Maybe Silent Hill Should Just Stay Dead | Extra Punctuation
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2022
- This week on Extra Punctuation, Yahtzee looks at the Silent Hill franchise and whether people should just move on from a franchise that is no longer made by the same people that made it what it was in the first place.
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Yahtzee I think you just described Devolver's Business Model. "Throwing money at insane people to fulfil their insane dreams and seeing if they get the next big thing."
I mean hey. If it works. But at the same time this is it's own can of worms. Might I direct you to Rabbidluigi's "Don't Watchmojo" vid. Where he describes how they do basically the same thing with their videos. Hrowing out a bunch of random crap at once. All they need is one vaguely interesting idea to catch a few people with clickbait and it won't matter if the rest are flops they still make money.
Granted that situation is a bit harder to get in with games since they take a lot longer to churn out than videos. It could work out great if more companies did this. But at the same time it might also start up new ones that would create rivalry and so on. ... Idk I wanna see it happen but I just can't ignore the possibility of things going ary.
@@Guardian-of-Light137 At the same time, Watchmojo (and similar channels) are the junk food of RUclips. And sometimes I just want a burger. Not every video has to be really that great, or take that much effort, if I can just enjoy it like a dumbass.
Devolver has a lot of shitty games
@@gerardotejada2531 That's exactly the point. Let devs go wild and statistically you should make more off the few successes than all the flops and "meh" products. It's what Embracer Group is doing too, the CEO even directly quoted the strategy- fund enough projects that your hits make up for your misses.
@@gerardotejada2531 Shadow Warrior 3 is a great game.
The statement 'People don't know what they want' is generally true, in the context of art and entertainment, but it has an important corollary/followup: 'but they know what they don't want more of'. I suspect Yahtzee knows this, as it is essentially the foundation of his career, but I feel it is worth mentioning whenever an artist says 'People don't know what they want' as all too often it's taken to mean, 'You can just ignore what the audience has to say'. People may not know what they want, but when they say 'I don't want 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵', you should listen to them.
VERY good point
People _do_ know what they want, but thay might not know how to articulate what they want, usually because it's something abstract: the _experience_ of a game rather than any specific concepts or mechanics. The trouble is marketing and advertising are so pervasive that they're affecting how we communicate; we use phrases like "a looter-shooter" and "a rich dark roast" not because we actually want those things, but because we've been convinced that we want them.
That reminds me of a statement that said an audience is good at identifying problems but are bad at making solutions for those problems.
People believing they won't like something but ending up "oh, it's actually quite fun" after they've tried it happens all the time. Thing is, if you believe you don't like something you're likely to avoid it and as such you can't get your beliefs falsified/tested.
*cough* the sonic movie design *cough*
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Henry Ford (allegedly)
Make a Product and the audience for it will come to you.
NFTs are the new cars that people don't know to want.
@@nifftbatuff676 No, they are not; NFTs are a Ponzi scheme. You cannot create digital non-fungibility, especially when using programming that was intended to mimic currency: something inherently fungible.
@@nifftbatuff676 Selling NFTs is like trying to sell individualized farts in jars as unique one-of-a-kind farts and people still fell for it.
@@nifftbatuff676 I love how without comedic intent you straight up shot yourself in the foot NFT are at face value a new currency a currency only holds value if people want it no one wants NFTs and since no one wants them they have no value or less value then did they before which is saying something because they were always a scam
I wouldn't trust modern-day Konami alone with my kids, so what makes you think I'll trust them making a New Silent Hill game?
I love the implication that Silent Hill is more important than your kids
original silent hill is a better baby sitter
@@thunderbird0134 Nah, I'm making a joke. I love my kids. Best thing to ever happen to me.
I wouldn't trust Konami of 2022 to run a bath, let alone a game studio
@@joeyparkhill8751 oh I get it, you just suck at jokes.
"Fund a load of crazy people realizing their crazy new ideas and count on one of them taking off"
I was very impressed by Double Fine's run of this.
Yeah, instead of sinking $300m on one project and requiring that to make a billion dollars in return, maybe make 10x $30m projects and really push the best two or three of them. You're WAY more likely to strike some kind of gold this way.
@@hollandscottthomas I think this is harder to market and harder to sell investors on in the long term, especially when some franchises so consistently get those 10 million sales
(just to be clear, I do agree we'd have better games this way, I'm just saying huge companies not doing this isn't some kind of blind spot on their strategy)
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p Oh, for sure, I get it. The issue is still fundamentally in reducing everything to be about the bottom line, instead of trying to make something good first.
@@user-sl6gn1ss8p I hate how right you are right now...
@@hollandscottthomas another benefit is that AA budget games tend to have interesting visuals. AAA can always fall back on making the game look as photorealistic as current tech allows, but AA doesn't have the budget to put that many man-hours into modeling and texturing, so making a AA game look good requires an actual artstyle.
Yahtzee's devotion for Persona 5 now seems to be rivaling both Silent Hill 2 and Dark Souls
Hot fucking damn
which is funny because it's probably the worst sequel in the franchise
@@vacuumboots He played 5 first, so his opinions after that on the others would naturally be '5 but worse' since it misses some QOL updates. I mean, I liked Persona 3, but I know if he played 3, he'd probably be frustrated at the lack of control over Fusion moves passed on compared to 4 Golden, plus the lack of directly controlling your party members (you can only order them to follow a certain strat, but not tell them directly what commands to use).
Yeah, he doesn't mention Thief or Thief 2 anymore...
@@LichLordFortissimo Yeah, but it's odd considering in this video he's looking through a lens of playing the first in the series and then seeing whether sequels can justify their existence.
I think P2 and P3 are great examples of taking a concept and adding a ton of new ideas to an existing concept to create new experiences. P4 was a little less inspired or cohesive, but did a good job as its own take on P3 I think. For me, by P5 they were no longer leaning into the strengths of the P3 formula, and while coasting on their earlier good ideas, for every step forward it felt like they took a step or two back for me. But you wouldn't really notice that if P5 is your first game.
And I can't help but see a parallel as if someone said they really liked one of the American Silent Hills, without really understanding what had been lost from the originals, having not played much of the games that came before it.
@@vacuumboots I know bait when I see it.
I think this is why Supergiant Games has been so successful. They constantly create new IP's with the same team of Developers who all share a common goal of quality over quantity. You might notice that there is no Transistor 2, or Hades 2, because they understand that they've told the story that they wanted to tell and now they're going to move on to something completely different.
edit: and just think how easy it would be for them to start adding weapons to Hades as $2 DLC Packs.....
" ...and _that,_ ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't invite EA to the buffet"
Same with behemoth games honestly. The only thing close to a sequel that they've done is the new alien hominid.
Sometimes it fine where we have games be one off
I think the weird thing with SH (the good ones) is they had the best of both worlds. 2 made it more a horror anthology series, and each game had a slightly different team working on it so they all offered slightly different things gameplay-wise. The series is only analogous in that it carries the same title, not a lot gets shared story wise between the games. Even the existing games aren't necessarily linear outside of 1 and 3. 2 is a different thing and 4 is a side-story to the whole franchise. I could easily see a different world where Silent Hill was like the Cthulu mythos, The Outer Limits or American Horror Story, and is just about weird horror shit that isn't necessarily about the town.
The biggest mistake they made really was trying to tie it into an ongoing franchise with bankable name recognition. They easily could've done more Silent Hill with the evolving team, or moved that team onto a newer IP as a whole, but instead they just went with the easiest cashgrab route of farming the name out for cheap cash-ins which just tried to regurgitate the old instead of moving anything forward. Although I suppose, equally, if the original team had stayed then that might have ended up how Resident Evil did post RE5, so who are we to say?
Regardless, just release the good ones on Steam Konami you frauds.
What they have achieve should be any studio's dream. Where the value is seen in the studio and the reliability of their creativity, rather than financing sequels.
Isn’t Transistor actually a follow up to one of their other games though?
I think this ties back into the meritocracy problem. Very few game developers are willing to cash in on humiliating themselves by creating weird games that have the potential to be the next big thing.
There's also the cost.
Would you spend 50k$ to possibly make something big that would return 1M$
Or would you spend 50k$ to make the same thing that almost guarantee 100k$ return.
As we know, big publisher despise risks and would almost always choose the safest risk-free investment.
Ahhh. No. If companies don't pay for developers to even try these ideas, the vast majority won't, cause they got to keep a roof over their heads and feed their kids.
@@cancerino666 Yeah but thats the point. The execs AREN'T paying them to take creative risks. They're paying them to make as much money as possible, and that means taking less risk for assured gain over new ideas that have an equally likely chance of flopping as they do massively succeeding. If they make an expensive flop they'll lose their job.
this is what makes indie games so much more unique. the devs have a wild idea and they make this idea not for profit, but because they want to share their idea with the world. no matter how strange it is.
Let’s not get it twisted, indie devs do make their weird strange ideas for profit. Why else would u hear news about how they went on twitter and complained about how major outlets haven’t covered their game enough, how indie games constantly take exclusivity deals, or how play throughs are cutting into their profits if not for tht, they gotta eat to u know and no indie is going to say no to a Toby fox or Eric barone situation. It’s not healthy for anyone in this industry to perpetuate the “starving artist” myth just because it’s in opposition to the tactics of big “AAA” game companies.
These extra punctuations are fire every single time they release. Each of these is like a really tasty jelly-filled donut that you get access to every few weeks. And I just got my fix
Yeah I rewatch all the previous ones over and over. So glad he's made this a regular series.
@@RacingSnails64 absolutely, his EP are like a breath of fresh air to listen to, they’re almost calming. Though they usually make me feel riled up about something in the Gaming Industry lol
On the face of it, I agree with your prior sentiment that most long-running franchises should be allowed to end. Even worse that Konami waited for their best IP to die first instead of striking while the iron was hot
Yeah it sad how koijma had to fight Konami hard to end metal gear series on his own terms.
Hell, if you look beyond gaming and seen what they did with Star Trek, Marvel, and Dr Who and a lot of long-term projects should just be over and done with.
@@starmaker75 and it's questionable whether it was truly on Kojima's terms. The guy has been quoted as wanting to move on pretty much every game after MGS3.
@@NathanCassidy721 Marvel is okayish. I mean most of the new stuff is not even bad. It is just so not interesting, it leaves no impression. Which is way worse.
But there is good stuff. Like the newer Hulk series. Thor could be quite interesting if they dont fck it up.
But Star Trek, Star Wars and Doctor Who, yeah those are the prime example for are at their worst/lowest point.
@@DonXardas No they're going to fuck up Thor considering they already did that with Fat Thor.
Disney Marvel has gone into FULL bait-n-switch mode using popular characters to push female ones that suit their "message" that nobody cares about. Dr Strange 2 is a prime example of this as it's just a big ol' fuck you to every single fan by making it about Scarlet Witch and America Chavez instead of the character that people actually went to see.
It is so fucking predictable at this point that you don't even need to see it to know what happens.
The larger the budgets, the more risk averse the companies get due to the possibility of losing their investment. Feature creep also gums up the development teams quite frequently. There's an old saying that goes "creativity thrives best when constrained" and I think it ought to be applied to game development
that's the paradox; the more successful the previous IP, the more money will be poured into the sequel. The more money put into a project, the more skittish stakeholders get. The more skittish stakeholders get, the more they gum things up by micromanaging the design of the project. The more a developer gets micromanaged by a stakeholder, the worse the developed product will be.
it's almost like capitalism is inherently a self-destruct mechanism
@@psylock524 Shareholders are parasites. Can't stand 'em. They ruin everything, not just games
"creativity thrives best when constrained" That's how we got Metelgear. When he started at Konami he got handed a game that was supposed to be a military 'shoot em up' but the console could not handle the amount of sprites on the screen and was a visual mess. He then thought "why don't we make only a few soldiers on the screen and try not to shoot them instead?" At first every one thought it was a dumb idea but after they understood the core concept they found them selves completely emerged in figuring out where to go next and how to get past guards.
I've heard it phrased as "art through adversity."
I must say, I'm vastly enjoying Yahtzee's more general thoughts on games than hearing him torture his way through whatever big game has come out recently.
I agree. I like viewing them as complimentary. EP gives us how Yahtzee's philosophy's and thoughts about gaming and ZP puts those to the practice. I like seeing a bunch of ZPs and then viewing these to see where he's coming from.
I enjoy both lmao
Yahtzee's commentary on games as a whole is far more insightful than him playing yet another mediocre video game and trying to summarize how mediocre it is in between cock jokes
‘The Ship of Theseus’ is a perfect analogy for game developers and what corporations end up doing to design teams and brands.
but... but... it's not the same ship anymore, is it?!
To be fair, I think people would and have gotten attached to devs and their names when their names are actually front and center. I haven't played a single one of his games, but I have a soft spot of respect for Kojima. I've also seen inter-community drama when devs reshuffle.
However, Yahtzee has mentioned it before. It is becoming harder and harder to find those passion projects. No one wants to or is able to wager their names anymore.
still, not to take credit away from them, but with kijima, myiamoto, etc, you have these big name developers being put front and center pretty much as marketing (as well as recognition), and they can overshadow the entire teams working on the projects - so even there it's not completely different
Cough cough the people thinking that everything CDPR touches is gold
@@t.7124 Didn't that idea thoroughly break with Cyberpunk?
I assumed that the hard part with them would be *rebuilding* an onze of the reputation they had before that game exploded...
The problem I see is that most of time entertainment makes something new that people enjoy, the corporate side will then pump out endless sequels until they effectively run the series or IP into the ground.
There are plenty of things that ended that I wished we had more of, but sometimes the best thing is to know when a series is done. When to stop before you turn that high note into a brown note.
If you can balance the feelings of satisfaction and a lingering feeling for more once a franchise had completed, I think you nailed it. Being happy with most/all releases but not an unrelenting clamoring for more, but if more was offered you would happily take it.
SH has sucked since The Room imo. I loved the first 4. Tried a few others and they were just junk.
Sid Meier has a _Rule of Thirds_ game design philosophy:
* 1/3 New
* 1/3 Improved
* 1/3 Same
This is great way to let people know they can enjoy the stuff they liked in the past yet expect tweaks and new mechanics.
Oh that’s interesting. Enough of the original to maintain a fan base, enough improvement to hopefully regain some people turned off by jank and poor ideas, enough new to evolve and keep the creative team invigorated. I actually quite like that as a system for sequels, the only issue is doing it right
As Henry Ford once put it: "If I asked my customers what they want, they'd tell me they want faster horses". That's the nature of any true innovation.
I always felt using the phrase "it could be good" was more of a shrug. At no point was I ever committed to buying nor playing anything that "could be good."
When there is money to run ads for it, not enough money went into developing it.
@@MazeFrame wow that's shockingly true 😲
I always thought of it as "I haven't seen anything in here that makes it bad".
Imagine a Resident Evil game trailer.... starts with the cutscene... then the gameplay starts and it has a colour palette that is all bright and cheerful and looks like it came out of the fever dream of 5 year old who loves unicorns and rainbows....
That would be bad... or hillarious... or both
I prefer to say: "It has the potential for interest."
Makes me sound more like an intellectual.
@@mattyt1961 I mean, that's *also* a fairly respected approach to horror creation, so...
(Though if they were going the "small child's nightmare/general daylight horror" route, the trailer would probably also have to make that clear with at least one more twist)
Actually... There's probably a lot of potential in that "through the eyes of a child" thing that goes beyond just the color palette...
"If I asked what people wanted, they would have said a faster horse" or something similar was supposedly said by Henry Ford regarding the creation of the automobile...
Bloober remaking SH2 is a guaranteed disaster. They'll make a super stylish game with absolutely no scares outside of environmental jumps because they literally don't know how to make combat work. It'll be Layers of Fear with occasional lame puzzles.
Honestly I can absolutely see them getting rid of the combat entirely to make into a painfully linear third person walking simulator, completely butchering the themes and messages of SH2's narrative completely. There's a mod called Alchemilla made on the Source engine that was going to be a proper first person survival horror earlier in development before the creator decided to gut that entirely for walking and puzzles, that gets away with it because its a mod but knowing a proper project headed up by Bloober Team could turn out like that is pretty worrying. Plus with their lack of subtlety I can only imagine their handling of Angela's story would be absolutely abhorrent, so much so they're better off not bothering.
The reason Triple AAA Publishers won't parcel out loads of money to various new developers to see what new hotness they can get, is because there isn't any guarantee that those people will put out something that sells ten million copies on launch day and make the real problem with the games industry (and every other industry)- the stock holders- shit-tons of cash. Investors demand that the company constantly make more money, increase their market share, and sell more products/services to increasingly overstretched markets so that THEY can make money off of the people who did the actual work, without having to lift a finger in turn. Public trading is the death knell of creativity and productivity, and no one ever seems to want to acknowledge it.
Wow, I really am a Marxist, huh? ...I don't know how to feel about that.
Feel good, friend. It means you see what is wrong with the current world. Execution of an idea does not necessarily discredit the idea as a whole. That's a lie fed by conservatives to keep their position.
Recognising a problem in the system we're stuck with until the end of time doesn't make you a communist
I’m not looking forward to a new Silent Hill, but I am looking forward to older Silent Hill games being rereleased on new consoles if possible.
I believe that video games are just as much art as films, but while films can be legally played on anything from streaming services, DVDs and Blu-rays, to even a phone screen, some of the best video games are stuck on old hardware that will become increasingly difficult with time to find in working condition as the years go by.
Imagine if the only way to watch Citizen Kane was on Betamax or something, a lot of future generations would miss out on it.
It’s a shame Konami doesn’t realize this and won’t give us a good rerelease of Silent Hill 2.
_Silent Hill 2_ in particular reminds me of the first two _Terminator_ movies or the original _Highlander._ It's a terrific concept for _A_ story, with a little extra room to flesh it out, but once it's wrapped up, any sequels are just going to be either a weaker imitation or a radical departure that loses everything that made the original story work.
Speaking of which, it's _really_ depressing how Highlander 2 basically ruined the entire franchise by its mere existence (as well as every entry afterwards).
That's how I feel about The Matrix
To repeat a hoary old quote from Alan Moore: "It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need."
Considering that Silent Hill is still owned by Konami, and that Bloober Team will develop the next entry, I'd say that Silent Hill should definitely stay dead.
Totally agree. Bloober just isn't a great dev imo.
Just put 2&3 on steam and walk away. Please.
@@redgarlicbred6228 100%. They can't do gameplay.
@@redgarlicbred6228 just like the pt demo
@@helenhomunculus5044 At least PT wasn't claiming to be a finished game. I've never played a Bloober Team game but sounds like all they make are walking sims with jumpscares.
And this is why I laugh at everyone to this day that complained about Resident Evil 7 being 1st person when they revealed it. Turned out just that alone made 2 of the most memorable games in the series and everyone loved it at the least because it was just a fresh new way to experience the formula we already liked.
Not everyone loved it. I did, but I do wish there was more to it, and I was hoping to get it in Village, and I didn't because Village shat on everything RE7 presented.
Yahtzee succinctly discribing what I have felt for years now; "Follow the talent, not the studio". Case in point, look at Crowbcat's video on Back 4 Blood.
Great vid as always, Yahtz.
The hilarious thing about making a good new Silent Hill is that it wouldn't even really be that hard. What makes SH good is the atmosphere (sounds and aesthetic), psychologically symbolic enemy designs, somewhat grounded protagonists, and... that's about it. Everything else can easily be changed, rearranged, or made brand new, and so long as the other bits are at least survival horror-oriented then the first few points being done well will carry the rest of the game on their own. I mean, think about those first three games (or even 4, if you're a fan of that)- they're technically janky, don't control the best, are pretty bizarre at times in borderline comedic ways, and sometimes incomprehensible. But who cares? The atmosphere, protagonist's reactions to things, and enemy designs keep you chugging through, time and time again. Now look at all of the post 3 (or 4) games- they do all of those primary three things excessively poorly. They might do one well, but then they bomb the others so much that it doesn't matter that they succeeded elsewhere.
Just do those first three things well, stop it with the stupid and awful combat systems that still feel like they're in beta, no more cheep jumpscares that're all poorly timed, stop filling your plot with mountains of plot holes, and please for the love of all that is holy let Japanese developers handle it. Silent Hill (when it was good) is directly stated as being "American horror through the lens of Japanese experience". Aka, Japanese people making what THEY THINK American horror is. That's why all these western devs have only been able to make these cruel mockeries- they literally don't understand what made the originals good. Because they borderline can't. They're trying to make American (western) horror as seen through the lens of... western experience.
Honestly, I feel like a lot of series should just end.
The problem is most writers don’t know HOW to end their stories because they come up with an idea, hope it takes off so they can make their money and hope somebody else can end it. JJ Abrams is the epitome of this problem as he did it with LOST and he tried and failed to do it with Star Wars (failed in that he actually had to come back and end it).
Also the MCU, it should have ended at Infinity War but Disney are greedy and soulless to they followed it up with Endgame which was nonsensical, brimming with soulless fan service and destroyed many characters. From there it just got worse and now there is countless amounts of shit being churned out in the form of dogshit TV shows and such. Big corporations just love milking their franchises dry to the point that they are shells of what they once were.
@@isaywhateveriwantandyougot7421
Nor did JJ have that good an idea to begin with. Most people with creativity would not go back to "A New Hope" and go, "I got the entirety of my movie right here."
While not the only problem behind the production of that trilogy, JJ is certainly one of the biggest instigators of it as one of the current head "writers" only got the job because she was a friend of his.
@@FriedrichNietzsche85 I disagree on one point in that it should have ended with Endgame.
While it has it's problems, many people consider it one of the best endings to a long-running arc. Totally agree with everything else though as it's currently getting gutted by ideologs.
@@NathanCassidy721 personally I think its problems are so bad that it is a terrible ending
@@FriedrichNietzsche85 yes, just end the series right after Thanos wins, that will make people happy. Say what you will about Endgame but that one at the very least was necessary. It's only after the infinity saga that things become unnecessary
"Why not use all that AAA money to fund a load of crazy people realizing their crazy new ideas and count on at least one of them taking off?"
Ah, the Netflix approach.
Unfortunately, in spite of the rare gems that this approach has produced (Eg: Stranger Things, Kingdom, Haunting of Hill House, Arcane, etc.), people are leaving the platform in droves, because this approach has filled their catalog with an army of shit shows and movies.
On the other hand, Disney+, with its formulaic nostalgia-bait content, is gaining huge popularity.
Spending money from one's pocket is like casting a vote, and established formulas win this democracy of capitalism, against people trying new things, waaaaay more often than not.
shoutout to being the only person i've seen in this comment section so far that understands why samey games that ruin le industry keep selling millions yearly
as it turns out the majority of the people buying videogames are not hobbyists that spend all their free time playing videogames but working class randos that literally don't have enough free time to get sick of playing games like call of duty or assassin's creed which is why games like those are jampacked with "content" to grind or collect so jim, age 26 that spends eight hours a week playing videogames always has something to grind towards
"SH3 is overrated"
Ohh I'd love to hear more on that on a ZP
@@Baeraad That's an intensely reductive way of looking at SH3. James's monsters are all about sex, but people trip over themselves to heap praise on SH2.
To borrow a phrase from another video on SH3 I saw a while back: "...for most women, for most teen girls, the world is a violent and frightening place. That is, their greatest fears and their lived realities can be indistinguishable. James is afraid of himself, his internal world. Heather is afraid of the subway and the mall."
Usually, Silent Hill 2 is praised and talked about more, but recently it has become common for youtubers to say that 3 is better than because it's harder, and "scarier", as if those aspects can make for an inherently better game. I Played both 2 and 3 recently, back to back, and while 2 is as good as I remember, I didn't like some things in 3 that I either didn't care about or didn't notice before, like how it feels much more "gamey" than 2 because of all the instant death pits in the dark and the number of enemies the game throws at you that feels too much for a game that's supposedly trying to build atmosphere. I also think 3 is less atmospheric, because of the many segments in red rooms and corridors with a lot of noises and enemies that feels less subtle than what was made in the previous two games. Apparently, the game was initially supposed to be another character study with no connection to previous games aside from the town, like 2, involving themes like teen pregancy and abortion, but Konami force Team Silent to make a direct sequel. As soemone who doesn't really care about the "cult" aspect of Silent Hill, I think this would've been a better game.
@@raydaug4633 Damn, that's horrifyingly and sadly true.
I played them both recently and I have to hard disagree with Yahtz on this one. I'll grant that the cult aspects aren't well-executed, but in general I feel that 2 and 3 are equal.
2 is paced, atmospheric, and somber. 3 is visceral and oppressive. Just different approaches that fit their respective themes. 2 rightfully gets a lot of credit because it's much harder to pull off an experience like that, but that doesn't diminish the third one at all to me.
Would love to get ZPs on both 1 and 3 in the future.
@@Baeraad yeah thats actually a good way to describe how sh3 approaches scares compared to the other games. Its enemies and environments are really aggressive, with zero subtlety. all in your face, and relentless. this can be pretty scary initially, but the lack of restraint and improper pacing of the scares (not enough moments of relief to build anticipiation between scares) kind of wears the effect thin after a while and make it less scary in the long term.
i always felt sh2 had the exact opposite problem though. the scares are a bit too passive and subtle for my taste, not enough enemies and the enemies that are there never really feel aggressive enough. the environments are also not nearly nightmarish or oppressive like the first and third games, nor feel wholy different enough visually from the fog world in alot of respects. i get that they didnt want the scares to detract from the story they were trying to tell, but i cant help but feel the scares in sh2 were on the underwhelming side.
sh1 stands out to me as having the best horror and pacing, in terms of balancing the scares and anticipation. it manages this despite the ps1 graphics looking worse than its sequels (although i think the crude graphics make the visuals even scarier tbh). i also think the enemy sound design and soundtrack is the most effective in terms of bringing out the subtle atmosphere building and flat out scary shit your trousers moments. sh1 was definitely the game where akira yamaoka had one goal in mind "scare the shit out of the player" lol
I was hoping that Konami would just give the franchise to Kojima for a percentage of profits or whatever, but now I can see I was clearly delusional for thinking this was even a possibility.
This is why we can't have nice things. T_T
We don’t need remasters or remakes of these games, we just need ports. The fact that they failed in that with Silent Hill HD Collection is proof of their dumbassitude.
Because “ports” smells low in value than a “remaster/remake” in the investor perspective.
In other words, Konami needs to justify why this game will cost 70$.
There’s always a chance it’ll be good but even still. I remember when God of War 3 ended ambiguously and people started clamoring for a sequel and I constantly yelled “NO! LET IT DIE” until I was blue in the face. And then a sequel came out and it was perfectly fine. Great even. Even so, I still stand by what it said
But didn’t the new God of War do exactly what Yahtzee said a sequel should: change up the formula?
@@fighteer1 Technically yes
In practice, it combined the things every other high-budget game did at the moment: a linear story rollercoaster with crafting, pointless progression mechanic elements, sidequests, climbing, reused bosses and slow combat
@@fighteer1 yes, it changed the formula from previous God of War, but did it a way that removed everything that was unique about the franchise (it's easy to forget that the games were original enough so GoW clones were actually a thing) and made it basically like every AAA game in the market. Sure, it's very polished,, to the point where it's above the average set by AAA, but it's another high budget game that tries to appeal to as many people as possible. Personally, I didn't like the changes in camera and combat, specially not that skill tree with a bunch of abilities you'll probably never use, because every game has to have that now. I played it, and I remember liking it while I was playing, but I had to stop near the end, and when I had to opportunity to go back and finish it, I just didn't want to.
God of War didn't need sequels past the first game if we're being honest. I liked the idea of playing a military war shooter and knowing that somewhere out there, Kratos was watching me.
"Sometimes... Dead is better."
- 'Pet Sematary' (1989)
The Ramones song still rocks too this day!
I mean, ZP has been ongoing for over a decade and I still enjoy every 'sequel' episode in similar formula.
The familiar has a reason to exist, it's just sad when they become the ONLY type that got all the spotlights.
Well, the reason ZP is still interesting (at least imo) is that there's a level of unpredictability about the reviews, there is unapologetic recognition of his own biases, and there's a takedown of EVERYONE that either likes games or is complicit in the same-y-ness of games in respective hot tropes (ie souls-likes, metroidvanias, zelda clones etc) abundant throughout the industry. Yahtzee has a nuanced, cynical approach and carefully deconstructs every element of a game that fails beyond reason, and I think that's why things rarely feel like sequels outside of actual sequential releases, or end of year 'award' ceremonies.
@@AzizidarkReborn You have a good point
"Ship of Thesius hiring and firing" is a great line
If Konami could do what Sega did and let a group of people passionate about the franchise develop the game (like Sonic Mania was) then I feel the franchise “could” be resurrected anew. Granted that requires Konami to not be so far up it’s own ass and actually respect the fan base that garnered them success in the first place.
It's nice to hear another critic mention the approach of rather than put 100 million dollars into one game, you can put a fraction of that into dozens of smaller original games - I remember Red Letter Media saying something similar about movies, and that a studio was actually close to doing that, except they just decided to make Paranormal Activity 2.
It's so frustrating the companies/people who can actually afford to take risks absolutely refuse to do so.
No committee wants to make Psychonauts because Psychonauts didn't make any money. I have the bruises on the insides of my fingers to prove it.
This reminded me of a Jimquisition episode from awhile back where he used the example of Ragu testing chunky versions of their sauces, something no one knew they wanted until they tried it.
As far as gaming goes, it's mostly the indie scene that trying knew ideas while triple a continues with the samo samo. Though that's not always a bad thing considering Elden Ring is more soulsborne but more polished and a grander setting.
I disagree with the "familiarity only sells in the short term" argument. I see where it's coming from and I would love more games to be diferent, but overall THE VAST MAJORITY of mainstream games and their sequels sell because they are "samey". New games that come along, are diferent and become "hits" can't hold a candle, sales-wise, to a big Cawadooty or Assassin's Creed or god forbid Madden. Sad but true
*blinks in Mario*
True, but in every franchise there's always the First, and if we credit that First with all the money the subsequent copies/sequels/reboots made... but then again, if we only made the Firsts there would be no revenue from all the subsequent IP milking - that's the paradox.
I mean, sometimes more of the same is a good thing. for example, Subnautica Below Zero was just more Subnautica, but thats all I wanted and thats all it needed to be. the Subnautica gameplay loop is perfect, so just more of it was all I wanted out of Below Zero.
@@NinjaMaster-og8ti I guess there's this thing that different people want different things out of the experience. So no statement is really universal here. Yahtzee is looking for self-contained experiences that tell a complete story and is also someone who gets bored really quickly, so that's what drives his perspective. There's a reason he doesn't play strategy games much.
But Assassin's Creed was actually an innovative game when it came out. There was nothing like it at the time. And then the second one was even more innovative. Pretty much everything that we now mock as the "Generic Ubisoft Sandbox" was invented for Assassin's Creed 2. Everything is an innovation before it becomes a cliche.
Given the enthusiasm that Yahtzee brings to each of these episodes I'm surprised that he hasn't written a whole book on this kind of stuff to collate the ideas more fully. Much of social science is based on a canon of literature (political science started with Machiavelli's The Prince and Tocqueville's Democracy in America, economics started with Smith's Wealth of Nations and arguably the Communist Manifesto, etc.). My point being that if Yahtzee really wants to take game criticism to a more academic/serious level, as he said in the Persona 5 video, then it needs to go beyond RUclips. I can't think of a seriously moving piece of academic literature that has the ideas and perspectives that this series has and I would really hope that someone as experienced in games like Yahtzee does something about it or otherwise academic perspectives on games will only be relegated to throwaway college elective classes as they are now.
Benjamin 'Yahtzee' Croshaw - Contemporary gaming philosopher.
I always felt that Portal II was mainly to allow a Multiplayer mode, while single player it was just a bonus disc for part one. In that way a typical Valve release.
This is a dilemma I have. I somehow find myself feeling happier if an old franchise gets good again more than a new game being good. For example the success of Hitman makes me very happy. Nostalgia in my head maybe.
The thing Yahtzee ignores is that sometimes we don't want that electrifying feeling of something new. We want something we liked well done.
Comparing it to food, Yahtzee tends to only like random local dives that he will eat at once befode never returning. You and I have our franchises that no matter where we go, we know what we order and we enjoy it for what it is. In your example, Hitman, mine would probably be Kingdom Hearts right now.
Yahtzee is deluged by the franchises so much as a game reviewer, that's why he's sick of them. You and I can say "No, I'm not going to play X game." He pretty much has to. So, he only vocalizes new things that excite him.
@@KnightGamer724 And I think that's very fair. New innovative stuff is better for the industry and the medium as a whole.
I think part of the reason they've never made a Silent Hill game quite like 2 again is that they kind of _can't._ When SH2 was new, all we knew about the town was that slightly daffy evil cult business from the first game, which 2 mostly threw in the woodchipper and slowly revealed the beating heart of some very human stories with the way the town itself lures and challenges people with their own damage.
Now that we know the deal, the _"Ohhh"_ factor is lost and every attempt to recreate SH2's approach since then begins with the audience asking "So what did this guy do?", which sets a different tone than the blind wonder of one's first SH2 playthrough. It's a shame, because a twisted town that confronts troubled people with the darkest parts of their own psyche is an outstanding premise for horror.
sometimes it isn't newness, but love that gets me to a game. Stardew Valley is of course the Harvest Moon idea, but there is so much care and attention to even the smallest parts that it feels unique to itself.
I really hope Bloober isn't making a Silent Hill game. Their games are much too walking simulator and don't really have their own style. I feel like anyone could have made the games they have.
As for the SH greats, 1-4 no one could do those games. Those were gems.
But maybe they would improove! But it's Konami so what I say isn't worth anything.
@@alexandreturcotte6411 I'm sure they can. But they don't have a style imo. The best they are going to do is an imitation.
That's why it's such a shame Silent Hills never came to be, there was legit talent and unique style there.
Honestly that's probably how I would run a game company (or any company that revolved around fictional stories). Every so often, have the heads of each team/group pitch their ideas to the higher ups and the best 2-3 get more funding and resources thrown at them. And it's not like I would go "congrats, you won the contest, you have full use of all the company's resources and staff, go crazy." This is something that would have to be monitored and regulated so if it looks like a ghost train ride is being added it can be nipped in the bud before anyone has to wait in like for 45 minutes.
I've been saying this for years. They're not going to catch the dragon, you can't go home again, it's over. Enjoy the 3 or 4 and a half games we have. Be happy we have them and live with it. If you can't handle ps1 or ps2 era graphics then that sucks and I'm sorry you can't. I frankly don't trust Konami to do anything and nether should you.
I wholeheartedly agree with Yahtzee. Silent Hill 1-4 were my favorite games growing up & still hold a special place in my heart. I never got to play P.T. but thanks to RUclips I've seen it all, and although I really liked everything about it I couldn't help but think "why not take all this and just start a brand new franchise?"
Funny you should put it this way, when I saw the recent teaser for Silent Hill F, I thought to myself that it _looked_ quite fascinating (particularly with Ryukishi07 of Higurashi fame providing the script), but why are they pretending that it's in any way a Silent Hill game rather than an all-new horror IP? Well, other than the fact that cashing in on the name recognition of an existing franchise for something totally unrelated is an incredibly stupid idea which means Konami basically HAVE to do it because they completely suck, anyway.
Book publishers have had this figured out for a while: publish a bunch of people who tinkered away in their basement on a thing for a year or two and print more copies of the most popular one.
But books also have an advantage that video games just don't: one person can work on a thing, and one publishing company can (relatively) inexpensively buy up several dozen IPs and print them in a year. Their "R&D" system is directly built into how the business works and how they make profit. R&D in video games takes up a lot of bandwidth, meaning that a dozen people are needed to work on one game (where as a dozen writers can work on a dozen books).
Games industries are too big and too slow in a lot of cases. They can try to fund a few projects, but to the people with the money it seems a much more intelligent investment to create a sequel with an established audience rather than risk creating a bad new idea.
Bless you, bless you, bless you Yahtz. I’m always biting my tongue when people say something, “could be good.”
And bless you ten times more for saying that gamers get attached to franchises rather than creators, because it’s entirely true and entirely depressing. The world of gaming critique always feels that much brighter when a new Zero or Extra punctuation comes out.
This is how I feel about a lot of things. After a certain point it's better for something to just stay dead. It's also why I try not to get too hyped up about games or movies and such. For example, I love Jurassic Park. The first film is my all time favorite movie. I love The Lost World and JPIII as well. All 3 still have a certain magic about them even today for me. I saw Jurassic World in theaters and I have never been more disappointed by a movie in my life. It had zero of the magic the original 3 have. The music never hit the right visual cues (timing was way off like when the monorail went through the gates). The CGI was appalling. There were a few decent moments with the T-Rex nostalgia factor and such, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I watched it again about 6 months later and was just as disappointed. JW went like a retread of the original and I didn't even try to see the 2nd JW film.
In terms of games, this applies to Bloodborne. Damn near every day I see people clamoring for Bloodborne 2 or a remake. I don't want Bloodborne 2 because Bloodborne feels complete. I don't see where the story could go unless they tried some sort of prequel before shit hit the fan in Yharnam and even then I don't see how that would work too well.
As for a remake, I'll take them bumping the FPS to 60 and little things like that, but I don't want the full works a la the BluePoint remake of Demon's Souls. I do like Demon's Souls a lot (haven't gotten far because I'm distracted by Bloodborne, DS3, and Elden Ring (and other games)), but the game looks almost *too* shiny, if that makes any sense. It looks different compared to the other games because of BluePoint remaking it. I'm not sure their approach would work too well for Bloodborne. Speaking of, I don't really want anyone touching anything to do with Bloodborne that isn't FromSoftware directly. I think they could bump the FPS and do some minor tweaks before releasing it for PC, but that's about it.
Also, even if FromSoftware were working on a sequel to Bloodborne, people are fucking deluded if they think there will be any announcement any time soon with Elden Ring having on just come out at the end of Feb. Same thing for Elden Ring DLC. Let the dev team take a fucking break guys.
At this point I'm completely on the side of "the 30fps is a design choice and raising it would break the game" because... well, it would. Not everything is better at higher framerates
@@VeritabIlIti Agreed as well. To be honest, I don't really see a difference much. I switch among games all the time and I'm not once paying attention to the FPS. The only thing I'll notice is the occasional framerate dip when I go to the Lecture Building to farm the slime scholars for echoes and it's because there are so many and how they all move and attack almost as one. 30 FPS doesn't bother me a bit, but I know people are pushing for it to be higher. I have actually read that there are issues with weapons and hitboxes if the game were to be bumped to 60, but I don't know how reliable that is.
There should never be another Silent Hill.
Watch Reinstall Paul's examination of the occult references in the original series by Team Silent. No one else can put that much heart and work into any new game, they will always just be shallow husks trying to replicate something without understanding WHY it was good in the first place.
There were like 3 different "Team Silent". They literally did It again
@@gerardotejada2531 Good news the creator of Silent Hill is making a new Horror game called Slitter head.
Valve also realized that just because you can make a new sequel to a game doesn't mean you necessarily should. Although having a giant revenue stream from owning the worlds largest game distribution network probably helped with that.
At the same time, when the previous game ended on a massive cliffhanger, NOT making a sequel to resolve the incomplete story and leaving people hanging for over fifteen years is a bit of a dick move.
I still personally think they stopped developing Half Life 3 because of the Mass Effect 3 backlash.
Can't really blame Valve for deciding they don't want to deal with the crap...
@@mattkennedy9308 that’s really not a good example. The reason Mass Effect 3 got such a backlash was because the ending was garbage, and they did a number of things with the story that they explicitly said they would NOT do when they were marketing the game. If you want to avoid the kind of backlash that Mass Effect 3 got, just don’t completely fuck up your story at the last minute, and don’t blatantly lie about important aspects of the game before it comes out. It’s not that hard.
And no, that’s objectively not the reason. Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012, while the next Half Life game was supposed to come out in 2008, 2009 at the latest, and the reason it didn’t was because the game entered production hell, with them second guessing their ideas and delaying things again and again.
And then of course at some point Valve caught the same avaricious virus that affects the vast majority of corporations, and now all they care about is making as much profit as possible while doing as little work as possible.
@@BLZ231
Don't get me wrong, I know Valve dropped the ball years before and got more into the Steam Launcher.
I'm saying I can see them getting scared off finishing it due to these sorts of backlash.
What's the point of Gabe finishing it now if everyone's going to jump up and down saying it sucks?
@@mattkennedy9308 I really doubt Valve gives a shit about backlash anymore. If they did Hunt Down the Freeman would never have seen the light of day.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got in film school was from a veteran producer. He said: "Nobody knows what's going to be good." Creative arts that are also collaborative endeavors like film and games and TV will always be mysterious because there are SO many things that can go wrong, or go RIGHT, on every project.
I wouldn't trust Bloober Team's work on ANY horror game after a trainwreck like "The Medium!" Protip for developers: If the antagonist of your story is an incestuous pedophile or a monster that represents the trauma that said incestuous father inflicted on his own daughters, DON'T PORTRAY THAT FATHER WITH MORE SYMPATHY THAN THE VICTIMS OF HIS ABUSE!
now thats interesting, you should have done the marketing
@@gordo6908 I've actually seen a freeware RPG Maker game that treated that approached the subject more respectfully. It's called "Toraware no Shoujo: Bluebird of Happiness." It's no masterpiece, but it's still better than "The Medium!" It might be buggy, but you can find Let's Plays on RUclips if a bug stops you from seeing the good ending.
Many entertainment industries are highly risk-averse, wanting to keep dipping into the same well rather than trying something new; what they don't get, because many of the top executives are not actually creative in skillset, is that not changing anything is itself a risk. Entertainment is one of the few areas where the the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and NOT expecting anything to change.
Honestly, if Silent Hill became just as franchised as Resident Evil, it would've lost it's horror factor if not it's identity a long time ago, because the same thing happened with Resident Evil multiple times.
A horror series works best if it's in a pure anthology format, rather than in a serialized format like RE and SH. Horror is all about fear of the unknown after all.
@@isaywhateveriwantandyougot7421 Yea, there are many great horror anthologies out there, American Horror Story and Twilight Zone come to mind, while there are plenty of examples of direct horror sequels being worse off than the last, like every Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, Jason Vorhees sequel.
I personally wish Resident Evil was a pure horror anthology rather than the contrived tales of the Umbrella Corporation, because out of all the RE games there are, I only liked 3 of them; RE1, RE4, and RE7, all of which have that fear of the unknown aspect that's lost in their sequels.
It’s fitting that Silent Hill is being kept alive even though it’s clearly suffering and making the world worse for it
This is what I've been saying for years and people still think Silent Hills would've changed anything.
And yet people won't stop hailing PT's execution as amazing to this day.
But the important thing here isn't the IP. It's the style of unsettling horror that few execute well.
seriously, ive been saying this for over a decade. ever since i saw the trailer footage of downpour in e3 2010 i just lost hope and gave up on the series and accepted that we will never get games like the first few titles, and thats okay. i remember all the false hope that PT brought when it came out, and while it was cool for what it was, i dont think kojima or anyone was gonna really be capable of capturing what the silent hill series was about, even if it actually had been green lit. its been 8 years since then and 10 years since downpour and people are still having all these high hopes and clinging to all these rumors and speculations. i think people just need to let go of the silent hill ip and move on
Oh it certainly wouldn't have changed anything about Konami, but it almost as certainly would have been an exciting horror game worth talking about. That's more than anyone's ever said about Bloober Teams work.
Yahtzee, while I generally agree that Silent Hill has been on a dark path for a while, I don't agree that a "Silent Hill Battle Royale" is the only hope for the franchise
This is the same revelation I came to some time ago about the Final Fantasy series a few years ago - it’s just a franchise name, the creatives that made the series what is have long gone.
Lol, that, and Final Fantasy 1 and it's prequel Stranger of Paradise are the only games in the series where the title makes sense. You're on this fantastical adventure that keeps looping everytime you die, so which fantasy is going to be your final?
This is something I've come to realize the past year or so: I'm okay with a franchise dying out. When I think about it, almost all my favorite games gaming experiences for years now have been smaller studios and not sequels. Deep Rock Galactic, Factorio, Valheim, RimWorld, Terraria, Subnautica. Sure there are some exceptions, like Age of Empires 2: DE, and Risk of Rain 2 (although RoR1 vs 2 are very different considering the upgrade from 2D to 3D).
However, for series that I loved as a kid, I'd hate to see them brought back. The originals are still there and as good as I remember them to be, and more often then not any reboot of a series lacks the allure that the originals did. I'm much more interested in new ideas and new settings now.
I work in the food industry, and theres a saying Ive heard in a lot that applies here. "People like what they buy, but they dont always buy what they like." Big corps love redoing ideas because new products/ideas, even EXCEPTIONAL new products/ideas, don't always work. So rehashing a success is both easier, and safer. The sad truth is that big corps want safe money, not art. Thus, Konami and other big corps dont love to stomach the risk of "new" because "making a profit" is safer.
"Take your triple A money and give it to a bunch of crazy people in the hope one idea may take of..."
Isn't that how venture capital works in Silicon Valley?
I honestly turned my back on game development (in Germany) after realizing there was no good funding and each of the 30.000 1-10 people studios try to stay alive by developing soulless mobile and browser apps. With them sitting in the hearts of the biggest, most expensive cities (to appear "hip" or so?) you seriously have to ask yourself what other job you have to take because your landlord wasn't satisfied with me "having a cool job".
Most smaller games seem like passion projects from students, who not yet rely on income or a good night sleep after a 9 to 5 job. These are the fresh minds the business needs.
Sadly, I never got to make my Open World Hitman MMO🤙
Even if it's not the same people as the people who made the originals, I believe there's no reason not to give new devs a chance to make a game that might be good, even if it might not be as good.
A perfect example of franchise stagnation was StarWars. Sure there will be defenders of the property's prequel and sequel trilogies, but neither trilogy had that broad appeal the original trilogy found. It wasn't until The Mandalorian that the franchise started getting interesting again because they tried something new. Instead of focusing on the familiar with space operas and characters recast with younger actors to tell their origin stories, they decided to make a Spaghetti Western in Space.
I think it was Steph Sterling that suggested all of Konamis properties should go to Capcom, because for all their faults they’re not afraid to reinvent or just try
This is exactly how I feel about franchises like Legacy of Kain or Panzer Dragoon; they were good, and it is not difficult to see how they can occupy the headspace of those who have experienced them, but that doesn't mean I want MORE of them. In my case it also has to do with the narrative: both series told an ongoing story over multiple, sometimes very different games, stories that by now are complete and concluded and would be better served being allowed to REMAIN concluded rather than keep going on till they presumably run out of steam and good ideas (a big part of why I couldn't stand R-Type Final 2).
Not to mention, this is basically what happened with the Marvel movies. Recall that at the point in time the original Iron Man first came out, up to that point most (not ALL, but most) superhero/comic book adaptations were, at their core, derivative of The Crow (the Sam Raimi Spider Man trilogy and Batman Begins being great examples of this); Iron Man dared to be its own thing, which was why it felt so fresh at the time. But when innovation meets success, the big companies responsible (not to mention audiences) want to capture the same damn lightning in the same damn bottle, hence the Marvel Cinematic Mess we have nowadays.
That last part about catching the same lighting in the same bottle really hits. It's never gonna happen but that won't stop fans, and companies, from trying to achieve it. Sort of a destined to fail in that aspect.
I also feel the same about Portal. Like how are you going to top Portal 2. You can't with those types of games. Portal 2 was a sendoff for the franchise. People saying a prequel, but I don't think that would really work either as well.
Hell there are some franchises that just need to permanently end. Like Halo and Wolfenstein
“Real Ship of Theseus” - nice reference! I do love a smart arse who is, you know, actually smart. :)
Ahh but Yahtzee remember the old saying "That which is not dead may eternal lie and with strange aeons even blooper team may make a good game"
What hurts letting them try? We won't get another Silent Hill without this so why not let a chance of something good coming from it even if its small? Can't get any worse
It's as asinine as (considering Yahtzee without a script) "Zero Punctuation should stay dead!"
Sadly, I think a lot if this excessive risk aversion comes down to the rut that the gaming industry has gotten itself into, and the stalemate "Everyone pointing a gun at everyone else" moment that the AAA industry is in.
Like a lot of fans will note that one of the easiest ways to cut the cost of a AAA game is to not put such ridiculously massive amounts of money into the graphics and/or advertising. But if you DON'T put that ridiculously massive amount of money into graphics then most consumers will take it as a sign that the game is being rushed out to make a quick buck, and instead go back to the game that's got an over-bloated budget. It's an unpleasant cycle that I'm not sure the industry can actually get out of.
Considering the massive success of games like Minecraft, Undertale, Stardew Valley, etc, I’m going to have to call bullshit on the idea that a game not having cutting edge graphics would be an automatic deal breaker for consumers.
@@BLZ231 All of those are Indie.
I'm more referring to the AAA d- measuring contest because no AAA company is willing to take the risk that reduced graphical quality might be seen as a sign of poor overall quality by general audiences. I'm not saying that it would be an ACTUAL deal-breaker, but Corporate isn't willing to take that chance in most cases.
The truth stings. It stiiiings...
Here's the political take: What you're after is state art funding also including video games. There is a reason the nordic countries churn out music, art and indie films that keep being the start of the next big trend. Tax money thrown at people with the only instruction "make art". I also agree that this is exactly what we need. It's not that good games aren't made any more, it's that capitalists are making bad games, and good games drown because they cannot afford the marketing that comes with big capital.
love these more thoughtful slower takes. more of this kinda thing 👍
What Konami *should* focus on is bringing SH 1-3 (and maybe 4) to modern day consoles, so that players who have never experienced them can finally do so (the HD collection doesn’t count for many reasons).
Now, what I’m talking about are ports, but remasters (NOT remakes) wouldn’t be a terrible choice if they were done correctly.
Either way, I’d just like them to be playable (as they were when they released) for a new generation.
I am trying to find my way in the film business and if I ever get to play a role in the pitch of new stories, whether it'd be showing my own ideas or judging others', the last thing I'd want to think to myself is "we have already seen this before". I hate making the same product twice and believe that we need to get crazy and experimental in the world of arts.
Yahtzee is still on how "transcendent " P5 was in comparison to its previous entries when it wasn't. Infact P5 was just an extension of all the quality of life improvements the series has been making since P3 in fact that was the game that fits the definition more because it was a complete revamp of the formula and all P5 did was bring back elements that were abandoned while refining the ones that already worked.
Yeah, but P3’s story was terrible, a monkey could’ve written it. And since persona games are mostly story…
Considering P5 made him go from a flat anti-jrpg stance to being one of his favorite games, shows it was a transcendent work in the genre. Only this entry (maybe P4 after the fact) did that for him
@@TripleExposurePhoto Yahtzee love of that game has little to do with how different it was from its predecessors (because he's only really played two) but how it broke his own standards of a JRPG. Even in his own retrospective look he admits that a lot of its appeal is foreign to him because it follows the same beat by beat of other JRPGs but fides that it didn't "waste his time" getting him enthralled (though he didn't actually finish the game until years later and finished P4 before it).
Hey! How are you? It's been a while since I last wrote to you. Where to begin? I know. Let me tell you of the small town out in the mountains where I live.
It's a humble and quaint place where time stands still, one of those old timey communities that never lost the cozy, intimate feel of knowing all your neighbors by name and where all you ever need is in walking distance. Can you see it?
I will say, however, that the town is kind of eerie at night. Strange noises come from back alleys and streetlights flicker for no reason. The fog often creeps over the town and I could swear I hear something grinding in the distance, like metal scraping against stone. It's probably all in my head but I can't shake the feeling that, when I walk alone, there's someone following right behind me.
_Lately, I've been having these dreams. Nightmares, actually. I'm in the town but it's dark. The streets are in ruins and the shops abandoned, their windows boarded up and their doors shackled with rusted chains. I can hardly breathe and it's so cold._
_And then, there are the howls, distant yet haunting. We have wolves in the nearby woods but these aren't the howls of wolves. It's more like... someone is crying out but the message is scrambled, layered in static and sloshing in something wet. It sounds like it's coming closer, I want to get away but I'm frozen in place, not daring to move a muscle lest whatever's making that noise finds me._
... and then I wake up. Weird, huh? Guess I've been watching too many late night movies. Anyway, I hope you come visit me, Konami. I'll be waiting for you. You're always welcome.
Spiritfarer is particularly good to bring up because I actually remember your live reaction to it from seeing the demo at e3, where you just sighed and shrugged and said "lots of people making games like that... I suppose some people will like it."
About as faint of praise as one can give, but in the end it really got you (got me too. Ah, so many tears)
holy fuck THANK YOU for this video. Silent Hill has been dead for near two decades and people still fall for the nostalgia OOoOoOoo SiLeNt HiLl 2 rEmAkE. It will never capture the charm.
On the whole "people don't know what they want" point, I see it more as "people tend to be bad at articulating why they do/don't like something." I think people do know what they want, but they lack the media literacy to communicate that. So often times they latch onto a surface element like tone or a gameplay element. This goes doubly for committees, they want to be able to replicate a games success and try and emulate the aesthetics and broad strokes while completely missing the nuances of what makes it work.
I'm not saying this to be demeaning, critics have a job for a reason, picking apart why something does or does not work is really, really hard. I just think it's an important distinction to make. People enjoy good media, regardless of what the trend at the time is.
I have such low expectations when it comes to video games (and most popular media, come to think of it) these days that the only thing I can muster is a resounding "I hope it doesn't suck."
Only putting stock in things with president... now that he said that I can see it everywhere. It explains a lot of AAA's entrenched policies and lack of innovation.
The best way to stop AAA sequels is to stop preordering games that "could be good", instead buying games only after they've proven their value. But apparently, it's hard for some people? When Bethesda and Konami executives are actually forced by their accountants to try to make good games, good games will be made. Well, by Konami. I'm not sure Bethesda is aware of the concept of good games.
hmmm I do miss demos that said it does feel like they were replaced with Open Beta stuff or like you preorder said game and get to access the beta or something like that.... but yeah Miss em
1:16 god I miss PSone demo discs...
An interesting take on this (at least I think so) might be that of the multi armed bandit. How you might infer where in it's lifecycle an industry might be by the balance of the "explore vs exploit" moves made by the participants. I'll point you towards a poignant example in chapter 2 of 'Algorithms to Live By' by B.Christian & T.Griffiths
I feel the same way about Paper Mario, as of late.
I could actually see an good way to run that “hire a bunch of crazy people do make a game” that’s affordable and time effective
Hypothetically, what if a company announced a Game Jam and invited anybody who thinks they have a decent idea.
They all have 1 month to compose a vertical slice. Whoever makes the best vertical slice will have their game picked up and turned into a full game.
Then a year or two later, when that game comes out, do the whole thing over again.
It could work but I realize an awkward thing for investors. There are already tons of indies doing so right now without the external support. It doesn't seem to be a terribly lucrative market even assuming a paradoxical hypothetical of 'become the largest chunk of the indy market'. If anything the producers would tend to have more of a place for funding medium producers.
Steam did that several years ago. People had 1 week to make a game. The end result of that was surgeon simulator. Which became a huge hit for years
They could patrol all the random game jams on itchio, no need to run your own. It's because there's a way they do things, and it won't change until the company starts hurting.
The problem there is that the millisecond publishers put money into your game jam game they’ll make demands that will almost certainly be at odds with the devs creative vision and defeat the whole purpose.
@@Mordrevious When Valve got tired of publisher interference, they went and created Steam to serve as their own publishing platform
A company can self-publish online, with any of the online distribution stores. All they lose is the console market.
"This could be interesting." Is something I'd say about a new Silent Hill from Konami.
This is because throwing gasoline onto a trash fire can be interesting, even entertaining.
I don't expect Konami to ever pull their collective heads out of their numerous buttholes, but I can expect their slow death to be fun to watch, occasionally.
At this point, Silent Hill is literally the skeleton of a horse that Konami is stitching the flesh of dead 3rd party developers to in order to pretend it's still alive.
I don't know if you're joking or if you're referencing a Silent Hill boss.
weekend at konami's amirite
Turns out that Silent Hill 5 is actually real - and has been ongoing for at least 18 years
@@ArifRWinandar I have never played any silent hills.
I like that after all these years we get hear all about ben Yatzee crowshaw thought process on the state of Videogames on youtube.
hey, I'm really enjoying the extra punctuation series, but can you guys enable the auto-subtitle option? It is not that accurate (like scripts of ZP series) but still quite helpful for non-native English speakers.
A good example of this would be the whole "Obsidian should make another Fallout" thing. Yea I loved Fallout New Vegas but an ounce of researching would tell you a lot of the people who made New Vegas left Obsidian since then such as Chris Avellone. Even their Outer World game that was suppose to rival the Fallout series just felt flat and faded into obscurity but yet people think they can just magically make another game that captures the spark and creativity that New Vegas had. This is only getting worse since the whole "Microsoft considers Obsidian for New Vegas 2" thing that happened a few months ago.
Being set on fire could be interesting. Interesting isn't necessarily pleasent.
"I still think silent hill 3 is overrated" man who sings unfiltered praises of silent hill 2
I love both immensely, but 2s flaws often get overlooked.