This week on Fully Ramblomatic, Yahtzee reviews Black Myth: Wukong. Support us on Patreon: / secondwindgroup Second Wind Merch Store: sharkrobot.com...
I'm sure he's referencing the recent far-right riots that haven't left GB looking quite so "great". But then Germany had to go one worse and actually elect the fuckers. Because of course they did.
Not to mention that he knows 99% of all deamons in the world and the respective demon kings of each set. So likes to fuck with them. If I recall, he has impersonated at least 2 wives and one demon king just to fuck with the enemy
It's interesting that people seem to always be talking about Sun Wukong as if he's the protagonist of the game, but he's not. He's just the guy who scattered the Mcguffins your character has to find.
@@GriffinPilgrim My favourite moment is when the party reaches that city where the 3 Dao imortals are making buddist monks labor and he goes to the monks all like "Hey, I'm Sun Wukong and will free you" And the monk answers "But Guanyin told us he is super scary etc" Sun just sights, poinst to the other side and goes "THERE IS SUN WUKONG" and transforms out of his disguise. OSP video on that one is hilarius
Considering the amount of League of Legends players that got mad at Smite for "ripping off" Sun Wukong makes me think there still aren't as many people familiar with Journey to the West as one would have thought.
I mean, when literally everything based on Journey to the West focuses on Sun Wukong and ONLY Sun Wukong, you'd be forgiven for thinking that. All I know is dude's like quintuple immortal, and that's probably way more than your average Joe knows.
I'm familiar that it's a thing because it was the primary inspiration for the original Dragonball. There was also that one Jackie Chan movie that seems like it could have been a good movie if it wasn't screwed over by a bunch of dumb executive meddling trying to make it have broad appeal to western audiences.
It's got a recognizable hero, it's one of their few cultural hallmarks that is widely known around the world, the book is massive and has both a lot of original concepts and references enough older traditions and beliefs that you can very easily do just about whatever you want with it, and it's safe from controversy. It's also essentially the precursor to shonen anime, so it's very easy to convert it into an action-based video game-y format. Honestly as someone who's been following Overly Sarcastic Productions' take on it I'm genuinely surprised there aren't *more* games based on it.
@@juusojuuso9214 which is Ironic for anyone who actually *knows* Sun Wukong, being anti=establishment of the heavenly bureaucracy is his whole *thing* aside from being OP.
@@xShadowChrisx China loves anti-establishment characters- as long as said characters aren't pointedly against the CCP. Their media has a strange delicate dance with the censors
He's not just immortal, he's immortal x4, because the writer had to prove how much better Sun Wukong is than all of the main religions of ancient China, except for Buddhism.
There's a 17th century fanfic where he goes to hell because Buddha wants to test him, so he steals ANOTHER immortality granting peach and becomes 5x immortal and for a while, Western scholars thought it was a core part of the Journey to the West.
To be fair, that's also because of how immortality works in Chinese mythology, where stuff like agelessness and resistance to physical harm are their own immortalities as a opposed to being immortal just being a one and done. But you also aren't wrong. XD
So it's basically a "who would win?" except it's for established religions and along comes this one kid who keeps bringing up his own OC that would easily just demolish Superman, Dr. Strange, Goku, or Kirby without breaking a sweat.
Are you saying he's immortal x4 in the game? I haven't played it yet. He's he's immortal x7 in the original book. 1, the technique learned from Master Subodhi. 2, crossing out his name in the ledgers of the underworld. 3, eating heaven's immortal peaches. 4, drinking heavenly wine. 5, stealing Lao Tzu's elixir. 6, Lao Tzu's furnace burning away the last of his mortality. 7, eating ginseng fruit.
I find "Bluey's magic Xylophone" being Yahtzee's chosen reference point for the freeze ability to be unreasonably delightful. We've crossed the threshold from Yahtzee *just* making irreverently crass jokes to occasionally just loudly demonstrating what a dad he is.
I paused the video and scrolled down to the comments to talk about how that line is what made me laugh aloud at work when I'm not supposed to be watching RUclips.
I'm convinced that Wukong's consistent and near constant presence in all forms of media is actually another one of his types of immortality, officially adding a ninth way for him to stick around forever. You might notice that this means that Wukong totally shouldn't have died at the start of this game, no matter how many mountains they dropped on him.
you know what i always thought was weird? how very few games let you use a staff as an effective melee weapon. games seem to always treat a staff like it's a spell casting tool and only let you swing it sometimes as a joke. here's hoping wukong can make melee staffs cool
It is weird since staffs are OP weapons IRL. A good quarter staff with some skill can break swords. Also, most armies gave their units spears to start with, which is basically staff with knife on the end. I want to see more spears in games.
@@This-Was-Sparta so it would seem. Though after DBZ, I would say the second biggest pop culture thing for Journey to the West is having Sanzang in Fate Grand Order.
I'm sure it's just Yahtzee doing a bit, but "oh no it's journey to the west again" followed by immediately not recognizing two of the three main characters of Journey to the West is hilarious.
I don't think he was doing a bit, because Black Myth is *not* Journey to the West. It's the story afterward, in which Sun Wukong rejected godhood to live a normal peaceful life. The other gods, fearing his power then murdered him (the intro). Hence "black myth"
@@Kilvoctu How they managed that is anyone's guess because, as stated, Wukong is immortal. And not just immortal, 4X immortal. He learned the Taoist secret of immortality, he ate an entire grove of peaches of immortality, he ate an entire gourd of pills of immortality, AND drank a whole bunch of booze of immortality. I'm guessing the game is ignoring all that.
@@Canadamus_Prime Probably just due to mistranslation or lack of a better word. If you listen to the Chinese dub, what the English dub translated as "Immortality" is 長生不老 which roughly mean "live long and not grow old". Immortality in a sense but doesn't mean you can't be killed by getting shanked.
Just in case Yahtzee missed it, since it's locked behind an optional item you can acquire and forget to interact with, there's a scroll you can get late in Chapter 3 that opens up a hub area for the various merchant NPCs you run into throughout the game, including a tiger man who acts as an armour upgrader (and an optional boss fight for an extra relic slot). He can upgrade your old armours with effects you prefer up to the armour-standard of your current equipment, for Will and various crafting materials. I was also a little annoyed that you had to leave behind armour with good effects to keep up with the later-game damage outputs (yes yes, git gud, etc) until I realised this. Though, the final armour set is honestly probably one of the best effects( and looks the best imo), so once you get there, it's of little consequence really.
This is the one redeeming factor of games almost always having crafting now a days. You don't need to find some obscure NPC to change your gear. They could've just had this as a menu choice were you craft things yourself.
@@jonathangwilliams6825 The game is really weird because it's clearly balanced around the side quests, but also never forces you to do them. If you aren't going out of your way to do the optional content, you're basically doing an insane challenge run, and I think the majority of people don't understand this. Your armor, stats, and healing item are all upgraded in the same place, and you can very easily miss it. Many bosses are also objectively unfair unless you go out and find the vessels that are specifically designed to hard-counter them. And before anyone says that's just "Easy mode", you actually need the vessels for the true ending, so it's clearly intended. I just thought the game was terrible until I realized that the optional content isn't actually optional.
@@enskje Its really not hard to find. Its right next to the intermediate starting point to the left. Watching the video he probably did not finish chapter 3 and was rushing thru it. And chapter 4 and 5 was the best part. I never liked half-ass reviewers like this anyway. Bashed the game people been making for years, try to make it funny, and farm the reactions and make a quick buck. Reminds me of Boris Johnson and his antics. I wonder why yt handed this to me. Even many unprofessional streamers know to not pass judgement until they finished the game or would at least label it an 'early thoughts' video.
TBH, the real Monkey King would probably bounce on an invisible wall, then angrily smash it and keep walking in that direction anyway... ... Yes, we are talking about THAT flavor of overpowered !
Dragonball is based on Journey to the West in the same way that you can say the entirety of the Batman story is based on a bat. I would hold that Saiyuki is the most recognizable while still holding enough of the originals DNA. Even then, I would say only anime fans from the 00's era would probably be at least familiar with it.
The Bluey reference brought it home, the only way you are likely to get every reference yahtzee uses these days is to both have been playing games for around 40 years and also be a dad. And since I'm both I'm good with that :).
@RustoKomuska yeah Horatio hornblower I think he said, I had to wiki them :). Though I do remember the old TV series about journey to the west, something no one else I'm my friend group can, makes me old :p
glad you mentioned the old "monkey" tv show seeing as the intro sequence is basically that bit about the monkey god taking on heaven, losing and getting put under a mountain for a while as time out
Well it was more like went to war with heaven, very nearly won, lost a bet with and peed on the hand of the Buddha, and got trapped under a mountain. Lol
@@garrettwhite3922 Which is also to say, the author was very very Buddhist and constantly positions Buddhism as the greatest of the Chinese philosophies/religions. Buddha ends up having to step in and spank the Monkey King because he's the only entity powerful enough to contain him.
Or minor lesser known mythologies. Why does no one make something from zoroastrian myths. Its literally the first religion to have the idea of a Satan figure. Or mayan myths. Or aztec or something else. It's always just greek, north, Egypt, Chinese and Japanese.
To be fair, you do see the Four Guardians a bunch (yknow, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger and Afroamerican Tortoise), although usually as a side role, for some reason. Or just a lineup of themed skins, in case of games like Overwatch.
Water Margin and it's 108 Stars of Destiny concept are also underutilised. The only games that I saw that are (loosely) based on that is the Suikoden series, and it's japanese.
@@silkdust8069 - I think the Fate series technically sort of half-covers the Zoroastrian thing. You know, somewhere in between all the gender-swapping of historic and mythological figures to make them straight-male-protag-effable.
For a monkey that was OP af, he sure had a lot of Ls during Journey to the West, to the point most of the story was Monkey (ab)using his connections to the celestial bureaucracy to handle the situations he couldn't solve.
@@Giorgal yeah the novel illustrates a lot of dependency on buddha and other celestial top dogs, particularly with the knowledge that most of not all the trials they went thru are intentionally placed there by buddha. Its essentially straight glazing buddha tbh and any1 else under them are idiots im comparison
Yeah despite monkey king being very strong and an trickster himself, there were times where he got out trick by a demon. He had to go "guyin/Buddha halp!" Which given the allegorical stuff in the story could be a way of people praying for the Buddhas and the likes for help in the hard times.
Well hard to compete with Guanyin, the Bohhdisatva of infinite mercy. Who sworn an oath that she would not attain Nirvana til all living beings were enlightened.
NPR did a piece on this game recently, and when whoever they were interviewing about it (probably someone from the PR Team) mentioned it was based on “Journey to the West, a piece of Classic Chinese Literature no one outside of China has even heard of,” I started ranting and raving about the sheer mass of media based upon it for the entire rest of the drive to soccer practice. I don’t think my children will ever ask me again about what is Journey to the West.
I just recently ordered the Bluray set of the old TV show. "Black Myth: Wukong" is a visual spectacle, to be sure, but the gameplay could have been improved immeasurably by: • being able to whistle up a pink cloud to hoon around on; • enemies lining up in an orderly queue to attack you one at a time, so that they can be smacked across the face with your staff; and • questionable English dubbing These elements were, I feel, integral to the original vision of author Wu Cheng'en, and will hopefully be made available to us as DLC for the game.
@@st.altair4936It’s easier to understand and you can focus on the gameplay/visuals without having to look at the bottom of the screen. It’s like asking why doesn’t everyone watch films in 3d instead of 2d. Sometimes a simpler experience is better.
@@st.altair4936 For me, it's usually because I can't read lengthy diatribes AND smack monsters around the chops with a salmon at the same time. I found that with the untranslated versions of the Dynasty Warriors games. I always managed to miss something.
The strangest part is is there is a 40 year old story that started out based on Journey to the West. It kind of looses sight of it by the time you find out our Monkey stand-in is in fact an alien and has to save the planet from his own urges to fight. Bear in mind that's BEFORE the alternate universes show up.
@DavidGuild I believe they're talking about Dragon Ball, which, from what I have heard, does have ties to Sun Wukong. Unless there is a completely unrelated, but somewhat related, show that I haven't heard of.
The funny thing is that Sun Wukong isn't even the main character of Journey to the West, he's one of a couple of "funny animal companions" to the main protagonist: the Buddhist monk who is going from China to India to get a better set of copies of Buddhist sacred texts.
"Journey to the West" tells from the very beginning how Sun Wukong became an immortal. Later, because he caused trouble in the Heavenly Palace, he was suppressed under a mountain by the Buddha for 500 years. And the story of fetching the scriptures takes place 500 years after the prologue. Therefore, Sun Wukong is the absolute protagonist in this book. Even in the book, when the scripture - fetching team thought that Sun Wukong was dead, they were disheartened and decided to disband. It was not until Sun Wukong came back that they summoned up their courage again and set off. Journey to the West is a story in which the characters are constantly growing. At the beginning, there were many conflicts within this team. Even Tang Seng (Buddhist monk) was not a qualified teacher.
@@Mate397 If you think this is the first time he has made this kind of joke you either havent watched many videos from him or you're not paying attention
As someone who is somewhat familiar with Journey to the West, I can confirm that the story is incomprehensible even to those familiar with the original material. My guess is that the devs decided to sprinkle a handful of other Chinese myth, because I can’t for the life of me remember which part of JttW had a guy fuck a fox he saved but then skin it when he felt guilty.
I believe that foxy epilogue is designed to resonate with the main point of chapter 2 : 一念成佛 一念成魔 ( Become a Buddha with one thought, become a devil with one thought)
@@cyansuy3062 the game is actually a sequel for Journey to the West. The prologue of the game established Wukong already finished the journey when he mentioned his master safe and the scriptures sound.
Lol, the Bluey reference and the invisible walls joke are peak for this one; on the subject of Journey to the West inspired faff, however, I would actually say that the "New Adventures of Monkey" on Netflix was a fun romp in the style of the old Xena/Hercules adventures (complete with New Zealand casting). Strikes a good balance of humor and adventure, gave me a nostalgic vibe and I would have genuinely loved it as a 12yo too.
Yeah, that was a good binge watch with my buddy one night. The bit where they were partying with some villagers and the bards were playing the 70s theme song was a nice touch. I came across a shortish animated series of Monkey recently that was ok too. I *think* it was also on Netflix, but can't swear to it.
Spot on with the exploration part, I teleported back to some area in chapter 3 because I marked it in my head thinking "I'll visit this later after I'm done with this one path" but then that one path went on and on, and on, until I completely forgot where that area was in the first place and had no clue where I was.
There are two reviewer opinions on Wukong's equipment system and it depends entirely on whether they found the game's only blacksmith in a secret hub area. Either "WTF is this bollocks?" or "It's fine."
honsetly i think you could reason that aside from daoist, which implies just biolgical immortality, and and the book of the dead, which would imply that they'd need to more forcefully drag his soul to the afterlife, the other types were temporary in comparison. food and drink only lasts so long.
Watching "MONKEY!" after "Vids!" and "Bits!" but before "Fist of the North Star!" on early 2000's Channel 4 is such at 3am is such a fundamental part of people of my and Yatzee's generation that I am uttery amazed every time I get a hint he DIDN'T watch it.
To its credit, the game is post Journey in the prologue. It's cool how it references the novel, but also adds its own flavor. The invisible walls are beyond annoying in this game. Love when Yellow Sage jumps outside the invisible barrier and can still attack you, and just hangs out back there for 3 or 4 min.
Being hopelessly lost on the way to next phase of the journey is a central metaphor in Journey to the West for how difficult achieving enlightenment can be so at least it’s accurate in that regard.
@0:35 XD Actually, there are Four Classic Chinese Literature that is frequently quoted. It's just that Journey to the West is the easiest to digest because there are basically 5 main characters (Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, Master Monk and the Horse that everyone forgets). Everyone else is just side characters. Then you have #2: Romance of the Three Kingdoms and their expanded cast.... Digestable but getting hardcore. Think Dynasty Warriors I thru XIII. Then you have #3: Ultrahardcore level - Water Margin... with its 100+ characters. @_@ This usually ends up as Japanese JRPG. #4 is almost never mentioned - The Plum in the Golden Vase.
@@LethargicScientistI hire people in STEM and women typically have a career history of not trying very hard. Most of them give up and become business analysts, where they do very well.
@@richardhunter9779 I couldn't find a PhD advisor for a long time because my first PhD advisor (who was 60 while I was 22) wanted sexual favors for the privilege but sure go on about how I don't try hard enough. When people talk about STEM being difficult for women, that's the kind of shit they're talking about.
@@LethargicScientist so? Your anecdotal experience is supposed to be proof of widespread mistreatment? Nonsense! One of my STEM professors was a radical feminist that made the men in her class do twice as much work as the women for the same grades. See now I have just a much solid evidence as you that STEM is sexist towards men.
2:39 There is actually a parry mechanic although its not explained very well, and it must be unlocked as well, but its there for sure. It's very powerful if pulled off too.
As a father to a small child I very much appreciated the Bluey reference. I did not appreciate that it caused me to spray a mouthful of coffee over desk.
5:16 - I just finished watching the Monkey TV series (it's on the ITV website in the UK, if anyone's interested), and it was pretty darn good! If funny-fantasy shows like Xena entertain you, I'd heartily recommend it.
Black Myth really drives home that regardless of where a game is made, no amount of slathered on AAA production value guarantees basic design competency. Kind of beautifully unifying to be honest.
I mean, the other big legendary stories involve monster-fucking (Madam White Snake), involve military history of interests to only anoraks and slash fans (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and was basically an anti-government story with a downer ending (Water Margin). Also, sure, Sun Wukong was definitely overpowered in terms of who he could take on in a fight, but he did spend most of the time during the actual Journey to the West being inflicted with the mother of all migraines when he tried to use his full powers to kill the people who tried to kill and eat Xuanzang, the Buddhist monk he was escorting.
I do get the impression a big part of the fun of Journey to the West is Sun Wukong being wildly overpowered when it comes to brutal combat and hilariously lacking in literally any other skills or motivation til he gets divinely slapped around enough.
@@KingOfElectricNinjas He certainly seems to have been a reasonably effective ruler and administrator. I remember somewhere it was mentioned that the monkeys of Mount Huaguo were able to thrive without him during the 500 years he was stuck under the mountain, thanks in no small part due to the practices and institutions he put in place while he was king.
Where is my Kalevala based action game? Where Väinämöinen sings people in to the bog in a Guitar Hero style minigame? Order now to get authentic salmon jaw kantele! (Made from plastic)
There absolutely is as parry. In fact, there are 2 parries that I know of. Resolute Counterflow, and stone solid. It's also wild that he missed the NPC that can upgrade sets of armor. I'm guessing he never found the hub area, despite making it to the end of chapter 4. Question is, who's fault is that? Stuff like that shouldn't be so easy to miss.
Honestly sounds like he didn't really understand the story either, which is probably the result of missing too much side content and not reading the journal entries
That's like the Death Ray in Blood 2. That weapon is tucked away in a secret, found nowhere else, and it basically keeps the game from becoming outright unplayable beyond where you find it. Maybe we're Americans and we're used to game mechanics falling in our lap, but still: who thinks to squirrel away a make-or-break piece of content like that?
I mean, as far as prominent literature goes, that isn't Ronance of the Three Kingdoms goes, they could try to adapt "Dream of the Red Chambers" as a persona style social game. Though a faithful adaptation would piss just about everyone off. Between Bao Yu's possibly but not really implied homosexuality/transsexuality before he gets married and fathers a son to continue the bloodline, to the number of female characters who are strong, well realized, and spend a great deal of time having horrible, horrible things done to them by other women, occasionally spiced up by even more horrible things done by men. To the fact that the protagonist is also a magic rock in a doomed romance with a flower. It all seems like a tough cookie to turn into an AAA game.
The only way that could get turned into a videogame without getting 'butchered in translation' is if it was done by an independent developer. Not a company that bows down to the direct interests and ethos of the Chinese government, nor one of the same spineless, soulless, money-grubbing nature of large corporate game publishers that comprise most of the western & international gaming industry. And you can be sure it'll get railed on _immediately_ from day one for daring to have 'politics' in 'muh gaming'...
I’m just glad China gaming industry finally produce a massive hit product that’s based entirely on Chinese culture without having to disguise it as something else or from someone else to sell. Even Korean games were stuck with western fantasy RPG aesthetics for the longest time.
Very very rarely, if ever, did I completely agree with Yahtzee's review, but this seems to be the one for me. All the things he mentioned are things I've talked to my friends about and had issues with. That said it is still a very good game, just has plenty of room to improve, can't wait to see what the studio does next
The best media to do with Journey to the West has to be the summary of it done by Overly Sarcastic Productions. The amount of visual gags hidden in the drawings mixed with the quippy and understandable recap makes that series amazing.
Rock Solid is the parry. It's on cooldown and costs mana but with the right upgrades you can lower the cooldown and regenerate mana when you get it to trigger among other things. You can also upgrade armor pieces with enough money and resources so you can actually KEEP USING the old sets that you like.
It'll all make sense when we get the Black Myth: Bajie, and Black Myth: Sanzang followed by Black Myth: The horse who's actually a dragon (don't worry, he forgets too) and whose name not even the fanboys bother to remember.
"There's as many invisible walls as there are in a STEM career for women." Holy shit. Yahtzee is back on top of his game, and it's honestly refreshing to see.
The best thinv based on Journey to the West is A Korean Odessey (I know I didn't spell this right...), which is a Korean romantic dramadey with the characters from Journey to the West, only set in modern day Seoul, most of the supernatural characters are roommates in Demon Bull King's apartment and the priest character whose name I can't remember makes her money buying properties that are haunted cheap, exorcising them then flipping them for a profit. It's quite, quite mad but kinda brilliant?
They gender flipped the priest? God that happens in a lot of adaptations. Smh it's fine to just have a weak male character who gets kidnapped constantly.
@@BE-fw1lr There's a whole generation of people who are vaguely surprised to hear that Tripitaka _isn't_ a woman because of that one TV show which, for reasons which no doubt made sense at the time, cast a woman to pay him.
Regarding the armour, I think it's clearly something intended as a "NG you use the armour to experiment on different fighting styles", as you unlock the ability to level up armour part way through and then in NG+ you can get all armour to max, so you can level the one that fits your style. Great if you intend to do NG+, not so good if you don't.
no thats not completly true, you can actually unlock armor upgrade via the mid section of chapter 3 thru a npc quest. However its entirely optional so i think the criticisim still stands.
Or be yahtzee and hate anime (and JRPGS in general for the longest time) Although saying that DBZ is the best thing based off of Journey to the west is like saying Batman is the best thing based off of Zoro... wait, don't answer that.
Or he could just not be that familiar with DBZ. I personally forgot it was based off Journey to the West until you said something since my mom wouldn't let me watch it as a kid
@BeanoNintendo tbf dbz is basically unrelated to journey to the west, DB's influences from that story are more or less entirely contained within the very first arc of the original series (which encompasses like the first 13 episodes of the anime and even that basically starts doing its own thing shortly after the pig stand-in shows up)
As a San Francisco resident and frequent flyer out of SFO, I can confirm Yahtzee's assertion regarding the long term parking lot Hell out of our city's largest airport.
Whenever I hear about arguments as to whether a particular game fits in a particular genre, especially a "newer" genre like soulslike, I just remember that "first-person-shooter" is just the word we came up with to replace "Doom-clone". Some people getting much too caught up on what a game (or music or a movie for that matter) is like that they can't just take it for what it is. Edit: Punctuation, ironically
I hope that some day you will figure out that the billions of people of people live in China, many of them do not in fact play the same games as one another, just like anywhere else.
Seriously I think China has a potential for the gaming market in both art and customers. One major problem is the china government is very hands on censor that makes Australia look hand off by comprasion
"better if it had stripped out everything but the boss fights" Uhh... most of us like games, so we enjoy when our games contain more game as opposed to less game. Fuck Furi.
Spolier alert! to be fair, the immortal WuKong didn't really get "beaton" in the beginning, if you understand the story he and Erlang conspired to a fake duel and got himself "killed" so he can separate his body into 6 essence (6 parts of what makes a being as seen in Chapter 5 ending animation), its so once player successfully beat the true ending Wukong will regain his memory and revive a free monkey without that cheating headband Buddha trapped him in. and dont worry if anyone dont understand the story, even majority of the Chinese players were flaming the story at the beginning up to chapter 5 since Wukong is immortal so him being dead doesnt make sense, only when chapter 6 ending when the old monkey put the headband back on the Destined one does alot of players realse "wait the minute, this old monkey is a traitor from the heavenly court, I've been lied to, there must be another ending"
My big takeaway from this is that Yahtzee didn't very much like Enslaved, which breaks my heart. I feel like I'm one of 6 people on earth who loved it. Not a perfect game by any stretch but scratched a lot of itches, and one of the few where I got really invested in the characters.
I hope Yahtzee makes a “Let’s all laugh at an industry who never learns anything tee hee hee” on Concord before the year is up so it can be the first game in the blandest and worst category as I don’t think we have ever seen a worse situation for a generic bland AAA game before.
I see yatzee, like me missed the 3 questlines 2 secret areas and 37 handjobs he needed to unlock the blacksmith and the hub area so he can upgrade his armor
“Like most British people, I’m a huge racist”
That’s a brave way to start a video.
I'm sure he's referencing the recent far-right riots that haven't left GB looking quite so "great". But then Germany had to go one worse and actually elect the fuckers. Because of course they did.
He's just getting ahead of the accusations by not glazing this game and being objective about it.
We waz ownly awzkin questions! Bloody taking our jobs and coming over here, and they don't even work!
Dey took our jirbs!
@@markarmstrong5234 they DID invent racism after all
@@wahbegan And then we perfected it! So no [redacted] could best us in the ring of honour!
Admittedly cheesing a fight is something Wukong would do...albeit in his case usually because he was bored.
Not to mention that he knows 99% of all deamons in the world and the respective demon kings of each set. So likes to fuck with them. If I recall, he has impersonated at least 2 wives and one demon king just to fuck with the enemy
@@Pedro_Colicigno And if anything goes too sideways he just calls in Guanyin.
It's interesting that people seem to always be talking about Sun Wukong as if he's the protagonist of the game, but he's not. He's just the guy who scattered the Mcguffins your character has to find.
@@clixx13 I don't know how much you know about the plot so I won't risk spoiling but your statement is both correct and incorrect.
@@GriffinPilgrim My favourite moment is when the party reaches that city where the 3 Dao imortals are making buddist monks labor and he goes to the monks all like "Hey, I'm Sun Wukong and will free you"
And the monk answers "But Guanyin told us he is super scary etc"
Sun just sights, poinst to the other side and goes "THERE IS SUN WUKONG" and transforms out of his disguise. OSP video on that one is hilarius
Considering the amount of League of Legends players that got mad at Smite for "ripping off" Sun Wukong makes me think there still aren't as many people familiar with Journey to the West as one would have thought.
Oh wow, I didn't think you were active. How's it going?
I mean, when literally everything based on Journey to the West focuses on Sun Wukong and ONLY Sun Wukong, you'd be forgiven for thinking that.
All I know is dude's like quintuple immortal, and that's probably way more than your average Joe knows.
I'm familiar that it's a thing because it was the primary inspiration for the original Dragonball. There was also that one Jackie Chan movie that seems like it could have been a good movie if it wasn't screwed over by a bunch of dumb executive meddling trying to make it have broad appeal to western audiences.
Meanwhile, people who've actually skimmed the wikipedia article about Journey to the West: "Hey, didn't there use to be a monk guy in this...?"
I'm familiar with it because of Overly Sarcastic Productions' videos summarizing Journey to the West.
The Chinese basically use Journey to the West as a proof of concept for any of their emerging entertainment ventures. It's like their Spider-man
It's safe, can't go around publishing stories with any hint of anti-establishment mentality, for example.
It's got a recognizable hero, it's one of their few cultural hallmarks that is widely known around the world, the book is massive and has both a lot of original concepts and references enough older traditions and beliefs that you can very easily do just about whatever you want with it, and it's safe from controversy. It's also essentially the precursor to shonen anime, so it's very easy to convert it into an action-based video game-y format. Honestly as someone who's been following Overly Sarcastic Productions' take on it I'm genuinely surprised there aren't *more* games based on it.
@@juusojuuso9214 which is Ironic for anyone who actually *knows* Sun Wukong, being anti=establishment of the heavenly bureaucracy is his whole *thing* aside from being OP.
@@xShadowChrisx China loves anti-establishment characters- as long as said characters aren't pointedly against the CCP. Their media has a strange delicate dance with the censors
@xShadowChrisx isn't journey to the west Confucius propaganda? From my knowledge it's a very pro Confucian.
He's not just immortal, he's immortal x4, because the writer had to prove how much better Sun Wukong is than all of the main religions of ancient China, except for Buddhism.
Great sage equal to heaven, once peed in the hand of Buddha.😂
There's a 17th century fanfic where he goes to hell because Buddha wants to test him, so he steals ANOTHER immortality granting peach and becomes 5x immortal and for a while, Western scholars thought it was a core part of the Journey to the West.
To be fair, that's also because of how immortality works in Chinese mythology, where stuff like agelessness and resistance to physical harm are their own immortalities as a opposed to being immortal just being a one and done. But you also aren't wrong. XD
So it's basically a "who would win?" except it's for established religions and along comes this one kid who keeps bringing up his own OC that would easily just demolish Superman, Dr. Strange, Goku, or Kirby without breaking a sweat.
Are you saying he's immortal x4 in the game? I haven't played it yet. He's he's immortal x7 in the original book.
1, the technique learned from Master Subodhi. 2, crossing out his name in the ledgers of the underworld. 3, eating heaven's immortal peaches. 4, drinking heavenly wine. 5, stealing Lao Tzu's elixir. 6, Lao Tzu's furnace burning away the last of his mortality. 7, eating ginseng fruit.
I find "Bluey's magic Xylophone" being Yahtzee's chosen reference point for the freeze ability to be unreasonably delightful.
We've crossed the threshold from Yahtzee *just* making irreverently crass jokes to occasionally just loudly demonstrating what a dad he is.
I paused the video and scrolled down to the comments to talk about how that line is what made me laugh aloud at work when I'm not supposed to be watching RUclips.
or it just a really good show...
Bluey's a great show, honestly
I came here to say how delighted I was to see this reference was made.
Yes. I'm a mom. What of it.?
@LillyP-xs5qe It can be both a good show, and a sign of Yahtz being a dad
I'm convinced that Wukong's consistent and near constant presence in all forms of media is actually another one of his types of immortality, officially adding a ninth way for him to stick around forever. You might notice that this means that Wukong totally shouldn't have died at the start of this game, no matter how many mountains they dropped on him.
you know what i always thought was weird? how very few games let you use a staff as an effective melee weapon. games seem to always treat a staff like it's a spell casting tool and only let you swing it sometimes as a joke. here's hoping wukong can make melee staffs cool
Yeah monkey king using a staff is iconic. It like a game where king Arthur is not using his sword that munch
@@Pholadis I thought Donatello had that market cornered 🧐
Wo Long has staves as melee weapons, and they're among the best ones, because you can stunlock enemies with them.
Warframe has pretty badass staves.
It is weird since staffs are OP weapons IRL. A good quarter staff with some skill can break swords. Also, most armies gave their units spears to start with, which is basically staff with knife on the end. I want to see more spears in games.
Between this, Another Crab’s Treasure, and Nine Sols, it seems like 2024 is the year of Souls-like games where you play as an animal.
This game can’t hold a candle to Nine Souls. Gameplay wise. Esp if (like me) you don’t like boss rush games.
There's also Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus, which is basically Hollow Knight: Weeb Edition
Another's crab treasure takes the gold
Wukong is much less souls-like than the others though
Jokes on you, there was always a playable animal in every soulslike. It's the donkey holding the controller.
Impressive he went the whole thing without making a Dragon Ball Z joke
I doubt Yahtzee's seen even a single episode of dbz tbh.
@@This-Was-Sparta so it would seem. Though after DBZ, I would say the second biggest pop culture thing for Journey to the West is having Sanzang in Fate Grand Order.
Doge! 🐌
@@zigslotheon Wukong from League of Legends has to beat out FGO right?
@@This-Was-Sparta he's referenced DBZ before
"More invisible walls than a STEM career path for women" absolutely slayed me~
I thought the game studio banned people from mentioning feminist propaganda like that…
@@JaredJeyaretnam it's not "feminist" if the barriers were due due to their lack of Spatial Awareness... Har *Har,* HARR
they roll out the red carpet for any woman who wants to do STEM in australia
@@ertrstytry And in all Western countries. The barrier to entry for women is far lower than it is for men.
@@stevenuss1482 wow really, look around your workplace and just count the ratio from man and woman. Absolutely delusional
I'm sure it's just Yahtzee doing a bit, but "oh no it's journey to the west again" followed by immediately not recognizing two of the three main characters of Journey to the West is hilarious.
I don't think he was doing a bit, because Black Myth is *not* Journey to the West. It's the story afterward, in which Sun Wukong rejected godhood to live a normal peaceful life. The other gods, fearing his power then murdered him (the intro). Hence "black myth"
Brits gotta Brit!
@@Kilvoctu How they managed that is anyone's guess because, as stated, Wukong is immortal. And not just immortal, 4X immortal. He learned the Taoist secret of immortality, he ate an entire grove of peaches of immortality, he ate an entire gourd of pills of immortality, AND drank a whole bunch of booze of immortality. I'm guessing the game is ignoring all that.
@@Canadamus_Prime They just killed him immortal x5 times, duh.
@@Canadamus_Prime Probably just due to mistranslation or lack of a better word. If you listen to the Chinese dub, what the English dub translated as "Immortality" is 長生不老 which roughly mean "live long and not grow old". Immortality in a sense but doesn't mean you can't be killed by getting shanked.
Just in case Yahtzee missed it, since it's locked behind an optional item you can acquire and forget to interact with, there's a scroll you can get late in Chapter 3 that opens up a hub area for the various merchant NPCs you run into throughout the game, including a tiger man who acts as an armour upgrader (and an optional boss fight for an extra relic slot). He can upgrade your old armours with effects you prefer up to the armour-standard of your current equipment, for Will and various crafting materials.
I was also a little annoyed that you had to leave behind armour with good effects to keep up with the later-game damage outputs (yes yes, git gud, etc) until I realised this. Though, the final armour set is honestly probably one of the best effects( and looks the best imo), so once you get there, it's of little consequence really.
This is the one redeeming factor of games almost always having crafting now a days. You don't need to find some obscure NPC to change your gear. They could've just had this as a menu choice were you craft things yourself.
That really seems like something that shouldn't be optional or missable.
@@jonathangwilliams6825 The game is really weird because it's clearly balanced around the side quests, but also never forces you to do them. If you aren't going out of your way to do the optional content, you're basically doing an insane challenge run, and I think the majority of people don't understand this.
Your armor, stats, and healing item are all upgraded in the same place, and you can very easily miss it. Many bosses are also objectively unfair unless you go out and find the vessels that are specifically designed to hard-counter them. And before anyone says that's just "Easy mode", you actually need the vessels for the true ending, so it's clearly intended.
I just thought the game was terrible until I realized that the optional content isn't actually optional.
@@enskje you can upgrade your armor at the checkpoints in NG+
@@enskje Its really not hard to find. Its right next to the intermediate starting point to the left. Watching the video he probably did not finish chapter 3 and was rushing thru it. And chapter 4 and 5 was the best part. I never liked half-ass reviewers like this anyway. Bashed the game people been making for years, try to make it funny, and farm the reactions and make a quick buck. Reminds me of Boris Johnson and his antics. I wonder why yt handed this to me. Even many unprofessional streamers know to not pass judgement until they finished the game or would at least label it an 'early thoughts' video.
Best thing based on journey to the west: Osp red's videos on the topic.
Yes! I was thinking the same thing! And I'd just been rewatching that playlist earlier this week.
Fellow Overly Sarcastic fan, I salute you! o7
yeah Dragon ball is a close second
Spot on
I love that series, it’s like Fools Gold it’s such a fun wee animated series
TBH, the real Monkey King would probably bounce on an invisible wall, then angrily smash it and keep walking in that direction anyway...
... Yes, we are talking about THAT flavor of overpowered !
HE carried the universe while meditating FOR 500 PISSING YEARS.
And yet he still couldn't beat the ultimate invisible wall of Buddhism: all of his vaunted powers and he still couldn't make it off of Buddha's hand.
@@quintonhoffert6526 They had to nerf him somehow.
Fun fact: Caffeine makes spiders Drunk and lethargic, so overloading a giant spider on coffee would probably put it to sleep. Or poison it to death.
But that famous Canadian wildlife video told me different.
Surely Dragonball is the best thing based on Journey to the West, definitely the most recognisable anyway.
"You're Sun Wukong right?"
"I'm Son Goku, yes"
Dragonball is based on Journey to the West in the same way that you can say the entirety of the Batman story is based on a bat.
I would hold that Saiyuki is the most recognizable while still holding enough of the originals DNA. Even then, I would say only anime fans from the 00's era would probably be at least familiar with it.
@@takeru3159 *Has horrible flashbacks of the protagonist explaining the concept of a banishing gun to every villain in the series*
Dragon ball only got popular AFTER it ditched the Journey to the West parallels and became its own thing.
@@benfreeman2520 "Roll with it"
The Bluey reference brought it home, the only way you are likely to get every reference yahtzee uses these days is to both have been playing games for around 40 years and also be a dad. And since I'm both I'm good with that :).
@@Sadarak1980 or to have nieces who treat Bluey like mid 2000s people treated Shrek.
Have to read those boat novels as well if you remember obra dinn
Niche group but eh, we are what we are lol
~a random canadian subscriber dude
@@zigslotheon lol broooo X'D
@RustoKomuska yeah Horatio hornblower I think he said, I had to wiki them :). Though I do remember the old TV series about journey to the west, something no one else I'm my friend group can, makes me old :p
glad you mentioned the old "monkey" tv show seeing as the intro sequence is basically that bit about the monkey god taking on heaven, losing and getting put under a mountain for a while as time out
Yep that's Journey to the West for you. It's a beat from the story.
Journey to the west reference be like
Well it was more like went to war with heaven, very nearly won, lost a bet with and peed on the hand of the Buddha, and got trapped under a mountain. Lol
@@garrettwhite3922 Which is also to say, the author was very very Buddhist and constantly positions Buddhism as the greatest of the Chinese philosophies/religions. Buddha ends up having to step in and spank the Monkey King because he's the only entity powerful enough to contain him.
@jasonblalock4429 yea the entire thing is a metaphor/propaganda piece for bhuddism
0:35 For real. It's always either Journey to the West or the 12 zodiacs. I want to see someone telling a story about the Phoenix!
Or minor lesser known mythologies. Why does no one make something from zoroastrian myths. Its literally the first religion to have the idea of a Satan figure.
Or mayan myths. Or aztec or something else. It's always just greek, north, Egypt, Chinese and Japanese.
To be fair, you do see the Four Guardians a bunch (yknow, Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger and Afroamerican Tortoise), although usually as a side role, for some reason. Or just a lineup of themed skins, in case of games like Overwatch.
@@Bakecrusto it's also a heavy theme in gunvolt franchise
Water Margin and it's 108 Stars of Destiny concept are also underutilised. The only games that I saw that are (loosely) based on that is the Suikoden series, and it's japanese.
@@silkdust8069 - I think the Fate series technically sort of half-covers the Zoroastrian thing. You know, somewhere in between all the gender-swapping of historic and mythological figures to make them straight-male-protag-effable.
For a monkey that was OP af, he sure had a lot of Ls during Journey to the West, to the point most of the story was Monkey (ab)using his connections to the celestial bureaucracy to handle the situations he couldn't solve.
I think a lot of them are meant to illustrate how you can't bruteforce every problem. Which is what all the best Thor stories are as well.
That's honestly hilariously accurate
@@Giorgal yeah the novel illustrates a lot of dependency on buddha and other celestial top dogs, particularly with the knowledge that most of not all the trials they went thru are intentionally placed there by buddha. Its essentially straight glazing buddha tbh and any1 else under them are idiots im comparison
Yeah despite monkey king being very strong and an trickster himself, there were times where he got out trick by a demon. He had to go "guyin/Buddha halp!" Which given the allegorical stuff in the story could be a way of people praying for the Buddhas and the likes for help in the hard times.
Well hard to compete with Guanyin, the Bohhdisatva of infinite mercy. Who sworn an oath that she would not attain Nirvana til all living beings were enlightened.
0:15 -- Well, that's certainly one way to start the video.
NPR did a piece on this game recently, and when whoever they were interviewing about it (probably someone from the PR Team) mentioned it was based on “Journey to the West, a piece of Classic Chinese Literature no one outside of China has even heard of,” I started ranting and raving about the sheer mass of media based upon it for the entire rest of the drive to soccer practice. I don’t think my children will ever ask me again about what is Journey to the West.
I just recently ordered the Bluray set of the old TV show. "Black Myth: Wukong" is a visual spectacle, to be sure, but the gameplay could have been improved immeasurably by:
• being able to whistle up a pink cloud to hoon around on;
• enemies lining up in an orderly queue to attack you one at a time, so that they can be smacked across the face with your staff; and
• questionable English dubbing
These elements were, I feel, integral to the original vision of author Wu Cheng'en, and will hopefully be made available to us as DLC for the game.
I never get why some people use english dubbing on a game when the original dub has subtitles...
@@st.altair4936It’s easier to understand and you can focus on the gameplay/visuals without having to look at the bottom of the screen.
It’s like asking why doesn’t everyone watch films in 3d instead of 2d. Sometimes a simpler experience is better.
MONKEEEEEEYYYY!!!
@@st.altair4936 For me, it's usually because I can't read lengthy diatribes AND smack monsters around the chops with a salmon at the same time. I found that with the untranslated versions of the Dynasty Warriors games. I always managed to miss something.
@@jonathangwilliams6825 Ah, I guess that makes sense during combat, though I personally didn't have an issue with it.
Nothing says "Yes, I'm a dad, so what?" harder than that Bluey reference about the magic xylophone.
The strangest part is is there is a 40 year old story that started out based on Journey to the West. It kind of looses sight of it by the time you find out our Monkey stand-in is in fact an alien and has to save the planet from his own urges to fight. Bear in mind that's BEFORE the alternate universes show up.
@@tipulsar85 I couldn't see that nonsense being beloved by millions worldwide with dozens of movies and multiple entire series based on it.
What are you on about?
@DavidGuild I believe they're talking about Dragon Ball, which, from what I have heard, does have ties to Sun Wukong.
Unless there is a completely unrelated, but somewhat related, show that I haven't heard of.
The funny thing is that Sun Wukong isn't even the main character of Journey to the West, he's one of a couple of "funny animal companions" to the main protagonist: the Buddhist monk who is going from China to India to get a better set of copies of Buddhist sacred texts.
"Journey to the West" tells from the very beginning how Sun Wukong became an immortal. Later, because he caused trouble in the Heavenly Palace, he was suppressed under a mountain by the Buddha for 500 years. And the story of fetching the scriptures takes place 500 years after the prologue. Therefore, Sun Wukong is the absolute protagonist in this book. Even in the book, when the scripture - fetching team thought that Sun Wukong was dead, they were disheartened and decided to disband. It was not until Sun Wukong came back that they summoned up their courage again and set off. Journey to the West is a story in which the characters are constantly growing. At the beginning, there were many conflicts within this team. Even Tang Seng (Buddhist monk) was not a qualified teacher.
That invisible walls line was pure gold.
Eh, felt like someone told him to add such a line rather than him coming up with it.
@@Mate397 Nobody EVER tells Yahtzee what to write in his reviews.
@@Mate397 Lol, do you know what channel you're on?
@@Mate397 If you think this is the first time he has made this kind of joke you either havent watched many videos from him or you're not paying attention
@@Mate397ahh here comes "actually women are alright" crowd, bless
As someone who is somewhat familiar with Journey to the West, I can confirm that the story is incomprehensible even to those familiar with the original material. My guess is that the devs decided to sprinkle a handful of other Chinese myth, because I can’t for the life of me remember which part of JttW had a guy fuck a fox he saved but then skin it when he felt guilty.
I believe that foxy epilogue is designed to resonate with the main point of chapter 2 : 一念成佛 一念成魔 (
Become a Buddha with one thought, become a devil with one thought)
That fox story sounds eerily familiar, so you’re probably right about extra myths being added in
You need to read the game journal to understand the story it is very deep story
Sounds more like "The Painted Skin" from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
@@cyansuy3062 the game is actually a sequel for Journey to the West. The prologue of the game established Wukong already finished the journey when he mentioned his master safe and the scriptures sound.
I can't wait to understand the plot until the middle when I catch up with OSP's Journey to the West summary
Novelty birthday cakes are the Dark Souls of Journey to the West.
„Hits like a middle class tax burden“ ❤️
Lol, the Bluey reference and the invisible walls joke are peak for this one; on the subject of Journey to the West inspired faff, however, I would actually say that the "New Adventures of Monkey" on Netflix was a fun romp in the style of the old Xena/Hercules adventures (complete with New Zealand casting). Strikes a good balance of humor and adventure, gave me a nostalgic vibe and I would have genuinely loved it as a 12yo too.
Yeah, that was a good binge watch with my buddy one night. The bit where they were partying with some villagers and the bards were playing the 70s theme song was a nice touch.
I came across a shortish animated series of Monkey recently that was ok too. I *think* it was also on Netflix, but can't swear to it.
"Dodge City, home of a profitable cheese industry" is one of my favorite jokes you've ever written
Spot on with the exploration part, I teleported back to some area in chapter 3 because I marked it in my head thinking "I'll visit this later after I'm done with this one path" but then that one path went on and on, and on, until I completely forgot where that area was in the first place and had no clue where I was.
OK, now I _have_ to see Yahtzee's reaction to some of the stuff from the original book. Five different types of immortality, baby!
I feel like his reaction would just be boredom.
There are two reviewer opinions on Wukong's equipment system and it depends entirely on whether they found the game's only blacksmith in a secret hub area. Either "WTF is this bollocks?" or "It's fine."
he's not just any immortal, he's multi-immortal, he took a bunch of different immortality stuff.
honsetly i think you could reason that aside from daoist, which implies just biolgical immortality, and and the book of the dead, which would imply that they'd need to more forcefully drag his soul to the afterlife, the other types were temporary in comparison. food and drink only lasts so long.
Watching "MONKEY!" after "Vids!" and "Bits!" but before "Fist of the North Star!" on early 2000's Channel 4 is such at 3am is such a fundamental part of people of my and Yatzee's generation that I am uttery amazed every time I get a hint he DIDN'T watch it.
Definitely one of the most iconic shared experiences of our generation.
To its credit, the game is post Journey in the prologue. It's cool how it references the novel, but also adds its own flavor.
The invisible walls are beyond annoying in this game. Love when Yellow Sage jumps outside the invisible barrier and can still attack you, and just hangs out back there for 3 or 4 min.
While it can be circumvented if you obtain the vessel for that chapter the fact that he stays outside of the combat arena SO LONG is ridiculous.
Being hopelessly lost on the way to next phase of the journey is a central metaphor in Journey to the West for how difficult achieving enlightenment can be so at least it’s accurate in that regard.
That sounds very deep but it doesn't sound like a very fitting plot for a mainstream videogame
3:54 "The usual Mario biome checklist"
SAY IT!
Say the thing!!!
"Not journey to the west again"
"I imagine it makes more sense if you are familiar with journey to the west"
@0:35 XD Actually, there are Four Classic Chinese Literature that is frequently quoted. It's just that Journey to the West is the easiest to digest because there are basically 5 main characters (Monkey, Pigsy, Sandy, Master Monk and the Horse that everyone forgets). Everyone else is just side characters.
Then you have #2: Romance of the Three Kingdoms and their expanded cast.... Digestable but getting hardcore. Think Dynasty Warriors I thru XIII.
Then you have #3: Ultrahardcore level - Water Margin... with its 100+ characters. @_@ This usually ends up as Japanese JRPG.
#4 is almost never mentioned - The Plum in the Golden Vase.
More invisible walls than a STEM career path for women 4:08. That's a good one.
"hits like a middle class tax burden" haha Yahtzee is a legend
I'm a woman in STEM and that shit is way too real.
@@LethargicScientistI hire people in STEM and women typically have a career history of not trying very hard. Most of them give up and become business analysts, where they do very well.
@@richardhunter9779 I couldn't find a PhD advisor for a long time because my first PhD advisor (who was 60 while I was 22) wanted sexual favors for the privilege but sure go on about how I don't try hard enough. When people talk about STEM being difficult for women, that's the kind of shit they're talking about.
@@LethargicScientist so? Your anecdotal experience is supposed to be proof of widespread mistreatment? Nonsense!
One of my STEM professors was a radical feminist that made the men in her class do twice as much work as the women for the same grades. See now I have just a much solid evidence as you that STEM is sexist towards men.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an incredible setting for tons of stories. It's got wily protagonists beating the odds by using ideas over force.
2:39 There is actually a parry mechanic although its not explained very well, and it must be unlocked as well, but its there for sure. It's very powerful if pulled off too.
you talking about the rock one?
As a father to a small child I very much appreciated the Bluey reference. I did not appreciate that it caused me to spray a mouthful of coffee over desk.
First video in 8 month because I just learned about the new channel. Glad to be back to the videos. Missed you yahtzee
Glad to have the old gang slowly coming back
"That hits like a middle class tax burden" goddamn Yathz you're too good
RIP Yahtzee's Social Credit score
5:16 - I just finished watching the Monkey TV series (it's on the ITV website in the UK, if anyone's interested), and it was pretty darn good! If funny-fantasy shows like Xena entertain you, I'd heartily recommend it.
Black Myth really drives home that regardless of where a game is made, no amount of slathered on AAA production value guarantees basic design competency. Kind of beautifully unifying to be honest.
I mean, the other big legendary stories involve monster-fucking (Madam White Snake), involve military history of interests to only anoraks and slash fans (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and was basically an anti-government story with a downer ending (Water Margin).
Also, sure, Sun Wukong was definitely overpowered in terms of who he could take on in a fight, but he did spend most of the time during the actual Journey to the West being inflicted with the mother of all migraines when he tried to use his full powers to kill the people who tried to kill and eat Xuanzang, the Buddhist monk he was escorting.
I do get the impression a big part of the fun of Journey to the West is Sun Wukong being wildly overpowered when it comes to brutal combat and hilariously lacking in literally any other skills or motivation til he gets divinely slapped around enough.
@@KingOfElectricNinjas He certainly seems to have been a reasonably effective ruler and administrator. I remember somewhere it was mentioned that the monkeys of Mount Huaguo were able to thrive without him during the 500 years he was stuck under the mountain, thanks in no small part due to the practices and institutions he put in place while he was king.
there was of course a fairly successful series of games based on the Water Margin (or to call it by its Japanese title: "Suikoden")...
@@tarnetskyggeAnd the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has Dynasty Warriors
@@ironicdivinemandatestan4262 ...and the whole Romance of the Three Kingdoms series of games. And the (very good) Total War: Three Kingdoms.
Where is my Kalevala based action game?
Where Väinämöinen sings people in to the bog in a Guitar Hero style minigame?
Order now to get authentic salmon jaw kantele! (Made from plastic)
Kalevala game will be so hype ❤😅
That actually sounds pretty cool. Someone call remedy, they're finnish
I wouldn't be surprised if that's something that Sam Lake has in his back pocket.
Well, there's Kalevania. Two guesses what kind of action game it is. Iron Danger is one, action rpg, and of course Noita.
@@Ropetupa i mean there is Indivisible for you Indian mythology nuts
There absolutely is as parry. In fact, there are 2 parries that I know of.
Resolute Counterflow, and stone solid.
It's also wild that he missed the NPC that can upgrade sets of armor. I'm guessing he never found the hub area, despite making it to the end of chapter 4. Question is, who's fault is that? Stuff like that shouldn't be so easy to miss.
@@Jim2point0 right down the road!
Honestly sounds like he didn't really understand the story either, which is probably the result of missing too much side content and not reading the journal entries
That's like the Death Ray in Blood 2. That weapon is tucked away in a secret, found nowhere else, and it basically keeps the game from becoming outright unplayable beyond where you find it.
Maybe we're Americans and we're used to game mechanics falling in our lap, but still: who thinks to squirrel away a make-or-break piece of content like that?
I mean, as far as prominent literature goes, that isn't Ronance of the Three Kingdoms goes, they could try to adapt "Dream of the Red Chambers" as a persona style social game.
Though a faithful adaptation would piss just about everyone off. Between Bao Yu's possibly but not really implied homosexuality/transsexuality before he gets married and fathers a son to continue the bloodline, to the number of female characters who are strong, well realized, and spend a great deal of time having horrible, horrible things done to them by other women, occasionally spiced up by even more horrible things done by men. To the fact that the protagonist is also a magic rock in a doomed romance with a flower. It all seems like a tough cookie to turn into an AAA game.
The only way that could get turned into a videogame without getting 'butchered in translation' is if it was done by an independent developer. Not a company that bows down to the direct interests and ethos of the Chinese government, nor one of the same spineless, soulless, money-grubbing nature of large corporate game publishers that comprise most of the western & international gaming industry. And you can be sure it'll get railed on _immediately_ from day one for daring to have 'politics' in 'muh gaming'...
Is that the same magic rock having a doomed romance with a flower as in Barry Hughart's _The Story of the Stone?_
Your xylophone reference has got me hankering for a Yahtzee review series on Bluey
I am waiting for the " lets all laugh at an industry that never learns anything tee hee hee" on concord
I’m just glad China gaming industry finally produce a massive hit product that’s based entirely on Chinese culture without having to disguise it as something else or from someone else to sell. Even Korean games were stuck with western fantasy RPG aesthetics for the longest time.
0:15 It's too early for this, Benjamin.
3:40 wait a moment. isnt that what shadow of collosus did, just a whole load of nothing between boss fights
It’s not unlocked on the main path, but the armor upgrade system allows you to invest in and use the armor with the set bonuses you like.
The symbols-playing monkey from Zero Punctuation finally got to star in a video, brings a tear to my eye
Very very rarely, if ever, did I completely agree with Yahtzee's review, but this seems to be the one for me. All the things he mentioned are things I've talked to my friends about and had issues with. That said it is still a very good game, just has plenty of room to improve, can't wait to see what the studio does next
You didn't get the parry spell or unlock the blacksmith to upgrade armor, did you Squidward?
Well, now I just want a novelty birthday cake.
Same bruh
The best media to do with Journey to the West has to be the summary of it done by Overly Sarcastic Productions. The amount of visual gags hidden in the drawings mixed with the quippy and understandable recap makes that series amazing.
The last line got an audible laugh out of me, thanks.
Rock Solid is the parry. It's on cooldown and costs mana but with the right upgrades you can lower the cooldown and regenerate mana when you get it to trigger among other things.
You can also upgrade armor pieces with enough money and resources so you can actually KEEP USING the old sets that you like.
“Hit like a middle class tax burden.” Oh that got some quality chuckles out of me 😂
Please, please, please let him refer to this as Black Myth (HYUCK): Wukong for unnecessary subtitles
It'll all make sense when we get the Black Myth: Bajie, and Black Myth: Sanzang followed by Black Myth: The horse who's actually a dragon (don't worry, he forgets too) and whose name not even the fanboys bother to remember.
@@aradraugfea6755And just like in the book, Wujing doesn't get to do anything cool.
Honestly, I thought the combat was the worst part of the game... but I can agree on those invisible walls.
I wonder when he's going to review Concord.
Oh wait... Nevermind.
He doesn't like multiplayer FPS
@@Est244-m9n r/wooosh
"There's as many invisible walls as there are in a STEM career for women."
Holy shit. Yahtzee is back on top of his game, and it's honestly refreshing to see.
The best thinv based on Journey to the West is A Korean Odessey (I know I didn't spell this right...), which is a Korean romantic dramadey with the characters from Journey to the West, only set in modern day Seoul, most of the supernatural characters are roommates in Demon Bull King's apartment and the priest character whose name I can't remember makes her money buying properties that are haunted cheap, exorcising them then flipping them for a profit.
It's quite, quite mad but kinda brilliant?
I gotta say, that exorcism/house flipping idea alone sounds damn smart.
@@Montesama314 Oh yeah, it's totally brilliant 😁
They gender flipped the priest? God that happens in a lot of adaptations.
Smh it's fine to just have a weak male character who gets kidnapped constantly.
@@BE-fw1lr There's a whole generation of people who are vaguely surprised to hear that Tripitaka _isn't_ a woman because of that one TV show which, for reasons which no doubt made sense at the time, cast a woman to pay him.
I love that one of main complaints at the end was just him missing a major game mechanic of upgrading gear
Regarding the armour, I think it's clearly something intended as a "NG you use the armour to experiment on different fighting styles", as you unlock the ability to level up armour part way through and then in NG+ you can get all armour to max, so you can level the one that fits your style.
Great if you intend to do NG+, not so good if you don't.
no thats not completly true, you can actually unlock armor upgrade via the mid section of chapter 3 thru a npc quest. However its entirely optional so i think the criticisim still stands.
This one's got to be one of the best in terms of Yahtzee jokes around.
Reviewing something based on "Journey To The West" and *not* comparing it to Dragon Ball must take immense effort and willpower.
Or be yahtzee and hate anime (and JRPGS in general for the longest time)
Although saying that DBZ is the best thing based off of Journey to the west is like saying Batman is the best thing based off of Zoro... wait, don't answer that.
Or he could just not be that familiar with DBZ. I personally forgot it was based off Journey to the West until you said something since my mom wouldn't let me watch it as a kid
@BeanoNintendo tbf dbz is basically unrelated to journey to the west, DB's influences from that story are more or less entirely contained within the very first arc of the original series (which encompasses like the first 13 episodes of the anime and even that basically starts doing its own thing shortly after the pig stand-in shows up)
I love that Yachtz is making Bluey references. Bro is a dad now :D
Did Yatzee miss the dry heave or is it only when the : is missing?
The metaphors in this video are absolutely peak, yahtz is firing on all cylinders here
I stand by my thought that this game should have been a spectacle fighter, like DMC or Bayonetta. We don't need more souls-likes nowadays
As a San Francisco resident and frequent flyer out of SFO, I can confirm Yahtzee's assertion regarding the long term parking lot Hell out of our city's largest airport.
"More invisible walls than a STEM career path for women"
Ouch, didnt expect to get speared right in the failing jobhunt during a game review
Whenever I hear about arguments as to whether a particular game fits in a particular genre, especially a "newer" genre like soulslike, I just remember that "first-person-shooter" is just the word we came up with to replace "Doom-clone". Some people getting much too caught up on what a game (or music or a movie for that matter) is like that they can't just take it for what it is.
Edit: Punctuation, ironically
0:15 best out of context sentence from Yahtzee yet
0:35 I mean there's also Romance of the Three Kingdoms lol! (which is 14th century but I feel that's beside the point)
I hope this game will open Chinese gamer eyes to stop consuming predatory gacha game and support an actual game instead.
😂😂😂 not a chance. This will never make as much as genshin impact (a free game) did in it's first year. And that money train is still rolling
I hope that some day you will figure out that the billions of people of people live in China, many of them do not in fact play the same games as one another, just like anywhere else.
Seriously I think China has a potential for the gaming market in both art and customers. One major problem is the china government is very hands on censor that makes Australia look hand off by comprasion
@@ImrahilToChaos Too bad the profits say otherwise
Once something starts earning money, the CCP ruins it and completely back pedals all the progress.
"better if it had stripped out everything but the boss fights"
Uhh... most of us like games, so we enjoy when our games contain more game as opposed to less game. Fuck Furi.
Seems like an ok game that’s being seriously astroturfed lol
Just like Hogwarts
@@Mohgenstein YES
“Let’s not get bogged down in semantic pedantry”
Look how far you’ve obvious not come Yahtz
Spolier alert!
to be fair, the immortal WuKong didn't really get "beaton" in the beginning, if you understand the story he and Erlang conspired to a fake duel and got himself "killed" so he can separate his body into 6 essence (6 parts of what makes a being as seen in Chapter 5 ending animation), its so once player successfully beat the true ending Wukong will regain his memory and revive a free monkey without that cheating headband Buddha trapped him in.
and dont worry if anyone dont understand the story, even majority of the Chinese players were flaming the story at the beginning up to chapter 5 since Wukong is immortal so him being dead doesnt make sense, only when chapter 6 ending when the old monkey put the headband back on the Destined one does alot of players realse "wait the minute, this old monkey is a traitor from the heavenly court, I've been lied to, there must be another ending"
Is there really a spoiler alert for Journey to the West?
@@uberculex the game is not journey to the west, its like 500 years after
My big takeaway from this is that Yahtzee didn't very much like Enslaved, which breaks my heart. I feel like I'm one of 6 people on earth who loved it. Not a perfect game by any stretch but scratched a lot of itches, and one of the few where I got really invested in the characters.
I hope Yahtzee makes a “Let’s all laugh at an industry who never learns anything tee hee hee” on Concord before the year is up so it can be the first game in the blandest and worst category as I don’t think we have ever seen a worse situation for a generic bland AAA game before.
Yahtzee subconsciously describing the gameplay loop for Shadow of the Colossus for a moment
I see yatzee, like me missed the 3 questlines 2 secret areas and 37 handjobs he needed to unlock the blacksmith and the hub area so he can upgrade his armor
theres an entire village you can unlock to upgrade your armor so you dont have to only use the newest one.
Secret Journey is the best adaptation. You're welcome.
That name doesn't search very well so I'll just say, po-ju and you're right.
need more information to search this out.
That Brother's living together pitch picture made me have the hardest silent laugh I've ever had 🤣. Damn Ryan that was perfect.