I find it amusing they got through this entire video without ever learning what yaku are. As much as I love the chaos of figuring it out as they go, I'd love to see them learn from a real tutorial or someone who knows how to play (I volunteer as tribute--or maybe just open a public Discord call and have dozens of people backseat game, I'm sure that would end well).
Look, hat_hair is obviously correct there. If you don't kan, how are you going to get rinshan kaihou?!?
Such a great game. I've always considered the emotional impact and how a game makes me feel one of the most important factors of the quality of the game. Games that evoke joy based on pure mechanics are not as good as those that really resonate with me or are able to really make me feel.
There have been many games that have managed to really evoke strong emotions in me (Mass Effect 3, Undertale, What Remains of Edith Finch, Life is Strange etc.) but often they have used "cheap" tactics to achieve that. It's hard not to get emotional when shown characters you're attached to dealing with the death of a loved one or similar tragedy. But due to the scale of the events in Outer Wilds and the existential nature of the questions it raises, the emotional impact feel more earned. And the fact that it can somehow mine optimism and hope from tragedy is not an easy task.
The end, where you talk to all your friends by the fire and get a few lines about how they're dealing with the situation followed up by hearing all of the separate music tracks combined for the first time (with a bonus o track from Solanum) is perhaps the most touching and beautiful moment I've seen in a game.
Finally got around to this. This Tali thing is a huge bummer. ME3 has some great storylines, with 3 of them being my favorites that pretty much made the game so memorable, despite its let-down of an ending. And Tali is integral to one of those storylines (with Mordin and Thane being the other two) - so in my books, you'd be missing out on 1/3rd of the great content in ME3 without her.
Oof, I've avoided looking at posts underneath reviews for years, but for some reason I felt like punishing myself this time around. And I was not disappointed.
On the topic of the game though, I think 3/5 feels about right. I wouldn't punish it so much for the jank as it ran mostly fine on the PC (one hard crash), but getting stuck in geometry and constantly seeing really stupid AI behavior really decreased the level of immersion. But on the other hand, I didn't find the story that great either - I'd rate it "ok" with some fairly entertaining bits. And the gameplay wasn't awesome either as I'm not a fan of the Uncharted/Tomb Raider/Assassin's Creed traversal puzzles and I'm pretty sure I spent more time doing those than doing actual combat.
Thanks for the 24 hours of entertainment! Listening to these podcasts after Christmas is a tradition at this point. Since you're trying new things like changing the format and forgoing the write-ups, I just hope you don't try to cut down on the duration in the following years. I like my GotY podcasts girthy (I also listen to bunch of other GotY discussions, increasing the total even further).
Just finished this last podcast - had a blast. I think the new format...is ok. Having to stifle discussion in the early podcasts so that they don't present same arguments again in the later ones is a bit weird, so maybe they can figure out something for next year.
Most Disappointing category was great. I think they shouldn't be so opposed to using voting and that category is the perfect example of why. Brad seems to think it'll be a coin flip if people are forced to vote, but I think if there is a stalemate after the main arguments have been presented, it makes sense to have the people who have no horse in the race to vote based on the strength of the arguments they've heard. Even if you are not eloquent enough to convince your opponent to change your mind, your argument might be enough for the other people. It is always the "outsiders" that decide who won a debate, not the people doing the arguing.
Wait. How come they don't know what 'chuffed' means? English is not my native language and yet I know what it means. I feel like it's fairly common term, at that?
And I kind of wish they'd included other older videos.
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