saying that sort of stuff in that way as something very casual and very unproblematic, maybe due to how he used to talk a lot on writing forums like you said, and that kind of shaping how he goes about his casual criticisms on things.
I heard, so take it with a grain of salt, that he played Armored Core and absolutely refused to change his build. You know in the game where that is the whole appeal.
I do like his reviews generally, but some of his opinions seem really strange, like just criticism for the sake of criticism. I remember his Bloodborne review being more criticized than his reviews are now.
@@Romapolitan He did, and he did lol, I fucking love armored core and that really killed me whilst I watched him play it lol. It's just not his sort of game at all really, I think he may have said that whilst playing but I can't quite remember.
His perspective on it is that if it's so easy to switch and stumble into what works and what doesn't, and there are some weapons which are so much more viable than others to the extent it can trivialize the game, he'd rather just have the game give him a balanced experience in which he doesn't need to play a balancing game of a build being useable, and it being too good that the game becomes trivial, and that as that isn't the case and the customization isn't for him, that he'll just go with the first things he finds which work better than what he was using. He used dual Zimms lol.
On the whole subjectivity/objectivity thing, as something that's always bothered me about how people with little philosophical literacy talk about such things:
Subjectivity is only implied when a statement is in regards to something that cannot be anything other than subjective.
If a person says, "(I think) chocolate tastes better than strawberry ice cream(in my opinion)", even if they were to drop the linguistic markers of subjectivity, we recognize the subjectivity because it isn't clear in what sense a thing could taste better(a qualic feature of the subjective experience) than another in objective terms.
However, most statements are not, in fact, clearly subjective. They're composite statements, consisting of part empirical observations/claims, syllogistic features(A and B, therefore C etc), and value judgements(reports of subjective experience), and as such, are prone to being wrong on levels of the empirical claims or reasoning regardless the subjective elements.
If a person says, "In Norway, people have long holidays and a relaxed work culture, therefore (I think) Norwegians are more happy," that's not "just an opinion", and, if someone were to question whether Norwegians do in fact have long vacations and a relaxed work culture, or how that entails happiness, no-one gets to just dismiss that with some vacuous appeal to opinion or subjectivity.
Almost every statement that comes out the mouth of critics(and indeed most people in general) are synthetic, and therefore subject to possible errors of judgement worthy of scrutiny and critique. Using appeals to opinion or subjectivity to obfuscate that or reject criticism is disingenuous and/or displays a fundamental lack of understanding of rhetoric and linguistics.
To be fair though, some of this probably comes from the fact that the word "opinion" itself isn't used in a particularly narrow and clear fashion.
Fundamentally, we should probably only refer to subjective value judgements as "opinions", but we do not, except when disingenuously trying to defend faulty statements from critique. The aforementioned synthetic statements are regularly referred to as "opinions". But, if we accept them as such, then opinions aren't merely subjective statements and as such, the delineation between them and empirical claims in general is meaningless.
On a related note on language, and a tiny nit-pick:
There's no such thing as a "wrong fact" or "incorrect fact". That's oxymoronic. Either something is a fact, or it isn't. A "wrong fact" is just a false claim or error =P
Great comment and well spoken. You've said a lot of things here that I struggled to.
Very valid nit pick. I really debated what terminology to use there. The intention was to show that they are not opinions because they can be verified and are just objectively wrong, not subjective. But you said it better than I did.
@@GredGlintstone
No worries. I think you got the point across and I was just very enthused to see one more person in this space actually adress it, because damn it, has it become common for people to use "opinion" as a shield for their faulty logic or dubious factual claims.
The nit-pick was mostly facetious 😅
The problem is that most people don't utilize the higher parts of the mind; all they know of "thinking," is simply opinions about feelings they have and nothing deeper.
I call people out for hiding behind "it's just my opinion" or "it's subjective" all the time. You can't say "the way the artist used the color blue in this painting is bad," and then say "that's just my opinion". You made a statement, either delve deeper into the facts of the matter and (at least attempt to) make a definitive statement about how they used blue, or say "I think" or "I feel". Maybe the blue clashes with other colors and detracts from the rest of the image, then say that. It's not that hard.
It seems that a far more acceptable title would simply be "My thoughts on Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree" if all they're gonna do is say it's their opinion when they feel as if they're going to be challenged on certain points lol.
"Maybe it's just me but I feel as if x is overtuned in terms of difficulty" is much better wording if you're not interested in being challenged. It may also invite likeminded people to comment "It isn't just you, I thought that too" rather than having arguments about what is considered good game design and how the uploader actually sucks at video games therefore their critique is invalid.
Holy fuck some people are too smart to be dumb right?
😂
In Matthew's dark souls 2 review, after he says that miyazaki claimed difficulty was never the point he says that the point is to pull the player into the world and deliver climatic moments. When i searched for interviews where miyazaki expressed his opinion on difficulty i found this quote, "When I’m playing these games, I think, This is the way I’d want to die - in a way that is amusing or interesting, or that creates a story I can share." This sounds quite similar to what Matthew was saying about climatic moments. In another interview he said "I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes." In this quote he directly says that the games aren't difficult for the sake of being difficult which is a statement i think could be reasonably summarized as "difficulty isn't the point." Matthew's paraphrasing of the ideas miyazaki has expressed into "difficulty was never the point" has been misattributed as being a direct quote from miyazaki so many times not because it is an outright lie that people have heard and falsely believed, but because it is a short and simple distillation of one of the principles behind the souls series.
here are the two articles i quoted
80.lv/articles/dark-souls-creator-explained-why-fromsoftware-games-are-so-difficult/
www.pcgamer.com/elden-ring-director-miyazaki-says-he-doesnt-want-new-players-to-stress-about-difficulty/
@@dedstring ^ Already seeing people go to Matthew's video complaining about him "making up quotes", likely only seeing as much of his video as is shown in this one.
Not wanting thier games to be difficult for the sake of it isn't the same as difficulty not being the point, it is like Miyazaki said numerous times about given a fair consistent challenge that the player can learn and adapt with, it doesn't mean the games aren't hard or that their difficulty isn't a big appeal/part of the experience
"Not difficult for the sake of being difficult" is not the same as saying "difficulty was never the point". It's just saying there's a purpose for the difficulty, which is giving the players a sense of accomplishment. Even so, you're ignoring ALL the other times Miyazaki said that difficulty WAS the point, that the difficulty is one of the main, INTENDED appeals of his games.
He's only saying that there is a purpose for the difficulty, he didn't say difficulty wasn't the point. He still said Miyazaki said that the difficulty wasn't the point "over & over again" (which is another lie), which isn't true, Matthew should've said HIS OWN interpretation of Miyazaki's thoughts on difficulty by starting with "My own interpretations...", it's really that simple, but not as if he is reading his words verbatim, if we collected most of Miyazaki's interviews around every game release, you'd find that Miyazaki hasn't directly said anything close to what Matthew understood from him, actually it's on the opposite, he advocates for higher & higher difficulties, there are many other interviews that would support Gred's point, in an interview with EDGE Magazine in 2011 around Dark Souls 1, Miyazaki said "I have no intention to make the game easier. In fact, I want it to be more difficult. The way I put it to my team is that we are trying to make the most difficult game that is possible to make, which at the same time can be conquered by those who persevere. It has to be firm, but fair."
Now you can interpret this how you want, because if you applied that same quote above to DS2's difficulty, it would fit it perfectly, if I were to counterargue Matthew in the defense of DS2, I'd always bring up this interview, always, and I have the direct quote right there, which would cement my point much stronger than Matthew's. It's why I would side with Gred more than Matthew. Also if you listened to Gred carefully, Gred was calling this BS because most people would bring up those words from Matthew's video as if it's from Miyazaki in order to try & criticize & berate Elden Ring's difficulty, which is a very difficult game, but is absolutely fair, so Elden Ring's difficulty would easily slide within Miyazaki's 2011 EDGE interview, so when we face much more difficult games than DS1/2/3/BB, like Sekiro & Elden Ring, we shouldn't even begin to bring up this fake quote from Miyazaki which Matthew created out of thin air, it created a false narrative, it caused a lot of people being misinformed.
SILENCE! HE IS SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE OF THE GODS
I’m so happy that this is being talked about because its been so annoying listening to critics hide behind Schodinger’s subjectivity. Its objective untill they get pushback and suddenly it was never meant to be objective in the first place and you (the audience) are dumb for interpreting it like that.
This DLC has exposed so much broken thinking from these RUclips critics, Im grateful a video like this can come from it
It’s almost as if these RUclipsr “critique” channels were waiting to absolutely eviscerate & tear this DLC apart only for RUclips engagement, it was really obvious, Feeble’s video came out less than 2 weeks after the DLC’s release, he was even inadvertently saying that playing through & finishing the DLC felt like a job, gee I wonder why lol. 😝
@@HeyTarnishedyeah , i think their criticisms a lot of the time are terrible especially since as someone looking to get into game design i have been reading / watching a lot of different people and it's always good to see different perspectives, but videos like those just seem snobish / nit picky / hostile / sometimes just plain wrong and then hiding behind the it's subjective guys ( or even when it's positive it's not very useful for someone wanting to learn and understand games )
@@lynackhilou4865
You and me both
@@lynackhilou4865 Yeah I get it, the gaming communities can get pretty weird & aggressive at times, it's scary to even think of designing video games or coming up with great games when games like Elden Ring & Zelda TOTK (2 of the best games of this decade) are getting torn apart by many RUclipsrs that want engagement farming, when in reality, millions of players are enjoying their games & these 2 games are always in their list of best games of all time (Elden Ring is my favorite game of all time).
@@HeyTarnished finally someone has some empathy towards devs. Unfortunately the zelda dev teams were pressured by the criticism that there latest title "echoes of wisdom" brought back a lot of classic zelda elements to please the toxic older fans. Although echoes of wisdom does a great job at blending new and old zelda some of it still feels forced and I think the toxicity of the old zelda fanbase is the blame.
This is a video actually worthy of its 2 hour length. Thats very rare
So glad you think so. I really tried to cut it down.
@@GredGlintstone and im the type of person to watch stuff on 3.5x speed, but i slowed down to 1x on this video
I was honestly wishing it was another 30mins to an hour lol
I also want to mention that after awhile I just stopped caring about critique videos. I don't really care what other people think but the thing that worries me is these people negatively impacting the developers. So I think it is still important to call out people with a big influence like Joseph Anderson.
Don't you trust developers to know what is good or bad for their game, and to be able to say if they agree with a critique or not? Individual critiques are not what change follow up games or creative projects, it's the general community opinion and takes more than anything else that can change a game for the worse, and have the most power to change a game end of.
@@repnir7428 People can be swayed really easily these days and developers will be forced to listen to them. They have to create games that they are less passionate about. Maybe fromsoftware isn't one of those devs because since the beginning they've been criticized heavily but they still kept on doing their thing. It's the indies I'm worried about.
I've always wanted to create my game but my biggest fear is that people will start hating it and specifically the parts that I loved about it. So either I have to remove the parts of the game I loved or ignore the hate. People have a have time accepting that if they don't like something doesn't mean its bad.
With people like Joseph Anderson, being able to sway the population into his opinion, out there it just scares me.
why tf would the devs care, they already have a cult like fanbase that calls every tiny thing that comes out of the company peak, we need more of these critical youtubers who actually use their brains and arent biased
@@SuleX00-ov5ip "I've always wanted to create my game but my biggest fear is that people will start hating it and specifically the parts that I loved about it."
That's the nature of making any creative work, it's unavoidable. Only advice you'll really get about that worry from other creatives is that you just need to put up with it, or ignore it. Either way the answer is a different variation of just toughen up unfortunately.
Also, just remember, you never make your dream project as your first project.
@@repnir7428 thank you
With the putrescent night debacle I think we’re missing one key thing: you get a remembrance from the boss. You know, a big reward for beating it??? You get a cool spell and a weapon with a unique weapon art??? Hello????
thats not reward for people who complaining about items that didnt relate to their build lol. its fake reward and its dev fault!!! easy 1/10 game
My god this has to be my favourite video on this entire website. Its been a trend for years to only talk about the negatives of a game and I never understood why anyone who enjoys games would ever feel satisfied creating something like that. Aside from the obvious fact that negative content performs better in YT. Either way i really hope this video gets a lot of eyes kn it because i really believe that gaming discourse and critique needs to change
Nothing wrong with honest negative videos, this video isn't even advocating for less negative videos. They're fun (especially when it's short and to the point) and are sometimes meaningful and insightful. Only talking about the negatives is not inherently a bad thing, ironically enough.
What's wrong from Joseph Anderson-styled video is that they're claiming to be a balanced critique when it's really not, say that the game is good (masterpiece, even) but spends the majority of the video on the game's flaws that may or may not be true, and then went self-victim mode when they get totally deserved criticisms.
Sometimes it's because of frustration, for example pokemon
Pokemon fans are so tired of the downwards trend in quality of the games ever since gen 6 that released more than 10 years ago
Gen 6 was decent, ORAS was good, gen 7 was a breath of fresh air with new systems, but the constant hand holding soured the experience, also didn't help that USUM was just the original SM but with a slightly revamped story, so you ended up buying a whole new game for little extra content. Then sword and shield released and was super disappointing for the first switch title, legends arceus was another breath of fresh air but underdeveloped, then gen 9 came out as the first big open world pokemon game, however the open world design with gyms and other challenges not accomodating to your level, so the difficulty of your playthrough could vary a lot if you didn't follow the pre determined path of a supposed open world game
All these pokemon games have their positives and negatives and while gen 9 is definitely better and a step forward compared to gen 8, it doesn't change the fact that pokemon fans have been hopeful that the games would capture the essence of the first 6 gens, gen 4 and 5 especially sense those had a pretty good narrative, gen 6 had the novelty of 3d graphics and mega evolution, legends arceus the novelty of a more action combat gameplay in addition to slightly revamped turn based combat, but other than those games, no pokemon game really comes close to doing something new or groundbreaking for the series
That's kinda why I think we love to point out negatives, to show what could be changed, however we should also point out positives to show what should be kept, for example the constant praise gen 4 and 5 get to their story or gen 6 with the mega evolution mechanic, or legends arceus with the catching pokemon on the field, without entering combat with them
@@pralenkaman8105 the thing is that modern pokemon DOES capture the "essence" of the old games, which is something the community forgets. Pokemon is a customizable pet raising rpg like it has always been, and it has always been fantastic and special in that regard. That is not changed by a national dex, or battle frontier, which is partially why those features were chosen for the chopping block in the first place. The issue is that gamefreak has to balance quality with ambition in a realm where many other games can beat them in both. It's not necessarily a downward trend of quality, but a relocation of an already mediocre quality.
Ya I 100% agree, I don't want fluff positive critics but honestly there isn't much to complain about Elden Ring other than performance. Same thing happened in the Zelda community, for some reason most of the essay videos on Tears Of The Kingdom are all negative. Despite it being one of the best games and a masterpiece in the medium. Most of the critics were just nitpicking small points and basically ignoring all the good stuff which makes your essay look way too biased .
@@tamim3319 to be fair, and I'm not saying tear of the kingdom is a bad game, far from it, but the game did plenty wrong
The underground is very empty, with little to do besides getting armor that isn't even new, most armor in the underground is the dlc armors from breath of the wild. Other than that, all the underground has to offer is zonyte to build vehicles and po souls to use at po statues, there's little side quests there besides the master kogha ones and the spirit temple one too
Then there's the overworld that's pretty much the same as it was in breath of the wild, yes the major regions are changed slightly, but they return to normal once you defeat the temple's boss
Then there's the sky islands, which are cool, but very far between and some of them are very.... VERY small, others are copy paste puzzles, which is understandable, open world and all, but still very unfortunate due to how few there are
Of course there's also the stiry which doesn't take in considerstion what happened in breath of the wild.... but at the same time it does? Like it's very inconsistent, the champions of each region know who you are, but then some other villages like kakariko, people don't even recognize you as the co-owner of what is now zelda's house, even though you're the guy that helped rebuild that house and that side quest is canon due to terry town existing, this game is very inconsistent with its narrative
Now I want to say it again, tears of the kingdom is an amazing game, I definitely had my fun with its mechanics, the vehicles were fun and made exploration feel much better, even with the reuse of the open world there were still some fun mysteries like the whereabouts of zelda and the master sword, the dungeons were a breath of fresh air and the fuse mechanic made fighting higher tier enemies actually worthwhile
This game is great and it can be even greater... if you haven't ayed breath of the wild, because its biggest hinderence is the exploration being too familiar to its predecessor
Thank you for the video, I am pretty much in full agreement! Initially I even groaned at the idea of watching a 2 hour video seemingly about Elden Ring DLC critique because I expected this to be exactly the type of video you're criticising, lol! Thankfully I watched it and I'm very happy for it, since it resonated with thoughts I've had about this for a while. Game critique of popular games has been so deeply poisoned on the internet that I am usually just indisposed to even engage with it, which is a terrible shame since I think there are so many interesting ideas we could be discussing about those games instead of what we usually get with those videos.
Amazing! Glad I brought you around and you ended up enjoying it.
Your conversation about rewards was very interesting. One review of SotE I watched was from a smaller creator, I can't remember their name, but I do remember some of their comments in regard to complaints about areas like Cerulean Coast and Charo's Hidden Grave. They suggested that we, as players familiar with open world games, often interpret emptier areas as automatically being 'bad'. We're used to the general norm of open worlds being cluttered and constantly giving us things to do and find, that an area deciding to use open space in a possibly more poignant sense registers as poorly made or having nothing to find. It really struck a chord with me, as has your video. I've been an ardent defender of the Consecrated Snowfield for this very reason. Sometimes it's just the atmosphere, the immersion of a wide-open yet well-hidden space that acts as its own reward.
I think it's fine to critique the more tangible rewards, of course. But I also think sometimes it's better to ask 'what is this area trying to do/make me feel?' as opposed to 'what does this area have that can personally benefit me?'
I agree. Empty space isn't useless. It serves a purpose.
There is "almost" nothing in Ash Lake, yet it stands tall as one of the more memorable places in the series!
Love how Miyazaki inherits Team Ico games' DNA and preserve these beautiful open spaces tradition in Elden Ring.
Now while that's all well and good, I still wish riding Torrent is more than just a "hold left stick" affair. These areas works much better when the traversal mechanic is also engaging, such as riding Agro in Shadow of the Colossus or the funky walking mechanic in Death Stranding.
Big open spaces _feels empty_ mostly because you can't really do much of anything in it. This is why I despise modern Assassin's Creed where traversal is mind-numbing, as opposed to the older games where you still have to activate neurons in your brain to navigate through the world.
You could look at this the opposite way. "What do I gain from spending an hour riding through a nearly empty area with reused enemies I don't get from fighting those same enemies else where already?" Games are about the gameplay and one of the biggest complaints about Elden ring is how empty or effectively empty the open world is. You just run past enemies to get to locations, so the DLC repeating it isn't what people were looking for. Especially not from a hidden area or multiple hidden areas reusing the same assets as is the case with the fingers. And while you may enjoy the scenary, there are players like myself who really wanted to see what the finger areas were about when we see them in the distance and we got nothing when we arrived there. There was nothing to do but run past enemies and bone out with the horn. But we didn't know that so we still spent time investigating. And then had to do it a second time.
You can say it made you feel something but feelings are so subjective you can't lean into them as a reason for content like this to be in the game. If people say "I don't want to eat more pasta" you can't say "but this pasta will make you feel something" and expect them to be happy when you shove more pasta in front of them. The DLC and base game suffer massively from the side of open areas and no meaningful way to engage with them. So making hard to reach secret areas double down on that thing was objectively a bad idea. If your player base complains about it and you repeat it several more times in something they're paying more for, you should expect them to be pissed off they didn't listen to your feedback.
@@FleshCloud-ey5ro you are also projecting your own feelings onto the game. Conversation is driven by feelings, there's no need to use "objective" jargon.
About the end. It is kind of sad that Joe had to create strawmans in that reddit post to subvert his own created deadline that no one in any seriousness was holding him to.
"You can use a Rune Arc to give even greater benefits to your equipped Great Runes." - implies that there is a benefit to equipping Great Runes, before using a Rune Arc.. and that using a Rune Arc makes that benefit even greater.
I'm genuinely trying to interpret that in another way, but I can't. Remember, some people haven't played Dark Souls. If you didn't already know that's how Great Runes worked, would you really interpret the description any differently?
The argument isn't whether I interpret it differently or even if it is reasonable to assume it could be read in a different way. It is not objective if it isn't a fact.
You can say that the text is really confusing. You can't say that the feature is objectively bugged. Two very different criticisms.
@@GredGlintstone My man, theres alot of hills to die on, Fromsofts conveyance of their item effects and mechanical information is not one of them, Even Miyazaki has said there is room for improvement on their end.
I agree that this is indeed a misleading tooltip - especially if one has not played any souls game - and this fooled me as well. However from context the natural conclusion to me is that this is not a bug, but more likely either a mistranslation or a leftover from previous designs due to a mistake.
I think this is also overall a small issue, and that getting super-mad about it like in the original video is an overreaction, bordering into the "literally unplayable" meme territory.
@@sasaki999pro I don't think he's dying on that hill though?
I just read your thread here. You agree with one another. You both agree that poor conveyance/confusing tooltip is the problem.
I agree with that too btw. I thought for a fair bit of time that equipping the rune had a base effect.
@@albertoorsomariaiorio2823 within context the mechanic of rune arcs is trash if it is indeed supposed to work like that. Time to die in this game is simply too fast for rune arcs to work
this is kendrick lamar levels of picking apart peoples entire careers
Very flattering comparison. Appreciated.
CERTIFIED GAME CRITIC? CERTIFIED NARCISSIST.
@@licota11Whop Whop Whop Whop Whop that'll teach 'em all
Whop Whop Whop Whop Whop bad game they called
Why bother pick up a phone you retard yea
Try to flick a thumb but its prolly
S K I L L I S S U E..............
WOP! WOP! WOP! WOP! WOP! gred fuck em up
Wap Wap Wap Gred fuck 'em up
My hot take I guess is that I don't think anybody has ever actually had their opinion changed by a review or essay. Not when it comes to things like a game and whether said game is any "good", at least.
People just value reviews because it gives them the rhetorical tools to better explain their own feelings. They have already reached a conclusion as a result of having experienced the game, they just want somebody to offer an explanation as to HOW that conclusion was reached.
It's why I think arguing the nitty gritty details of a popular review's argument is a bit futile, as it's making the mistaken assumption that the viewers who agree with the opinions being expressed only do so on the condition that said opinion is wholly factual. Which just isn't the case, more often than not. People echo the sentiment because they share that sentiment.
Look no further than this video's comment section, where replies range from counter-arguments from those clearly unmoved to people feeling like they've finally been seen because somebody has made an essay that validates their own feelings.
You cant logic somebody out of position if logic didn't place them there in the first place, after all. Which is not to say that any one side is the "logical" one here, as art and what art means to you isn't really something you're meant to view through a purely "logical" lens.
I'm also not even really accusing you of believing you can change people's minds or anything, this is just something I've been thinking about a lot whenever I started seeing these back and forths about Elden Ring.
100% agree. I think you can have your opinion changed but you can't make someone "like" something by convincing them it's good or "dislike" something by convincing them it's bad. Thinking of making a video about it. It's why the discourse is so toxic. People are trying to win a war of objective truth about art which is impossible.
@@GredGlintstone Part of why I personally like Joe's videos so much is that I disagree with him often, but he explains his own feelings and their roots in the game very effectively. Sometimes I agree with all or nearly all of his points and felt the same things he did, those thoughts were just overshadowed by elements I enjoyed to result in a more positive overall experience . His BotW review, for example, hits on basically every criticism I have of the game, but the parts of the game I enjoy outshine those criticisms so thoroughly and are so unique to BotW and the games that have been inspired by it that it is still one of my favorite games.
"You cant logic somebody out of position if logic didn't place them there in the first place, after all"
This line is so good man. This applies to almost everything, not only video games.
One thing I have noticed about myself is that constant back-and-forth negativity tends to exhaust me really quickly, and I end up avoiding the subject of discussion because I have a negative association with it now. It's not really about the criticism, though, just the tone of discourse.
So people are just like sheeps? Seems about right huh
I honestly think Joe was traumatised by Jonathan Blow outright saying that he didn't understand The witness. I remember him being audibly emotionally distraught even though he'd seen the clip before. So I guess you could say everything was heading downhill from the very beginning.
Blow said "he didn't get it", but he only watched the first 30 seconds of the video and turned it off. It's such a baffling reaction on Blow's part. Joe's point about the story being intentionally pretentious indeed falls apart when you see Blow, who's otherwise a brilliant programmer, acting like such a simpleton. It seems that Blow really thought he was being clever? Like, really?
@maciejbacal5562 Pretty much, yeah
@maciejbacal5562 being capable at a thing does not imply talent in an unrelated other thing.
When Joseph Anderson something can't be dodged, he means "it can't be dodged in the exact way that I want it to be dodged"
@@anonisnoone6125 By being a single attack used by an optional superboss with plenty of ways to deal with (you can literally run and jump it from point blank).
It is one instance yet Joseph acts like the entire game is filled with situations like this.
Calling stuff like the bestial clergyman's swipe attack unreactable, when that's far form the truth.
@@anonisnoone6125Waterfowl Dance can be evaded by sprint jumping the 1st flurry, then iFrame roll the 2nd one, finally just stand under the 3rd one, it’s really simple. Joe acted like the game has a bunch of unavoidable attacks which is categorically wrong, there isn’t any single unavoidable attack in the game except the NIHIL attack, which is a very cool way to do it, it deserves that aspect, and there’s a physick tear that can protect you from it, it’s what made that attack memorable.
@@theresnothinghere1745
I became aroused upon reading this reply... You're amazing
@@BBQcheeseI’m glad someone else felt the same way
I pretty much deal with waterfowl by anticipating it. I will attack Malenia till she reaches 80% and then I will play super passive and stand at a distance, sometimes running forward and then running backwards in order to bait it out. After baiting it out and sucessfully avoiding it, I will play very aggressive for a while as the move is on cooldown.
It was a bizarre strategy that somehow worked very effectively and felt kinda satisfying to pull off.
I just gotta through this out there... The fromsoft fan base is not the most toxic worst fan base. It's the competitive pokemon fan base. As a man that has had an unhealthy obsession with both franchises I can say hands down that the competitive pokemon fanbase is the worst.
I can only imagine. As an outsider most Pokémon look like they're bunz.
@@Glitchedsoulsborne how bad are we talking? I've never been in Pokemon that deep.
Though as a former RuneScape player, I'd wager their fanbase is so much worse than the Souls community, given there are people who would commit literal crimes if you so much as slight particular people.
Not to mention ddosing, and doxxing. Soulsbros will, at worst, call you names or slurs. It does not compare at all.
@@user-pn4px5lr8w I didn't realize runescape community is like that either wow. Ya the worst the souls community does is say git gud and throw a dung pie at you haha.
From someone who once played League and Overwatch..... Souls is fine...
@@Glitchedsoulsborne ya it's absolutely rotten. It's partly why I've distanced myself from the game, though mostly the gameplay stopped appealing to me.
I find it weird that you’re catching so much harsh criticism from what i assume to be JA fanboys. This is your first big essay. Sure it’s a bit rough around the edges, but it’s still very effective at getting your points across, most of them being very solid points.
Gred made Some good points , Some incredible points, and other not that good like his Matthew interpretation or how he explained the runes arc situation.
I think is fine.Internet discussion can be somewhat cringe, and people often ignore what you had to say to search for flaws in your commentary, the best you can do is to not let It get over your skin.
It's all good! I invited it. My whole point is that critics aren't immune to criticism. That includes me. I'm actually surprised by how well its been received because its pretty harsh and directed to some very popular figures on the platform.
Overall, even JA fanboys have been pretty good about it. Only a vocal minority are upset about it which they have every right to be.
I paused after the Matthewmatosis section because I felt something was missing. I wish you had included the full quotation from his Dark Souls 2 Critique, because it sheds light on the larger argument that he is making. In comparing and contrasting the approaches to difficulty in Dark Souls 2 as opposed to its predecessors, Matosis argues that Dark Souls 2 is difficult in a manner that is unfair to the player while Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls are difficult in a way that is fair and which reinforces the themes and philosophies of those games. Here is the rest of the quote:
“… Miyazaki has been asked to comment on the difficulty of the Souls games, and the answer that he gives, over and over again, is that difficulty was never the point. The games weren’t designed to be challenging just for the sake of it. It was a way to pull you into the world, and the peaks and dips in difficulty can be used to effectively set up a climactic moment like with Orenstein and Smough.”
Here Matosis cites Orenstein and Smough as an example of how DS1 uses its difficulty to create a memorable experience whereas DS2 does not take such considerations into account before replicating punishing gameplay patterns. He then goes on to cite differences in level design/environment, enemy placements, enemy design/attack patterns, boss designs, and more for why Demon’s Souls and DS1 are, indeed, difficult games, but whose difficultLes are both educational and fair to the player.
When presented in this context, many of the quotes you show by Miyazaki actually reinforce Matosis’ argument:
51:04
“Demon's Souls was born out of a desire to return gaming to its fundamentals - that is, to re-embrace the trial and error and difficulty that we used to take for granted, and leave the player to work things out for themselves.”
www.eurogamer.net/souls-survivor
^(This is not actually Miyazaki’s quote. This is a quote from the article’s body. His quote after this sentence reads: “From the outset, we started making it based on a 'back-to-basics' concept. We wanted a 'game-like game', something that was fun in the way games used to be, and we were confident that we could do it.” Please actually attribute Miyazaki’s quotes to him properly if you are going to make an argument about misrepresenting quotes.)
51:23
“Yes, Demon's Souls was known for its incredible difficulty. With Dark Souls, there is no intention to decrease the difficulty at all. Actually, we intend to increase the difficulty of the game but not simply by making the game more difficult but by giving players the freedom to strategise freely and conquer that difficulty, and to be rewarded accordingly.”
soulslore.wikidot.com/das1-variety-is-the-spice-of-death
^(Once again you don’t provide the full quote. The full statement arguably reinforces Matosis’ point. Stop doing this.)
52:28
“I have no intention to make the game more difficult than other titles on purpose! It's just something required to make this style of game. Ever since Demon's Souls, I've really been pursuing making games that give players a sense of accomplishment by overcoming tremendous odds. We've added new items and weapons over the course of the series, and having a certain level of difficulty adds value to those because they incentivise players to experiment more with character builds and weapon load-outs.”
www.wired.com/story/dark-souls-3-hidetaka-miyazaki-interview/
^(Again, you cut out the first part of Miyazaki’s quote which states, in no uncertain terms, that he did not design these games to be more difficult than others on purpose. Seriously, stop doing this.)
52:46
“With Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, we always wanted players to feel a sense of accomplishment. That’s the only reason we went with a higher difficulty.”
www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2017/01/interviews.html?m=1
^(Again, this is not the full quote. Miyazaki continues on this point: “And in this game [Bloodborne] we want players to feel that sense of accomplishment. In order to make that feeling even stronger than before, we needed another pillar other than just a high difficulty. To allow for players to feel that sense of accomplishment, the difficulty must be set at a level that players can overcome. Difficulty isn't something that you can just endlessly raise.”)
53:13
“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn't the right approach. Had we taken that approach, I don't think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy - which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”
www.gamesradar.com/games/action-rpg/hidetaka-miyazaki-says-games-like-elden-ring-have-to-be-hard-if-we-really-wanted-the-whole-world-to-play-the-game-we-could-just-crank-the-difficulty-down/
^(So this is an article quoting from a Guardian interview with Miyazaki. You didn’t exactly present this statement out of context, but Keza MacDonald and Miyazaki are discussing how Elden Ring’s open world design makes it “more approachable than other FromSoftware games.” Miyazaki then says:
(“It’s certainly part of the intention. Elden Ring, by its open world nature and game design, lends the player more freedom. At no point during the game did we want players to feel claustrophobic or overly limited in the scope of what they’re able to do and experience in that world. Instead of the very grim, dark fantasy that you may be used to from past FromSoftware games… it still has that same harshness and coldness, but we wanted to have these moments of beauty. That’s where a little bit of high fantasy comes in, conceptually. Both in terms of the difficulty and the learning curve, as well as the world setting, you feel that you can come up for air.”
www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/21/hidetaka-miyazaki-fromsoftware-elden-ring-shadow-erdtree)
Following your list of quotes, you claim you proved that the Souls games were always about difficulty and trial and error, but I believe here you begin to conflate the arguments made by Matthewmatosis with the misinterpretations of Matosis by Anderson and Feeble King. Matosis never argues to the contrary, and, in fact, he frequently agrees with this both in the DS2 Critique and his other Souls videos. Again, it’s the methodology of DS2’s difficulty that he is criticizing as compared to the more methodical approach taken by Demon’s Souls and DS1.
Also, Matthewmatosis never quotes Miyazaki or claims to be taking a direct quote from him, so to phrase this as him lying prescribes a malicious intent. I know you address this moments later, but at 57:57 you repeat that he’s being dishonest by ignoring other quotes of Miyazaki’s and that’s just not true. Taken Matosis’ argument as a whole, I would argue that he is correct in claiming that Miyazaki’s approach to difficulty is not about difficulty for the sake of itself (as is his argument in context), but, rather, as these interviews attest, for the sake of immersion, which is one of the factors key to the sense of accomplishment Miyazaki mentions repeatedly. Matosis certainly could have worded himself better, though. That I will agree.
56:15 Likewise, you go on to claim that you cannot find the exact phrase “difficulty was never the point,” but then show a quote from Miyazaki expressing a similar statement. (You never link your source for this forum in the description.) Although you challenge the viewer to find a quote exactly like the one Matosis describes, this is a complete non-point. None of the quotations you present ever say “difficulty was the point” in those exact words. You are arguing semantics. Rather than nitpicking Matosis here, I believe it would have been in your better interest to take the larger argument he makes in his DS2 Critique and emphasize how Anderson, Feeble King, and other community members misrepresent Matosis’ original point. This video is supposed to be about formalism, so lumping Matosis in with much worse critics due to a point he would actually agree with you on is just losing the plot.
Thanks for the long thoughtful comment and I applaud you taking a look at all these sources in detail. I actually had no idea that wasn't a direct quote from Miyazaki and it was instead the writer of the article. I really appreciate you pointing that out. Somehow I missed the lack of quotation marks and took it as a direct quote when it wasn't. Big mistake on my part and I've made an amendment in the pinned comment.
In regards to your other points, the issue isn't how Matthew's quote "difficulty was never the point" could be interpreted with the sources I provided. It's that HE didn't provide HIS sources.
Just as you've done with the sources I've cited, you were able to go and look through those articles to get a greater context for what I was arguing. You didn't agree with what I was arguing, and that's fine. But I gave you that opportunity. Matthew did not.
We don't know which articles he referenced to make that quotation. He says Miyazaki echoes this sentiment in "practically every interview he's ever taken" but isn't able to produce one example. That is the issue. And although you've interpreted that quote to mean that it is satisfaction that is the point, and not difficulty, many didn't.
The issue is that quotation has been used as an argument for a good deal of people online saying these games were not meant to be difficult. You can chalk that up to a lack of critical thinking but the problem is that Matthew didn't provide the opportunity for people to form their own view with Miyazaki's own words. That's why citing your sources is important, as you have found while looking through mine.
Again, really appreciate you catching that misattribution of the quote. That was a real blunder and I do apologise.
@@GredGlintstone That’s a fair complaint to have, and I sympathize with it, but you end up projecting malicious intent onto Matosis for problems he never intended to cause or incite, and this ends up going beyond criticism mischaracterization. If he knew people were doing this, I have no doubt he’d be embarrassed and annoyed. Personally, it feels as though you misidentify the source of your gripes and pick an inappropriate battle that, in my opinion, damages your own argument by way of echoing the reactionary content of Anderson and Feeble King.
Also, I remember replying to my own post with more stuff on the matter, but I no longer see it so I’ll just copy and paste it below. Apologies in advance. It was supposed to have been read with the original comment and offered a larger critique of your approach. Feel free to just disregard or ignore it:
-
This is already a long comment and I feel like I’ve made my point, but you challenged the viewer to find quotes similar to what Matthewmatosis said. Ignoring the ones that I feel you misquoted or misrepresented, here’s what I found:
“I feel like our approach to these games, not just Elden Ring, is to design them to encourage the player to overcome adversity. We don’t try to force difficulty or make things hard for the sake of it. We want players to use their cunning, study the game, memorize what’s happening, and learn from their mistakes. We don’t want players to feel like the game is unfairly punishing, but rather that there’s a chance to win a difficult encounter and make progress.”
blog.playstation.com/2022/01/28/an-interview-with-fromsoftwares-hidetaka-miyazki/
“I personally want my games to be described as satisfying rather than difficult. However, I suppose gamers do not particularly prefer easy games. What they want is interesting and worthwhile games to play, so I think it is natural that hindrance or stress that does not attribute to such interesting and worthwhile elements will be removed in the end.”
www.gamespot.com/articles/dark-souls-director-says-difficulty-serves-satisfaction/1100-6394583/
“Well, there were of course several moments where I had to stop things and take a step back and consider the difficulty. But it's not necessarily that I say 'oh, this is too difficult,' but instead the term I usually use is 'unreasonable.' So, that's the term I tend to use when I have these conversations with the development team…. When you think about it, the difficulty in the Dark Souls franchise so far has been something that players have eventually been able to overcome. So when I show concern to the development team members, that's why the term I use is unreasonable - basically, we don't want to go too far. It's about striking a balance.
www.vg247.com/dark-souls-3-miyazaki-bloodborne-interview
“‘Dark Souls without challenge, that cannot exist,’ Miyazaki said, responding to a commonly asked question about whether this new Dark Souls will be any more or less difficult than past games. But he said he prefers not to use the word ‘difficulty’ when talking about Dark Souls games. Instead he talks about players overcoming challenges.”
www.polygon.com/2015/8/10/9115299/dark-souls-3-hidetaka-miyazaki-interview-gamescom
^(Admittedly not really a direct quote, but I think Miyazaki’s own avoidance of the word “difficulty” still says a lot in Matosis’ favor.)
This video was disappointing. You begin seeming to promise a proper formalist critique of bad games reviewers like Anderson and Feeble King, and you kind of provide that, but after a certain point the video adopts similar rhetorical strategies to those you’re critiquing that is, at times, pedantic to the point of complete irrelevance (the sections about Camus and Nietzsche), argumentation about opinion rather than about the presentation of said opinions (the sections about Elden Ring’s improvements), excessive repetitiveness and redundancy, and low insults aimed at your subjects of critique (deserved but still eye rolling).
Your depictions of Matthewmatosis here are really what broke the video for me, because you end up adopting the same shallow interpretations that Anderson has of Matosis’ arguments and use that as a basis for critiquing Matosis himself. Avoid imitating the people you are attempting to critique if possible. Be the better critic and don’t stoop to their level if you want to prove a point. I understand this video aims to be catharsis for yourself and others (like me) who detest awful YT critics like Anderson, but it only makes you seem every bit as juvenile in thought and execution.
Sorry if this is a harsh critique. Best of luck in future videos.
@@thehornswoggler4619 I appreciate you feel that way but my intent wasn't malicious. I found out about the quote while researching Feeble and seeing him quote Matthew as a mouthpiece for Miyazaki cemented for me the damage that lack of citation caused.
I understand that could lead Matthew to feeling embarrassed and annoyed but it still needed to be said.
Matthew is conflated into this larger point that I make about critics arguing developer intent without doing their research. He catches some stray fire for sure. But he is an important figure in the conversation because of how many critics I mention are influenced by him, and particularly how this quote has been repeated by Feeble and others.
I do try to make clear however that Matthew is not the primary subject of the video. He comes up but he isn't the focus.
Yes, I do imitate in some ways the critiques I am critiquing. The intent was to critique their critiques in their own style. It is in some ways a meta-commentary. Cynical, yes. But that's how I felt I needed to make this video at the time.
No need to apologise for harsh critique. I do a good deal of that myself in the video and I am not immune.
@ My criticisms probably go beyond the scope of this video, so I appreciate your responses. I personally tend to be skeptical of critique that imitates its targets, because, at a certain point, depending on the quality, it stops feeling like an act or a parody and becomes a simulacra indistinguishable from the object of ridicule in question. Granted, you acknowledge this with the “they digress, so shall I” bit, but I’m just not sure if retroactively this approach will make viewers believe your own debunking isn’t fallible in the same way as Anderson or Feeble’s pseudo-analyses. I guess I’m also arguing about intention at this point, though, so maybe this is, in equal measure, a form of conjecture.
I think what most people need to realise is that critics, alongside their criticisms aren't immune to being criticised and that they aren't immune to being wrong at times. Many often just goes with the loudest opinion too and that for some reason just instantly kills their ability to think critically
Feeble King unintentionally mimicking Anderson's cadance is so uncanny valley...
You think it is unintentional?
I agree with most of your points, but i really believe that you're misinterpreting Matthewmatosis and calling him a liar seems unfair and wrong.
You left out what he said after "difficulty was never the point", he continues: "... the games weren't designed to be challenging just for the sake of it, it was a way to pull you into the world and the peaks and dips in difficulty can be used to effectively set up a climactic moment like the fight with Ornstein and Smough"
My interpretation of the full quote is that Matthewmatosis just points out that Miyazaki sole intent wasn't to make the games hard, but the point is how the challenge of the games affect the player in different ways, with the purpose of the player finally overcoming the challenge.
In my opinion this correlates with the quotes you mention from Miyazaki.
I can give you that Matthew paraphrased a bit loosely, but does that really justify you calling him a liar?
I had the opinion as you at first, but after looking at the interviews, I believe Gred knows it and decided to cut quotes mid-sentence to favor his interpretation. The Souls Lore 2011 one, for example: 51:23
"Yes, Demon's Souls was known for its incredible difficulty. With Dark Souls, there is no intention to decrease the difficulty at all. Actually, we intend to increase the difficulty of the game"
Gred, for some reason, thought it would be appropriate to just cut the sentence, even without using "(...)" at the end to indicate that there was more, especially when the rest of that sentence is this:
"(...) but not simply by making the game more difficult but by giving players the freedom to strategise freely and conquer that difficulty, and to be rewarded accordingly."
So, making the reasonable assumption that he read the interviews he linked, I find it hard to believe he didn't do this intentionally. There are examples of Miyazaki essentially making the same point in the Bloodbornewiki and the Keza MacDonald interviews as well.
@@Tearatom95Huh, and this is quite weird because this could even benefited Gred argument for ER defense as well, as they never changed that mentality.
Increasing difficulty is the point, always that the player gains new options to strategice and overcome the challenges, is just not for the sake of messing Up the players.
I seriously not sure why did he even removed that Part, It makes his argument against Matthew a bit worse.
@@JoseViktor4099 Yeah, this is what I find frustrating about Gred here. He could have made a stronger argument by first acknowledging MM point and saying both of them agree in the essence of the point, the difficulty is not just how high it is but how and why as well, but the way MM said it multiple times gave people the wrong impression. Maybe mention why MM said it like that was because he was trying to overcompensate for the push of Nanco and DS2 of high difficulty, which sadly might have created another problem.
But I guess he thought it would be more impactful if he constructed a scenario to say Matthew lied, which is especially egregious for a video that has a "Set the record straight" vibe and a critique of youtubers being overly destructive.
@@Tearatom95 Yeah, and is a shame, becuase his points were very good otherwise, and seems to acknowledge some of his mistakes.
Although, Idk if I read for him that he though his Matthew point was the worst as well, to the point it would had been heavily modified. Perhaps this was he was talking about?
@@JoseViktor4099 If the modification is about changing "MatthewMatosis is lying" to "MatthewMatosis wrong interpretation effects on the community" then I guess it is. He still accusing him of lying, tho. So I hope Gred says that in the future. The funniest thing about all this, though, is that Gred himself made the exact same mistake he is accusing MatthewMatosis of doing. In same way that Miyazaki never said the words "Difficulty was never the point" he also never said "Difficulty is the point". Both of these are reasonable interpretations. The former is incorrect if the person thinks difficulty is not important at all, and the latter is wrong if they think difficulty is everything and can be raised without consideration.
The issue is that Greds point of Matthew,in the way presented in the video, just makes no sense. His central claim is that Matthew is lying about Miyazaki saying in multiple interviwes in the past that "Difficulty is not the point."
Gred is being very sneaky here because the scenario he presented was Matthew saying Miyazaki said ,literally the words, "Difficulty was never the point" multiple times. And in that scenario, that is the truth. However, Matthew never said that. For example, if someone says something like this:
(This is an interview Gred presented, the Bloodbornewiki one)
"And in this game, too, we want players to feel that sense of accomplishment. In order to make that feeling even stronger than before, we needed another pillar other than just a high difficulty. To allow for players to feel that sense of accomplishment, the difficulty must be set at a level that players can overcome. Difficulty isn't something that you can just endlessly raise."
Let's say, after reading this, you make the statement: "Miyazaki is saying that difficulty is not the point." Unless the person says Miyazaki literally said those words, this is an interpretation of his quote. With that in mind, you can still can be seen as a liar, if your interpretation is wild and not reasonable. Now it's time to ascertain if that judgment is. If someone said that to me, I would think this person's opinion is about how the sense of accomplishment is the point. Difficulty is important, but it needs to be connected to ways the players can do it in a way the developers think is worthwhile. However, if the person that gave me this judgment said, after hearing my opinion of his take, said that I'm wrong and what they actually think is that Miyazaki is saying difficulty is not important at all. Then I would say that they are insane or just a lying.
Matthew never says that difficulty is not important, and nothing that Gred showed demonstrated as such. So MM never lied about the quotes, and Matthews interpretation of Miyazaki point is totally reasonable. So unless, Gred thinks difficulty * is * something that can be endlessly raised, both of them agree here. And this is why Greds argument should have been about how the way MM phased it and how over the years it snowballed into something that he could have prevented, or something like that.
Correction: Nietzsche wasn’t a nihilist, but he probably would love souls games. Nietzsche was all about strength and overcoming, and fighting as an individual to explore new ideas that went beyond social convention. His writing is full of contradiction, but apart from early interest in Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was a philosopher who aimed to affirm life, to affirm that which you experience and say yes to your sufferings and your joys (hence “das Schwerste Gewicht”-the greatest weight part of The Gay Science).
To the bit just after: This is from the Genealogy of Morals, where Nietzsche is trying to refute Christian morality that gives a meaning to the suffering of the lowly-blessed are the meek, the poorest go to heaven etc. He sees his entire social culture as having been produced by what he deems a sickly morality that in this way affirms suffering. This critique is a part of his broader project of transvaluation, to reevaluate and move past present morals and create a culture of life affirming values that seek to excel and to overcome. He believed this was a task that would only be done by a few individuals who were true free thinkers and brave enough to reject social conventions and basically pursue the unknown. So here, he is accusing European society of having created false meaning for suffering, when in reality suffering has no higher purpose and what we must do is struggle to overcome it or at least affirm it/see it’s merits and better ourselves through it.
(Which again….supports a Souls approach.)
I think a lot of these creators have interpreted “critique” to mean “point out all the flaws in something and ignore the positives in the name of artistic improvement” and not “provide a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a piece of artwork for the benefit of the broader discussion of the piece”, and the implied exclusivity of “critique” helps them feel more comfortable in sticking to their guns and not taking any criticism themselves. I’ve felt put off by Joseph’s work for a while now and couldn’t put my finger on why, but I think the “my job is to provide criticism for creators and I’m doing them a favor” mindset is exactly the problem
Critique can mean anything you want it to mean. There is no codified set of laws which require a critique to take a balanced view of a game, or to also point out positives. As a player I want to know what someone's time is like with a game. That can start with objective things such as how good is the options menu, how usable is the UI, do you have a good system but yet are getting poor frame rate issues. Everything else about the game is subjective. Was it fun, was it easy, did you enjoy certain sections and so on. Hearing what you didn't like is more valuable to me as a player because i can determine whether your concerns are anything like the same as mine.
What I don't need is a puff piece extolling every last virtue of the game. We already have "game journalists" who do that. People like to hear nice things being said about the games they love, its the equivalent of someone being told they're pretty. There's nothing wrong with that, but you learn nothing by hearing that, except your opinion for liking a game is validated. However the negatives are far more valuable to you. Ultimately its up to the individual viewer to find a variety of views, you should never take a single critiquer's views as the gospel. You need time and experience with any given critiquer to know whether they run negative, positive or somewhat in the middle. As long as they are consistent and you know their biases then you can use them as a valuable resource. Critiquers who are not consistent are worthless.
@@Blackened30 It is very much widely accepted that 'critique' means a COMPREHENSIVE analysis of an artistic piece, philosophical theory, etc.
Even so, you yourself used a strawman argument here. The guy didn't say "I want puff pieces"; he said "a thorough and comprehensive analysis", which in no way implies hearing only the positives. Furthermore, "I want to know what someone's time is like with a game" and saying you want to hear predominantly the negatives can lead to antithetical results. It can result in a critique that convinces you the critic had a bad time, even if his opinion might be overwhelmingly positive. Few people are going to exclusively follow a critic to the point they get their 'language', style, and unspoken implications.
You use another strawman argument when talking about puff pieces and "the equivalent of being told you're pretty". To say (or imply, because you did) there's little to no nuance and a failure to evoke artistic understanding in talking about the positives is blatantly false, not to mention... IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE! If it was that easy to make something good, and thus to analyze why that thing is good and how it manged to invoke strong positive feelings, everybody would be doing it. This especially applies to something as complex and with as many components as video games. The same work of art not only can but WILL be adored by different people for different reasons; hell, that applies to individual bits within that work. There's plenty of nuance and exploration in understanding why something succeeded for the critic and reasons to express that appreciation in the hopes of expanding on the discussion around that something. Besides, the validation point you mentioned can absolutely apply to the negative-focused critiques.
I'm not saying talking about the positives is inherently better, because it isn't. But that applies the other way around as well. I hate this myth of 'all positive critiques are the same, all negative critiques are negative in their own way'. Furthermore, you won't find most critics of any artistic medium try to offer suggestions to the artist, nor be expressly negative for a work they predominantly enjoyed, for the simple reason that they understand what their job is. Even if it isn't codified (a statement with very questionable validity), there is in fact a strong understanding of the role of the critic within art.
@@ThroughfulGamer95 My view is that game critique is different than any other form of artistic critique because there are so many variables involved. What does a comprehensive analysis of a game mean? Do you need to complete it? Do you need to complete it on every difficulty, as well as new game plus modes, find all the secrets and kill every optional boss? Do you need to do every last thing possible? Very few games critics who cover a wide variety of games have time to do that, let alone come back to it 6 months later after several patches have dropped. The single game or single genre critic or the ones who release a large video every 6 months can do that. The retrospective game critic looking at a 5 year old game that's "finished" might do that. An art or book critic has a much easier job since any single piece they analyze will never change over time. The term "game critic" can cover anything from someone who's played a few hours and is now giving you their opinion on that time to the 6 hour in depth analysis. One of those is of more worth to me before I buy a game, and one is of more worth to me after I do. Where the line stops between a review and critique is blurry.
Critics are rarely that positive about games because its not their job to be, in the same way that movie critics can spend 20 minutes bringing up all the faults and missed opportunities and in the end say they enjoyed their time with it. The idea of being critical is to find fault, all of them, even in the most wonderful of games. I don't take it to mean that the critic didn't enjoy their time unless they specifically state that. For me its them saying here is what I feel is wrong, see if it matters to you. I find that extremely valuable, especially from a valuation perspective of whether something is worth my time and money. A retrospective critic working to understand the actual value of a project is an entirely different animal, with an entirely different frame of reference where they may go more into the positives and negatives and dive deeply into all facets of a game. These are the ones who are more likely to talk about the game as art, instead of the functional nuts and bolts that make a game worth playing. Critics making suggestions to game developers isn't something that bothers me, everyone has an opinion on what makes for a better game, and everyone is free to share that.
To touch on positive critiques for a moment, I appreciate it when a critic tells me they enjoyed their time with a game and why they did. I appreciate when they tell me yes these are the faults, but that didn't stop me from loving the overall. When I say I learn from the negatives, I mean the other 2 hours they just spent tearing apart the mechanics are more informative to me. There's also nothing wrong with someone writing what amounts to a love letter to their favorite games with only minor criticism or none at all. You can argue about whether that constitutes a critique or not, but I don't find those to be learning pieces. They feel good to watch, and that's all. True puff pieces come from professional games journalists primarily for reasons that I find disingenuous much of the time.
@@Blackened30 A lot of what you said is based on what I think are false or flawed premises, the primary being that there isn't a very recognizable, identifiable differentiation between review and critique. There very much is. The point of a review is endorsement for a product or the lack of it; it serves an economical purpose. A critique is comprehensive analysis of an artistic piece (and other things) achieved through critical thought and an informed perspective. Joe himself has echoed that same idea, and stated that his critiques are intended for those who have already experienced the games, not as a review for those going in blind.
Yes, I'd argue it borders on inarguable that in a critique, the critic at least completed a regular run of the game, and not necessarily NG+ or all the difficulties. I agree that with games, 'comprehensive' can be a bit hard to define in SOME cases, but let's not stretch that to the point of meaninglessness. Furthermore, you're confusing why critics are called critics. It's not because 'being critical' means showcasing the unfavorable elements, but because they're trying to build appreciation for a piece through critical thought and analysis. Yes, that also means pointing out what they see as shortcomings, but I've still rarely, if ever, heard a movie or music critic be almost exclusively negative in their reviews of works they've mostly enjoyed.
Another premise I think is flawed is the idea that more positive critiques have no educational value. Again, the main point of artistic critique is to invoke artistic appreciation, whether that ends up being positive, negative or a mix of both. Expounding on the positives absolutely can offer deep insight into how one achieves such great accomplishments, and indirectly, where further improvement could be implemented to achieve even greater heights.
Furthermore, finding shortcomings in mechanics, the "functional nuts and bolts" as you said, will not provide an objectively more valuable evaluation because it is NOT objective. Unless we're strictly talking about the driest of facts like bugs and frame data, the ultimate evaluation will still be subjective, because a game critic observes those objective elements - of how the game's mechanics fundamentally work - and finds subjective meaning in the whole. Two action game critics could make vastly different evaluations on the same action game, like many did with Sekiro for example. A critic making negative evaluations on that front is thus no more or less inherently educational or significant than the critic making positive ones. In part, because there is another false premise here, which is that positive evaluations do not go just as in-depth into the nitty-gritty as the negative ones.
Finally, negative critiques have absolutely been rightfully accused of being disingenuous, farming engagement, and acting on bad faith. I've seen my fair share. Hell, professional games journalists do such things all the time, too. Not to mention using game journalists to comparatively devalue positive critiques makes little sense in the context of the wider internet and business of critical evaluation. They're monetarily incentivized to be more positive then they ought to for those future review codes, like you implied. However, in the world of freelance critics and RUclips, where negativity and rants are proven stronger tools to accrue audience engagement, it would make more sense that negative evaluations have a higher chance of being disingenuous, with the opposite being true for more positive ones.
@@ThroughfulGamer95 A review can certainly be endorsement or lack of endorsement for a product, but it doesn't need to be. A review for me is a simplistic view of a game that can be gleaned in a quick video or small article. It exists to give an explanation and possibly a viewpoint of a game that's bite sized. It can end with a meaningless score out of 10 or with an endorsement or lack thereof, but it doesn't have to. It could simply end with someone saying they enjoyed the game, which you could take as endorsement if you're so inclined. The only mandatory requirement of a review is that the person reviewing finished the game. Not 100% completion of all optional content, but you do need to know what you're talking about to evaluate a whole game. People tend to get angry when a reviewer admits they didn't play the whole game. You could refer to a review as a quick and dirty critique, because judgement of the various games systems as well as the story and how well it all worked together as a whole is implied.
Between the review and the 6 hour no-holds-barred entirely comprehensive critique of a game sits a wealth of analysis videos. RUclips has made it possible for people to really get down in the weeds if they wish. A creator could make a 2 hour video containing commentary on only the first 15 minutes of a game. They could talk extensively about the first encounters, the layout and graphical style, the effectiveness of the opening cinematic and a whole host of other analysis, comparisons and overview of how well it all worked for them. I would label this a critique of that section of a game. Its absolutely comprehensive in its subject matter, albeit with a narrow focus on a sub-section of the game. This is where I mean the definition of critique in the gaming sphere is not defined, and I think still evolving. This is subjective, so if your opinion is a critique has a narrower definition then fair enough.
You are right to say that mechanical analysis doesn't provide more objective evaluation, which was not a point I intended to make. There are very few, if any objective evaluations within any video game critique that can be made. There is a subset of the viewing audience who scream about such things, but I think it always has to be understood that what you're watching is someone's opinion on something that's already as subjective as a video game is in the first place. Of course mechanics such as how fast a move can be used or how smooth movement feels is going to vary between people, which is why getting a variety of viewpoints on a game is critical.
My own view is I find more value in the negative opinion of a given system or element of a game because people do expand on it more. They feel the need to defend that viewpoint, so tend to wax much longer on those points. For me the more information you give me about how you feel about a certain element the more I learn and understand about your view of things. I love mechanics, its something I've always enjoyed since the earliest days of my tabletop gaming days. I care very much about how and why something works for a given individual. If some element of a game isn't brought up in a given video then I assume its something that is liked, or isn't notable to that creator. Its also much more obvious to me why something is liked then why its disliked, and that's why I want to hear a 20 minute derailment of someone's main point as they go into exactly what it was that didn't work for them. Its probably just me and who I am, and if others find the positives as interesting then fair enough. For me, I simply learn more from what is disliked. So its not going to bother me if someone spends three hours shredding a game I love, because I already know why it works for me. I want to know why it didn't work for you. For me the mechanics are in many ways the core of any game, so its vitally important. Games as art and whether all games are art or not is a whole other subject, though I think games are more than art and it can be limiting to think of them in only one way.
As to accusations of creators being disingenuous, every creator at one time or another faces accusations. I imagine every video has its detractors. I don't have an opinion on that. I don't have the ability to see into anyone's mind and determine their intent. I'm generally fine with taking a creator's opinions stated as their true opinion because it frankly causes no harm to believe so. If they state they're playing Devil's Advocate or very obviously saying something provocative because they know it will get a rise, again that doesn't bother me. Trying to get a rise out of your audience to create engagement is as old as humanity I imagine. Professional game outlets and their stock of rostered staff I tend to view differently.
As I'm listening to this video I keep thinking back to Joseph Anderson's Lies of P video where he constantly makes asides with saying how "embarrassed" he is that he keeps praising the game and even admits he doesn't like the format where he pulls the "criticism trigger" for more than half the runtime. I think that really makes me think you have a serious point with all this.
As a fan of Joseph's videos, I thought I was going to disagree with a lot of the points from this video because I usually agree with him, but I was surprised to get a better understanding of Miyazaki's intent for the Souls series and see how so many RUclipsrs misconstrue that design as just a way to demonstrate their own skills, that if they die, that's a failure on the game's part. Viewing the games as wanting the player to experiment with different playstyles because their first option may not work all the time makes a lot of sense and I'm surprised that Matthew's misinterpretation of that design influenced so many people, even many channels that I like.
I haven't seen Joe's video on Elden Ring because I haven't played the game yet (it sounds like a game I would absolutely love to play but there are so many games these days and I'm slowly appreciating older games from my backlog for now), but from what I hear, it's the kind of critique video that gives a disclaimer that it's his favorite game of all time, but then he spends hours focusing on negatives of the game. I don't think this style of video is bad entirely, I love playing games that stay in my mind so much that I have to seek every piece of information I can find on it (Dark Souls, The Last of Us, PT, Undertale, The Beginner's Guide, Hollow Knight, Celeste, Outer Wilds, etc etc), even including what other people dislike about it, but if that kind of video is the first experience someone has with a game, I can definitely see it negatively impacting their own impression of the game before they've even played it, which sucks for everyone in that situation; the person viewing, the uploader who thought he was doing a service for his favorite game, and the developers of the game because now they lost a potential player.
I can definitely understand the mindset behind it, "I love a game so much that I'm comfortable enough to deconstruct it and criticize it", but I wish videos gushing about good games trended more or played a bigger part in these critique videos. Maybe from their perspective, they wrote positive comments in their scripts but edited them out because it made the flow of the video weird. Maybe they know why they love a game and they feel like others feel that same way too so they don't feel it's necessary to bring up the positives. Maybe they read a negative comment on one of their last videos that stayed in their mind for so long they felt they needed to respond to it in a grand comprehensive way, when the commenter probably didn't think about it anymore after positing it. Most of these channels definitely want to be game designers, but hell, I would love to be a game designer too, so I can't fault them for thinking this will help them get to that point.
To give Joseph credit, he makes a big deal at the start of most of his videos that if you haven't played the game yet, stop the video now and do that as soon as you can, even giving some games multiple warnings since he knows there will be people that ignore that first warning but the game is really worth playing. Those disclaimers made me try so many different games that I would end up loving, so I really appreciate that.
I really agree that this style of video is becoming way overplayed now. For me it was new, interesting, and thought provoking when Matthew Matosis started it over decade ago, but now that there are hundreds of channels copying that style, either doing it worse or being far too negative, and that it's evolved over the years from 20-40 minute videos into 10+ hour videos, I've just started ignoring them more and more when they show up in my feed. A lot of these creators have the idea that if they keep adding to the length of the video, the more impressive it would look to their audience, but it just makes me think that the video will be bloated with unrelated side tangents or just be a complete retelling of the story. The Witcher 3 video has been Joseph's white whale for years, but I don't really care about The Witcher series, and I suspect that Joe stopped caring for the series too. At least, I hope he has. I don't want Joe to spend years on a project all about criticizing a 10 year old game that hundreds of other RUclipsrs have already made multi-hour long critiques about. I'd rather watch him stream games for fun like Paper Mario or Kingdom Hearts or whatever other weeb games his audiences recommends him. I might have gotten tired of the essays, but his streams are always a lot of fun, and I think he knows that too considering he's only uploaded 3 videos on his main channel in the past four years, deleting his Patreon a few years back as well.
I could argue that you were a bit too harsh on him or other RUclipsrs that make these style of videos (like Feeble, I don't know him but I don't want to assume he's a bad guy because I watched one video showing where he was wrong), we all make mistakes, we're all learning what works and what doesn't on RUclips together, these creators aren't just single-minded video essay machines, etc, but on the other hand, this is giving these critique channels a taste of what they usually do to games, unrelentless criticism for art that was just intending to entertain. Maybe/hopefully this video will influence RUclipsrs to focus on more positive and fun projects, rather than concentrating negativity.
It must be weird of me to leave a such an extensive comment on a review of a review of a review of a game I don't know much about, but the video isn't really about Elden Ring, it's about critique videos that I've watched hundreds of before, so I was invested the whole way through.
Sorry for the long stream of random thoughts. I thought this comment was going to be a paragraph long but I just kept writing.
Appreciate the thoughtful comment.
I was definitely harsh and I don't think they're bad guys. I just don't like what they're doing.
Really happy you approached it with an open mind as a Joe fan.
One aspect of criticism that I've seen of the DLC that rubbed me the wrong way was the "Marvel Expectations" that a lot of creators had about the dlc.
So many of them were so excited for the DLC not as the next chapter/conclusion of the story of Elden Ring but because it could fill a wishlist of seeing their favorite lore characters finally be someone that they could meet (and probably battle). This isn't bad to want but when you don't get your fan fiction come true you can't just get pissed that From Soft didn't include a character thet you placed too much importance over their actual relevance to the story. This goes especially for Godwyn, The Gloam Eyed Queen, and Melina because there was some genuine rage from the fans that they weren't given entire textbooks of lore in the DLC despite just not being as relevant as theh thought. Of course we're not going to bring up the entire encyclopedia of single mention Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro characters because this is totally the first time FS hasn't followed up on a character's story *cough* Velka *cough*. I distinctly remember Ziostorm breaking down the design of the curseblades when they were first teased and he kept relating their design back to Godwyn despite them not remotely being related lore-wise now that the DLC is out. Im not saying that people can't have theories and speculation but I'm so tired that fandoms will now treat theories and speculation as gospel even if it goes against actual cannon, I like Vaati as much as the next guy but he shouldn't be treated as fact just because he's the most popular.
And what pisses me off the most about this is that the story of Elden Ring as we know it was only 1/3rd of the way uncovered and was still being pieced together a while after the game came out but a ton of people looked at the DLC lore for like a week to put everything together, made their lore videos and called it a day and then complained that it was "too shallow". I'm still mad about a post I made on a forum trying to discuss some of the thematic and lore implications of the Final Boss of the DLC but because the final boss was considered "bad" I got a bunch of responses telling me that it "wasn't that deep" and I was "coping on a meta level", when the entire point of the vagueness of souls games is about the speculation and themes of the game itself (TBF some sections of the ER lore community are so media comprehension starved that they thought the genocide of the Hornsent and their culture was completely justified). Someone made an entire video essay diving into the color symbolism of Elden Ring but it's crazy to think that FS may have put more than five minutes of thought into the final boss of the DLC even if the choice of boss wasn't 100% agreed with by everyone in the community.
@@anonisnoone6125 No, no. Calling the lore lackluster after not exploring it is not valid, it's just being impatient. You know one thing I heard back in 2022? that ER itself had lackluster lore. Now that 2 years have passed it's just the DLC that failed to provide. It's cyclical, people are impatient and take their visceral reaction to things as the absolute truth, then it's left for the actual lore channels to explore it and suddenly things change.
I'm new to this community but apparently this cycle is old enough that it also happened in Dark Souls 3.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd one of the most cited reasons for the dlc's lore being "bad" is that Radahn being Miquella's consort doesn't make sense because if Radahn likes killing things why is he siding with a supposed god of peace. The explanation is incredibly obvious. The npc that said "Radahn only likes killing things" is wrong. (It's her word against Jarren's and Jarren is much more trustworthy)(also her loyalty is to Miquella, not Radahn, and she's trying to justify Miquella's actions in reviving Radahn). Radahn is siding with Miquella because he can act as a protector of the realm, similar to his idol Godfrey. More importantly, Marika had her share of enemies and she was backed by the creator of the universe. Miquella is going to have enemies and he knows it because the history of the Lands Between is a circle.
More importantly, this is entirely happening because the community doesn't want to see Radahn as anything less than a hero.
@@puncherofbread That cited reason has a very easy explanation - Radahn's consent is entitely a mystery.
He wasn't in on this vow entirely willing - he had to die for it, for one, but for another - Miquella is the damn demigod of charm, he has pulled stunts like this several times over, in the basegame alone.
@@DanielFerreira-ez8qd I always thought it was clear that Radahn rejected Miquella's offer to be his lord. The memory we see at the end of the fight is Radahn's with miquella talking to him. He tells him that he's going to become a god and begs for Radahn to be his consort, in which nothing is said. Radahn rejected Miquella, and his charm (which the boss armor talks about). Miquella was obsessed with Radahn and would do anything to have him, going so far as to have Malenia suicide bomb him. Once Radahn was dead Miquella can put his soul into a body that was already charmed and control him like he's always wanted. Everything Radahn does from halting his own fate with the stars, refusing to die in Caelid, and his ideology points towards Radahn being forced into the role against his will.
This is all just one possible conclusion to come to with the DLC and it's really disheartening when people say it doesnt make sense and undeservingly dunk on it when this is some of the best and most complex lore FS has put out
@@xXTallertechXx People were tunnel-visioned into Godwyn being a figure Miquella also looked up to, which meant the Radahn reveal made no sense to some people.
Sees 'Feeble' rocking Radahn armor and Guts Greatsword, "Oh, okay."
He's just cosplaying Kevin, L2den Lord
Radahn Armour really is the DS3 Fallen Knight armour isn't it. You can assume pretty safely that anyone you see wearing it is... not very good
@@OverFjell Hell nah, Fallen Knight is cool as hell.
@@OverFjellthe type of player to get meme parried 4 times in a row and mash out of parry stun again
@@dragonwings206 the type of player you roll catch twice in a row so they roll a third time and you catch them again
I'm grateful for this video. The pseudo-intellectual multi-hour RUclips review-as-essay has been the worst trend in games criticism. It's the same material as we've always had, just stretched over hours and presented as well thought out by merit of being long. The irony of praising a video over 2 hours long isn't lost on me.
Also the Miyazaki misquote (fauxquote?) has annoyed me for years and I'm very glad you took the time to call it as such.
Thank you for articulating my thoughts far better and more concisely than I could have hoped to
After watching some of Loopine's videos around the same topic regarding Feeble King and others, seeing this video in my recommendations and giving it a watch has truly vindicated my entire mindset about these sorts of creators. I remember giving both Anderson and Feeble's videos a watch when Elden Ring released, fully believing most of what they talked about, buying into pretty much all of it. As a new fan to these games because of Elden Ring back then, I didn't think much of it, but these last 2 years and the release of the DLC really opened my eyes as to just how awful so many online self-proclaimed "game critics" are at critique. Honestly, the problem extends outside video games as well, as other media are plagued by very similar bad faith or terrible critics, and this topic could've extended far beyond just the extent of Elden Ring and Soulslikes in general. The entire landscape of online media "critique" has been, in my opinion, over saturated with individuals just like Anderson and Feeble. Bad at proper critique, negativity centered, and filled with lies, disingenuous arguments, or hypocritical statements.
Honestly, the moment that broke me more than anything was Feeble's DLC video and his disregard for getting to see St. Trina, and saying the "real" reward was just a cookbook. As someone who loves the lore of Elden Ring, that blatant hand waving away of one of the game's most important and enigmatic characters in the lore felt, to me, more disrespectful to the people who worked on the DLC than just calling them lazy. Calling them "absurdly lazy" is one thing, but to do that, not even acknowledging the artistry of her design, the somber music, the revelation of getting to see someone the community had been speculating about for over 2 years, not even a passing mention of her was a more direct level of disrespect that showed, right then and there, how shameless his "critique" was.
Edit: misspelled "Loopine"
I loved reading through your comment, I agree with everything, don’t worry, there are a lot of people like me and you who appreciate the game’s artistry while not being too negative, Elden Ring with its DLC is my favorite game of all time and I’m a huge Soulsborne guy that has been playing their games for years now.
On "oversaturation of ... negativity ...": Negativity sells, and RUclips becoming a viable source of income for many these days may have played into that. I don't have any scientific sources rn but I'm confident enough that we can find papers on that easily, since drama and outrage has been a mainstream media staple for long. Just from a layman's perspective, videos that take a negative approach almost always has a higher view count than the positive ones. Channels like CinemaSins took advantage of this to great effect. Heck, the 2 videos on Gred's channel that blew up are discussing destructive behavior, and I only have found him because of this video.
But yeah, I think humanity could benefit from a bigger push on focusing on the 'wins'. I make a habit of praising independent authors' (whether that's a musician, artist, game developer, or challenge-runner matters not) work, articulating details that they've clearly put effort in, etc. What they're doing is usually thankless and speaking of experience, one single thought-out compliment/constructive critique can mean a lot.
Feeble and many others (like myself) don’t care about the lore. There isn’t a good gameplay reward for defeating that boss. Someone whose experience is far more gameplay centric would of course have that opinion.
@@pphaver871 Yet there is a gameplay reward. The boss's remembrance which gives you either its weapon or a sorcery, runes to be used for whatever purpose you want, access to the rest of St. Trina's quest which gives you more item rewards, and the cookbook which gives you access to new crafting items. Whether or not you deem that as "good gameplay rewards" is entirely up to personal opinion, but it's still rewards for defeating the boss.
@@Stellos812 I’d say a secret area that leads to Stone Coffin Fissure, which is a moderately-sized level, that has unique enemies with unique discoverable weapons (St. Trina eternal sleep sword), plus a huge remembrance boss, a number of cookbooks, more Scadutree fragments, and a big lore revelation that solves a questline is probably the best instance of rewarding exploration I’ve ever seen in any Souls game, including Elden Ring itself, a game which excels at exploration & rewarding the player.
It’s really funny with the way some on here come about this, since when did Souls games ever give you as much rewards as Elden Ring? Bloodborne when you beat Orphan of Kos, what the heck did they give you as a reward? Nothing, just a trash useless weapon “Kos Parasite”, what did DS3 give you after beating Sister Friede, just her Soul that gives you her weapon, nothing else. What did the game give you after beating Midir? Just his soul, that’s it, you fall down a big hole and you find him, that’s it lol. And Orphan of Kos & Sister Friede are part of the main path, Putrescent Knight is a FREAKING SIDE path, and it gives you more rewards than the main course in Bloodborne & Dark Souls 3. 😭😭
I can go on and on…
I'm pretty disenchanted by the negativity pervasive in media critique. Why aren't more video essayists articulating why they love the media that grabs them? Don't we all want to better understand all the subtleties and patterns that supported an authentic catharsis? It's frankly more fulfilling to make a case for why something activates your passion than your rage, and audiences do show up for it. The catch; I think honest, positive critique requires a greater level of vulnerability than constructive/destructive criticism, and *some* creators just don't want to be vulnerable. I'va also gotta figure it's just more profitable to be destructive.
I worry people growing up on this style of "critique" will come to believe that greatness rests in the absence of things to criticize. I worry "constructive" criticism is going to inhibit the ambition of creatives and their publishers.
Still thinking about this video and about trends in this kind of criticism. And, yup, thinking about the future does bring about a little bit of anxiety.
Because, yeah, if the current style of “critique” is structured so that it’s only really about seeking reasons to discount a work, seeking out rhetorical ammunition supplied by the work to use against it, this will just lead to reducing the sum of all works of art down to a list of like ten “flawless” “perfect” works, defined by being unimpeachable.
Whereas if you go about criticism the opposite way, seeking out things in works of art that are beautiful, you’ll end up realizing that, out of the sum of all works, it’s really only like ten total works that have absolutely nothing compelling going on. No inspirations, no ideas being communicated. So, then, this kind of criticism via positivity would basically end up being about balancing the total amount of good things in works versus how impactful those things are.
The worry most people have about wanting to go about the latter method, just a guess, is probably that they don’t want their takes to accidentally be categorized as “toxic positivity”. Like, if all you do is “ignore the bad”, “only look at the good”, like what someone cynical would reduce this mode of evaluation to, then you risk finding false positives, or, you might accidentally find things you think are beautiful artistic ideas in actually just ugly things, like snuff films or something.
Though, if you want to be reductive the other way, and say “no, just find things to be nitpicked”, that would mean you might accidentally deem something secretly beautiful to be ugly and terrible in the worst way; you might dismiss something you really shouldn’t have.
…oh well. It’s up to everyone to personally figure out the approach that balances the merits and risks of these extremes of criticism for themselves.
If you ask me for a bet, my bet is, these young gamers now, and the new young gamers who will come after them, will get tired of the cynicism, start to agree with the post-ironic “BILLIONS MUST SMILE” sentiment, and the pendulum will swing the other way. We’ll get people who just want raw, scathing, experimental works of art, and want to appraise the new art by identifying the good, real, inspiring ideas by these new artists-then, the audience-at-large will get a little sick of the sweetness again, and start to notice “bad” works being treated as though they’re better than they really are, then we’ll get an uptick in criticisms about identifying flaws in the best new works of art, and the pendulum will swing again, and so on and so forth.
Maybe the bet of cycles, the pendulum, is *actually* the cynical take. Cynical… cyclical. Maybe it’s not. Anyway. Sure, it’s fine to worry about how the criticisms we’re all here to think about are going to affect future art, but at the same time… don’t worry too much. “Worry” might end up being a strong word. If there’s a pendulum, then it means people will figure themselves out. If they don’t, it still won’t mean your art or opinions would end up being meaningless. It’s all good. People will end up wanting to love great works of art. Here we are, expressing that that’s what we want to do, proving it.
I get recommended Joseph Anderson videos all the time, and every time I click them, I just can't figure out the appeal. He has his own way of playing games, and he's good at making his own fun, but then he wields his expectations like a weapon to attack the game in his discussions of them. Tutorial says X or can be interpreted to teach X, and so he needs to spend an absurd amount of energy trying to find out if there is anything in the game which contradicts X. And then when he inevitably finds a contradiction, he criticizes the game for the contradiction. The problem, most often, is that X is his subjective interpretation or expectations of something, and he doesn't interrogate whether that interpretation or expectation was flawed in the first place.
But the weirdest part is that he seems to legitimately enjoy the process of poking and prodding at the game under these conditions. He has fun with it. He then points these supposed contradictions out and uses them as supporting evidence of a game's flaws. And then after all that, makes his "subjectivity is implied" video to hide his lack of introspection.
He enjoys playing a game. Then collates a list of grievances which appear to be an argument for why the game is bad. Then tells you that his list of grievances can't be wrong because they're subjective anyway. But that, simultaneously, his subjective opinions are correct.
If I could distill my problem with him into a single idea, it's that when he encounters a situation where his experience did not match his expectations, his answer to why that happened is always that the situation was poorly designed, and never that his expectations were mistaken or unrealistic. If he had been the one designing the game instead of the developers, then he would have designed it such that it matched the expectations he had as a player. But of course he would, he just misses that the developers might have been designing for an expectation other than the one he had.
You really nail something not only about JA but a certain kind of critic + person. Thank you.
he says "it could just be me" all the time, what are you talking about
You people that take everything at face value to the heart are the problem. You see a guy make a critique and you can't take it for what it is, a subjective critique. You take it to face value and blame the critic for not being objective in his subjective opinion
I played ER, agreed with a lot of what Joseph said about ER
I played the DLC, agreed and also disagreed a lot with what he said
Feeble I just disregarded as his experience was not even close to mine
And that's it, thats how it's supposed to go
"But that, simultaneously, his subjective opinions are correct."
When does he say this? Or even imply it? Joe spends more time qualifying his opinions than maybe any other video game critiquer I know on RUclips, and even made an entire video dedicated to the topic. He has takes I disagree with, and he loses his temper and acts irrationally when argued with sometimes. But I have never seen him say or even imply that his subjective views are correct. This is especially present if you watch him play a game on stream, where you see him voice opinions live, and he *constantly* second-guesses himself and how he is interpreting a game. "It could just be me" and "maybe I'm wrong about that" are two of his most spoken phrases when doing so.
"If I could distill my problem with him into a single idea, it's that when he encounters a situation where his experience did not match his expectations, his answer to why that happened is always that the situation was poorly designed, and never that his expectations were mistaken or unrealistic."
This is absolutely not the case. It is the case that he is far, far more likely to include it in a critique video if he thinks it was due to the design of a situation rather than a misaligning of his expectations (where that line can even be clearly drawn, anyways, seeing as there are no "wrong" expectations and expectations are as subjective as anything else when evaluating one's experience with art). He has spoken at length on-stream about instances of the latter, but his videos are so lengthy already, and such moments are just not relevant in a game critique other than to counter your criticism that this is his only answer to such feelings.
@@EndersupremE "he says "it could just be me" all the time, what are you talking about" "You people that take everything at face value to the heart are the problem."
This is hilarious you are almost getting it, but still don't. Just because Joseph often says "maybe it's me" doesn't mean he believes it, especially when this "Maybe it's me" disappears when people disagree with him when his opinion was built on a faulty premise.
Joe needs to be the smartest guy in the room, when he isn't the "Subjectivity is implied" comes out.
@@AceKuper oh so now you guys are Xavier from fkin X-Men lmao
"I know Joseph Anderson's mind so well"
And you call that an argument
Also that's far from the case lol. People have disagreed with him in chat a lot and a lot of times he actually changed his mind about things.
Stop smoking whatever gas station stuff ur on bro. It's just a guy that writes books and expresses some opinions on video games. It ain't that deep
Rewards for fighting the Putrescent Knight
- Rememberance which can be used to make unique weapons
- Runes
- Access to Saint Trina and as a result continue a questline
- Lore
- The fight itself
- Cookbook
For people who call their detractors manchildren it really seems like critics expect constant affirmation and rewards, even for defeating one of the easier bosses in the DLC.
I dunno.. I just wanted to see what was in the big hole in the blue flower field. There was no point during that sequence that I thought... "What am I gunna get out of this". But that's the difference in intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. Feeble isn't "wrong" for wanting more out of that sequence, that's his subjective opinion, but he is wrong for saying the cookbook was the only reward. That's dishonest critique.
Also the cool weapon it uses
i put 70 hours into the fight already, doing challenges and defeating him over and over. thats a big reward to me! love the fight
The best reward is the music tho. What a f*cking banger
@@JoseViktor4099 kinda like the rhythm of dancing lion or rellana a tad better. But it's definitely a top tier of the dlc.
I honestly don't believe these people when they say they "love" these games, i think they hate games and shit talk them because it makes views but admitting they hate them would draw backlash.
Yup 100% agree.
Thank god finally someone speaks about the shit of online """"critics"""" thinking they know how an artpiece would be better. Yes, artist, allow me- internet rando No.2000- to tell YOU how YOUR art can be best without bothering to know or care about what YOUR intention with it was, I am very smart.
And then a bunch of people who have never engaged with the artpiece parrot the points around and it makes talking about the artpiece impossible because how DARE you not mention Literally Every Single Flaw It Has Ever while making a twitter post abt how much you like the design of a character or something like that.
Bad Faith Criticism has made fandoms 300 times more toxic because people INSIST that you HAVE to be negative to be "fair" about the artpiece, and as such it creates a hostile environment when ppl perma-fight over their opinions because not doing so risks an idea spreading so far that it can actually lead to harassment and hate to the artists.
Cartoon fandoms have this massive issue bc the amount of RUclips video essays that actually give a fuck about the artistry of animation besides whatever Disney and Dreamworks movie is out are actually very slim. Entire creators have had to delete their social media and not interact with fans anymore bc of genuine hate because doing an artpiece that isn't perfect is now some sort of sin, is infuriating.
I think the worst thing about Joseph's videos is that many times he claims that his goal is to evaluate games as pieces of art and not as pieces products. Oddly enough he does the exact opposite of this. His only method to gauge whether or not a game is well designed, or has artistic value, is whether or not it appeals to his strict set of requirements. But explaining whether or not some game checks all your pre fabricated boxes is not art critique it's just a product review.
I mean he literally doesn't even talk once about any of the environments, he never mentions music, story, character designs, enemy design. Like Fromsoft are the goat at this and he never mentions of any of this. I would recommend watching youtuber Loopine's reply to Joseph Anderson's original essay. He goes in depth why Joseph is also wrong about alot of the mechanical/gameplay complaints he has.
I felt like I was going crazy while watching his video because it just seemed like he hated the game because he arbitrarily set his own limits and anyone who went out of those limits were just 'metagaming'
Nonsense. Evaluating something on his strict, narrow ideals isn't a product review, it's literally engaging with the art on a non-objective level. It doesn't matter if the critique is good or not, your overall statement doesn't make sense.
Unrelated but hes constantly missing deadlines while collecting patreon donations
@@globalelite3042 His patreon has been closed for many years now.
Do people really think “toxic positivity” just means really liking a video game?
Toxic positivity pretty obviously refers to someone prioritizes being positive at the expense of any other emotions they or the people around them might have.
Toxic positivity would have been telling Rosa Parks she should sit in the back of the bus and try to have a good attitude about it.
This is a video game….
Where at the point where language is being altered, not naturally over time, but forcefully pushed by people with an agenda. See also, the world elitist.
Truth be told, I've had a difficult time connecting with how Joe approaches his views on games and media as a whole for years. I've found it challenging to find that he appreciates games at all with his laundry lists of complaints and jabs of everything that he looks at like he's a mechanic working on my crappy car. I have found that over my time listening to essays on this platform that the writers that stick with me the most are those who speak from the love of their subjects. I will always first think of the Jon Bois' and the Jacob Gellers of creative non-fiction that are looking to bring deeply interesting topics to our attention over long form criticism that often fails to speak of any passion other than hatred.
This video has been saying what I've been feeling for years, I can't thank you enough. I too hope that people will more openly talk about how media truly makes them feel and free themselves from being algorithm beasts. Well done, I hope to hear you speak from love soon.
If you want a youtuber, who only talks about things he loves in video games, i recommend RagnarRox
To even begin to equate what Joe does with "hatred" is bafflingly hyperbolic and inappropriate. I've been watching Joe for years (er, I mean when he was still regularly putting out videos), and I've always been able to sense his passion and love of the medium. He just biases towards what he feels are design flaws/incohesion.
To compare him to Jacob Geller is also thoroughly bizarre, given they're so wildly different. No one goes to Joe for arty existential musings, and no one goes to Jacob for analysis of frame timing and mechanics execution. They're both great at very different things.
@@SabiJD >no one goes to Jacob for analysis of frame timing and mechanics execution. They're both great at very different things.
What are you actually talking about here? You realize that this implies that Joes is good analyzing frame timing and mechanics, when one of the main things shown at the start of this video is that he is actually not good at that? If that wasn't your intention why not just say what Joe is actually good at and what people watch him for.
@@AceKuper So the fact that Joe was off by, what, 13 frames in one example in Elden Ring disproves all his examples of combat design in, say, a God Of War video? Don't be ridiculous. I love both creators (Joe and Jacob), but they're not even close to comparable, and gaming culture benefits from having both.
@@SabiJDwahhhh wahhhhh wahhhh
I cannot tell you how unbelievably gratifying it is to finally hear so many of the frustrations I’ve felt this year following SoTE’s release put into words so succinctly. Fromsoftware is a beacon, they deserve better from their “critics”.
Let's be clear, the text for great runes implies they do something without using rune arcs, since to have an "even greater benefit" you must have a benefit to increase. I'd wager a translation error is more likely than a bug but still, I'd argue it *is* an error.
Could be! But not objectively.
@@GredGlintstone Yes, it's possible the game lies to you on purpose when it comes to rune arcs, but since the game doesn't lie to you on any other tooltip (that I remember). I'm leaning towards the there being an error in the tooltip.
Unfortunately for us to know which it is for fairly certain we'd need a statement from FROM (most likely in the form of a patch note), and then we'd need to wait until there the support for the game stopped so we could be fairly certain the patch wasn't made in error. The problem with this approach is that you cannot objectively say anything without a hell of a lot of caveats.
The title of your video "The Lost Art of Video Game Critique" is objectively wrong, unless no one knows how to make video game critiques anymore regardless of platform, regardless if it's public or not, regardless of any other factor that could measured and since it's apparently an art then it's also subjective as to what is a good video game critique so no one must think any video game critique anyone makes anymore is good. Does that make the video itself bad, probably not, but it is what it is.
@@GredGlintstone I do think it’s fair to say it’s objectively an error, for the same reasons as outlined by the comment above. The in game descriptions are not presented by a “character” narrator, and are never shown to have any demonstrable bias that could categorize them as an “unreliable narrator”. Being that it’s the only instance I can think of them being misleading, I find it difficult to argue this point could be interpreted subjectively. What exactly is the argument you would use to define it as “potentially subjective” in this case?
The players can't know what the intended behavior of the great runes are. We rely on the text to tell us what to expect, and if that text is written in a way that *appears* clear but doesn't reflect reality, that *is* an objective error. Either the developers didn't implement it to spec, or the writers of the original description made a mistake, or the mechanic changed and the description wasn't updated to reflect it, or the translators made a mistake. There is an error here. We don't know which one is the right one, but it's undeniable that *something* is wrong.
@@JacobAlbanois potential a benefit or a detriment?
18:19 It is a really beautiful but tragic character design. She was basically torn out of Miquella and thrown into a pit of death and her sleep was warped into a kind of poison.
Please, RUclips Algorithm. PLEASE be kind to this man. Thus, I offer this comment in aid of this great cause.
Thanks, dude!
Engaging to hyperboost
Hey it worked!!
Regarding the minuscule mention of AVGN (James), I think people who imitate his video style forget that it is mostly a character. Undoubtedly a lot of the games AVGN plays are pretty low quality, but the idea that a nerd is driven to drink heavily because of a 40 year old NES game is the joke.
There are even times he drops the act and gives his honest opinion on a part of a game (even sometimes admiring he could just be bad at the segment) that is outside of his Nerd persona.
That said, I do think it is fair to critique AVGN’s videos on what is good and what is bad. His videos can give people an impression on games (even if most are not likely to play them). But to those who have imitated the Angry Nerd style of review, it should be noted that the anger is not the sole reason AVGN’s videos is loved.
fromsoft fans complaining something is hard and then when new players ask for tips they just say get gud is kind of ironic
I have never played a dark souls. I'm not part of the community. I don't even know who Joseph Anderson is. All that said, this video is the one that's motivated me to finally get into the series. Thanks dude.
Amazing. Love to hear it.
That is great! I don't know who you are and what you like in games, but let me give you some advices when you go into them, and I'll be brief:
1. Never worry about dying and trying again. You have nothing to prove to anyone. You will die, that is 100% guaranteed.
2. Try different weapons. In early games especially. Movesets make more difference than anything.
3. If you start with Des or DS, and you struggle with the clunkiness, don't give up. Jump to DS3, if you fall in love with the formula, go back to earlier titles.
4. Enjoy the ride :)
8:39 I feel like this is a slightly disingenuous misconstruction of what he is actually referring to. I don’t think he’s referring to people saying he sucks. He’s probably referring to the general idea of people hijacking conversations with stuff like “skill issue” and “git gud” with the sole intention of preventing discussion from happening. It’s like people having a problem with people constantly calling other people nahzis or libtards and whatnot. It’s not about the nature of calling out people for bad behavior, it’s about how such terminology is often used in a deliberate attempt to shut down conversation and debate. Buzzwords basically, an excuse to try and delegitimize discussion with the idea of “well if you are a nazhi/libtard/need to git gud, I don’t HAVE to engage with what you are saying because you are OBVIOUSLY in the wrong”. It’s an attempt of resolving responsibility on the part of the people engaging with the media. Such terminology rarely comes from a place of an actual desire to discuss a topic in good faith. There is a difference between deliberating on why someone could be incorrect due to a lack of knowledge and skill and just saying “skill issue” as a shutdown response in an attempt to silence and discard what someone has to say. Just like you iterate in the video; perception is reality and just like how critique can warp the perception of those who watch it, the same can be said about people who open up the comment section/a discussion board and see hoards of “skill issue” and nothing else to add. Their perception of the media has been warped by the machinations of others, regardless of the merit of the media being discussed.
You might have engaged with this point more later on but I thought I’d give my thoughts now as you brought up and discussed this.
You're 100% right about this, Joe says, minutes later in the same video, that he brings this up because "git gud" discourages criticism and he wants people to be able to criticize the game. It's definitely a misrepresentation, whether is disingenuous or a misunderstanding I'm not sure. Same with the "Denmark is the capital of Malaysia" thing, it's clearly different than saying "Elden Ring is a good game" because one of them is objectively false and the other is something that cannot be measured in any objective way. I don't understand how you can criticize the "Subjectivity is Implied" video without being able to distinguish between these two different kinds of statements.
I have a problem with the git gud/skill issue discourse too and I've made my thoughts on all that clear. But the discussion of "skill issue" is in most cases... about skill. That's a topic that's usually centred on the subject of difficulty but the changes that Joseph suggests in this video are irrelevant to that discussion.
I also do think he's taking it personally and his reaction isn't justified.
@@GredGlintstone ehh I’ll agree to disagree on justification. Dude gets a-lot of harassment. Also, a good chunk of people who just comment “skill issue” and whatnot probably don’t even watch the video which probably makes it extra infuriating for him. That’s another issue, you don’t have to engage with the media in any substantial way to comment “skill issue” and whatnot. You can just read the title or look at the thumbnail, take 3 seconds to comment and then leave. It requires 0 analytical or critical thinking on their part.
@@GredGlintstone It's become an all-encompassing response to any criticism that even suggests you had a hard time with something. You can't bring up Gaius's terrible charge hitbox, or Metyr's laser that is outright unavoidable, without getting spammed by git gud and skill issue. And you're forgetting, the "toxic assholes" he was talking about are not anyone who has ever said someone is having a skill issue even when it's true, but rather someone who refuses to accept any fault in the game or have any discussion about whether something was fair or not, preferring to shit talk people who have opinions they disagree with by telling them they're just bad at the game.
I'm sure he gets more hate than what he talks about in the video. And I'm sure they're often really personal and mean. The internet sucks sometimes.
But spending almost a third of your critique talking about comments you're receiving, or 90% in Feeble's case, is too far. Game journalists working for the big publishers get far more hate and don't take time in their reviews addressing it. It's not relevant to their analysis of the game. He's using an emotional topic to justify his suggested changes.
But, yes, agree to disagree :)
Actually, Margit is the perfect tutorial boss because he teaches you the best lesson of all for Elden Ring: If you can’t beat it, go explore elsewhere and try again after some levels and stuff.
i lost my interest in Joseph Anderson when he started streaming and getting into arguments with his chat. The more I saw who he really was and his opinions while streaming, I knew he suffered from the dunning-kruger effect. he thinks he's way smarter than he is and even when there is enough evidence he still has to die on that hill he made for himself. I respect people who can show some humility and admit that they might be wrong.
i never understood the appeal of Joseph Anderson in the first place
@@nilscapeyea you don’t need much intellect to be a bad critic, but good criticism is a art form in and of itself.
If you Saw his argument about Sillent Hill 2...
"James doesn't remember he ended his wife Life because the town makes him stupid"
Wow. I waded into this little idea of the direction that the video would take, honestly there was a point where I was skeptical that a commentary on a commentary's commentary would have much to say. Instead I have been blown away by how this video has been equally insightful and challenging but beautiful to experience. So thank you for that, I hope this video has been meaningful for you to make.
Also the "Womb to tomb" line is an absolute banger.
yall I think we found a hidden gem of a channel. This content is well beyond under 500 subs
Thanks for checking it out! I'm brand new to the youtube thing. The responses I've been getting have been so encouraging.
@@GredGlintstone For how much work this must've taken I'm glad its done so ewll. Keep up the great work, I'll be looking out for more of your videos
No no, I think you mean you found a hidden Glintstone of a channel. =V
@@FaeTheMf It's been a busy few weeks for sure. All while working full-time and studying too zzzzz
@@GredGlintstonehonestly I would never have known you were newer to RUclips just based on this video. Incredibly well presented and you’re a great orator as well. Does your professional life/job include some crossover skills that help with RUclips? I just ask because you come across as pretty experienced in this stuff!
Feel like so many of these outrage bait gaming channels don't actually like games that much. They're actively hurting the games community with such hyperinflated, unreasonable reactions - roast comedy is the perfect description for what they do, but when it's dressed up as 'serious games critique' their cruel opinions absolutely get reflected back into broader gaming culture as a whole. As a dev it is fucking exhausting, and you constantly fear having the crosshair pointed at you.
my dude why are you comparing how gamers treat 70$+ games from multi million dollar decades old companies to how gamers will treat you as an indie dev do you realize how disconnected you sound
I think the point behind the "get good" discussion is that its the blanket, mindless response, not peoples real opinion. Theres no reason behind them saying it, so it adds nothing to the discourse.
And, I feel skill issue could still be seen as an insult?
It literally means 'you are a poor skilled player'.
I can 100% understand why people would feel insulted if the only response to them being frustrated with a mechanic was 'you suck'.
It's the perfect way of dismissing people giving bad faith arguments with no real desire to learn or discuss.
@@evilfungasIt's unfortunate, then, that it's almost never used in that context, and is instead used to discard valuable criticism because the recipient of the statement is "worse at video games" than the other person is.
You'll usually get hit with "skill issue" if you are obviously infuriated with a boss and claim things are impossible or badly designed. And even then there will probably be people explaining how to dodge it.
Personally I've had criticism for many attacks but basically never got hit with "skill issue" or anything because I explain why I think something doesn't work. Mindless response to mindless criticism.
finally. this video is perfect for someone like me. I hate the current state of negative game “critique” so much 😭😭 feeblekings videos on shadow of the erdtree specifically were very frustrating
So glad you dug it. Positivity doesn't have to be toxic. You can like things :)
I hate the fans of these critics even more, they’re the same but just more braindead and toxic
Why are you getting frustrated by someones negative opinion about a video game tho? Sounds childish.
@@HopefulNihilist You could say the exact thing about people who don't like glazing or toxic positivity.
@@GredGlintstone
What kinda logic even is that... lmao
Saying you don't think a game is as good as people say it is ≠ being frustrated about people liking said game.
Only gripe with the vid is the slight misrepresentation of Matthew's vid (lost art of demon Souls) but overall a much needed video. It's so, so hard to find good video game commentary and critique. Everyone is rage-baiting and throwing out fancy terms with zero grasp on what they mean.
You think so? I thought I argued that he makes a lot of good points. I only took issue with a couple of his blanket statements about a lack of innovation and why dodge hit is boring. I think his argument about strategising for fights is actually really strong. It's why I bring it up because people always use the vid as evidence that the souls series has gotten boring but that's not what Matthew is arguing. I actually really agree with Matthew in that video for the most part.
But really appreciate the nice words again. The fancy terms is a big one. I made sure to show my definitions. I was worried it would become more like a powerpoint presentation than a video essay but I felt like it was really important. I really don't like when people on youtube use fancy words but don't explain what they mean. It's really elitist imo.
@@GredGlintstone I was specifically thinking of the Micolash preference and "Bloodborne is more Demon Souls" part which wasn't what he said but you did end up clarifying later.
The clarity on terms is a breath of fresh air. Didn't feel like a PP presentation at all. Well done.
Ah, that's good. Glad I cleared it up. Would hate to think I misrepresented him
Cheers for that
Enter The Mayo is being called out a lot in here without his name being named even once
I mean mayo’s style is just being a typical loser contrarian. there’s nothing of note to his videos. He’s just a miserable person with bad takes
I have been watching a lot of negative critiques for the game for a while now, and I always had problems with them. but I could never put my finger on it. You basically laid out all the problems i had with them that i wasnt even fully aware of. well done!
also anybody that calls shadow of the erdtree the worst from soft content needs to be trapped in the frigid outskirts for a week and then come back and tell me that they still think sote is as bad as they said it is
@@anonisnoone6125 which still applies to frigid outskirts
It occurs to me during the quotes on difficulty by Miyazaki that Joseph as a person, is fundamentally opposed to the very design philosophy of the games; Learning. In order for him to 'learn from his mistakes' he must be making mistakes, which is untenable to his massive ego which believes he has already achieved apotheosis at least when it comes to playing video games (but I would be shocked if this mindset didn't pervade his entire life). Hence every mistake he makes is actually an error or a bug on the developer's part. Which makes his video format make sense. They are all criticism because these are the moments which the game rudely interrupted his display of immaculate gameplay and therefore the developer should know that about these breakdowns. He is seemingly aware enough though to know that being honest about it would not be accepted so he lies and pretends it's critique.
Watching Joseph play Hitman 3 was sobering experience. Despite all the tutorials, he had a game comprehension of a six year old.
One youtuber said a cool thing: "I'm not very good at videogames. If I was, I'd be just playing them like you, so instead I make youtube videos"
Thanks for making this. I despise the work of people like Joe and Feeble. They are rage/engagement farming vampires that suck all the life from things for profit or attention. People like them have infested almost every fandom. They’ve infested our politics. They do real harm. People like Joe killed Star Wars. It’s a dead IP walking. They’re trying to kill FromSoft. I thank the heavens every day Miyazaki is an artist with a vision and he’s in charge there. As soon as he’s replaced with someone more compromising, the Joe Andersons of the world will destroy FromSoft. This is a shout for sanity in the face of all that. Who knows what the future holds, but with this, the record shows that in the face of so much cynicism wrecking the world, at least some men stood for truth and quality.
Thanks dude! Really appreciate the support and the thoughtful message.
🔥🔥🔥
This is a much needed lesson in critical thinking. I will now parrot all thy opinions, instead of Joseph Anderson’s, as mine own, Master Glintstone 🙏🏻
hahaha thanks dude
That Joseph Anderson callout at the end of the video was FOUL brother goddamn
It was “The Explosion” that Joseph needed, not the one that he made, but the one that Gred Glintstone made. 😅
"He loved you man". Damn that cut deep. I hope Joseph apologizes eventually. That user was a certified fanboy, someone who kissed the ground Joe walked on yet he still treated them that way. He should feel lucky to have fan as loyal as that, yet he threw them away like a piece of garbage.
@@thesnatcher3616 Honeslty I’d blame the fan more than Joseph (Joe is being a narcissistic prick as he always was), sorry for being rude, but the fan is stupid for lionizing another person like that. But I agree the “He loved you man” kinda cut deep for me too.
Necessary.
He deserves it, i can’t believe a critic as terrible has him has such a huge platform.
Considering JA's video on Soma was him missing the point for a lot of it and basically dooming us to things like rebirth since it was taken as gospel, it's not a shock he'd get this wrong too. Markiplier did a better job with SOMA than he did. No hate on mark since from what I can tell he's a genuinely nice guy, but you usually don't go to him for critique of a game if my point.
Very important video, I hope it trends. You gave much clearer words to describe my frustration with so many RUclips video game criticisers. The script was also well-written, with great word choice and acknowledgment of subjectivity/objectivity! I have never played Elden Ring or any Dark Souls game, but your points got across to me very well.
This video feels like something we really needed without knowing it. Fantastic analysis!
That Miyazaki misquote bombshell was absolutely mind blowing! I've hear that quote and I've never even seen his video.
Can't believe no one has checked in 10 years..
@@GredGlintstone Miyazaki clarifying that "a sense of accomplishment" is the top priority and that every player can "beat the game their way" completely aligns with Matthewmattosis' main argument that technical difficulty was never what made the series compelling. He argues for more clever puzzles, traps, careful planning, and creative strategies instead of just mashing the dodge button at the right time and abusing i-frames.
I'm personally interested in being a careful knight traversing a dangerous environment, looking behind every nook and cranny. I'm not interested in learning every attack animation or frame timings. I'm not interested in projectiles turning into heat-seeking missiles. I'm not interested in bosses being protected from fall damage by invisible walls. That's the fundamental difference. I play Souls games for the sense of scale and adventure. If I was looking for an actual challenge or mechanical complexity, I'd just play Dota 2 instead.
@@phasmidjelly1429Yeah, that's valid complain and I agree but I also like the way elden ring did it so I guess maybe a bit of both in the next game.
This video is more focus on how important making quotation, paraphrase, and sources. Messed this up, you will only spread misinformation despite it being not your intention.
Especially when many said sources talks explicitly about how important the difficulity is even if the implicity of it can be interprate as "overcoming challenge" is the point and not the "difficulity"
Making sure that the oral or source chain from quotation right to the source transparent is heavy common rule used by reaserchers and scientist when making a paper journal article or in this case video game "critique" (criticism). It's important and some people (not you) don't fully commit to this rule either out of laziness or pure ignorance.
@@phasmidjelly1429 Boss is the puzzle. And it has a solution that doesn't need you to learn every attack timing and frames. This is a strawman argument from all those "shattered masterpiece" garbage videos.
@@phasmidjelly1429 technical difficulty is a hill to overcome(you even have multiple ways you can do this) you also need to remember that elden ring is not dark souls as much as you want to see it that way.
Joseph Anderson immediately rubbed me the wrong way when his video on The Witness went viral and he got so many things patently wrong with the game. It was just him venting about why the game rubbed him the wrong way, and while it resonated with a number of other players, its success *also* confirmed a lot of preconceptions about the game from people who never played it. And that ultimately poisoned discourse and dominated discussions of The Witness for years. I never watched his takes on Souls games after that, but the examples in this video seem to share a similar incuriosity.
It's a shame negativity takes up so much discourse in games - it's not like other mediums are free from critics not meeting artists where they're at (Roger Ebert famously hated lots of David Lynch films), but games can have so much content not even seen by the critic or interpreted differently by how difficult it is to complete, and it's silly how many of these video essay critics (with infinite time on their hands compared to a commercial reviewer) don't really spend the time to meaningfully interpret what they're critiquing.
Matthewmatosis at least seems to stay away from roasting games and makes far fewer factual errors in his (rare) new videos - probably because he started making his own game.
This video almost had a big section on The Witness. I really dislike that video.
I still have a lot of script talking about the Witness so I may make a video on it one day and take Joe out of it. I love that game and would love to convince more people to play it. It is a great game you should absolutely play.
@@GredGlintstone why cut the Joe part out? He’s such a huge voice, i think he honestly deserves a section in a video about any game he ruined with his presence. Like Soma for example.
@@GredGlintstone That's a great video title, lol. I think you're on the right track to take Joe out of a script - no need to spread the negativity when you can already point to this video to express your frustrations. (Plus I think there's already a circlejerk of reaction content to Joseph's Witness video.)
Similar thing happened with mario odyssey: exaggerated a handful of flaws in an otherwise fantastic game, which enforced people to overanalyze issues that were never all that important. It's hard to remember now though, considering how much of a turnaround the game got.
@@GredGlintstone I'd love a video on the Witness as I felt similarly. recently replayed it and had a blast. I really believe joe shouldn't be a part of it. he himself has commented on the video "the unbearable now", a relatively famous video on the game that his opinion has changed since making the video.