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nine-gear crow posted:It makes me wish that there was someone in the room who immediately slapped Hironobu Sakaguchi super hard when he first said "Hey guys, let's make a movie!" I sometime wonder what state Square would be in today if Sakaguchi hadn't been frogmarched into ocean after TSW bombed. I mean, I think they were kinda screwed regardless because Square had already been on its way to being a mainstream publisher and a lot of the creativity of the PS1 era was because no one knew exactly how this 3d poo poo was supposed to work. Like, they probably wouldn't have merged with Enix but their journey to becoming less experimental was probably going to happen anyways
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Apr 18, 2019 01:00
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Mel Mudkiper posted:man, no company will probably ever be as creative and diverse as ps1 era Squaresoft Threads of Fate, Chrono Cross (fite me  ), Parasite Eve, Xenogears. Great rpgs, all forgotten about after the ps1 era.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:05
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I mean, I think they were kinda screwed regardless because Square had already been on its way to being a mainstream publisher and a lot of the creativity of the PS1 era was because no one knew exactly how this 3d poo poo was supposed to work. Well, the Enix merger had been in the works for a while and The Spirits Within being an absolute disaster actually almost torpedoed merge rather than facilitated it, as people erroneously believe. You're right though. There's a point around Final Fantasy VIII or IX where all their wonderful experimental poo poo like Brave Fencer Musashi, Xenogears, Tobal No.1, Einhander, ect. just drops off flat.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:06
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Leal posted:Threads of Fate, Chrono Cross (fite me lmao Chrono Cross and Xenogears being great forgotten RPGs and not Vagrant Story
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Apr 18, 2019 01:17
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Alaois posted:lmao Chrono Cross and Xenogears being great forgotten RPGs and not Vagrant Story I thought the guys behind Legend of Dragoon made that.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:19
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I really wanted to like Vagrant Story but the weapon system was just awful.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:22
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Ghostlight posted:I really wanted to like Vagrant Story but the weapon system was just awful. Nonsense, all you need is to take into account what type of weapon damage an enemy vulnerable, as well as their enemy type and elemental affinity and have a weapon on hand for every possible variation Easy-pstgfsttfesgydvzzle
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Apr 18, 2019 01:38
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IIRC, the Spirits Within movie had jack poo poo to do with the merger. FFX and Kingdom hearts had already saved Square by that point. It was an rear end in a top hat exec whow anted mre money who made it happen, and then you can see the slow trickle of everyone witht alent leaving the company afterward. With the notable exceptions of Yoshi-P, savior of MMOs, and Kawazu, ultimate weirdo. It's me, the SaGa fan, eagerly waiting for the Romancing SaGa 3 remake and SaGa Scarlet Grace. I even played the SaGa mobage, until I ragequit because I didn't roll White Day Asellus.
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Apr 18, 2019 01:46
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Groovelord Neato posted:the rabbit hole about dsp was amazing because i thought he was a (fairly) recent guy that just had an audience making GBS threads on him. i didn't know he was one of the earliest youtube gamer guys and could probably be rich now if he wasn't totally brokebrained. I assumed youtube made him well enough off or is he in the chris-chan boat where he basically lives from month to month but blows most of the money on dumb poo poo and in super debt. i feel like he is a smarter wings of remption type dude because he at least has a divirstiy in what games he plays(and sucks at) where wings just plays COD and digs his own spysphisiun hole over and over again.
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Apr 18, 2019 02:09
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Leal posted:I thought the guys behind Legend of Dragoon made that. nope, it was the FFT team
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Apr 18, 2019 02:28
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Leal posted:Threads of Fate, Chrono Cross (fite me One bit I like about Chrono Cross is there's a super neat section in Chrono Cross where the hero gets bodyswapped with the main villain (up to that point) and you get to have a boss fight from the perspective of actually BEING the person facing down a squad of heavily armed psychotic teen JRPG protagonists.
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Apr 18, 2019 02:30
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Alaois posted:nope, it was the FFT team Yeah, Legend of Dragoon was done in-house at SIE Japan Studio. Kinda sucks that that game never got a sequel or a remake because it was pretty well done too.
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Apr 18, 2019 02:38
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Kim Justice posted:It's more...I dunno, the lack of adventure. I mean, I know that a lot of Americans are generally not that adventurous and don't leave their own country but...I almost think it's like if I went on holiday to Chelmsford or something. (Chelmsford being the county town of Essex, all of an hour down the road). So very DSP. I don't know where specifically in Washington Phil lives (nor do I really care to, for fear of learning he lives close to where I live  ), but going into Seattle proper is fun if you're checking something out attractions like the Pacific Science Center, or the Experience Music Project.Then again, traffic in Washington is pretty bad, so making a trip somewhere (even if it's not into the city) can be a hassle. I'm probably not the best judge on that sort of thing, though, since I tend to balk at driving long distances. I think it's also a case of free time as well. For some people, the only time they might get free is the weekend, so a trip into the city isn't that bad, though if you're coming off a tough work week, even the notion of that is exhausting. Also, I wish they had made a Sleeping Dogs 2.  Mel Mudkiper posted:Like, I find the term "cringe" to have become sort of a form of ableist bullying but goddamn if the Channel Awesome "movies" didn't give me a sense of empathetic discomfort I don't know if it really fits as an alternative to 'cringe', but I heard the term 'second-hand embarrassment' used somewhere, and I think that sort of fits the bill. As to personal opinion on skits, I think it just depends on how it's done. sexpig by night posted:Peter Coffin read one of those quotes about how massive shelves of books can be monuments to one's self image rather than their actual intellect and thought 'gently caress yea, cool'. "I wonder if he reads them, or if it's just for show."
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Apr 18, 2019 02:42
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nine-gear crow posted:Square lost the rights to Parasite Eve, hence with The 3rd Birthday is called such instead of Parasite Eve III. Also all the 90s talent at Square is either gone or as good as gone, so there will never be another game like Parasite Eve, at least from inside Square because the crew running the show now are all hacks who get high on their own farts and take 10 years to release a game any other studio could get out in 3. It is also offensively bad. Like holy poo poo, do not go near 3rd Birthday.
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Apr 18, 2019 03:41
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Besides second hand embarrassment - which I get, I have the same reaction to the vast majority of slapstick - what is the problem with skits or more theatrical framing?
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Apr 18, 2019 04:33
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Twincityhacker posted:Besides second hand embarrassment - which I get, I have the same reaction to the vast majority of slapstick - what is the problem with skits or more theatrical framing? nothing if they're actually funny or entertaining and don't just feel like padding the length of the video
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Apr 18, 2019 04:38
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I think the trouble with a lot of skits is that there isn't really enough of a commitment to them a lot of the time...it's just kinda like talking seriously about something / awkward aside for a funny skit / then moving straight back to the serious part as if nothing's just happened. When they're done like that they kinda can't help but interrupt the flow and make things awkward. It's not like there aren't any folks who do funny/good skits - I love the ones that Game Sack and Techmoan do, although they're pretty much just funny things right at the end of a video, which is cool enough. It's a lot harder to pull one off inside the main body of a video, and there's only a couple I know who can pull that off because they'll commit to it for the whole vid - aka, proper theatrical framing.
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Apr 18, 2019 04:47
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my problem is less with skits or theatrics as a concept, i even pointed out that contrapoints and philosophytube weave the performative stuff into their work effectively. They're capable of making their skits both entertaining and thematically relevant to the subject of their video it's that generally, most reviewers i've personally seen use them poorly in their media analysis videos. Often it's this overly-long and terminally unfunny character bit which usually involves them mugging the camera and making the squinty eyebrow face. it feels like to me, that these ppl often see it as a requirement. u gotta be a funy cynical/snarky badass to review or analyze media online
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Apr 18, 2019 04:49
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Yeah, I'm there to engage with content. If the performance is done while delivering the content, in service to the content, or both then I'm fine with it. If it's, for example, just a minute of smugging to the camera while pretending to be a bad person without a broader context for why particular things are bad because your intended audience already agrees with you then you're wasting my time. If all I wanted to do was watch an awful person be comically awful there's hundreds of hours of content already created on Paul Joseph Watson's channel, let alone dozens of others.
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Apr 18, 2019 05:02
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yea not to beat a dead horse/preach to the choir but Contra/Philosophy Tube/a few others can hit a good balance of 'oh, this skit is cute and funny' and 'this skit keeps the flow of the video moving and continues to impart information without distracting the watcher'. It's not impossible it just requires...good writing....You have to keep the core point of the video the focus, don't run off on a ramble about what ice cream is your favorite on a video about marxist labor theory but if you can use a joke about a group of friends going to get ice cream or whatever to help clarify what is meant when you talk about 'labor' and 'management' and all then more power to you.
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Apr 18, 2019 05:08
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that reminds me that I really wanted to agree with Pirate Jenny about Coffin and his fixation on social capital in regard to like, everything, when it's not even real capital, it's just the description of social interactions through the lens and using the terminology of capitalism. in a perfect marxist society people are still going to tweet sad faces about notre dame burning because that's how we understand, share, and reinforce what society's values are even when those expressions can't be directly translated into financial power.
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Apr 18, 2019 05:24
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For me personally, skits can only really work when the subject of the video is inherently comedic. Like Phelous reviewing a bad movie, for example. Jokes are scattered through the whole thing, so when a character shows up and interacts with him, it fits the same overall tone. I don’t like it when someone has skits in a video about a serious issue like politics. A few jokes in such a video are fine, but too much stupid bullshit only distracts from the point they're trying to make. They run the risk of coming off as condescending, like they think their audience is too stupid to understand the topic if they just presented it normally. Also, the humor in these types of videos tends to be very insular, and based on jargon and concepts that are only well-known within one’s own political camp. It gives the videos a feeling like they’re preaching to the converted, rather than trying to reach out to newcomers. I can't imagine someone new to gender and trans issues trying to decypher some of Contra's videos, for example. Ghostlight posted:that reminds me that I really wanted to agree with Pirate Jenny about Coffin and his fixation on social capital in regard to like, everything, when it's not even real capital, it's just the description of social interactions through the lens and using the terminology of capitalism. in a perfect marxist society people are still going to tweet sad faces about notre dame burning because that's how we understand, share, and reinforce what society's values are even when those expressions can't be directly translated into financial power. This relates to a problem I have with a lot of Peter Coffin’s videos, in that he’ll describe some sort of problem but place the blame on a social structure like capitalism or neoliberalism when in reality what he’s talking about is just human nature, hardwired into our DNA. Most humans are inherently self-centered, competitive, ambitious and tribalistic. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, it just is what it is. I'm no different. And more importantly, no amount of societal restructuring would change it. To borrow the terminology of his red pill video, we cannot escape The System because we are The System. I don’t mean to sound nihilistic; just realistic. People can still call out problems when they see them, but they shouldn’t be praying for some sort of revolution to miraculously solve everything because A): it won’t happen and B): even if it did, it wouldn’t fix the underlying issues with how humans function. Those, we just have to live with. Bakeneko fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 07:27
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People have already hit this, but the root of bad skits is just that bad writing is bad. I mean, I get why people write them, it's often easier to work a single idea for a page or two instead of coming up with more ideas, and because of the theatrics and complexity of them they tend to be creatively rewarding even if they're not good. Like you get to the end of doing a skit and you had to set up a dozen different camera angles and multiple costume changes, and it gave you an excuse to go buy/make this fun prop that you like, and at the end of it you really feel like you did a lot of work, 'cus you did, and it's super easy for your brain to jump from "that was a lot of work" to "that means it's good." And even if I find them kinda insufferable a lot of the time, there's something unique and kinda worth preserving in that very specific type of skit that emerged from TGWTG.
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Apr 18, 2019 07:57
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Bakeneko posted:For me personally, skits can only really work when the subject of the video is inherently comedic. Like Phelous reviewing a bad movie, for example. Jokes are scattered through the whole thing, so when a character shows up and interacts with him, it fits the same overall tone. I agree that Coffin can be reductive and seems, as others have said above, to perform politics in annoying and inappropriate ways. Yet it’s worthwhile to be thoughtful about what we accept as natural or inevitable, because very often those things could be otherwise if human agents thought to act differently. We often accept the way things are as natural or inevitable even when things are only a certain way because of the actions and beliefs of human beings, which might be otherwise. The divine right of kings was once seen as a more perfect solution to politics than democracy because of the inevitable chaos and potential for demagoguery—pointed out by Plato—that naturally attend rule of the many. Things may be otherwise more often than we often think. Even if it’s true that human beings have some innate tendency toward brutality or indifference to suffering, an anarchist would probably tell you that such qualities only point out why we should have a social system that checks these impulses rather than one that requires their sharpening through constant use in order for people to live at all.
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Apr 18, 2019 07:59
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:I agree that Coffin can be reductive and seems, as others have said above, to perform politics in annoying and inappropriate ways. Yet it’s worthwhile to be thoughtful about what we accept as natural or inevitable, because very often those things could be otherwise if human agents thought to act differently. We often accept the way things are as natural or inevitable even when things are only a certain way because of the actions and beliefs of human beings, which might be otherwise. The divine right of kings was once seen as a more perfect solution to politics than democracy because of the inevitable chaos and potential for demagoguery—pointed out by Plato—that naturally attend rule of the many. Things may be otherwise more often than we often think. Even if it’s true that human beings have some innate tendency toward brutality or indifference to suffering, an anarchist would probably tell you that such qualities only point out why we should have a social system that checks these impulses rather than one that requires their sharpening through constant use in order for people to live at all. Right, it’s important to ask questions and to consider how things might be improved. I just have an issue with Coffin’s style of analysis because it tends to completely ignore the influence of these kinds of instinctive tendencies, acting like people are a blank slate that was corrupted by capitalism, instead of the flawed creatures that created capitalism in the first place.
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Apr 18, 2019 08:23
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There's a huge jump between identifying some shared instincts "hardwired into DNA" and saying "ah yeah, this complex economic model is The Only Way It Could Have Happened." One of the reasons Marxist analysis is very good is that it provides a coherent story for the birth of capitalism based in the existing economic relations of feudal society rather than just saying "hmm, seems natural to me" *loads ship full of human cargo* Coffin seems like a complete dolt, but Society of the Spectacle is a good reference for framing the Notre Dame fire - people are more comfortable expressing grief at a burning building halfway around the world than they are at actually intervening with the great catastrophes of our time. The image supplants reality. It's just a mis-step to point to any one thing on twitter and say "This is the commodity" because the point is that that's all commodity. It's "The Society of the Spectacle", not "Sometimes there's a Spectacle (when there's a fire in it)" And in terms of 'alienated labour', a youtuber whose existence depends on provoking the unpaid labour of fans (for the ultimate benefit of a huge multinational) might prefer to avoid drawing the comparison.
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Apr 18, 2019 09:03
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It’s worth noting that French billionaires had donated enough money to fix Notre Dame three times over by the time the fire was out, so clearly there is already some kind of mechanism that causes capitalists to want to fix some problems.
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Apr 18, 2019 09:15
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FoldableHuman posted:People have already hit this, but the root of bad skits is just that bad writing is bad. I always felt like Angry Joe was almost like the epitome of this. His work never appealed to me in any way, but I can't deny that he always looked like he was really enjoying putting together all the overwrought-yet-somehow-cheap-looking skits. Also don't forget the bits where some other video personality just suddenly bursts in, is announced by name, does a brief contribution and then goes away again.
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Apr 18, 2019 09:54
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Antifa Turkeesian posted:It’s worth noting that French billionaires had donated enough money to fix Notre Dame three times over by the time the fire was out, so clearly there is already some kind of mechanism that causes capitalists to want to fix some problems. Its almost like people want to rebuild stuff that's dear to their country's history/national image.
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Apr 18, 2019 11:15
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Skits are bad because its already bad enough I have to sit through a minute of in video advertising, now I get to see this schmuck channel their inner doug walker and do some unfunny unrelated bit. Talk about the subject you hack, quit trying to pad your comedic repertoire with your unfunny jokes. People make jokes about 10:01 video lengths, but with an in video plug and unfunny skits the person only needs to bother writing a script thats relevant for 5 minutes while the rest of the video time is telling me about how great lootcrate is and how I can get a box free by typing lootbox dot com backslash their youtube name, then it cuts to them poorly cosplaying as a character from the subject material making a thanks obama "joke".
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Apr 18, 2019 11:39
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Clerical Terrors posted:I always felt like Angry Joe was almost like the epitome of this. His work never appealed to me in any way, but I can't deny that he always looked like he was really enjoying putting together all the overwrought-yet-somehow-cheap-looking skits. Yeah, on some level I just have to say 'God bless' to a guy who so totally wants to wear a Cobra Commander outfit on camera.
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Apr 18, 2019 12:27
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josh04 posted:people are more comfortable expressing grief at a burning building halfway around the world than they are at actually intervening with the great catastrophes of our time. Also more people than Americans are going to be caring about Notre dame burning than the local American shitshow of the week, even on the English speaking internet. There is this reoccurring thing I see from lots of Americans on the internet complaining about why A got more talk than B, seemingly not realising one of them was more international, like lootboxes Vs American Net neutrality (those same people also don't seem to care about local European NN for some reason).
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Apr 18, 2019 13:16
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FoldableHuman posted:People have already hit this, but the root of bad skits is just that bad writing is bad. It can't be overstated how much MST3k was a blueprint for the general TGWTG model. Not just the riffing on media, but the host segments would often take the same sort of shape you'd see years later online - characters from the movie showing up in person, extrapolating random oddities from the film into a skit, etc. ...And then other times the writers wanted to go in totally wild directions leading to things like the Noh Theater skit.  Unsurprisingly, an intentional or otherwise mimicking of a hokey cable puppet show led to a bunch of hokey skits and also sometimes more puppet shows. Come to think of it, I wonder if the harder, snarkier edge later seasons of the show gained also helped influence the angry review angle. John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 14:21
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John Murdoch posted:Unsurprisingly, an intentional or otherwise mimicking of a hokey cable puppet show led to a bunch of hokey skits and also sometimes more puppet shows. Come to think of it, I wonder if the harder, snarkier edge later seasons of the show gained also helped influence the angry review angle. I think that was also partially due to the success of AVGN and Zero Punctuation, swearing and cynicism in my mind are like the two central poles of mainstream internet comedy of the 2000s.
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Apr 18, 2019 15:46
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Clerical Terrors posted:I think that was also partially due to the success of AVGN and Zero Punctuation, swearing and cynicism in my mind are like the two central poles of mainstream internet comedy of the 2000s. I think it's the cynicism that leads this particular skit style to fail a lot of the time. MST3K was about more than tearing down lovely movies, it involved finding joy and creative energy in things that are seen as worthless and disposable. Making a dancing CGI genie trawl through the sewers or whatever doesn't have the same energy as writing and singing an entire ode to some awful character and transcending them from nothingness into a cult icon.
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Apr 18, 2019 15:57
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CYBEReris posted:I think it's the cynicism that leads this particular skit style to fail a lot of the time. MST3K was about more than tearing down lovely movies, it involved finding joy and creative energy in things that are seen as worthless and disposable. Making a dancing CGI genie trawl through the sewers or whatever doesn't have the same energy as writing and singing an entire ode to some awful character and transcending them from nothingness into a cult icon. That’s the same energy and philosophy that 372 Pages We’ll Never Get Back operates on too. Of the six books they’ve looked at so far, the only ones they’ve liked* were the two self-published books they looked at, The Eye of Argon and The Forensic Certified Public Accountant and the Cremated 64 Squares Financial Records, because they admired the raw creative energy behind them that brought them into being as opposed to works of hack poo poo like Ernest Cline’s one trick pony crap, or TekWar, or Sean Penn’s attempt to be Leonard Cohen’s literary career but even worse.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:05
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CYBEReris posted:I think it's the cynicism that leads this particular skit style to fail a lot of the time. MST3K was about more than tearing down lovely movies, it involved finding joy and creative energy in things that are seen as worthless and disposable. Making a dancing CGI genie trawl through the sewers or whatever doesn't have the same energy as writing and singing an entire ode to some awful character and transcending them from nothingness into a cult icon. Also what people forget about MST3K is that the crew had years of combined experience in comedy and - possibly even more importantly - a good editor. The guys and girls at Best Brains as you say were also way more entertained by the movies they saw than not so the show is much more of a roast than a rib. I don't think the content creators influenced by them (which feels like most of the TGWTG crew) got that.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:12
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yeah the problem with skits is that the people who do them are not talented at skits I feel like the anger of the TGWTG crew was something of a precursor to the general internet nerd toxicity of today. Like, you can draw a line to dudes mad about Episode 8 straight back to screaming betrayal at an XCOM FPS
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Apr 18, 2019 16:15
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Did Doug Walker unintentionally set the stage for Cinemasins? In this essay I will...
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Apr 18, 2019 16:25
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John Murdoch posted:It can't be overstated how much MST3k was a blueprint for the general TGWTG model. Not just the riffing on media, but the host segments would often take the same sort of shape you'd see years later online - characters from the movie showing up in person, extrapolating random oddities from the film into a skit, etc. ...And then other times the writers wanted to go in totally wild directions leading to things like the Noh Theater skit. I was at a screening for Neil Breen's Twisted Pair and you have no idea how happy I was when they announced beforehand "you are not MST3K - if you shout stuff out we'll ask you to leave". A lot of people think comedy is easy because they equate "having some laughs along with my friends" to "entertaining an audience of strangers". Saturday Night Live has a hard time being funny for five minutes at a time, and that's powered by a room full of writers. It's even harder to make a skit entertaining and also loop back to the actual core content of the video without careful planning; using it as a framing device for a video essay is fine, but once it becomes a distraction from the content I personally just skip those bits or stop watching. CYBEReris posted:I think it's the cynicism that leads this particular skit style to fail a lot of the time. MST3K was about more than tearing down lovely movies, it involved finding joy and creative energy in things that are seen as worthless and disposable. Making a dancing CGI genie trawl through the sewers or whatever doesn't have the same energy as writing and singing an entire ode to some awful character and transcending them from nothingness into a cult icon. Also "angry" or negative reviews give people a deep well of being able to overreact while not projecting vulnerability.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:26
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