The Problem With Swery
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- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- i love deadly premonition! but dp2 left behind a bad taste for alotta folks. did for me too, & this is a video primarily about that. dealing with it, thinkin about it, and also the good life
#deadlypremonition #thegoodlife #swery
![So I've Been Playing: DEADLY PREMONITION 2 [ Review SWITCH ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pNBYfzH-C20/mqdefault.jpg)
PATRONE: bit.ly/3wFnEYy
a fun funny smoments video that i am in: t.co/ZbXCwbwgUk
not the funnest video to make tbh lol but i had to get this off my chest. the process of making this was good for the ol mental health at least. and my next video will be a lot more fun too, trust me lol. itll be about JAPAN ONLY PS4 GAMES
I’ve always wondered about how many PS4 games are Japan-only, because you don’t really see much stuff get region and language locked anymore. Loved this video and hyped for the next one!
@@sparklesparklesparkle6318 By "Do something about it" you mean be a little b on twitter? Considering you didn't even know about it, you could just ignore it. Not everyone must bend to your outlook.
Every time Thor talks about PS360 aesthetics, I am ALWAYS hyped to see the *shiny wood™*
Yooooo-
and the Shiny Grass™
YOOOoooOooooOUuuUu
@@maegnificant and the Shiny road
ぃよおおぉぉぉぉッ！！
I LOVE the "Shiny thing" running gag, please, never stop doing it and adding to it.
Btw I've played the first level of Ninja Gaiden Sigma recently and noticed it too sports some shiny wood.
Lol, I played through all of NG black recently. I swear, shiny wood immediately reminds me of all the times I kept receiving an ass-whooping before starting to finally get decent enough to clear the first level.
@@naliboi93 good old ninja Gaiden, it can be difficult to the point of comedy sometimes, I recommend TheGamingBritShow's videos on Ninja Gaiden if you haven't seen them yet, in particular NG2
I think York going out of his way to morally browbeat people and dismissing small-town country folk as stupid hicks unironically makes him the most accurate portrayal of an American in Japanese media. I don't know if it was supposed to be an intentional read of York's character, or some lost-in-translation parody of American culture, but it was funny to watch.
I kinda wonder if York is also meant to be a bit of Agent Rosenfield along with Cooper, who unlike cooper clashes with all the locals, like York.
Swery feels like the anti yoko taro. there is a moethod to his madness in taro's work where alot of the time with Swery it's unintentional.
@@megamike15 I played drakengard 3 he wasn't thinking of shit
You can always tell what tv show swery has been binge watching before getting a game idea
Which ones correspond to which games then, in your opinion? Aside from DP being TP. I can kinda see Broadchurch or even Father Brown in The Good Life, but no idea what show can be behind The Missing or D4 (well D4 is prolly Twin Peaks again).
@@namlesone D4 is definitely TP again lol
@@namlesone I'd certainly say that there's some True Detective in DP2, although I would 100% agree that there's Twin Peaks in D4 as well. The Good Life does make me think of Broadchurch but idk how likely it is Swery watches those, but there are a lot of popular 'crime-an-episode' shows in the vein of Agatha Christie and the like. Oh and I always imagined the Missing as one of those Japanese idol girl shows from the 80s that were so popular, but obviously with a big helping of Limbo in there and all
@@ArcChristelle and Memento.
With DP2 I'm going to assume he was watching a lot of Harry Potter
Steambot Chronicles is one of my all-time favorite games, so seeing it even mentioned here warms my heart. Definitely one of the most cozy mecha games out there, it's so weird and nice.
Agreed. It's a little hidden gem that needs more love !
It's weird how they might be some of the most fun mecha to construct and use in any game but there's also a whole other game's worth of stuff to do, wish I still had it - definitely something I'd appreciate more now I'm a bit older.
The problem is D4 never got a part 2 which is his second best game.
Don't remind me about it. This cliffhanger along with megaman legends will haunt me for the rest of my life.
It's my favorite game by him. So unique and full of details
i still miss D4 so much :(
I loved that game!
Holy shit I want a part 2 for D4 so bad..
RUclipsRS LOVE TO PUT TEXT ON SCREEN FOR 0.5 SECONDS AND I HAVE TO TRY TO USE RUclips'S SHITTY SCRUBBER TO READ WHAT IT SAYS AND IVE HAD ENOUGH. IM PUTTING MY FOOT DOWN TODAY AND SAYING "NO MORE!". Thanks for the video THH!
The "So I Have Been Playing" reveal midway through this video hit me like a semi truck.
God dang bro
It's rly the thor equivalent of a movie only dropping it's title card until half an hour in
Everytime i get reminded about Swery, it pissed me off that D4 would never see a closure.
That is my problem with Swery
I loved that game...
That was on Microsoft for not greenlighting the future episodes.
@@chrisossu2070 Swery to my knowledge owns the IP and was even able to port it to Steam outside of Xbox but I believe sales just weren't there for anyone else to go ahead with publishing a sequel either. It's a bummer, legitimately enjoyed that game.
I’m glad to see you’re changing the structure of your videos to better suit what you desire. While there are some newer games that I’d love to see you cover, I’d rather have a happy RUclipsr and an unexpected/great video, as opposed to an unhappy RUclipsr and an expected/underwhelming video. Idk if that makes any sense, I might sound insane or stupid, sorry if I do. I doubt you’ll see this but if you do I hope you have a great day!
Only thing that didn't make sense about this comment was the self deprecation. You're absolutely right and you sound very sane and intelligent. I mean, jeeze, isn't the whole premise of this platform about being able to give people creative freedom to do what they want? You support the absolute best use of this platform.
@@jayoftheabyss3197 yeah, sorry that I was like that. I always get really worried that my sentences don’t make any sense whenever I type something really long like this
The Good Life looked so much better when it was low-poly.
It went from a Choice to something that just looks cheap
What do you mean when it was low poly?
@@tvsonicserbia5140 it had a simplistic art style in the first trailers and concept art, a mix of artistic choice and compromise for the low budget aspect. It had flat colors and textures, simple lighting, etc. You probably want to say that it is low-poly now, but i'm referring to the wind-waker-like approach they were taking at the beginning of the project.
I feel like my favorite work from any auteur is the one where they collaborate the most with other people during its creation.
For example, I love Death Stranding and I know that Metal Gear Solid 3 is Kojima’s best work. This is due in large part to the localization effort which has only faded further away as Kojima wants his writing to remain unchanged between languages.
It stands to reason that The Missing is my favorite Swery game. It takes his wild aesthetics and gels it with writing that feels poignant and sensible, likely due to the diverse consultants who helped with the game’s story.
It's not a new or unpopular opinion but everything Kojima does now is less interesting to me than MGS1 through 3 days. Like it was clearly a collaborative effort by a lot of people, not just one guy. He was the ringleader and I'm sure he did a lot (probably helped too that he wasn't super jaded or hating his own fans yet) but he had people around him doing writing, art, sound, and other facets that all came together to make something that is really great.
Then they give one guy (Kojima) so much control and don't reign him in much at all and we get Death Stranding. I don't hate that game, I appreciate what it's kind of trying to be, but also it just doesn't interest me anywhere near as much as earlier works of his. I was also never really a fan of the poster girls and various silly things just kind of put in there because Kojima thought they'd be cool. If you put stuff in just because you think it's cool, most of the time it's either not going to age well or actually detract from the tone (Unless you just go full Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, which is totally fine as long as you go all in.)
It kind of mirrors my feelings about Star Wars. They give Lucas too much say, nobody to tell him "no", and we end up with prequels. Some people like the prequels but that's another discussion. I think you get my point though.
@@ParappatheRapper I think you nailed it. On Star Wars, it's no wonder that the movie regarded widely as the best (V, empire strikes back) was written by others (Lawrence Kasdan with extensive input by Carrie Fisher and probably others).
I do agree with you that the collective made MGS. It was Kojima sure, but also Shinkawa which did incredible concept arts / chara design (and is still is at the helm for the mech design on Death Stranding and it shows because of how good it is), and same for the music or other things.
And yeah, for localization as other people here in the comment have remarked, I DO also think that because Japan is (very) slowly getting just a bit more progressive, it ends up being significantly behind western opinions on several social/societal topics,
And therefore if you don't have people in localization saying "hey, I get you're feeling, but saying it like this is very awkward actually and it detracts from your genuine feeling."
All of this is further muddied and confused by the fact that you have renowned people in the games industry that are raging homophobes/transphobes but can have really strong game design otherwise, yes I'm talking about Persona. It just boggles the mind how those games can be so good and on specific topics really well written but also be absolutely horrendous on others (EVEN STILL IN P5, tho it has been reworked a bit for P5R)
It's a whole situation...
The "localization effort" that's best known about Kojima was only for MGS, by MGS3 the localizations were a lot more restrained. The game was also a hit in Japan, where it wasn't localized. Maybe you should consider you actually do like Kojima's work.
Everything that's dicey in DP really reads off as tropes heavily used in the 80's media Swery is referencing throughout the game. I'm aware that's not an excuse, but I don't feel tropes used in DP accurately reflect the mans worldview.
(edit after finishing video) As mentioned in the video York goes out of his way to say the most politically correct takes on the situation and says to death how you can't judge a group based on one bad egg.
And again York telling a black person in an 90's setting to not be prejudice shows how Swery may be completely tone deaf on western politics outside of what he remembers from roughly translated American TV shows he watched as a child, which naturally didn't portray things in a reliable manner.
Lately there have been a lot of Japanese writers, (I don't mean Swery), that are progressive BY JAPANESE STANDARDS getting blindsided when their content gets backlash overseas from the demographic they are trying to support. I feel this shows how much of a cultural divide there is from east to west, and that should be taken into consideration.
Twin Peaks had the transwoman Denise Bryson in the early 90‘s. She was a really competent FBI operative, or rather stiller is in the Return.
Or maybe Japan is so uncorrupted by twisted, ideologically-driven talking points like the culture in the United States is, that they have the freedom to actually say what they want to say without being browbeaten by blatant agitators who are just as bigoted as the people they're attempting to silence. The last thing we need is Japan kotowing to what's happening over here. They can say whatever they want to say. The "offended" people can go cry in a corner.
I hope thor knows how much of a comfort content creator he is, he’s one of those creators who’s videos I can put on anytime and be completely engrossed in the topic at hand no matter what it is !!!
Rapevictim vocabular.
The problem with thorhighheels is that he's too chill and I've never seen him wearing highheels!
I'm starting to think he might not be the norse god of thunder.
I honestly felt like Thomas was supposed to be one of the "Corrupted Maidens" from the beginning. I'm pretty sure they're meant to be read as an egg and George came to them in probably their most vulnerable, validating their gender, and commanding them to kill for him. It's a sad narrative. I certainly don't think it's a...good depiction of a trans woman, but I feel like the fact that Thomas is in the final picture and is described within as "beautiful" says a lot thematically.
I interpreted Thomas in the same way! In a way it mirrors how some trans people, after being rejected by their families, end up easy targets for actual groomers who take them in, give them a home and acceptance, but then victimize the trans person because they have no apparent place to go. The key difference is that trans people in this situation end up the victims.
As someone who hasn't played either Deadly Premonition but is a pretty big Twin Peaks fan, the issue you mentioned about the games' morality really does feel like it's just a mangling of the way Twin Peaks handles it. TP gets away with it much better because Lynch is obviously a much better writer, but I think the abstractness of it also helps quite a lot. Like none of the guys in the Black Lodge don't directly tell the audience about how evil they are, they're a very vague evil (which The Return expands upon a lot and shows further that the abstractness of the morality).
This releasing on my birthday was so good, thank you for this.
If you compare Swery to someone like Uchikoshi (who wrote The Somnium Files and it's amazing sequel), I think you really get a good sense of what Swery is lacking.
Both are really stylized "childish" games, but nonetheless their take on social issues and how they deal with harmful tropes couldn't be further apart.
I met Swery at Pax East when he was previewing TGL, and he was a really funny and nice guy, language barrier and all.
So I understand why you didn't go into it a whole lot, but George being abused and becoming an abuser isn't exactly the usual cliche thing. Just like with everyone else, Kaysen sensed a flaw in him and knew how to push his buttons to get him addicted to the seeds and the power they wield. I think there is a really smart critique to be made about addiction and the first game. Having been physically addicted to painkillers a bunch of times because I fall off mountains... I get it, there is something there.
I feel like swery is the kind of person to add characters into his game to be genuinely more inclusive, but given the nature of the games he sets himself up to inadvertently offend those he was trying to appeal to. I think he might do a better job at this in future projects.
I feel like the “only safe media allowed” concept is really concerning. It’s also partly the reason why most media at this point is a meaningless fuck fest of corporate and political interests. Basically meaning any creative work must appeal to everyone and not offend anyone, especially whatever the popular minority that corporations and politicians are virtue manipulating to finance their own goals. Ultimately, it seems that the only logical outcome here is, consume what you like… and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to ruin it for someone who does.
so are you responding to anything said in the video or just boxing at shadows
@@sarsmask oy vey six million of the chosen people killed by aryn monsters I myself was killed over six million times.
I can’t tell if you’re a cop lover or not right now
Swery is one of those people who has his heart in the right place, but is a bit naive in how he approaches things. I honestly think it's a good thing, tho, to see this stuff in games. It's maybe the most honest sort of naivety that exists in media. While a lot of shows and movies will fall directly into one side or the other in terms of how things get portrayed, Swery ends up kinda stumble-fucks his way through these things with what I assume is the sort of vaguely ignorant-but-trying sort of mindset that I feel like most people tend to have about this stuff.
A lot of people on social media get really pissed off if people don't get everything 'right' about portrayals of minority / vulnerable groups, but I think most people are in that sort of boat where they just don't really give that much of a fuck and just want to live and let live. Then there are those people who become 'aware' of this shit and it feels important to them to try to do something positive, but they don't really know enough about what they're trying to talk about to do it properly, so it ends up being really clumsy. I find it to be somewhat admirable, and I try to not get pissed off about that shit. He WANTS to be positive and uplifting. It's like watching a little kid try to play you a cool song they learned on a guitar. They're bad at playing guitar in general and their version of the song is off by a lot, but they're still learning how to do this shit. You don't tell a little kid how shitty they are at playing guitar, you encourage them to keep going and tell them how much they improved since the last time they played for you.
That's where Swery is, as well as a hell of a lot of other people. Instead of getting pissed when they fuck something up, we should be encouraging them to keep going and to keep learning and practicing.
This entire comment section reads like a reddit thread, take that as you will
whatever you feel the need to do in everything you upload, do it, im just here for the ride
Fastest click of my life.
Calm down bruh
I only know about SWERY from Thor videos, which is a weird way to learn about someone, but it works for me.
I really appreciate your perspective in this video because it very much echoes my own. I found your channel through the Deadly Premonition 2 video and while I really enjoyed the game upon release my opinion on it has also soured over time. While I originally wrote off many of its 'eccentricities' as just elements that create the identity of Deadly Premonition, it has become obvious that Swery, maybe even subconsciously as you say, holds a lot of prejudices and they bleed into his work in ways that don't always seem as bad as they are until you put some distance between them and think of what he might have actually been trying to say.
I was one of those 'baby queers' who was deeply impacted by The Missing, and while it's certainly not the most profound trans story ever told I don't think you can make a game like that without harbouring a lot of empathy for that group of people. I do think Swery means well with what he tries to make and what he tried to do in DP2, but not having the guiding hand of actual LGBT people like he had with The Missing meant that ideas like York baiting Lena by deadnaming her didn't get immediately shot down at conception. I don't think it's fair to write him off as a transphobe because I don't think a transphobe could commit years of their life to making something like The Missing or show the respect for trans people Swery seems to actually have, but he needs to stop using them and their trauma as a plot device, at least not without actually enlisting people who have experienced that trauma and are equipped to tell those stories.
If anything I'll always be glad for DP2 though because it helped me find one of my favourite RUclips channels of all time.
appreciate you, as always. It's not even a blind loyalty thing so much as I was genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on the subject. thank you
tl:dr The issue with Swery is that he's not far left enough.
The messy, lost-in-translation way the trans themes were handled in DP2 is really odd considering SWERY also wrote The Missing with only one co-writer.
It should be noted that, according to SWERY himself, he was basically a director in name only on DP2. During the last 8 months of production, the dev team basically ghosted him.
I think the moral is that SWERY shouldn't have worked with the team that couldn't even port the first Deadly Premonition right.
360 version of DP1 will always be Swery's magnum opus.
What's the problem with dp1 port?
@@Dragonfury3000 Massive performance problems that didn't exist on the original 360 version.
Imagine making Deadly fucking Premonition more busted than it already was
@@theqreem8587 I played dp1 on switch lite and it played fine for me. I do miss the directors cut content from the ps3 version though.
GREAT VIDEO um i was making thor high heel themed slime in slime simulator on my cell phone while listening to the sonic adventure soundtrack when i had gotten the news that my dad got into a car crash he is fine now but like now whenever i think about this channel im reminded of making slime and sonic and car crashes
Did not played Deadly Prem 2, but The Missing was kinda based in my opinion
I see no D4 here. Therefore it was a flawless masterpiece.
I feel like u* exist in a small corner in my mind 🤣 was literally doing a deep dive on swery after finally getting to play deadly premonition and just. Being so fascinated with this weirdo lol. This is much appreciated 👍
Man I love your videos. The passion you talk about games got me into completely new games or series I would have otherwise never touched. Like that Shin-chan game I only bought because of your vidoes about that og series it spun off from basically and it turned out that was one of the best games I bought all year. Keep going like that man.
Dyslexia has me reading "The problem with slavery"...
i'd argue thomas isn't really a depiction of a trans woman but rather of a drag queen. those are a bit different afaik, correct me if i'm wrong
OMG, thank you for reading the posters in the hospital. In a game full of comedic gold, those are a highlight.
I preface by saying I haven't played DP2 yet, so I'm going on only what I've seen in the video: honestly, between the points you've made about ignorance and all, in the end it all comes off as "I really do not like this guy made these minorities I can symphatise with/relate to the villains" and that's a fine stance to take really, it's very emotional as a take, but aren't we all a bit of that. I most def do NOT agree it's "the prolem with sweary", even if the video is more about "I don't think they can't be villains, I just don't think Swery has the right insight to takle these subjects", which is very whatever, only full experts on minorities are allowed to depict them as the evil side.
One thing to keep in mind are the ramifications of stances like those, because what you're doing is signaling that minorities can and should ONLY be rappresentated as the most cookie cutter, generic stale depictions, and should NEVER be the bad guys. Problem with that is that by doing so, you get the annoyance of the other side who will cry about forced diversity, and rightly so, considering if someone writes the most generic trans depiction, it just means their heart was not in it, and their intent was simply exploitative and tokenistic.
Like seriously, think about this, you've spent a section of the video talking about York berating a COP about his homophobia is bad just because... he's black? Really? That's really something worth mentioning? Maybe the whole "small towns folks" comes a bit iffy, but is it really THAT big of a deal? As if it wasn't true pfffth. Could even be a small clever hint at York's own prejudices, but it seems you've labelled Swery as childish and ignorant, while also saying how much you like his writing and the interactions in DP1.
Idk man, I feel for creators nowdays, as they seem damned if they do and damned if they don't, but maybe it's for the better, just letting minority creators make media that resonates with their communities, and everybody else just closes their eyes and ears.
It'll mean that everyone else will not be presented with any type of minority, leading to more segregation in media, and that minority creators can kiss goodbye at any aspiration of mainstream success, but it seems like everyone wants to steer the ship towards that, and so be it. God knows if I were to create something all my characters would be heterosexual asians/whites.
I agree. People that go down this road will eventually ruin any content for themselves. They want a recipe, a formula, to get their content by. Diced up and cut with just the right "expertise" and "sensitivity" for their pc palette. Taken to its extreme, white people will no longer be able to write minority characters. Any such creations will require thesis levels of research before they allow themselves to consume them. Not every story is a meta narrative.
Not being able to accept a villain b/c of their orientation says more about the viewer than the writer. "Tropes" are becoming catch-all terms for stuff people don't like. Doesn't matter if it's an actual trope or not.
To be honest, not being completely online, I ignored whatever happened on Twitter and I only found it odd/tasteless that deadnaming/wrong pronouns happened, there were so few instances of that that you could count them on one hand, so I chalked it up to Swery having a tad poor grip with Western sensibilities. Pronouns are hardly used in Japanese, and being an old Japanese man, I wouldn't really expect him to understand why deadnaming is bad.
The backlash is completely overblown. People are way too addicted to Twitter and completely made up their own, insane version of Swery, that only exists within their heads. The smallest slight is regarded as a personal attack against them, with Swery being this hateful demon that made his personal goal to trick poor people into thinking he's an ally only to backstab them at their most vulnerable. Most of the outraged people have not even played the game - they were so mad when a pre-release review mentioned it, they immediately took their grievances to Swery, and then publicly swore from ever playing any Swery game forever, didn't touch DP2, and proceeded to spread the same views of this satanic Swery they have in their heads, with their friends nodding and wholeheartedly accepting that version as the truth.
But the fact is, Deadly Premonition 2 is just not a very good game. It wasn't some kind of a grand expose of Swery being a hack writer who could never write a thing; TOYBOX is just a half-dead studio with no money, no talent, nothing. Swery's grievances with the development are very telling. A bad studio, being hit with COVID, on shoestring budget - I imagine Swery wasn't able to patch in shit because the developers were immediately let go after the development was done, and the studio didn't care to hire anyone as they saw it as waste of money.
The backlash to the review was because most people thought it was a bad game, but used the controversy as a shield instead because it was an easier angle to attack using it as some sort of "objectively bad thing". And now the reviewer was successfully gaslit by his sunshine and rainbows audience that he was never supposed to like anything by Swery ever as he's the personification of hatred.
I feel your sighs heavy like a sac of bricks on each of the early parts of the video. A desire to just want to look at things, smile, enjoy and vibes confronted by something where that just won't fly anymore, a big elephant that was fine in the room but now the pachyderm's asking you to pay his side of the rent in the name of a couple of brews he brought one night three years ago, and things can only fly so much though you wish they could be more easy.
The fact it's all looked at, going through and past the pain points, double-checking the games and in a way yourself along the way, maybe that's what's the difference between a childish view of complex problem that wants to do good and ends up doing anything but that, and a more mature, but not joyless look at things.
It's almost instinctive, for me at least, to not want to be a downer, but self-erasure isn't enough to have a good time today and tomorrow, even when you just want to chill.
i like DP2, but it's missing a LOT of heart/soul that was present in DP
Really good video, nice to hear your thoughts on this mess of a topic. I've been thinking about it a lot ever since the DP2 stuff went down.
I think you make a lot of good points about SWERY and his work. I was introduced to him through The MISSING right when I had realized I was trans, and so it was disappointing to hear about what happened with DP2. Based on what I've seen and read about SWERY, as well as following his Twitter, I don't think he is a bigoted person, but he definitely needs to learn to be more open to criticism and working with other people, as the games I've enjoyed the most from him (The MISSING and The Good Life) had much more assistance from other people.
Agreed
So, I’m asking this out of genuine concern… How are writers “supposed” to write minorities, women, and LGBTQ if creators get backlash whenever they’re not the “protagonist”, spotlight, or aren’t seen as all positive? I’m actually almost afraid to include certain aspects of society into my creations due to it never being good enough even when there is representation that’s supposed to be positive. It’s safer to just not include those topics at this point, but damned if you don’t.
I wish Thor could have provided, or proposed, a solution to how certain groups should be seen because I’d really like to have a diverse cast of characters whether they’re good, bad, evil, neutral, etc. Because, look guys, there are bad actors in EVERY group/career/ethnicity/race/gender/politics/religion no matter how good or just the cause.
Still a huge fan of Thor all the same. Just wish he could have an input on that end of things.
i think the main issue with making villains that are minorities is when you run into issues with stereotyping and also just poor, unsympathetic writing in general.
in the example of writing a trans villain, this is a totally fine concept. the issue is that so often in media a trans villain is depicted as being villainous *because* of being trans and the stereotypes associated with being trans (e.g. buffalo bill).
and obviously this is a pretty bad way to write any character. it's obviously very bigoted, for starters, but also it's just lazy and not particularly compelling (also, it's pretty predictable). i think that the solution here is genuinely just to write more interesting characters who can have evil backstories and motivations that exist beyond their identity. or if the identity is really an integral part, it should be handled sensitively.
a lot of people see the debate over minority villains, lgbtq villains, etc. and what they ask is "why can a villain not be ___? you can be ___ and a bad person." the problem is when certain groups of people literally become shorthand for bad people in media because of how they are traditionally portrayed
Trans and queer villains rules, the problem is in how badly and ignorantly he wrote those characters and the awful result. Now this can be as much as just a bad portrayal (and can be criticizedas such) , but when those things were the default and only way queer people were portrayed, it had real harmful effects on the lifes of the groups of people being portrayed.
The problem isn't that the characters are minorities; the problem is that SWERY writes characters like they're Punch Out opponents, not to mention the fact that he is a Japanese man trying to dip his toes into American socio-political views and the differences in culture there. In fact, I honestly kind of wrote off the misused pronouns thing because in Japan, pronouns are hardly ever used; they do exist, but using them is seen as disrespectful, and people usually just use each others names, or the subject is implied. Even though I can't defend most of SWERY's decisions that steadfastly, I can see that a lot of the weird conservative-esque angles probably come from the fact that he lives in a country with a fairly conservative government. Just as an example, just last year Nintendo announced that employees in same-sex relationships would receive the same benefits as heterosexual employees, and this was insanely huge because even in current year most Japanese companies do not do that; queer people are very often overlooked and ignored in Japan. I can't completely fault the guy for his perceptions--especially when he really did seem torn up that his portrayals weren't as progressive as he wanted since someone who wanted to vilify queer people wouldn't give a shit at a poor portrayal--it's hard to deny the fact that the final product he put out is still a very poor representation of said groups of people. I don't think he meant it that way, but those are definitely the optics of the situation, and SWERY is nowhere near self-aware or gay enough to be able to call it ironic.
Honestly though, your comment really sounds like the type of "OH WE CAN'T SAY ANYTHING ANYMORE WITHOUT GETTING CANCELED" boomer fodder that I see everywhere now. If you can see that your depictions may be stereotypical, then maybe don't do that.
The problem isn't really that stereotypes are offensive--that is *a* problem, but, given the very definition of "minority"--the majority of people aren't going to be offended directly. Saying this as a queer person myself, the real heart of the issue is that stereotypes are boring at best. It's lazy and by the numbers. Even stereotypes of your average Joe straight white guy are boring and lazy and overdone. Be creative; make real characters with complexities and backgrounds that justify their actions from their own point of view and make them interesting. Villains--regardless of race, gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, or any other labels you can think of--will be bad villains if they don't make sense and if they aren't interesting.
@@cdm966 Devaluing my concern as boomer fodder doesn’t serve to better your stance. Instead, it only serves to strengthen that people truly cannot ask a question and also ask for a solution (I did both) without being labeled a boomer, bigot, racist, homophobe, etc. Attacking a person directly doesn’t shut down the idea. I also do not think boomers will ask for a solution or to ask how to do something better which I have done in my original statement.
With that said, I agree with your stance on writing better characters without stereotyping. It gains the chance to make them more complex. However, we need to give people room to grow and make mistakes but also need to provide constructive criticism on how to do that and how to do better.
The real danger, and I think is what you are actually concerned about, is that some crazy conservative will take stereotypes as factual like they have in the past or how liberals will take male stereotypes and make it every straight white guy’s trait. I actually don’t find stereotypes bad if used in good taste. But the medium shouldn’t use it to say “hey this is how these kinds of people actually are.” You almost have to treat your audience as idiots which, in today’s movies, you’re getting more of in recent years.
@@LOP4795 I didn't mean to devalue your comment, really, but that is the tone your comment had and I commented on it. I acknowledge that (much like SWERY) it wasn't intentional, but it is definitely how it came off, and in a way, it also, too, becomes very boring and tiring to see over and over.
However, I do want to say that I genuinely do appreciate your response. It's easy to come off as "that guy" in many situations--"that guy" just being a person who says something that has been said over and over to a tiring degree--but very rarely does "that guy" ever really interact or respond, so I do really appreciate, respect, and thank you for that.
I do agree that people need to learn and grow, and that's why I still do defend SWERY to an extent; he has shown the potential to learn and grow. I don't think doing something bad makes you a bad person, and most non-terminally-online people would probably agree; You really only see people who think that way on like, reddit and twitter. The Good Life mostly steers clear of the politics that made this game so messy, which really indicates to me that SWERY probably acknowledges his limits now and also probably won't try to address these things again until he is more well-versed.
In response to stereotypes being fine if they're in good taste, I honestly wouldn't even call that necessarily serotyping. All stereotypes do usually originate from something true, but are distorted to a degree that they are no longer representative. For example, if I saw someone write a gay character that was into Drag Race, yes that's stereotypical, but as long as that character has more going on, that character doesn't come off as a stereotype.
Just my perspective, but I think it's very shortsighted to hold someone from such a different culture as Japan to our current cultural standards, particularly when, a handful of decades ago, that culture's perspective on gender roles was vastly more progressive than ours, and had been for a very long time. This tendency towards twitter-mob condemnation of people who are not at all bad people, who have good intentions, are speaking in good faith, and may simply be older, or be taking a little longer to fully come around to the expectations of young people simply because they have thought and spoken that way their whole lives, and it can take time to make that adjustment, or because they have a different cultural/language background so there's potentially a ton of confusion and misunderstanding in translation.
There is true irony in the intolerance of social media mob mentality events like that, when they are ostensibly driven by people who are themselves only asking for tolerance and acceptance from society at large. Absolutism is alienating, an beyond that it's simply never true, nothing in life is so simple and absolute that a mob is proper response... well, haha, almost nothing, there would be exceptions to that too.
Swery's the one who chooses to keep making his games America-centric, from Deadly Premonition to D4 to The Missing to The Good Life. If he wants to tackle that aesthetic, people will expect him to have some degree of understanding over their cultural standards.
@@kryptomanik it's funny that with The Good Life he made a game about TERF Island and in that one it's unrealistic because there aren't enough transphobes
I just wanna chill as hard as Thor chills
Just started the video and just gonna say that yeah your videos are paced brilliantly. They can be meandering but never in a negative way, like in a way that feels disorienting or unfocused. They're kinda like videogame window shopping with a really cool, chill, and funny person with really interesting perspectives and confidence in their own perspectives on art and art appreciation. In other words I don't always totally get or follow where you're going, but I'm always 100% brought along for the ride.
I'm sorry to hear the DP2 video gave you so much grief, it's weird for me since your DP2 vid is one of my favorites
but yeah I understand where you're coming from with this vid too, I think SWERY's greatest strength as a writer is his child-like way of seeing the world and how his games are about incredibly basic themes like not getting stuck in the past, respecting other people's opinions, and being proud of who you are, but explaining these simple themes in the most bizarre and high concept way imaginable, I do agree that he should probably avoid tackling more complex subjects because his writing tends to get super muddied then, and shoving them into DP2 with its clearly rushed dev cycle was kind of a recipe for disaster (although like you I still found myself enjoying DP2 despite its many flaws)
According to SWERY himself, he didn't even get much say on DP2's final state, as he was ghosted during the last 8 months of development.
idk what Swerys deal is but it seems like he's willing to learn even if he gets mad about being called out on shit
I love when thor makes none linear videos
and this guy made The Missing: J.J Macfield, which was a pretty good transfender allegory
What happened?
@@demitrysualokin2796 Swery couldn't do much but also didn't want to destroy his relationships with the game industry I guess. He already doesn't have a lot of opportunities to create games.
He vaguetalked about DP2 development in a pretty obvious way:
> Probably, his worst working experience during the pandemic was getting to the finish line with Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise, a game that came out on Switch in July 2020. In his talk - referring to slides on the big screen with the title Deadly Premonition 2 partially redacted but still clearly legible - Swery said he was "being ghosted" during the final months of development. According to the director, there were so many fixes needed that he submitted approximately 2,000 tickets and not only does he say they were never addressed, he also claims he never had a chance to talk to anybody from the publisher and the studio.
> "I found out the game had been released thanks to a message I received from a fan," he alleges.
I imagine if he directly spoke out about it, people in the industry wouldn't be happy, and if he ever tried to get employed elsewhere they could poke at his tweets or hear about him from other publishers.
Just another production that already wasn't going to be the best being completely demolished by COVID.
I would argue that Thomas from Deadly Premonition is a very good depiction of an LGBTQ character.
[SPOILERS]
He wears the dress and wig because of his huge admiration for his sister Carol. He even listen to her song when he do so. And when he died York and Harry considered him one of George's victims, and therefore a "goddess of the forest" just like all of the other girls. I find it wholesome, as if he finally got the recognition he never recieved from his surroundings.
Some concepts come to mind. The American obsession over Chris Chan. The fanbase being made up of a lot of…troll enjoyers and what those metrics look like on paper.
Little darker than your usual stuff but this is pretty fucking aces my dude. I really liked how much effort you put in to like... actually capturing the nuance to all this.
The screenshots of swery tweets you keep showing when you say "he didn't react a good way to the backlash" seem pretty reasonable to me. Am I missing some further context?
Yeah, he says in the video that most of it was deleted
@@PointZoneTelephone eh well I can't really believe him if there's no evidence of a worse reaction
Yea it didn’t seem like it was anything to get mad over but you know people on Twitter…
Whenever someone mentions "controversial tweets" it's usually the most pedestrian thing you've ever read
Honestly. pretty dissapointed in Thor. Thats some surface level woke whining. Swery bended as far as he can and tried to ask for help. But woke knights just harrased him for months. So muh tolerance.
I've always felt like Swery is the bootleg version of Suda51, everything from general style of weirdly ambitious and kinda weird games down to adding a funny number at the end of his name. (Suda is named Goichi, which can be read as "five one" in japanese, so the number feels more earned)
Your videos are always a highlight in my VIDEO CONTENT CONSUMPTION ROUTINE. The post-modern artsy titlecards, the appreciation of jank and small creative endeavours, the general positive and chill vibes, the impeccable editing and timing (I'm still giggling whenever I remember the EGG joke). You're doing something unique and very enjoyable.
Funny, I've always felt Suda 51 is the bootleg Shinji Mikami. Nothing that overrated pickme has ever made is fit to lace the boots of God Hand
@@makeitthrough_ Killer7, The Silver Case, The 25th Ward, calling Suda bootleg Mikami when Suda's works are more subversive and they focus on narrative and the kill the past themes
But hey, if you call him overrated pickme that menans you don't know jack shit about him
💪😼
@@makeitthrough_ Shadows of the Damned is Suda51 held back heavily by Mikami. If you found that game boring it's not on Suda
Shiny objects updated
table
360
grass
road
gate
wood
*Warning you’re reading a bunch of reddit threads on youtube comments*
did not understand the video but good backgroundmusic
I've had a few thoughts on this topic.
I don't think it's fair to completely equate York's thoughts to Swery's. York is our guide through the world and I think it makes sense that he does occasionally act as a mouthpiece for his creator in the same way Dale Cooper and Jeffrey Beaumont reflect Lynch... However, like Cooper coming from the city and making assumptions about the quaintness and comfort of small towns like Twin Peaks and then being blindsided when his ideas of the town don't line up with reality (the biggest instance of that reality not lining up in the finale of the final season), York fails to prevent murders in both games because he chooses to force reality through his narrow magical and romantic view of the world. When he brings up fantastical B movies he sometimes says things like "That movie is nothing but truth," leading the player to start to question his worldview. I think this was intended because both games frame York's limited understanding of the world as a tragic flaw and even as a mental illness.
In both games York is quick to correct and "educate" the small towners based on the movie trope-like way he views them but again in both cases it allows the antagonists to continue playing their smokescreens by letting him believe.
Regarding Swery's portrayal of gender I'm actually made more uncomfortable by Thomas' portrayal in DP1 than Professor R's in 2. Though I think Thomas as a character has dimension and I like them, their portrayal relies more heavily on gay and trans stereotypes and imagery regarding mannerisms, behavior (singing, baking), and dialogue. This was probably intended to be an almost John Waters-ish bad taste shock tactic, but I don't think it holds up in the modern era.
With Prof. R it makes sense to me that the family that did not accept them and was not progressive would continue to deadname them. To me DP2 is the ugly side of the conversation and I think that the inability of the characters to handle the situation respectfully makes sense within the context, setting, era of the game.
I wholeheartedly agree that Swery's handling of the controversy was poor.
Something that I'm not entirely comfortable with in DP2 is the portrayal of Avery and I'm not sure what to pinpoint that on exactly. It may be because he just feels outdated. He's presented as almost a hundred percent 1950s movie trope.
As far as the Voodoo goes, in real life Voodoo has diverse practices with different sects and rituals
that I don't necessarily find the generic portrayal in the game all that troubling, considering it doesn't come out on either side of it especially positive or negative on Voodoo itself, which is nice given how often it's stereotyped as evil black magic. You can argue there was a better way to introduce it than the cartoony Houngan I suppose. I don't find it more troubling than generic portrayals of christian imagery in media for instance... Though I am far from knowing all I can about Voodoo.
As a final note as someone who like things in bad taste, I do think creators like Swery have to work harder on their portrayals of diversity than they have in the past. I believe he means well, but the whole "I will walk my own way" thing is only going to limit his ability to get his message across. I respect his efforts though and understand the hardheadedness to try to say something meaningful in a highly commercial medium. I just hope he keeps himself open.
agreed
Houngan is literally just straight up Baron Samedi. Is that really stereotyping to use a deity in the exact same way he's always been portrayed? It's like complaining Zeus is portrayed as Zeus.
I wish I could remember The Missing in the positive light a bunch of other people seem to, but it was basically completely spoiled for me when you get to the end and unlock "NG+ play as the MC with a male body mode". I have no idea what Swery intended with following up revealing a character was a trans girl with instantly turning her body male but I sure as fuck did not like it.
i really liked how nice your audience is. there's a few bigots in the comment section (it's youtube so yeah) but overall pretty based people here
i love the shiny bit so much i clap evry time
thanks for making this, it was almost kinda therapeutic to watch as someone who used to be a big swery supporter. Deadly Premonition was one of my absolute favourites but the stuff he pulled in 2 has left a bad taste in my mouth ever since i played it, it's hard to really gauge how much of it is sincere innocence or ignorance but that distinction doesn't really matter when you're playing it on day one getting blindsided by extremely weird shit from an outspoked 'ally'. i think you covered all of it really great here tho, very swag video thanks
14:21 wait why is the sheep labeled ""
Thor have you heard about the Fear Effect games for the PS1? It might be right up your alley.
I will just say I feel very bad for Swery and I hope he hasn't developed any anxiety over this, because he seems like the type of guy to.
I mean, does anyone outside of twitter/tumblr really care about "problematic" depictions in media?
Nope, Twitter are just the loudest [screaming, crying, tantrum-throwing] voices. And since that voice doesn't exist in Japan, their media is still allowed to be what the authors want it to be, and not packed full of politics
Bruh, your videos are a joy to watch. I usually play through long ass 30/50 min + videos on x2 speed, cuz gotta consume that content efficiently. But something about your videos makes me want to slow down and take them all in. And it's enjoyable to do so. Thanks for existing and being a vibe. Don't remember how I found your vids but I'm glad I did.
I 100%'d Steambot Chronicles when I was a kid! I had a heart attack when you mentioned this game 🤣. However it is absolutely understandable that you don't feel the passion to review it, that game is... You need that childlike positivity to be passionate about it.
BPA…. If you know YOU know.😅 go to the heart of the most main stream illness right now.
12:56 [audrey] We actually have spoken to a British person friend of ours about the chips/crisps distinction and apparently, crisps are regarded more as a type of chips, and what we call chips here is actually, fine, to call chips in the UK as well? Like people won't get confused, apparently, by you calling them chips. They tend to get much more confused about the American school grading system (they consistently forget what "first grade" means and we always have to re-explain that first-graders are typically six years old and advance a year each grade) and the terms "lemonade," "sherbert," and "shaved ice" among others which either mean something completely different or don't mean anything in UK English. I suppose I could be here all day listing off those things
I thought you had a pretty reasonable take on the Swery Twitter shitstorm, speaking as we were somewhat actually present and observing it when it all went down as well and had the same observation about how he probably wasn't amenable to listening to a bunch of noise from the mob. Although since then, we hadn't really thought about it very much except to notice that his link color in Shinigami Eyes (a browser extension that marks trans-supporting people in green and publicly transphobic individuals in red) seemed to have changed from green to not colored at all, which I assume is a sign that whoever manages that extension isn't sure what to think of him anymore. But yeah you had a good take in general and I'm glad you shared it, even though our opinion is overall as you said "fuck this shit and fuck this guy." We were actually playing DP1 after all this was going down and then stopped when we realized that the story wasn't that interesting because it was all tropes and then a guide spoiled the final boss for us which made it even more uninteresting.
You gave us a good laugh when you transitioned into the "So I've Been Playing" title card. Good going there. Your videos are cool in general.
You make SHINY videos, mate. Never stop.
I guess the lesson here is that the world is wacky
Can anyone tell me what that mysterious sound effect that Thor uses all the time is from??? Like at the very end when the milk forms to swery’s face. I’m dying to figure out where that’s from
That's from Deadly Premonition 1.
It's in the coffee
Anyone can be a villain tho, dont have to be a reddit mod to be into incest .
The trans woman abusing her sister is called Lena Dauman, like Lena Dunham? subtle
I find your depiction of steambot Chronicles italian box art extremely problematic!
Seriously... Why do you have an Italian copy, such a cool random moment!
Like you've said, I don't think that Swery is intentionally racist and transphobic, more likely he's just ignorant. I mean, he's just a japanese man who likes old B-movies, so of course his messages and intentions are lost in translation. The point of DP 2 was that the main villain became a killer because she was abused, and not because she's a transwoman. And regarding deadnaming, it stroke me that Swery just didn't understand the concept of deadnaming and why it's an issue in the first place.
All positive the "yay a swery video!" Comments until they get deeper into the video lmao
ThorHighHeels you're an absolute legend mate 😁. Thanks for all the amazing content you've given us over the years
tables CAN BE SHINY damnit
The problems you have with him are why I like him
BABE WAKE UP THORHIGHHEELS JUST DROPPED ANOTHER VIDEO
Yaaay les go! Thanks for the upload man.
thank you for critically examining your relationship with this media, its creators, your audience, and the people affected by its content.
Good Life seems alot like the Skips games. I do enjoy the daily life adventure games.
You should not expect a 50 year old Japanese man to be completely up to date with Western viewpoints, and having minority villains is apart of proper equality and they should be allowed to do so.
problem is not that a minority is the villain, i don't think you even watched the video lol
50 years lol. Mfs at that age ain't boomers delirious about the good old days of man wearing hats and suits. Those guys were most likely doing lines with gay people on bathroom of shady venues. Even in Japan. Plus he knows and uses the internet in a daily basis to engage with western people you can bet he knows wtf is going on the west
Did you see Moon rereleased? :3
As messy and janky as The Good Life is, the scene with the sword and the lake was hilarious, and I think about it frequently
Is being a sigma generally considered a character fault? Or is it like a person marching to their own drum? I am not well-versed in wolf porn. Help.
what? wolf what?
edit: what!!!??
@@lulumaneco3684 smut! wolf smut!!
Going to be honest, I love you're "so I've been playing" videos. Hearing someone just talking about the games you're playing and if you like or hate it and why. Also, I really like that they were not the newest games. But I completely understand the trap of just playing new games only.
excuse me sir why did you remove the siren blood curse video?
It's not the only one. He also removed the "style in video games" video, which was probably my favorite.
How is this how I find out it's spelled like that
I clicked on your video so fast I fractured my finger.. WORTH IT!!!
frank
god dammit chin you beat me to it
@@Ninormaal :)
another great video my friend. Thanks