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I need to use the bathroom! Weapon, weapon.. Watch out! This guy is loaded.

this channel is great! thanks lizard guy

The Deja Vu running gag was too good. The Chaos Island bit had me reeling especially. 🤣

Great, thought-out review. You sure deserve way more views

14:42 you must wear an officer uniform (the beige one).

This was the definitive game of my childhood. It usually flies under a lot of peoples radar so I always enjoy watching well produced videos on it. The second game in this trilogy has MUCH better combat. But it's also a complete edgelord fest. But in a fun and zany kind of way.

Hey Monotom! I've loved all your videos and am eager to see what you do next, whether it's "shorter" videos like this or more deep dives like the JP videos. I don't always 100% agree with your analysis, but that's part of the fun to hear how you walked into something you thought wouldn't be for you to give it a fair shake, and enjoy listening to you all the same. Although I will agree sometimes The Witness does go a bit too far at navel gazing, with The Looker even using most of the same monologue about the captain of a ship before turning it on its head. Since you've mentioned in things like Stay Out of the House about other "stalker enemy" games like Alien Isolation, I'd be curious as to if you've tried Amensia the Bunker or other games of that ilk. Or for something more psychological, something like Fear and Hunger (if you can get past the issue of YT censorship). Keep up the awesome videos, I'm looking forward to more!

I love the "3/3 Accomplished = Failed" screen

Thanks for this. It's a rare treat to see so much love shown to one of my all-time favourite games. But I feel like I have to come to the defence of the mouse and keyboard here. 😂 I've played through the game (and the sequels) several times with no issues. The descending wall jumps are just a matter of timing (no directional keys). It's different that when you're going up, which might throw some people off. Not being able to rewind time immediately after the last attempt is also a game mechanic. The combat is definitively the weakest part of the game. Some of the fights are hairy, but it's mostly a case of figuring out which attack certain enemies can't evade. Like If you can't vault over them, do the wall attack. Aside from the repetitiveness, I feel like it's pretty well balanced in that it's not too hard once you figure it out, but a room full of the big blue guys still makes me nervous. The library is my favourite part of the game, and at least for me the platforming puzzles have held up with every replay. It's the way those silent sections allow you to feel how eerie and desolate the palace is, and how wonderful it is to have someone there keeping you company. Every game with puzzle sections should come with a companion like Farah. I think the romance is handled beautifully. Yes, it's quick, but they're two naive teenagers with romantic ideals going through a very traumatic experience where they're the only survivors. They not only have to rely on each other, but are terrified of being left alone. Farah reveals her feelings after she's been separated from the Prince and attacked by more sand monsters than she could handle. It's not intended to be a mature love. Likewise, the prince is immature and insecure enough to interpret the visions as Farah betraying him.

How is this channel still so small, this is legit high effort content

13:30 Okay hold on. If I may intrude here. This is a point in your argument I flat out HARD disagree with. You talk about puzzles being shut down like it’s a “mechanic” and like it’s “something that bogs down the experience because nothing is gained”. I say that’s flatly untrue. It’s literally AVOIDANCE of a gimmick. It forces you to only try to solve a puzzle when you think you know the solution rather than to guess and check. You will NEVER shut down a puzzle if you KNOW the solution and that’s only possible if you know the question. Take the trees with the apples for instance. If those puzzles didn’t shut down, you could just visit every branch with ease and eventually get to the end without ever knowing the apple was there to begin with. In my opinion, that sort of thing is literally NECESSARY in a game that’s trying to force you solve the “gimmick” it’s not unnecessary and annoying because it doesn’t exist for people who are solving the puzzles correctly.

What an idiotic take.

You really need to drop that 5 minute long section where you give your life's story and a behind the scenes documentary on the production of this video, just get to the point mate. Too many youtubers do this crap and it's BORING.

8:36 Dino Crisis 1 & 2 had a shop system too.

To be fair the looker is a game that people who like the witness enjoy and people who hate the witness enjoy so having more positive reviews make sense =p

the worst thing about the witness is that i want more puzzles of this type, and there aren't a lot. some very basic logic puzzles that get more and more complex. i'm so sick of escape room type puzzles that just have nonsensical BS solutions and never escalate in complexity. i really enjoyed Taiji, it's basically the witness in 2D, without the pretentious crap.

i actually found the "secret ending" before even leaving the first area and i was very confused.

Beautiful video, the latter half where you spoke about writing is a poetic treasure. <3

i personnaly like the witness for its environment and exploration, the puzzle were fine until they began to feel like a chore

Great video, I always felt that the witness on a gameplay and puzzle design was interesting but the more deeper and more philosophical angle was extremely pretentious. Like I remember on a old giantbomb cast where they where talking about the game that it always felt like Jonathan blow was over your shoulder and being smug saying how smart and deep he is, but I always felt he kind of was a dumb man's idea of a smart person since their was very little meaning behind his ideas and mostly did things to seam smart ( like the whole thing being a dream or the random quotes) these same fault are also felt in his other game braid with how asinine some of the secret puzzle are. Also based on some of your complaints on the game you might like the Talos principal a simple portal-like puzzle game with actual deep discussions and some fun puzzles with out of the box ideas

Great review, but I disagree with your point on The Secret of Psalm 46. When I realized I had to listen to it in full to do the puzzle, I was very annoyed, but the talk itself was geniunly so captivating, that waiting for the puzzle became secondary. If there is anything I took away from The Witness in general, is that Shakespear doesn't exist, and I wouldn't be blessed with that knowledge if I wasn't forced to hear that talk. Besides that, I don't think the point of the environmental puzzles, was to be solved systematically, as they give no reward or progression. Solving the ones you find organically on your playthrough, and leaving the rest behind seems like the best experience.

Absolutely on-point discussion IMO. I'm glad to hear the best part of the game was the one I never found, I guess 😂 (by the time it was tutorialised, I was far past ready to be done and assumed it was just a "lolololol stupid nerd thinks all questions have answers, guess what, they don't, have fun in my puzzle mountain" moment). I hold that there is a good version of The Witness, and it's Outer Wilds. Which is still a frustrating game at times! Just, much less so.

The game is really pretentious but something about the themes of discorvery/perspective/understanding really hit for me. I think you are right that this is kinda thin and doesn't really have much to say on it's own. I think the game want's to be viewed as a meditation where the contemplation is more important than the answer. In this way i see the secret ending is sort of deliberately unsatisfying to push this message but then it's like "yeah so what, it's deliberately unsatisfying". I think you are either captured by it's presentation in which case it really does feel larger than the sum of its parts but if you don't buy in then i totally get how it would just feel tedious and full of itself.

I had *no clue* this is what the lake was supposed to function as.

The Witness just made me uncomfortable from the start. It made me feel like a lab rat dropped into a maze. The problems clearly built on each other but in a really hostile way that clearly wasn't meant to increase my enjoyment but so the game could make sure I was actually "smart" enough and didn't solve any puzzles by accident...

This game is hard and annoying af. Hard skip.

Unironically, I never even heard about the Witness, and instead only knew about The Looker, thanks to Live streamers. I thought that you were talking about that game at first, until it was mentioned it was a parody of it. Great review, love the explanation of how this video came to be thanks to the Getting over it Review. Gave it a nice segway between videos.

Where is the trespasser review lol?

All i gotta say is..this THIS right here is what i want capcom to do with RE,ahhh just the fact it has fixed cam angles,unforgivin combat,puzzles with randomized solutions is just awesome..ahhh

This is one of those really rare channels where I genuinely look forward to every time. ❤

I loved the witness when I saw a few screenshots of it. Then I noticed it's by the same guy who made Braid, and my excitement vanished. Braid is so up its own ass I can't stand it. Purple prose, the game. _It means whatever you want it to mean but also whatever you think it means is definitely wrong,_ that's pretty much what Blow said about it. Trying so hard to look like it says something profound while not having much to say at all. So when I learned that the witness is hundreds of back-of-the-cereal-box line puzzles in very pretty environments, I thought _"of course it is."_ Some time later randomly watched the Joseph Anderson's video and my assumptions were confirmed. And now, yours did it again.

Saying something like, "You are just drawing lines on a grid", is a dumb thing to say. You are trying to take away all intent and then say "Ha! See how boring it is?". The purpose of "just drawing a line" is to solve a bigger puzzle given where not just any line can be drawn. No better than writing random words on a crossword, or writing random numbers on a piece of paper (sudoku). The fun is in the problem solving which is what most people buy a puzzle game for, to solve puzzles. Also, you say there are a bunch of useless puzzles around that do nothing and while that is somewhat true I would say that is mostly false. I would categorize the puzzles in 4 different ways: 1) Puzzles that help you learn the different types of puzzles 2) Puzzles that further progression into your exploration 3) Puzzles meant to challenge yourself 4) Secret puzzles And I would say the former 1 and 2 types appear way more often than the latter 3 and 4 types.

Can you tell me the stories you think did the "it was all a dream" thing right? It'd possibly ruin them but im very interested in knowing what you know, you've consumed more stories Edit: lovely video/words, your thoughts on the witness were really interesting

Having watched this whole video now, it's kind of interesting that... while I don't actually like the game and while I think Jonathan Blow can be a bit up his own arse at times (having watched lots of interviews over the years), I agree with almost nothing in both your video and especially Joseph Anderson's video. There's a third lengthy essay about this game that I thought was way more on point, but it's a controversial one, since it tears Anderson's video to shreds in a rather rude way. But methods be damned, it is the best video of the three - because it's made by someone who understands the game far better than you or Anderson. In my opinion. And just to make it clear: I can't stand actually playing the game. No horse in the race. But better arguments and deeper insights wins the day when it comes to essays. It's only fair. The video I'm talking about: A Refutation of Joseph Anderson's "The Witness - A Great Game That You Shouldn't Play" Please no one be rude to that person. Make it about the ideas, not a slapfight.

Laundry Files mentioned!

I think the game is intensely clever. But you see, the problem is, that I'm not quite as clever. AND the game makes me violently motion sick for some reason. So I hate it.

30:20 - ... Please tell me that pun wasn't intentional.

I absolutely loved The Witness, but also at the time I was unemployed, between uni semesters, and desperately needed something to take up a LOT of my time.

The Witness pulls the good ol' "Oh dear! It's all so complicated!" fallacy that you see from a lot of pseudo intellectuals that like to sound more smarterest than everyone else. Also, genuinely love this vid! Very well organized! I liked the talk on the accessibility options especially. I once tried to get into a cool online web series that had amazing story telling but couldn't because it included too many flashing lights. I brought this up to my friend and he brought it to one of the devs/authors for the project and you know what? A day later a patch went out that let you slide the brightness down and reduce the flashing lights. Proper thoughtful people actually engage with criticism and work to improve. Much appreciate the video!!

This always gave off pretentious, secret lore ARG vibes. I can appreciate it came out before "games desperately attempting to generate lore content" became an entire industry through.

I had no idea about the lake.

Jonathan blow has something of a history of being mad at the wrong people liking his game or the wrong people not getting it. An infamous example is blows previous game braid. Soulja boy liked and endorsed the game and Jonathan Blow was genuinely sad possibly angry that the wrong person got into it

the looker reminded me of a myst clone pyst, it's like a law of nature, pretentious puzzle games have their evil twins and knowing that might help you to admire it more. But perhaps there could've been a better comparing material for the video, like a standalone game that excels at what witness tried to achieve and not just some snarky parody, something like antichamber that tries to make you think outside the box rather than falling in line and following the lines the way someone wants you to follow them without ever telling how to do it right. The Witness is a quite narrow minded game to say the least and I understood it thanks to your video.

I like the witness for its visuals, cool puzzles, cool and clever game design etc. I also found out about the witness from Joe's review, but decided to play the game before finishing the spolier section of his review. You have done a really great job with this review too. I think, when just playing this game at a surface level, especially if you don't get stuck on too many puzzles or just look up a guide for any sections you have left at the end, its easy to finish the witness, turn it off and not play it again. But the more you look at 100%-ing the game, be it the challenge in the caves, all the hidden movies and hidden audio logs, etc. the game asks you to take its themes seriously, and to try and ponder them. And I like the themes, they are interesting to wonder about, and I kinda get that different perspectives each have their own takes. I like the idea that some people can obsess over finding the hidden truth in a game (when compared to the story about Shakespeare), and that some people believe that the Witness has one super-hidden penultimate puzzle that is yet to be discovered. I guess, with the whole time-wasting, accessibility thing, I guess I naturally don't mind it too much because that only really affects me if I'm going for the optional stuff. A straight main-playthrough of the game is usually fine and balanced enough. If I have further issue with the optional sections, "that's on me" - so I don't get too annoyed. I agree with people's further analysis that it can be pretty pretentious and up itself, but overall I'm just glad we have some good puzzles. Thank you for the review, worth a sub!