YIIK: The Worst Game Ever and Why I Love It
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- čas přidán 10. 05. 2022
- An analysis of one of the worst games ever made, YIIK: A Postmodern RPG, and a discussion about why it's still valuable.
Thumbnail art by: / yaboizacc
With help from: / mossbaguette
My twitter: / zingus5
Lots of the footage I originally recorded got corrupted so I used some footage from Force In Unison Gaming and Konami Code
if even one character says "I'm yiiking out" in the new update, this is going to be better than Morbius. Trillion copies sold guaranteed
you mean a YIIKillion copies
first game to sell 2K copies.
@@melvint-p9500 y2k-illion copies
I really hope some, just once, says “Yeeck” in the new update
Virgin Morbing vs Chad YIIKing
The secret sauce to "So bad it's good" media is that the creator has the passion, love, dedication, and 100% belief that they are creating a masterpiece sprinkled all over their work
And also, that it's actually about something. Sharknado and Megashark vs Giant Octopus are fun, but they aren't trying to say anything, so they can only get so far on the SoBadItsGood-o-meter. Whereas part of the beauty of The Room is that it is trying so hard to be about the human condition - and it is! It just ends up being more of a takedown of Johnny than of Lisa. Art!
@@pantslesswrock hbomberguy reference
Ackk is the Neil Breen of video games.
@@pantslesswrockactually birdemic is trying to say something. The creators are environmental nuts
@@ozmond Shit, thanks for the correction! I'll amend.
I know I'll sound controversial but I think Rory's ghost reassuring Alex that his death wasn't his fault is a very clever way of characterizing Alex as an unredeemable piece of shit, because you could argue that there never was any ghost and that Alex is simply making his dead friend say whatever he wants to hear as a coping mechanism to evade the guilt of his own actions
That's my interpretation too. It's Alex once again affirming to himself that he's doing nothing wrong.
It would have also been very poggers if at the end of the game where he's having his monlouge of self realization, he finnaly admits that rory never was a ghost, and geniunley apologizes and feels bad as he realizes he did play a part in rorys death
There's some missing information because of the fact that he just used footage from some other guys video. Rory is not talking to Alex in that scene, he's using the player's name. The person Zingus took footage from had their player name set to "You", making it look like he's talking to Alex, not the player who made choices to remove Rory from the game.
Rory is dead under all circumstances, you can't impact his fate at all, because the story presented in-game is not literally what is happening. If you make choices similar to the ones Alex made in his real life, he feels like he can share the blame with you and "open up" about the trauma he feels related to Rory, his grossly selfish idea that Rory's death was all his fault. Ultimately the only choice you can make with regards to Rory is whether Alex is honest about what happened on some level, or if Alex continues to flanderize Rory the same way he does the rest of his friends by the endgame.
@@sneeze4100 the divergence point for the alternative ending is before the world ends isn't it? Plot wise he can still be alive at that point in the game. If you see the ghost it's because of actions the player took as Alex.
@@rageoholic1007 The events of the game are not happening in real time, or as they truly occurred for that matter, and you were never playing as Alex. Alex is recounting his story to you from the soul-space (Every time Alex's talk sprite faces forward and he monologues in blue, he is speaking to the player) through the form of a playable videogame. Rory is never alive, because the very idea that Rory can survive is wish fulfillment on Alex's part. Note that even if you do the alternate ending with Rory "alive", you're still allowed into the closet Rory occupies, the one that supposedly "Only people with dead friends are allowed to enter".
In other words, the entire game takes place at the end, with Alex letting you experience what he claims is his story, as a bid for sympathy. In all endings, Alex fails to significantly change as a person, and we loop back to the start of the game in New Game +. The literal events of Alex's past are unchangeable, but of course, Alex could simply tell you something different. The entire purpose of the game's storytelling is to motivate you to ask as many questions as possible, and "solve" the story to understand it. Postmodernism is, in as few words as possible, about questioning grand narratives.
As an aside, the soul-space is a metaphor for something very specific, the mental state of somebody experiencing extreme trauma or depression. Dissociation, loss of meaning, the lead up to ego death, etc. It has the power to change your "reality" and who you are as a person.
I wanna see the devs succeed so badly. I wanna see them make the best damn game you’ve ever seen.
YES, MAKE YIIK LIVE FOREVER. IT'S ETERNAL.
After all the blood, sweat, and piss they probably put into YIIK and all the painful lessons I hope it taught them, if they're still going to keep making games, I can't possibly imagine something bad coming out. Like, they created the perfect disaster, they have to have learned more from their mistakes than anyone else ever. They're either gonna make the next game of the year or they're gonna die trying
#YIIKSWEEPS
I honest to god hope they manage to pull a No Man Sky move, take the criticisms to heart, and manage to turn the game into the amazing life changing experience they clearly believe it can be.
Well they’re making a massive update for the game called YIIK 1.5 so that could be the case
I feel like alot of redemption stories need to knoe that UNLIKEABLE does not equal INSUFFERABLE. I feel like the best example of this is Emperor Kuzco from Emperor's New Groove. He may be an asshole to everyone around him, and he may not care about others' needs, and he may monologue to the camera sometimes, but he is still fun to have on screen because he is funny and charismatic. Take away that last part, and you have an insufferable main character that you never want to be on screen but always is, A.K.A. Alex.
Alex makes me want to YIIK myself
It makes me wonder if a good insufferable protagonist is possible.
@@yellowpowr8455 I think it can work, but for that you have to make the other characters/world reacting and calling out the protagonist bad behavior to give some catharsis to the viewer.
@@yellowpowr8455
Imo it is, but to do so you need to:
•Make the rest of the cast compensate for the mc's insufferability, like Pacha from the aformentioned Emperor's new Groove.
•Activally call the mc out on it. Yiik does this well on some parts, but there are others when Alex is a dick and gets off scott free
@@funninoriginal6054 You know what, I think you might be the second person I've seen to reference The Emperor's New Groove in such a context, and now it's set in for me just how much that's a perfect example. It's a matter of being an actually interesting character and a compensatable cast. That's what I consider one of the big problem with YIIK in regards to the writing, in that no character is actually a character, but each some combination of exposition dumps, pointless nonsense, flat and boring, and/or the writer just writing scripts for their own three-hour podcasts.
@@yellowpowr8455 not really, characters require intrigue to be good and being insufferable on its own or as a main trait isn’t intriguing because insufferablility is a tool that mainly serves as a roadblock for progress in a plot whether it be minor (wasting time, annoying and distracting, etc.) or massive (halting progress, genuinely distressing other characters, fucking up opportunities for anything of value to happen with their own unrelenting bullshit, and so on)
So yeah, making your main character a road block who constantly gets in the way of shit even for a good reason isn’t ideal if you even want your plot to be enjoyable, let alone your main character. Case and point, Yiik a post-modern RPG
48:04 No matter pretentious, bad and meme-worthy this game is, that stupid line from panda always nearly brings me to tears for some reason. And then the poorly-spliced scream from Alex brings me to laughter again. Every single time.
ANDAAAAAA
I think my favorite is probably "DEVELOPED? THIS THING IS DIGITAL, BABY!" through sheer Gottfried-esque delivery alone, but if that part isn't a close second for me lmfao
What, you didn't know the "P" in Panda was silent?!
I think mine is just all the variations of Alex going "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??" There used to be an in-joke on my friend group about Alex impressions
to add my fav, after Alex says Rory's mom is all legs, Rory's double "Shut up." both right before and immediately after the fade to black always gets me. the timing is beautiful
It's bizarre how important this game is to me as person, considering that i don't really like it. Watching people rant about Alex made me realize how much i related to him and his unwillingness to change, and that made me reflect into trying improve as a person, i don't want to be remembered as an Alex. That game legit broke me, and i don't really know if i should be grateful or not
be grateful because that made you into a better person in the end lmao.
That's what it's supposed to do, it's a cautionary tale that says that if you treat your friends like garbage and become creepily/parasocially obsessed with missing people you never actually met, then you'll destroy your "world," all your friends will want nothing to do with you, and you'll be pouting on your mom's sofa desperately avoiding thinking about what other directions you can take your life in.
@@livvy94 in the end it’s a good message, but with a painful, weird, ineffective execution. I would say take whatever good you can from it and learn what not to do from the rest lol
almost all art has something good you can take from it, even if it’s bad overall. And even if there’s nothing to take from it, you can still create your own meaning from it. So be grateful for how YIIK helped you, but be more grateful to yourself because you’re the one who actually chose to reflect and try to change
I never viewed Alex as a bad person when playing the game and sometimes could relate to him pretty well, especially the scene after the sewers section.
Honestly that whole “Your mom is all legs” scene could have worked it if we’re placed during the FIRST meeting with Rory
Not only does it help make the apology scene with Rory more serious, but it also helps hammer home Alex’s sleaziness (and reinforces Creepy Alex’s existence)
Imagine meeting a stranger you’ve only talked to online and the first thing the dude does is hit on your mom.
...suuuuuuuure, but his mother was also an actual singular leg.
Did you know, one of the cutscenes in the mind dungeon is a puppet of alex's dad talking about how he and alex's mom are splitting up, one of the things he mentions is that he chased a dream "with nice legs" halfway across the country
Like father like son
Am I the only one that thought of the move 'the graduate' when I saw the leg? I thought they were gonna go for something like that tbh
Or you could just make Rory's mom a human so that during the sewerslide ending it doesn't sound ridiculous when Vella says "Rory's mom found him"
That panda scene almost had me until he yelled "PAN-DAAAAAA" like a character in a 90s martial arts movie. Absolutely broke me with the sheer hilarity, utterly phenomenal
Especially when the subtitles pronounce it differently. "Paaaaaaanda!"
for me it was the transition where he turns into a stuffed toy
Jujutsu Kaizen did something like that too, but more intentionally corny than YIIK probably meant it to be.
25:43 To be fair, the game telling Alex (or you) that Rori's death isn't your fault is pretty disingenuous. The game knows it your/Alex's fault, but since that ending's entire schtick is giving Alex a fake "happy" ending that neither of you deserve, I wouldn't count that moment against the game. That entire ending is intentionally insulting.
It's very important that Rory is specifically telling YOU this. The woman at KNN says you can only enter if you have dead friends, but you can enter regardless of what happened to Rory... which implies that what actually happened is that Rory died- the choices that appear are edits Alex put in the story to absolve him of guilt
@@linguisticspaceship Right. I was with this review for the most part, but when he started misinterpretting things this way he kind of lost me. Which is kind of surprising, considering he said Tehsnakerer's video on YIIK was a major inspiration to him, because Snake pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding that ending.
I feel like the creator really and truly got a bad rap for this. Apart from the "Self-Insert Incident" (which was a cosplayer that got labelled as the developer), people love using that interview on the Dick Show. With all consideration, he'd just lost his mother and then his multi-year passion project had become the pissing block of the entire internet--it's pretty understandable that he was upset.
Honestly, yeah. I tried not to focus too much on that interview because of how much every other Yiik video seems to use it, and I often think it's used to overshadow the more interesting aspects of the game and its creation. Like I say in the video, I really do wish the developers the best on the update and whatever they make next. The game's certainly got its issues, but people make it way too personal sometimes.
Yes, and discussion about "contraversies", "self inserts" and "author said bad things" takes away from meaningful, productive criticism too.
@@zingus5 I agree with this 100%, I unironically like 1.25 of Yiik. It's not a masterpiece, nor is it a terrible game. I would give it a C+ or a B on a tier list. I also unironically like Paper Mario sticker star and Final Fantasy 2 for gba. Yiik is far from bei ng my worst game of all-time. My worst game of all-time is a rom hack of Pokemon Ruby called Pokemon Snakewood. Also, I dislike when people talk smack about the devs of Yiik.
@@BreezeOfOnett Yeah. After watching TehShakers video on it, alongside with seeing the devs going out of there way to overhaul the game, it almost feels nasty to keep using that interview. One that doesn’t even reflect how the creator feels about his own work, as seen with the fact that they’re overhauling the game.
@@shinji2898 i agree 100%
YIIK isn't a game about Alex improving, it's a game about Alex refusing to improve. The og quote from the Dick Show is all about that. Alex NEEDS to improve, but he doesn't
I actually really like yiik for that reason tbh. Lots of people I know are like Alex, and specifically never improve. I feel like the fact that the game literally doesn't have a happy ending (The only Happy ending is a cut one where Alex learns to be a better person that isn't so selfish) is really poignant commentary that makes me legitimately like the story.
If it weren't for the repetitive combat I'd legitimately rank yiik as a good game.
@@0why Well that ending is mislabeled as cut content. According to the writer "there are no cut endings." I think the ending is supposed to be viewed in a tongue in cheek kind of way, where Alex completely falls in his own delusions... unless you are referring to the Old Frankton ending (ending 4)? I'm not sure how that ending is supposed to be interpreted
@@linguisticspaceship "According to the writer" man you could make serious money if you could find a way to monetize "being the single-most gullible person on the planet"
@@skungdillinger2381 lol what makes you say theyre unused then? ive datamined the game quite a lot myself and they sure do exist.
I've seen you everywhere lol
57:18 he called it ‘Y2K’ instead of ‘Yiik.’ Thats genuine character development in a youtube video essay, its like after the whole video he finally respects the game enough to use its preferred name.
he went through more character development than alex did throughout the whole game
Deadnaming is really mean so i agree
0:25
@@hasargel deadnaming is really based
@@based980 you probably relate to y2k main character
YiiK, a game about a narcissistic God who is locked up in his own imagination and slowly begins to realise that he is a horrible person. On paper that sounds like a cool idea, but man is this execution bad.
Also I'm not kidding, Alex is basically the Brahman or YHWH of this game. All of reality is just a reflection of himself, which is exactly how reality would be if someone were sole creator. What else would the world be but a mirror into that god's imagination? Though Neon Genesis Evangelion and End of Evangelion did much better job at examining this extreme form of escapism.
Damn I never thought about it that way. Thank you for your insight
If creation were taught to be identical to the Creator, or if it were taught that everything was only by the singular, so to speak, Will of God (These being teachings found among certain sects), then the teaching would follow, in different ways depending on which teaching was espoused. But since these are falsehoods and heresies, and since the creation is distinct from the Essence of the Creator was made according to His Will, and because some things are by the permission rather than the active Will of God, and other wills can also be said to exist, then there is no identity between creation and Creator, and evil cannot be said to be a creation of God, nor of His Will.
But it could be that the above comment is meant more explicitly as atheist polemics.
@@zusty9589 This has no relevancy to my comment. What are you on about? Also your reasoning isn't even sound for what ever you're arguing to begin with.
@@Arexion5293 I cannot see how it is anything but relevant, since you seemingly teach that, given a Creator, everything within Creation would be, in some less defined sense, from God, without distinction between events which are of His Will and events which are not, or that which is really created and that which has no substance of its own, and even without distinction between identity with God and a distinct Creation.
While broad, what I have previously written is simply a statement on the falsehood of those teachings which suggest an identity of creation and the Essence of God, and those teachings which, while not teaching the former, suppose all things to be from His active, so to speak, Will; And moreover I have given some of those teachings which follow from true teachings, these standing entirely against those false teachings previously mentioned.
@@zusty9589 Teaching? This isn't some lesson. I'm only stating that a reality created by a god akin to Yahweh or Brahman would be nothing more than a result of that being's imagination, as in the case of YHWH and Brahman they're the sole sources of all. You're meanwhile arguing that is somehow not the case for all-knowing, all-powerful gods because there are things that go against what is assumed to be what these beings want. If the said being is like Yahweh or Brahman, only thing that exists is what they've created as they decide the very systems upon which the reality works. If the said reality seems to blaspheme them, it is how they wanted it to be as they are all-mighty. Otherwise they're not all-knowing and all-powerful. What you're talking about doesn't apply to my comment, as you're describing a being that isn't all-knowing and all-powerful.
The panda scene actually almost made me cry but then the panda turned into a stuffed animal and idk why but the animation of it turning into a panda plush and floating away was the funniest fucking thing to me
When da edible hits
When you were talking about the dissonance between YIIK’s relationship with the genre and the combat system, I couldn’t help but think about how Omori really nailed this same idea. In headspace, the combat can be as outlandish as it wants, but then in the real world, suddenly you can NOT stab another living person with a knife without the consequences of stabbing another living person with a knife. I’m tired and I know that I explained that poorly, but it made me appreciate the writing in that game even more thinking about it.
Yeah and it's such a great character moment too, because Sunny has been 'living' in a dreamworld fantasy for four years, as far as he's concerned, headspace logic WOULD be real logic, so you expecting combat to work similarly because of RPG logic would reflect Sunny's state of mind. Then he stabs Aubrey and remembers how reality works
Dude, I was fucking grinning ear to ear when that happened.
IMO it's kinda lessened a bit by Aubrey having a bat with NAILS in it, it goes from sports equipment with plausible deniability to something meant to seriously hurt people... though other than that I wholeheartedly agree with you; I spent that entire segment just filled with massive dread because it felt like my whole safety net had been removed due to what happened to the battle system.
@@GameDevYal She actually doesn’t use the bat at all during the fight. It seems that she either uses it primarily for intimidation, and the fact that she doesn’t use it shows that she also still cares about her friends after all this time.
Alex is likely retelling the battles in non-literal ways, much like a standard RPG. He says things like "and I won that day." at the end of fights and it is established that a lot of the game's narrative could be fabricated by Alex. Alex could of course stab people, but that takes out the whimsy and the actual challenge.
the 1.5 update is so interesting to me, it literally mirrors the themes of YiiK about self improvement and fixing your flaws. I hope the game gets the No Man's Sky treatment and becomes unironically good.
you can't just ship of theseus a narrative story like that not to mention i doubt it's accomplishable anyway. No man's sky wasn't about story.
@@MsZsc small changes can go a looong way in a narrative.
@@jambott5520 do people "fix" romeo and juliet or whatever
@@MsZsc Romeo and Juliet doesn't need fixing though. Also yeah, there's a ton of variations on that story.
@@BobbyZombieGG if you change something like this enough you really can't call it that thing anymore. This shit was released, it wasn't a first draft version 0.1
"the twist is that you, the player, are the 'alex' of your world"
jesus christ i hope i'm not
Bruh imagine if Poo comited suicide and Ness just kinda forgets about it for the rest of the game lol
I feel bleak without Alex YIIK
Yleak
Bliik
I love alex yiik
You ARE Alex Yiik
I love YIIK, both ironically and unironically. Its so fun to meme on its bad qualities while appreciating the few things it does well
Heck yeah. The video brings up the passion the game had. It’s actually really nice to look at. Flawed for sure, but I respect it. I’m definitely gonna check it out once the big update hits.
YIIK is like if Scott Pilgrim didn’t have character development in the comics
The worst part about YIIK, at least its original incarnation, is how little Sammy's disappearance matteers. Its set up as this big mystery as to who she was, why thigns were weird with her, why did her statements seem so contradictory, why did the soul survivors take her and where was she taken to....and none of this is answered, as the game completely forgets about her and other subplots, instead focusing on the multiverse plot involving the evil Alexs destroying planets for reasons that aren't explained, dropping anything else brought up before without any explanation, payoff, or even a conclusion to them. Just, nah, writer got bored of those things, we're doing something different now that is unconnected to that.
The game doesn't forget about Sammy. KNN is almost entirely focused on her. She appears near the end of ending 1 as well. She isn't "saved" but that would go against the point of what the game is going for
It's sort of the point. It can be argued that Alex never met Sammy and was really only entrigued by the case of Sammy going missing. Him looking into that spiralled out of control when he started looking into a load of conspiracy theories which all end up pushing his friends away from him
It is all connected, it just requires a lot of work to connect the dots. And it truly is unenjoyable *work* to accomplish this, not play, so it's understandable why most don't, because the effort is so large that no reward could be worth it
It looks like that plot was part of an early version of the story that he couldn't simply erase from the final version.
@@SammEater It super doesn't. She is woven throughout the entire story. The story is about how looking for her is a destructive obsession that doesn't reveal any truths about her and distances Alex from even those rare few who could tolerate him. Finding her is an optional choice for the player, and when you do she's a paper girl, literally just a crayon drawing. The player is supposed to realize that she wasn't actually that important to Alex - she was just another evocative and mysterious woman that Alex tries to use to fill the void inside him - and that's shitty. The only way to "end up with her" is the ending where Alex kills himself instead of going through the hard work of becoming a less shitty person. She is integral to the story, but so is letting go of her, which is why she's an ethereal presence throughout, never taking main stage, because she isn't allowed to in a world entirely created by self-centered Alex's brain
This might sound strange but after thinking about it, i dont even think the "Alex is the center of the universe" thing is even that bad, or that it necessarily "justifies" his selfishness. In my opinion it's almost like an ironic punishment for his self centered character considering that him being the center of the universe is what's going to destroy the world and take away everything and everyone he loves. Like a big metaphor for how acting like that will leave you empty and alone in life.
My problem was how it was executed tbh in killing the other main characters making their stories and time spent with them pointless. At least the cut alternative ending gave a satisfying conclusion to them.
@@jack_stone isnt that sorta the theme going on in the "alex is god" ending? That the stories and time spent with them pointless because alex doesnt actually value them at all?
Of course I haven't played the game so I'm prob talking out of my ass
@@spectraljerk330 I think it's more he didn't know what he had until it was gone, it is clear he was crushed when his friends existence were erased. Nonetheless I think it was very unsatisfying....
"Poor execution is not justifiable by a great idea"
Yiik is one of those games where it's so fucking bad it cycles back to being iconic. It's like The Room, but a video game.
It fails so spectacularly that it becomes a joy to watch. I have it wishlisted on Steam, and planning to buy it once I.V comes out.
I remember constantly seeing that character still of Alex yelling and I always thought it was from some random movie reviewer lmao.
You can put Alex on an existing movie reviewer's video thumbnail and he would blend right in
@@dnkakusei The worst part is this is true
Saberspark
As bad as the game is at least the Allison brothers TRIED to make a good game, like you said near the end there was genuine passion and love that went into this project, I hope the devs continue to make games and learn from their mistakes, they have a lot of potential
That's why I love this game even though it's so bad. This is one of the game with the most personality I've played in my life
I definitely think they're pretty bad writers. If they just focus on music and art direction and let others handle writing and level design I think they could make a pretty great game.
@@heehokuzunoha7757 they're not though. A lot of what they do well storywise gets unnoticed because people are annoyed by the gameplay and pacing. You could argue that the slow pacing means they're bad writers but I've seen people complain about the same thing when reviewing 1q84 from murakami and it's a fucking masterpiece. It's just a style that is hard to get into and that's also a big inspiration for yiik.
There's a CZcamsr called hellkrai that made a few videos explaining how even the scenes that have been memed to death like the golden alpaca thing actually make a lot of sense if you're willing to actually pay attention to the story. A reccuring thing with people who criticize this game is people believing what Alex says and taking that as the ultimate truth or as what the game is saying and in hellkrai's video there's clear examples of how intentionally misleading he is.
It's like how people complain that the game tells you Alex changed but you can't really see it. Well duh the only person saying it is Alex. The game is subtitled "a post modern rpg" yet everyone is hard focusing on "what the game is trying to say" rather than what is happening in the game.
They're not bad writers, they're bad game designers at most. There's parts in the game that aren't entertaining storywise but remember the famous comment Andrew made about games being art? That's what it was about. If you judge good game writing only by how entertaining it is then you deny the ability for video games to be art and only allow them to be toys. Some parts are redundant, boring and tedious but just like in most murakami books those parts are there for a reason. And just like with murakami books it's going to be a deal breaker for some while other will not even be bothered by it.
@@amuro9624 I think the overall story writing wasn't terrible but the dialogue and Alex's monologues absolutely were lol
@@heehokuzunoha7757 try reading murakami you'll see what I mean. The dialogues are basically the same. And there is a lot of parts where you think he's repeating the same thing he said before but he's not. The reason the dialogue is so "repetitive" is to point out the intentional inconsistency. If your problem is that the length and repetitiveness of dialogues and monologues then the game is just not made for you. It HAS to be that way for the story to work.
When Alex is narrating the story he lies, omit details on purpose, embellish the story, changes the story from what he himself said before and do other shit like that you wouldn't notice unless the game was constantly going over the same things.
There's many things in this game that are bad but the story is only bad if you don't pay attention. And when I say paying attention I mean replaying the game multiple times and analyzing carefully what is said and who is saying it. You'd be surprised the amount of dialogue that seems poorly written, inconsistent or nonsensical at first but are actually very intentional and make a lot of sense when you understand what's going on between the lines.
Yeah, you can make an extremely flawed character absolutely work. Best example that instantly comes to my mind is Harry Du Bois from Disco Elysium. You learn so much about how he was before you play him, what terrible ideas he has, what he has done and still does while you play him... and he's probably one of the best characters in that game. It helps that the game also allows you to make actual choices, instead of just being forced down a singular road. So the redemption with him comes as fast as you want it to be. Or not at all.
Basically, Alex Yiik could work. Just not in the way he is right now in the game.
harry is also, despite himself, funny and charismatic (to the player, though often not to the characters who have to deal with him and the consequences of his behavior). He's terrible, but he's also sympathetic; most of us can relate to the pain he tries so hard to avoid thinking about. The only thing Alex has going against him is... that his mom wants him to get a job, I guess? That his friends want him to be less cruel? Alex is deeply unenjoyable, not just as a human being, but as a character, and I think that's his fatal flaw.
@@Romanticoutlaw The Revachol Citizens Militia is also notable for being filled with people who are just trying to keep a semblance of order. Everyone is patient with these officers because they know they are not a professional force, they are all that Revachol has for any sort of justice to exist even if it's not ideal or perfect.
How many quotes do you remember from Horizon Zero Dawn? Now how many quotes do you remember from YIIK?
Checkmate haters, YIIK lives in your head more than Sammy lives in Alex's head
based and yiikpilled
Pandaaaaaa!
developed? this thing is DIGITAL, BABY!
(geniuely love that line)
Vibrating with motion
Hey dude, cool it with that! No one cares about Horizon Zero Dawn right now. We almost just yiiked ourselves!
I don't think Running Shine and Tehsnakerer took easy shots at the game, at all. Especially Running Shine. He was really fair on the developers, and chose to push aside the more dumb controversies other people manufactured when the game launched. If I were Andrew, I'd be over the moon for getting such a helpful source of feedback with the amount of quality-of-life advice he offered.
It's also more commonly known now that Andrew lost his mother prior to YIIK's release, so people are now more understanding of him and his outburst on the Dick Show Podcast. He clearly wasn't in his right frame of mind, and I can certainly cut him some slack, no matter how flimsy his defence was. Though he might not seem it based on that one interview, Andrew is very much open to constructive, helpful criticism. He's been implementing some pretty substantial changes in each update.
Whether or not these updates will save the game is anyone's guess. I do agree with Running Shine that he should probably move on to a brand new project and let YIIK be a stepping stone toward greener pastures. But if nothing else, It might be worth a second look once the final updates drop, to see just how this oddball of a game turns out, and whether its changes are enough to fix its core issues and elevate it to something greater.
The one controversy I think had some good points is his tasteless use of the story of Elisa Lam, a real tragedy that happened to a real person. Using the elevator part as Alex’s motive, Sami being like some manic pixie dream girl for him to pursue, the water tower incident used for a generic spooky story moment. It did feel tasteless, and with a few more changes could have been completely avoided.
@@sambeckettcat Yeah, that was weird. Don't put real life tragedies in video games, unless you have something meaningful to say, or it's a tribute.
@@genericname2747 I'd say if you do so, do it respectfully. Have those deaths be an issue, have people close to the victim react, or give the player more info on the event that makes it less of a "tragedy put into the game" and more of a "tragedy in-game inspired by a real one."
I do hope Andrew is doing better now. Grief is no joke.
When it comes to Running Shine I agree with you, his video was pretty fair imo. Although I wouldn't mind seeing him do another vid on the updates and changes since I love his videos and he's pretty hilarious
One thing that I think YIIK massively dropped the ball on was latching everything to Alex in the way that it did, specifically everything to do with Rory. In Chapter 3, Michael agrees to help Alex look for the record only if they go and check on Rory. When Rory has his one-on-one with Alex about how depressed he's been, it feels out-of-nowhere and unreasonable for him to be talking about this with *Alex* when all Alex has done for this entire game is mistreat him. Meanwhile, Michael was the only one who made a consistent effort to make Rory feel included throughout most of the game, and if the narrative had been able to detach itself from Alex for 5 minutes they could have had that scene involve Rory and Michael instead of Alex, which would've felt less ham-fisted, made the cast feel like more of a complete cast, and given Michael more of an actual reason to be in the game.
They do the same with Claudio and Chondra, they set up for a possible way for them to relate to Rory through the fact that they've lost a sibling just like he did, but they never explore or develop this common ground when it could've been used to further develop interpersonal relationships between the party because that would mean excluding Alex from something.
It's implied that the Rory Venting scene is fabricated by Alex.
In Ending 2, the graveyard room has a restriction of needing dead friends. Even if you talk to Rory, the door is still going to let you in.
Some of the characters don't get explored or fleshed out, yes. But that's likely a result of Alex's awful storytelling above all else, he's trying to put a narrative where there can't be any and with people he barely knew, he wants more sympathy from the player and will lie to get it. They're being bastardized.
Of course this is all dependant on how you read the game, and the developers are adding more fleshed out stories in the new update, which you should totally check out by the way.
Since every character besides Proto-Michael and maybe Alex's mom are delusions created by Alex's mind, it makes sense that Alex has to be involved in everything. Because he is kind of that "get sad when we are not talking about me?" bird tweet meme as a guy - to the degree that he deluded himself into thinking he was actually going on a save the world adventure with real physical friends 😅
Claudio and Chondra deserved a much better writer
an hour-long video discussing yiik: a postmodern masterpiece? LET’S GOOO
wait until you watch Running Shine 2 hour YIIK breakdown, it's a riot.
I LOVE YIIIIIK
I'M YIIKING OUT RN
DIMENTIO!!!!!!! I LOVE DIMENTIO!!!!!!!!
YIIK? More like PIIK!
So glad you pronounced it as yiik throughout the video
How do you pronounce Yiik
I personally like to pronounce it as yiik
@@joacooy8754 the tecnically correct way is "y2k"
@@el_mr6439 what are you talking about, it was always pronounced yiik. no other way of saying it. None
I hate it when people pronounces it "yiik" , it's obviously pronounced "yiik"
sometimes i forget it's SUPPOSED to be pronounced Y2K. i don't think i know anyone who doesn't pronounce it yeek
This game has one of the most memorable soundtracks imo. I find myself humming or whistling random tracks from the game out of the blue more times than I'd like to admit (like Alex's Theme or Into The Mind). The new tracks I've heard from the I.V update of Yiik are really good and I personally can't wait until it officially drops.
Honestly same. I don't know if it was just the amount of time I spent editing this video, but these songs keep showing up in my brain all the time.
Another hour+ long video about yiik to add to the collection
Literally what I was thinking.
I love how due diligence on the aspects of YIIK is at least a 40 minute exercise. Can you believe during the bandwagon hate people made like 10-20 minute videos? Amateurs.
@@OdaSwifteye I think this has something to do with the fact that the game is dizzyingly bad in so many different ways, but underneath every single one is a misguided intention to analyze. You could talk about this game for hours, and people already have, but there's still more to discuss. I honestly can't wait to see what the devs have planned next.
Something this game would need is a trust or "like" meter. How much do Alex's friends trust or like him to put forth the effort in a battle? Something like that would be cool to establish how important it is for Alex to change. Let alone for the player to make the right choices. Perhaps that would establish alternative endings. Like when Rory dies, maybe the meter is forever changed because EVERYONE knows that Alex could've handled Rory better. Ultimately putting the player on a hard mode for the rest of the experience.
Seeing media that's flawed helps me really evaluate my own creative works and helps me come up with new ways to tamper with my ideas. Also a well-worded video. I quite enjoyed it!
These are really good ideas for a less Post-Modern game, like something in an Undertale kind of vein (though maybe more accurately, a Deltarune kind of thing)!
YiiK is overflowing with direct inspirations and samples, so it's absolutely fair for others to do the same back
Panda just rotating off screen with Alex yelling gets me every time
I'm fucking YIIKing out right now
The art direction is genuinely inspired. If the writing was tighter it would probably be pretty good
I am sort of astounded that they lifted probably one of the most famous fourth wall breaks in the history of video games pretty much verbatim from Earthbound, in a game explicitly inspired by Earthbound, and still managed to drop the ball. Kind of a useful illustration of how imitating something without taking the time to fully understand it can go wrong, I guess.
Also maybe I'm reading too much into this but having the first question be "who is the coolest girl you know?" kind of feels like they don't expect the player themselves to be a girl, lol.
It might've changed in the update patches, but there's a female version of player-Alex for the last dungeon (in case the player says they're female in the character naming quiz)... who still uses the same male voice actor as Alex-Alex. (This oversight feels even more bizarre because it's established that Essentia is also a version of Alex, you'd think they could've just had her voice actress record a couple of extra lines while going through all the exposition dumps?)
YIIK will always just be, to me, the incredibly grating cameo in VA-11 Hall-A. I'll go years without even thinking about Val, only to suddenly have the YIIK stuff in it pop into my head uninvited because of how much it annoyed me lmao
It's sad a fantastic game had to have a cameo because of an agreement when those two plus another game were developed in the same time. And I do feel bad for the developers when they did a retrospective each day in December, they brought up so many people keep asking to take away the reference.
@@jjmara01 Really? I thought I'd been reading over the retrospectives pretty carefully and missed that one, mind linking me to it?
i literally forgot where and what it would be
@@MsZscSome YIIK cosplayers drop by the bar and Jill starts talking about how acclaimed the game is in their world and how it gets remade every other year
Yep, the world of VA-11 is one where YIIK is a widely beloved masterpiece
@@dnkakusei i dont remember
Lovely video!
I feel like meeting in the Pink Room ending is a "rose-colored glasses" scene where Rory's Ghost is forgiving Alex as part of Alex's delusion of a reality. In other words, Rory's Ghost does not forgive Alex, but Alex wants to think he does to feel better.
I'd prefer a bad game with a heart rather than a perfect souless game. I can always appreciate the effort of trying to do something out of the ordinary and fail doing it than the old trick everyone has or have been done already.
I love YiiK for that and I want this game to be good for the ideas it has that are somewhat original. It's their vision, even if can suck sometimes. It shows how aunthetic it is.
Hell, It's not The Room type of bad. If that movie had good actors and semi-good scripting it would suck for how basic the premise is. Yiik is different, it has a solid base to stand on, but it's full of bad realisations.
I'll wait for I.V with patience as of Dec, 20, 2022.
With what is basically a demo out, thoughts on that?
An interesting thought that I had near the end of the video. It's clear that the game developers wanted "an asshole character that eventually redeems themselves" and that there where several failed opportunities to have this occur. What if Alex's breakdown, his shattering of his character, is in fact the scene with Panda, floating off into the void? Panda is something that speaks to Alex alone, you mentioned, so it's just as likely that it isn't really alive, just a stuffed toy the whole time.
It's only after the world literally ends that Alex is able to recognize that he needs people in his life-and that the Panda isn't a person.
In that case, he DOES fit the idea of "An asshole character who redeems themselves and grows" just, both in the game and out of it, too little and too late for it to have an impact.
It's an interesting concept to have a character who fails as a protagonist. It's something that would be interesting to explore more of. Like in Omori, if you choose to not go out and hang out with Kel, you've failed. The difference is, of course, that Alex fails regardless of player input.
I'm interested to see how they change the game, for the better or for the same, although I've only really engaged with it by looking at the couple analysis videos there are online and listening to the music.
Also laughing at people using the name YIIK as meme long before Morb.
"Alex HAS to grow..."
They never once mentioned that Alex would grow into a better person and Alex makes you believe that he is somehow in the right for a lot of the things that he does in game
You are essentially correct about Panda. There are actually clues about the reality of Panda's existence and the non-reality of the game world you spend most of your time in right at the beginning of the game, but one of YiiK's best tricks is throwing so much shit at the player that you can't keep track of the important stuff. One of the many interesting ways YiiK grapples with the idea of "difficulty", which has always been an inherent element to post-modern art (truly post-modern art, not viable products with a post-modern paint job), and imposes difficulty on you in a way that is non-standard for a video game
It wasn't that the opportunities failed, Alex had them.
The problem is these situations were often the opposite of his last situation, so he does what according to others was right. He is wrong now. He wanted to save a person? Bad. An different character wants to save a person? Right. Even though they knew said person was dead.
The entire cast prevented him from growing because every chance for growth was met with every choice being wrong.
I know Rory isn't liked by a lot of people but he's my favorite character in the game and honestly become one of my favorite characters in any game. I'm glad he didn't commit suicide in the OneyPlays playthrough. I love Rory :) 💜
Rory saying "death isn't as scary as I thought" everytime he dies is what instantly made him my favorite
Yuriofwind turned in a pretty awful performance but hearing Rory reminds me of Bullshit Creepypasta Storytime and it cracks me up.
@@yurifairy2969 I always am curious why his was bad since the guy seems like he could be pretty good. Maybe it's direction or how they made Rory.
@@jjmara01 I think his unlikability comes less from Rory himself and more from his environment, and how poorly he was handled.
Kiss Rory
This biggest weakness of this game's plot is that Y2K has nothing to do with what's going on. The main focal point of this game's story is about people getting pulled into alternate universes without realizing it. That is literally the Mandela Effect and its never brought up once. Like its baffling
It's brought up two times, just in very bad ways: when Alex' mom returns she mentions she's been so busy at work recently because of the Y2K problem, and there's a random enemy in Essentia's mind dungeon named "Milennium Bug".
(Shoutouts to having so much random filler dialog the clever shoutouts completely drown in it)
Given that the game takes place in the 2010's, makes sense to me
@@pantslesswrock it takes place in the 1990's.
@@jacobsantana915 It super doesn't! Alex's brainscape is a 90's fantasia, but his body resides, as the game itself (not unreliable narrator Alex, but the game's omniscient title text) says - in "THE PRESENT DAY". Which for this game released in the 2010s, is the 2010s.
The game makes no sense if you take pre-revelation Alex at his word. The game cannot possibly take place in 1999 - it's about the 4chan reaction to a tragedy that occured in 2013. The main character uses a 2000's novel as a way to contextualize what's happening to him. His driver's license has a question mark in the Date Of Birth field. The 2008 economic downturn is referenced. I could go on, but I'll spare you.
The actual game is the nostalgic fantasy of a loser in the 2010s spiraling the drain.
@@pantslesswrock ok.
I am obsessed with watching hour long discussions on yiik. Surprisingly, there is a lot to learn from them, especially as an aspiring game designer.
I feel like my main issue with Alex isn't that they go too far with his jerkass tendencies, but that they don't go far enough. It feels like this game is meant to be structured like a Shakespearean tragedy, just in how it seems to be about punishing hubris. With that in mind I would have made him far more prideful and self-absorbed so his eventual downfall feels more satisfying, and skipped all the pathos they try to give him.
But then again that may not make for an enjoyable experience for the player, which is why I think this particular story would work better as a stage performance than a video game.
YIIK: The Live Show? Honestly, if that were a thing, I might watch that.
My biggest problem with the "no one cares about your sister" scene is the timing of the cutaway to the other Alexes berating him. It looked like a setup for him to back off and think about what he said, but the very next words out of his mouth in the real world are him continuing to be an asshole to Rory. The scene may as well not have even been there, it was like it never happened. If it had been after Rory left, or that night while Alex was trying to sleep, that would have made it far more believable to me. And if YIIK made those kinds of decisions overall, maybe the story could have been salvaged.
1) That's not the real world, that's Alex's self-obsessed mindscape.
2) The story is about someone who knows on they inside that they are shit, but doesn't think they are capable of change. The arc of the entire story is about this man coming to the realization that change is possible, even for someone like him. It's often said that the first step on a journey of self-improvement is the hardest one, and this game is about accomplishing that difficult task through the metaphorical lens of a Save The World RPG. It's not about Alex changing and becoming a better person, it's purely about what's needed just get to a place where you both want *and* try to be better.
This scene needs to be where it is and how it is. This is our first time we really get a glimpse of what Alex thinks about all the wild things he says, as well as a glimpse at just how deep the rabbit hole goes. This scene not only is the first major clue as to what the entire story is about, it's also the visual introduction of the idea that Alex is cloaked from himself (hiding from himself), and thus our first big hint that the anachronisms and mismatched art styles are the symptoms/results of Alex lying to himself, and that the world the bulk of the game takes place in doesn't exist.
@@pantslesswrock That wasn't how I felt about it, is what I'm saying. I'm allowed my own interpretation.
@@sagesaria you're really not, new laws dropped
@@pantslesswrock K thanks for your productive contributions. Bye.
@@sagesaria G'bye!
One of my main problems with YIIK is the same one I have with a lot of visual novels like The Letter: It is a highly visual medium written like a book! Why do we constantly have characters describing things that could be communicated by a picture. For example, why do we need the protagonist to describe his mother, when she can just appear later and we can learn all that stuff about her? The Letter does this too, where characters will literally do internal monologues describing things you can see on screen. A character will be described in painstaking detail when there is a portrait right in front of us of them.
Alex describes stuff as what's happening to point out the inconsistencies. About the part with his mum, near the end of the game alex realises that everything's messed up including where his mum works.
In some cases describing something with words is more efficient in showing the point od wiev of a character. Some things cannot be expressed easily in a visual manner, especially when It comes to feelings about something or someone (personal values related to the percieved object). It may be hard to show only visually that, for example, the smile of a mother was slightly different than usual, or this specific smile for a child carries a specific additional informacion. Telling some informacion explicitely can be useful.
As for purely describing the world around, this can be annoying sometimes, but other times It can be a way to help with limitations of the creators (lack od skill or time to represent something visually).
Show-don't-tell seems like a completely alien concept to this game.
Also the Panda floating away scene is unintended comedy genius.
Well actually, the biggest twists and reveals in the game are all show and very little tell. But reams and reams of extraneous information that doesn't matter are dragged out in excruciating detail for hours. It's one of my favorite things about the game. It's certainly not a new trick in the genre of post-modernism, but it's a classic for a reason and it's relatively new in the medium of gaming.
@@pantslesswrock it's show and then tell. which is almost worse
@@CrabbChips I honestly think the biggest and ultimate concepts are show and not tell. The experience really feels like tell and tell and tell and then show to me. You have to work for the show, honestly harder than you should have to, that’s why I would say it’s tell and then show.
I'm shocked u didn't bring up Sammy being based on a real life death where a girl is last scene on security footage in a hotel elevator and was found weeks later in the water tower on top of the hotel. The whole thing was treated like a creepy mystery where armchair true crime people and supernatural wannabe ghost hunters would obsess over it. There's even a netflix documentary on it. I remember reading somewhere the creator of Yiik also admitted he felt a kinship with the girl (she had a tumblr that people checked out and got weirdly para-social over), so out of everything bad the game did, I think this piece of information is legit the worst, because it's outright morally gross and kinda messed up you'd not only use the story that happened in 2014 as a plot point, but also make Sammy actually look like said dead girl. Maybe the updated version will address this? Though seeing the previews of Sammy dying in different horrific ways...I doubt it.
Yeah, it's absolutely putrid, and they relgate her to a cheap jumpscare at the water container.
I don't know how anyone can even try to defend the creator after that, he was already pretty douchy with his response of the game's criticism and such, but the Elisa Lam deal with Sammy is absolutely depraved and repugnant.
I can't believe there's people who genuinely excuse that, there is no redemption for that, if it was just Devs making an awful game and responding to criticism then maybe, but there's other layers of genuinely sickening offense Yiik defenders conveniently ignore.
This had already been debunked. The girl in the game is based on the vague concept of scenarios such as those in real life, yet not directly based on that specific girl, the same way that a fictional murder in a cop show can have similarities to real murders without being based on them. Apparently the "kinship statement" that the dev felt was taken out of context in order to dogpile him. It makes sense since, as said, many others have similarly related to the girl's life. Simply relating to another person is very different from parasocial relationships.
@@pugjuice8462 It wasn't vague concepts though, he used the elevator as a huge plot point and even referenced the water tower. I mean, Sammy looks exactly like the girl, it wouldn't be as weird but he made it weird by doing that. I don't think u should harass a creator in real life but the fictionalization and spectacle of a dead girls tragic death is still kinda fucked up. especially when it's pretty obvious. This isn't something that happened in the 80s, it happened in 2014, her parents and sister are still very much alive.
Where is this energy for every Law and Order episode of victims both dead and alive whose stories are used as cash grabs without a peep.
@@AMmO15635 I don't wacth law and order.
I'm a friend of Ari, and he told me to watch this video. I honestly was only expecting to watch the first few minutes of this before going to play a game, but you caught my attention, and this is a legitimately amazing video. Watched it all the way to the end. Definitely earned a sub
Wow... this was incredible. Genuinely exceptional.
As a soon-to-be game developer myself, I think I have a lot to learn from Yiik. When I hear people talk about it and its flaws, I can't help but make comparisons to my own concepts and ideas, and think that Yiik is the kind of thing I *would* make, gone wrong. It makes it clear to me that I need to be careful with *how* I go about presenting the ideas, messages, and mechanics I have in my head, as the presence or value of those ideas at all is not all that matters.
You're right, it absolutely is a project of pure, unadulterated passion, and for all the ways in managed to make the game worse, it also allows it to serve as a sort of virtue for what games could, or even ought to, be.
I have never played Yiik, but this video makes me wish that I had. Hell, it makes me a bit remorseful that I didn't stop by when Lexi streamed the game, though I was hardly aware of it while it was happening. When this new update comes out, I plan on playing it, and even studying it, to see exactly how it changes what is such an important piece of the video gaming medium. And hey, if you guys end up playing it as a group again, I'll keep an eye out, because I'd love to join you this time around ;)
Hard to believe this is just your first video cause this is way better than stuff from a lot of channels who've been doing this for way longer than that
Thank you so much!
YIIK isn't about Alex improving or redeeming himself.
Andrew Allanson did say that Alex is an unlikable piece of shit who needs to improve, but not that he actually does improve. He also says Alex is irredeemable and having him be redeemed goes against that.
Keep in mind that the game is narrated by Alex and he's a piece of shit you shouldn't trust. In the ending monologue where Alex talks about how he's learned his lesson and changed and making a selfless decision, that's Alex telling you he's changed.
Alex lies about a lot of shit. There's a good chance he never actually met Semi Pak, and the golden alpaca scene never happened, and those were just embellishments by Alex.
That doesn't make the game perfect or even good, of course. The fact that people have managed to misinterpret it so much goes to show that YIIK didn't convey its story well enough.
THANK YOU for pointing out the difference between "needs to improve" and "does improve", I was tearing my hair out at this
Saying that events in the game didnt happen because Alex is an unreliable narrator is a stretch as its never implied he narrates the story, we hear his inner monologue but he never narrates events as they happen. I would like the game more if they went in that direction but I dont think thats the case.
@@ThirdXavier 1: You are misunderstanding the term "unreliable narrator", especially the part about narrating events "as they happen", which is not a requirement for an unreliable narrator. If I have an experience, and then later I tell you about that experience and I lie/tell untruths, that makes me an unreliable narrator weaving an unreliable narrative, even if you weren't there at the time and I wasn't saying the words out loud as the events transpired.
2: You might have forgotten the bit at the end where its revealed that we are another universe's Alex, and the PoV Alex has not been inner monologuing but *literally narrating to us* the entire game
3: You might have also forgotten the part where all the characters and most of the world are crude drawings, and its revealed that they weren't changed, this is how they have always looked AND ALEX LITERALLY TALKS ABOUT HE'S BEEN NOT ADMITTING THINGS TO HIMSELF
4: Everything about Michael, who doesn't really exist and was just an idealized version of a former friend
5: Frickin' Panda
ALEX IS AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR TO EVERYONE BUT ESPECIALLY HIMSELF AND THAT BUBBLE OF SELF-FANTASY HE HAS WEAVED HAS MADE HIM AN UNLIKEABLE DANGER TO OTHERS THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE GAME
@@pantslesswrock WHY ARE YOU YIIKING OUT !?!?!?!
@@kindaepicngl1671 because it's morbin time? Is this how the youth communicate?
Yo, the 1.5 update looks genuinely great from the footage you've shown here. Honestly, if it turned out to be actually good, I wouldn't even mind
same here. as much as I'd lov people to see how bad it originally was, if it ACTUALLY becomes good (labeit by what appears to be severely overhauling the entire game) that'd be awesome cause I don't like potnetially good things going to waste.
Hey, maybe the really cool Soul Survivor boss theme will get some more use, at least
YiiK as a medium of art and how it tries to portray that as a game is subjective. Really, the big reason why I care about YiiK I.V is the many little changes they made *to actually make it an enjoyable experience to play.*
I subscribe to the idea that Rory is actually dead regardless and the option to avoid that is just Alex lying to us and himself
I honestly thought that Alex being hated so much was set up in such a way that he was purposely contradicting the supposed theme of the game and going against how normal people behave in moral decisions or in loss in order to make him absolutely hated no matter what angle of redemption you tried looking at it and how on top of it he essentially gets away with it,to make us believe that this is about a selfish man changing his ways only to pull the rug underneath all of us and hit us with the cold truth that this guy is probably beyond saving
The best wayt to summarize YIIK's popularity is that we hate the game, but we love the hustle. You can truly tell which moments of the story compelled them to make the game and which were made to just be an intersection between those big moments. What I find most interesting about YIIK is that it can only work as a game, but it is inheritly a bad one. YIIK does not work as a movie, or a book, or a script or a pitch, and because of that I consider it being such an important game to discuss. On all the good and bad moments, YIIK can only be truly experienced as a game. That's what most people don't get. They watched Oneyplays and saw silly friends make fun of the game and now they love it. They don't get it because they'll probably never play it.
To me, YIIK is like a dumpster fire, but a dumpster fire that shines brighter than gems under a spotlight. I never looked forward to a game quite like I do to YIIK IV, because there's no singular action that would make the game better. It is truly a mystery, and I'm the most curious man in this fandom.
few people have the skill to turn an hour long video into an enjoyable experience that doesnt drag on, instead feeling way shorter than it is, but zingus, my man, you have done it. i will be patiently awaiting if you ever continue the youtube thing.
This game is an amazing car crash I cannot look away from. I hope you and others creators check it out again when it gets its big update coming. The devs changing a lot, yet I still notice a lot of the writing staying the same. Anyway I cannot help but call this post modern. I mean Morbius the best movie ever helped you at the climax. 69 trillion sales.
I'll definitely make a follow-up video when 1.5 comes out. It's honestly my most anticipated game right now lol
@@zingus5 I’m looking forward to it. Teasing the game aside. I really respect the passion it has and visually I think the game is awesome. Like you as well, I have the patience to play and watch so bad it’s good stuff to really enjoy them. YiiK is a treat. Hope to see more of your work
Your video really made me change my views of YIIK. i used to dunk on it without too much thought ( for the memes!) but the way you highlighted the positives and the struggles by the devs almost made me tear up. I think I'll give the new update a second chance, when it does come out. Hope the devs achieve what they were going for.
I've barely watched this video yet and the sight of Brad and Sunny/Omori watching Alex End Of Evangelion-style kills me XD
I’m going to go over the right and wrong way to have a ridiculous enemy in a “quirky earthbound-inspired rpg”
The wrong way: Yiik’s golden alpaca. It’s a random and silly visual with no depth.
The right way: Undertale’s lesser dog. It’s a random and silly visual. But then you realize that this sword-wielding dog just wants to be pet. That’s funny. Then every time you pet it, it’s neck gets longer, to the point it will eventually go offscreen. That’s also funny. It’s more than just “lol look at this dog wearing armor”
If they wanted to make the golden alpaca better, they should’ve given it more depth than just “silly visual”. Instead of an alpaca, make it a goat. Then give it some humorous connection to goats from mythology. Goats and rams have connections to Satan, satyrs, the Aries constellation, etc.. There’s tons of ways to give the silly gag actual depth. Then bring it back to silly by having its curled horns unfurl and make a toot like one of those party blowers.
The same is true with Panda. The whole “joke” is purely superficial. Hell, it’s true for the whole game. Alex’s dialogue brings any potential depth straight to the surface by explaining it to the player. This is like how an English teacher explains the symbolism in classical literature, except the explanation is part of the book, requiring no actual thought on the reader’s behalf. The deeper interpretation is handed to them.
Have you taken a look at the updated Sepiroth-inspired version of the scene?
It’s a masteryiik
Hilarious to say "the deeper interpretation is handed to" the audience, when well over half the Audience still thinks the game takes place in 1999
@@pantslesswrock I assume it's because that's what every single information page says when you look up in which year the game is set
@@zoeb3573 Yeah, that's my point. I am disagreeing with the argument that interpretations are "handed to the audience", when the reality of the game's temporal and spatial setting is disguised until the final act of the game, and the internet at large failed to grasp this heavily telegraphed reveal. It's not directly handed to the audience in game (instead preferring the classic unreliable narrator approach), and your point proves that the audience didn't grab it for themselves.
Good Video, but i'm still going to pronounce it as "Yick."
That's how it's pronounced in the video either way
@@fuzzyd1436 nah it’s pronounced “yeek”
@@nN-xz5ty I'd say it's context sensitive. "Yeek all week, "Yick" when I'm sick.
@@That_One_Xatu agreed. "I'm yeekin out" vs "I'm gonna go play Yik"
a few concepts in this game remind me of homestuck and the homestuck epilogues in ways that are hard to explain in a 11 pm sleep deprived state except... homestuck and it's epilogues are good and execute the ideas they want to tell in a way I personally think is good (although some people would probably have my head for liking the epilogues) but yiik doesn't really do that
alex yiik does remind me of dirk strider, although I'm hesitant as to how accurate that assessment is.
I think Alex has traits of both Jake and Dirk (but ultDirk moreso). I don't think they're too like the epilogues though. They're very different in terms of themes
@@linguisticspaceship fair
*OI, I'LL 'AVE YER 'EAD FOR THAT OPINION THERE MATE*
Nah, nah, I kid. I also liked the Epilogues... the first time I read them. And the first time I read them was in a single, 24+ hour binge immediately after they came out, so I was almost certainly sleep deprived for the latter half. I'm not really sure, I don't remember it that well.
But, as I am now a local Epilogues Non-Enjoyer(TM), I can confirm that the similarities between the Epilogues and Yiik are not remotely unfounded. But I also think that's a bad thing, because the aspects that are similar are both works' weakest.
Certainly doesn't help that I'm fairly certain Homestuck^2 is directly responsible for my rapidly growing hatred for meta shenanigans...
there are def parallels between alex and what happens with dirk in the epilogues but yiik is explicitly trying to do the opposite of what happens with ultdirk. however i think tone/general parallels are bc just like yiik the epilogues feel very self important and are sometimes mystifying in terms of the way characters speak and behave, not to mention the over the top stupid stuff that happens which is reminiscent of the most esoteric elements of yiik. i know u said u like the epilogues and i can kind of get why but yknow lol
I think the idea is that Alex did fail and in the end gave up completely, leaving it all up to you. This is what makes it post modern. That it isn't conventional narrative
it does make th entire plot feel like a waste of time though
@@sarafontanini7051 still better ending than most fromsoft games
That's an incredible ending. If only the rest if the game was good
@@vazazell5967 Explain how
@@peronafanmanhe is clearly referencing the ending of king’s field 2 which is admittedly not very strong as the final boss guyra is very poorly designed and not being able to use the moonlight greatsword in a legitimate manner lessens it a slight amount. Though it feels odd to judge all from soft endings based off of this singular misstep
46:25 I think the main reason I like Puzzle Pieces so much is that it's the only vocalized variant of the overworld theme. And there's one variant for each chapter. And since it probably took me more than a year to finish the game, it's a song I've already known for a long time. And I already liked the overworld theme very much, especially the last variant. I liked it so much, I even showed it my brothers. And then it became the ending boss theme. I didn't notice it first, but in hindsight that's just amazing.
Remember when the voice actor of Alex, Christopher Niosi, a real Twitter Goodboy, ended up being a sex pest?
Explains why he can nail the asshole character so well
@@pachicore lol
The morbius joke is hilarious
Alex really was talking to himself through Panda throughout the entire story, especially considering Christopher Niosi voiced them both.
I reinstalled Yiik and am now waiting eagerly for the new update.
"in the grand scheme of things ... the average piece of junk is worth more than our criticism designating it so"
- Nostalgia critic from ratatoottoot
This is easily one of the best YIIK video essays, a ranking that I keep because Im definitely a normal person. This game is so compelling that I'm still thinking about it and rewatching video essays on it all these years later. Ive enjoyed the other essays on YIIK but this one has so much genuine passion for the game that it really shines through and gives you a perspective on the game that's so much more valuable than "here's why YIIK isn't very good"
50:00
Ye if you approach a burning trashcan whit the right mindset,the warm stench in eminates starts feeling kinda pleasant and nostalgic.
Basically YIIK for every memer out there.
Hey this is actually quite good, enjoyed watching it. I had heard of YIIK being downright horrendous, and knew little else beyond that. Now I have attained that knowledge.
Also, y'all, he just put up a new video on a game called Brutal Orchestra, check it out.
No one’s talking about how this is your only video (presumably your first) and it an utter banger
I think the most fascinating thing about YIIK to me is the cut ending. The ending they cut out, I think, conveys the games themes and messages. Alex feels like he actually matured. Though, its existence kinda paints the endings they did put in the game with bitter colors.
31:43 I mean on the topic of "you had a good idea but dear god flesh it out", theres quite a few things pointing out Chrono Trigger *is* a game from Alex's childhood- our main character Alex doesnt seem to actually come from the world we spend the game in, and thats why the Michael who's our party member has a different past with Alex, then Alex remembers. It's why they talk about a financial recession when the 90s was before that bubble burst, and Alex is such a 00s hipster; its meant to be another early sign of how this realty is breaking down, but its too subtle with it so most players just take it as the devs messing things up.
Another interesting thing with that is if you talk to people in "Alex's" hometown, one of the things you can pick up is that Alex theoretically has an older sister in one chapter. But the next chapter he just *doesn't*, Alex is talked of as an only child after that. It would be cool if the game leaned more into the horror of Alex slowly realizing hes actually a stranger in a strange land and hes not any more native to this world the Vella is.
You're almost there! It's not that Alex is from a different world, or that his history is being changed by some other force, but something similar.
The world *is* Alex. Everyone but Proto-Michael and kind of Alex's mom and the whole world Alex travels through are delusions taking place in Alex's mind. They are inspired by real people he is really talking to on the internet, but in his reality, he keeps editing their dialogue or, in the case of his sister, editing out their entire existence to try and make a perfectly comfortable world for him. Of course, reality keeps intruding back in, and even these idealized versions of people he has created in his own mind *are calling him out*. Even his delusions can't put up with his bullshit for long.
Speaking of delusions, the time period is the key example of that. Alex says it's 1999, the game doesn't. The game does say, after the big reveal with the crayon drawing paper people where Alex admits out loud he's been lying to himself... that it's "PRESENT DAY". Which, given it was a game made during the mid-2010s that references events from 2008 and 2013, we can assume to mean "sometime in the mid 2010s".
35:05
I would never really say that inscryption breaks the forth wall to the player (you and me) and more to the lucky carder. It breaks the 4th wall but never the 8th wall, it never talks to you (excluding the file boss fight but i think it's supposed to be
Luke's pc in universe). I know this video only has the briefest mention of Inscryption but it was one of my favorite games of last year.
Nice 👍
the quirky earthbound-inspired youtube comment with themes of depression
53:49 Of all those games (and yes, they're all indeed 0/10 games), YIIK might be the literally only one i would genuinely play again.
And that's saying a lot, considering there are a lot of mediocre games i would never touch again. YIIK still sucks, but i know at least i'm gonna get a reaction, a laugh, even some thoughts, after playing it again, unlike any mediocre 5/10 game out there.
Btw, just want to add that there's also no issue in having a unlikeable and immoral character that fails to change in any meaningful way. Sopranos did it, we see moments in which it seems Tony will change, but he never does, it's frustrating but it's engaging due to the series succeeding in making you root for Tony. You feel as if he's a troubled friend, or relative even, you forgive Tony and you pray that this is the time he will finally break free, he's improving, he will change. But then it comes to you, it never fails to: he's lying, he was playing you like a fiddle, he's not changing anytime soon.
At the end, you get Tony , you deeply understand him, you know he will not change and you know his actions can't be forgiven, you don't feel so bad for him as you used to, you accepts that he must pay for what he did, but you also don't necessarily hate him, you still remember the good times. It's a bittersweet departure, but it is what it is, and you see it, and you accept it. This feeling has been presented at various times in the show, preparing you for it, like when Tony had to kill Pussy . This is good writing and good character development.
At this point you might: hate Tony, sympathize with Tony, weep for Tony or feel however you feel about Tony. But above all, you care about Tony, you care about the Characters, and that's what makes the difference, that's why Tony works in sopranos despite him being the way he is .
I've come to understand that certain bad games are a huge fascination to me. It's like... you can see the glimmers of something great, but it trips up and fails or only accomplishes something partially. Or maybe it's just so bad you can't look away. It's a spectrum of mediocre to bad.
Watching CZcamsrs play YiiK, or Minecraft Storymode, or Mass Effect Andromedia like a train wreck, with laughs or suffering, or (in Minecraft:SM's case) get progressively more invested in the story and characters.
Also the memes are great.
i love memeing on alex, and it seems like, in checking the dev twitter, they love the memes too- and i truly don't think an unlikable protagonist is a bad thing (i mean you mentioned brad in lisa, being a key element- the batter in off comes to mind as the results of their actions kind of culminate in the state of the world at the end). i think it just needs more emphasis in places so that its more clear what the story thinks of him
while i really didn't like the new version of the alpaca situation, it probably is just because i have less context- it just felt too wordy and drawn out for whats still an alpaca, even if its design is changed. i do genuinely like some music, like alex's theme is just fun to listen to, and i think the character design is kind of fun in places?
i think my biggest issue was basing sammy off of elisa lam (which happened around 10 years ago, so still pretty recent in my eyes), i still think that's a poor choice. i think i get what they were going for- the story involving her but spinning into its own situation as they lose track of the actual tragedy for the mystery...? But I'm still reallllllly uncomfortable with how it's used. im not entirely sure how to "fix" that without having to replace the character entirely, and that's not exactly easy, since you'd have to rewrite a lot of the beginning to steer away from the real life stuff. maybe it's just a case of the damage already being done.
Darn it... you actually kinda endeared me to this game. I recently started playing a game called deadly premonition with my friend, and you really reminded me of that experience. (Except I will die on the hill that deadly premonition is good unironically even though I'm only a few chapters in.) The Elisa Lam stuff is too much for me to fully enjoy it, but I think I understand the game a lot more than I did before. Thank you!
Deadly Premonition IS unironically good
I think that the panda scene is honestly a really good example of just how much heart is in this game, even if it's a little misguided sometimes. It is absolutely ridiculous that this stuffed panda at the end of the world just floats away into the distance and Alex screams after it, but when I watch that scene I can feel that little twinge in my heart at the line "I don't care that you're just a toy, I need you." To me that feels reflective of the emotional impact the writers believe that video games (especially rpgs) can have, that even though they're just toys they can still act as guides to us but at the end of the days can't provide answers. Plus, there's the quiet tragedy of an adult man desperately reaching for something simpler, to have someone make decisions for him the way they were as a child.
And again, it's all presented in a way that you cannot help but laugh at from the tonal dissonance of the whole scene.
22:00 If we're being fair, those scenes are all narration from the time of the very end of the game, after all the other events have played out. He's not reflecting in the moment, but you're probably right that it takes way too long for it to actually get there in the character development sense.
the writing style in this game is so unusual. The most objective way I can describe it is it uses so many words to accomplish so little
GENUINELY can't believe you didn't ONCE say "hidden indie gem" in this entire 1 hour video
Hearing HK music over clips of The Room in the beginning of the video makes me feel things I can't describe
Zingus Joseph Anderson arc
You didn't mention at the beginning that it was heavily inspired by murakami which is VERY important and explain the issues with the writing. It's not just that the writer didn't understand that less is more, it was an attempt at a style that even when done well by murakami himself still gets misunderstood as bad writing or just boring/repetitive. a lot of reviews for 1q84 for example will say that nothing happenes in the book and the conversation drags on forever without saying anything but murakami fans will enjoy that book. The problem is that yiik tried to do murakami but without the talent of murakami so it's like doing a niche thing but in a way that's not good enough to satisfy the people who are into that niche.
Insightful, so It's like if I was to try to write like Proust without the knowledge of the language basically? Yeah makes sense the game would feel badly written with such a hard stylistic choice to handle and succeed at doing
23:58 I don't know why, but this meant-to-be-tragic plot twist being revealed in an almost exact copy of the living room from FULL HOUSE is sending me. Is this the power of post modernism?
the video was really great! it's one of those videos that feels much shorter than it actually is, which is always a good sign.
also, random fun fact: rory is voiced by a youtuber, and I actually used to watch him when I was younger. so that's pretty neat.
everyone gangsta 'till Morbius shows up at the 11th hour
"2 Of my favorite games"
*LISA: The painful and OMORI show up*
mwah, impeccable taste
Zingus I have been waiting for this for so long
I haven’t played the game, but its existence has always intrigued me.
From what you described about the Alex centered universe thing, I can’t help but think that there was a way to make that conflict actually work. If every universe revolves around Alex, he should feel validated by his egotism. If the game did a proper job at convincing Alex and especially the player that the universe was wrong, that could have been some heavy hitting stuff. I can imagine a scene where some entity that represents the universe saying “look at you, you are a god among men!” and Alex retorts after learning the value in others, “shut up! The universe is wrong about me! I’m not the whole world; the whole world has far more to it than what I was ever able to see for myself. Different perspectives, different lives- everyone is different! But that’s where their value lies. THEY AREN’T ME!”
I dunno. Coulda been cool
Alex isn't a God among men and it's not that universes revolve around him. It's that the game takes place *inside* Alex. The whole world you run around is inside Alex's mind. Alex ultimately has complete control and mastery over his domain, because it's not the entire universe, it's literally just him. And the entire point of the game is about Alex realizing that he isn't helpless to his worst instincts, and that he can take control and master himself and his shittiness.
The universe isn't wrong - Alex is the most important person in the universe that is his own mind. No one, not a childhood friend, not a mysterious dead girl, not a mysterious living girl, not a mysterious robot girl, not internet friends - no one can save Alex from himself but himself. He has to be the one to take control of his universe and exit the mind trap, not get the ending where he kills himself, and re-enter the real world.
I remember when the game came out, I literally spent an hour trying to figure out how to beat the final boss (Full Sparrow Song inputs, every status effect, Rory Talk, etc). And when none of it panned out, I got so mad that I installed Unity that same day and started watching videos on how to program video games. Now I'm three years into developing my fan sequel to this game and nothing else fits my feelings about this game more than "Bless this Mess". Thank you Yeek for making an emotional response strong enough to find my passion!
i would like to see this game 🤔
@@snazzzzy Ill be streaming the game development on the yiikcord
i know now i was there !
@@snazzzzy oh XD, sounds good
@@jvukovic4 noice