So basically Journey was an experiment to see how much story you can have in a game with no words and Dear Esther was an experiment to see how many words you can have in a game with no story?
"Is this some new genre of walking simulators that will really take off?" Matthewmatosis: Unwittingly predicting the future of the games industry since October 19, 2012.
+Victor Viridian Less than a year before gone home was released and indie games became an inescapable cesspool of opinionated shit. the man is an oracle.
To be fair to Gone Home, the level of interactivity you have with that game far exceeds Dear Esther, even if it just means picking up documents and opening locked doors. You feel like you're uncovering the house and the story yourself, as opposed to being told the story in a jumbled up way with an infinite amount of words that say nothing at all. Gone Home's narrative is elevated by being a game. Of course, there is room for growth for Gone Home, and the game "What Remains of Edith Finch" is a perfect example of a narrative that simply wouldn't function without being interactive, even though you are just walking for the majority of it. Also, indie games have always had "opinionated shit", look back at Braid or Papers Please. Being opinionated about social topics isn't inherently bad, but the opinions themselves, or the way they're experienced absolutely can be.
"dear esther has far too many fuckin' words." I love this. You rarely ever swear at all in your videos, so this makes your sparing use of them very poignant, so this simple statement holds much more depth than if anyone else had said it.
I feel that my experiences with both games come down to my reactions playing them with each of my parents. With Ester, my dad and I were simply wowed at the caves visual design. With Journey however my mother and I felt more connected and hugged after the end while she thanked me for the experience. I feel that you've represented that perfectly in this comparison.
It still amazes me how Journey seems to just leave most players emotionally vulnerable so quickly. It's something about the way it presents itself, in a purely visual and phonetic way without words or text, that just completely strips away your preconceptions about emotion, or something. I'm a very reserved person when it comes to emotions, and yet Journey can make me cry just by REMEMBERING my several playthroughs of it. It was soooo emotional and I still can't explain why.
+´Tomas Muir Yeah, it's pretty bizarre. I haven't played Journey in over a year, and I was just thinking that my mind has changed to the point where I'd probably react differently to it now. However, just watching this video and hearing some of the music had me close to tears in a public place. So weird!
Journey has a hidden story based on the book "the heros journey" The book basically explains how we tell stories, and that each story is actually really similar in its raw form. Journey is based on this.
+Stef Morojna Quick correction: the book is called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," by Joseph Campbell, and the "Hero's Journey" is the name of the storytelling model the book discusses. ^_^
@gibbdude Hero is indeed a tough read meant primarily for students of anthropology, but to deny that it's had an impact on contemporary art is a bit silly considering star wars is like the biggest franchise ever and george lucas admits to reading it and intentionally trying to copy the hero's journey with star wars. Books such as Vogler's The Writer's Journey distill campbell's discoveries into actionable screenwriting advice, and vogler is a prominent story consultant for hollywood. Highly recommend the writer's journey btw, it's a much more accessible and well organized explanation of campbell's work than anything the man himself wrote, and does a good job explaining, for instance, how "death of the mentor," can be a part of every story when not every story has an old man that dies, which is something cambpell never really explains because it just wasn't his focus. It helped me realize one character can fulfill multiple archetypal roles, or that roles can be filled by things other than people even though we generally refer to them as people. For better or worse, many people are now trying to consciously follow the hero's journey because they think it sells rather than unconsciously falling into story patterns that naturally exist in the human brain.
This is by far the best criticism of DE I've seen. For once it's nice to hear someone criticising it on it's own terms rather than "not a game! pretentious! hipster! etc!"
A game, however, is only the vague definition of interactivity instead of a failure state; a "game" only needs to be interactive to be a "game." You can't say that 21 isn't a game because there's no failure state (besides losing)... This is why the argument that Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls aren't "games" is mute by David Cage... It is a game. If I can interact with it, it's a game.
I remember getting to that Fibonaccci spiral in Dear Esther, and, the optimist that I was, thinking that there was a nearby puzzle I had too solve. One thing that really stands out to me about Journey, which I replay occasionally, is that whilst its mechanics are minimal, it feels absolutely gorgeous to control. The jump, the float, the slide; everything is so well tuned to feel enjoyable to do. Far too many of the 'emotional, minimal' indies that have come up since fail to nail the gamefeel that helps elevate Journey.
The first time I played Journey, I was in the first area when a gold dude who looked just like me showed up and started following me around. My friend told me it was the multiplayer and that he must have gotten some kind of special upgrade to look gold. The gold guy then led me through the game and help me out, and shortly before the snow level(underground with all the enemies and you slide down) he sacrificed himself to distract the enemies. I finished the Journey just for him. ;~; Great video.
11:20 My favorite part about this review: Matthewmatosis talks about the enemies in Journey twice in this review, yet never actually shows those enemies in action. To me this feels purposeful, as the reveal of the enemies is one of the best parts of the game, and felt like he didnt want to spoil it
Matthew, I feel like a better term for 'games should be fun' is that games should be ENJOYABLE. Even though (good) horror games instill a sense of fear, panic, foreboding, or tension these feelings can still be enjoyable to people that are into that sort of thing. Also as long as I'm the topic, I very much enjoy all of your content and have watched most of it. I would very much like to see a review on a horror game as I'd be interested in your analysis of what the genre's successes and failures have been. I'd suggest Silent Hill 2 or 3, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, or even a more obscure series like Fatal Frame. Either way I will continue to be a supporter of your fine work.
+Raptor Jesus mmmm I think that's debatable. I will often play games like Gone Home and Dear Esther just to arrive at a conclusion and hope that it provokes some thoughts that I hadn't experienced before. So in this case, for me, I went in to these games knowing exactly what they were, not to enjoy them, but to experience them and possibly learn some sort of lesson. Gone Home definitely succeeded in this, while Dear Esther did not. Perhaps, if novelty is what attracts me, novelty must be enjoyable for me, and thus these games can be enjoyable. It depends how much you want to stretch the meaning of "joy".
15:21 '...I though about my life and what had happened to me during the game. Halfway through my first playthrough I lost my partner.....' wow, heavy stuff '.....and I spent a few minutes waiting to see if they would catch up to me, or if they were gone for good.' Oh, he's talking about the game. Nevermind
I'd love to give my two cents on this: I think that one of the key differences between Journey and Dear Esther that he failed to explore was the cohesion between the different elements of the game. In Dear Esther the storytelling and game play don't complement each other at all; if the point of the game is to deliver the story, then having the player wander around an island to discover bits of the story hardly works as an effective complement to it. Think of it like this: If you completely removed the game play and visuals from Dear Esther, and instead made it an audio book, the experience wouldn't lose much, as the visual storytelling is completely secondary to the verbal storytelling. This is in stark juxtaposition to Journey, in which verbal storytelling is completely absent, so the story must be told in visuals and actions. Like Matthew said, Journey is a completely silent game, meaning that compared to Dear Esther, it can actually be seen as *less* complex. Dear Esther has three elements: auditory, visual, and gameplay. Journey has two: visual and gameplay. Because Journey has fewer elements, it's storytelling is less restrictive. This means that, in contrast to Dear Esther, where the visual and game play elements can be removed because the story is being explicitly told, in Journey, none of the elements can be removed, because the story is being created by the player. The visual element uses locations to show the player the main plot points, and the gameplay fills in the details with the player's own experience. The visual and the gamplay mesh better in Journey because the game accepts that it's a game, embracing that different people will have different experiences playing it, and so makes the player's own experience a part of the story. This is why Journey is a success: because it's gameplay, instead of just being the means by which the player gets from point A to point B, is the tool by which Journey allows the player to project their own experience onto the game. Journey is a great experience, and really encapsulates how games are unique in their ability to engage the player to tell a story. Dear Esther misinterprets this, using its visuals and gameplay as a backdrop to the story being told instead of as an integral part of the story being told.
@gibbdude Yeah, it's just not good writing, which is a totally separate issue from how good it is (isn't) as a video game. If I picked up a short story collection, and that was the first story in it, I'd toss that shit in the trash without even looking at the second story.
I just played the game for the first time today and I made it to the end with the same companion on my first journey. I thought they might’ve been a bot but when I made it to the end and it turned out it was a real player, it felt like it meant something. I feel that in the real world humans end up causing so much strife and hatred towards one another. So it was beautiful to see how the game showed that beneath all the stupid bullshit people perpetrate on each other in daily life, if people exist in a simpler, environment, where all we have is each other, we have so much capacity to care for one another, and help. Journey made me feel positive about humanity.
Found this channel only today, and I must say I really enjoy your in-depth analysis, all your points are fair and it's obvious that you do a lot of research for your reviews. Keep up the good work!
Journey has had a huge impact on me and I only just recently got to experience it in full. And just now, I literally just finished a playthrough of Dear Esther. And now I've found this 4 year old video and it explains everything that I'm thinking perfectly.
I enjoyed Dear Esther, but I think it's because I took the story in a different way than you did. The entire time, I felt that the person walking through the island was Esther, or some other person, who was looking for the narrator. I felt that the whole narration was a letter (or series of them) that was sent to this person, and throughout the walk, we have the walker recollect the narrator's letter, reaching the conclusion of it during that cutscene. This may not have been the interpretation intended by the writers, but I believe it works better, for each time you 'find' a piece of dialogue, you're finding something that relates to Esther and the narrator's relationship, rather than the character you are controlling just monologuing. I took most of the oddities, from the circuit symbols and chemical diagrams, to show how far the narrator has gone in his madness from the car crash. As we get closer and closer to the end, we see just how far off the deep end the event has taken him. It never was supposed to mean anything: instead, it was to show the narrator's attempt to find meaning (he even says that most of the diagrams are to make religious scholars in a hundred years puzzle.) I would recommend trying to make the walker not the narrator, and see how you feel about the experience then. As I said earlier, this may not have been as the writers intended, but that honestly does not have too much weight, especially with an attempted artistic piece like Dear Esther, where the creator doesn't have full control over his work's meaning. Thanks for the rest of the review, it was quite good like all the others.
In my opinion, both soundtracks capture the tone of their game (moments). Dear Esther's use of chamber-like elements make the experience uncannily lonely, yet the unvaried instrumentation and even the texture of its pieces did not allow for a coherent and satisfying conclusion to an already stale product -- to clarify, I mean this for Dear Esther rather than for Journey.
When making games: - You have a visual medium. Use it. Getting as much story into as few words as possible is already recommended for a text-based work; it's paramount for a visual work. - You have an interactive medium. Use it. Allow players to determine how they feel about a situation (when Journey presents you with a new vista and lets you have your own thought process about it) rather than telling them how to feel (when Dear Esther presents you with a new vista and then promptly describes it to you- even though you're looking right at it- and tells you what it means). Or maybe I just love minimalism too much. For what it's worth, I do think that having very little "gameplay" can still be valid in interactive experiences. For instance, if there's environmental storytelling I wouldn't have absorbed in a different medium. It can be engrossing to be dropped into a new area and explore it at your own pace (despite the criticism, I think Gone Home is a particularly strong example of this). But that exploration has to be interesting, and I have to feel like I'm learning as I'm going, rather than simply being told what I'm seeing and how I should feel about it.
Old CRPG's like Fallout 1-2 and Arcanum are mostly text based and honestly they feel like you are reading a book where you are in control of the main character. What i like about these old games, specially Fallout, is the attempt by the author to describe what you are seeing. In many modern RPG's when you look at a NPC you just see him based on what you see on your screen (usually a souless creepy uncanny valley virtual creature). In the old games if you clicked on an NPC 2d sprite, the author will show a text describing his looks, his odor, what he is doing, what is his attitude, maybe even some relevant comedic pop culture reference to help you visualized. In your mind, your imaginations feels in the blank and create a character that is more convincing and believable compare to a 3d high polygon, high texture, well animated virtual entity. And that doesnt end on NPC, rocks, buildings, cars, grasses, trees all have their own text description.
gelyn miranda Yeah, looking at this comment a year later, I'm honestly surprised I wrote it. It feels a bit too restrictive to me. I still, personally at least, really like the idea of making meaning without words, though.
Dear Esther, from what I understand, doesn't actually have a story at all. Its not a complete story told in random pieces: the narration is made out of like 4-5 stories that have nothing to do with one another, and bits of each are taken randomly. All the symbols and written quotes you see throughout the game just vaguely allude to some of the stories, and many of those are also randomized. The point of the original Dear Esther mod, the free one, was to put vague elements together randomly and see what people would interpret from them. How far can people push an interpretation of a story that doesnt actually exist? How much can people "piece together"? Would people in forums and gaming communities eventually come to some consensus on what the story "really" is, not knowing they are actually really creating it? It was for some sort of university paper about how players react to stories they don't or cant understand. You can find a PDF of it somewhere online. I think the original mod was more random and had less "events", and the final version added some things that were inspired from people's interpretations of the original. I think the car crash scene was added in that way. I guess that when the mod got popular, they decided they could try selling it after prettying it up and adding to it. Paying some of those student debts... My opinion on it is, It was pretty, had some atmosphere, but I was a bit disappointed at the end. Later learning that the narration was meant to be nonsense put some perspective on what the game was "about", but the slight disappointment remains. It was still just 10 bucks, and it WAS pretty. I think pretty can be worth 10$...
It really doesnt, and by design! The paper they wrote about their game experiment is called "Dear Esther: an interactive ghost story built using the Source engine", if you google that you might be able to find it. They just say it outright: the game is actually not meant to have a linked story, its all supposed to be a creation of the player.
Has two different stories that are out together my friend. If you've played the game (which I'm guessing you havent based upon what you've wrote) you would know. Dear Esther is about a man (who may be going insane) who's lover died in a car crash, the other person in the crash is named Paul. Well that's an obvious story. The other one is about a writer and his writings of a legend namesmd a hermit, each died in strange ways. If you cant seem to put two and two together, you must not be able to comprehend the English language. Literally all I see for Dear Esther is hate comments that make no sense. Like this guy in the video complaining about The amount a narrating in Dear Esther when the game in obviously a game of poetry.
@@prussianeagle1941 Here's the thing though. Completely putting aside how successful (or not, as the case may be) Dear Esther is as a game, the writing that is its primary focus just isn't good. It's not just a quantity issue, it's a quality issue. It's not poetry, first of all. It's flowery prose, specifically flowery, steam of consciousness internal monologue. But perhaps it's more accurate to say its trying really hard to be flowery (which shouldn't be a goal in and of itself) despite the clunkiness and pointlessness of its sentences so the end result is a bit like a raving idiot trying to sound really smart. For reference, here's a similarly distracted, flowery internal monologue from an absolute masterpiece novel with actually a pretty similar premise to dear esther. It's a mentally scattered protagonist (that if the reader pays really, really close attention is almost certainly a ghost, sorry for spoilers but I'm like 98% sure nobody in this thread will ever read it so lul) reflecting on the tragedies of his life lived in a quiet midwestern town. It really is one of the best I've ever read, and I've read close to a thousand books at this point. "Sitting before my little fire, I know, when the wind blows outside, moaning in the fieldstone chimney I caused to be built for ornament, shrieking in the gutters and the ironwork and the eaves and trim and trellises of the house, that this planet of America, turning round upon itself, stands only at the outside, only at the periphery, only at the edges, of an infinite galaxy, dizzily circling. And that the stars that seem to ride our winds cause them. Sometimes I think to see huge faces bending between those stars to look through my two windows, faces golden and tenuous, touched with pity and wonder; and then I rise from my chair and limp to the flimsy door, and there is nothing; and then I take up the cruiser ax (Buntings Best, 2 lb. head, Hickory Handle) that stands beside the door and go out, and the wind sings and the trees lash themselves like flagellants and the stars show themselves between bars of racing cloud, but the sky between them is empty and blank." The best part of this is that what seems like meaningless metaphor to you, having no context, in most cases, actually isn't, instead tying directly into plot and character. The huge faces touched with pity and wonder MEAN something. The obsessions with america as a planet unto itself or an edge of something keeps coming back throughout the novel and MEANS something to the main character. Metaphor is not used here simply to lend a vague flowery feel to the language and trick you into thinking something deep is happening, deep things actually ARE happening. Which is absolutely not the case for dear esther. Would anything of the car crash story be lost on the "player" without this sentence? "Those islands in the distance, I am sure, are nothing more than relics of another time, sleeping giants, somnambulist gods laid down for a final dreaming." Fuck does that even mean? What does that add to the story? Why is a dude reflecting on a tragic car accident pontificating about islands in the distance that have nothing to do with the supposed source of his restless thoughts which all exist on THIS island? It makes no fucking sense, and most sentences in dear esther are exactly this, meaningless filler metaphors trying to sound smart and failing fucking spectacularly. The fifth most liked goodreads review of the book puts it much better than I can: "Alden Dennis Weir loses his knife and goes looking through his house for it. And sort of gets lost in some of the best prose of the late twentieth century. Everybody should read this book." I'll leave it to you to find the name of the novel if you're actually interested, I've given you plenty of material to plug into google.
Don't ever sell out, man. We need people like you among the paid off mainstream reviewers. I've never played Journey, but after listening to this double review, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want a PS3 right now so I can experience it.
I´d like to tell an anecdote from both games: I played Journey all the way to the end on one sitting, and I had the same companion through the whole game. I was at a friend´s house to do something else but I found myself unable to let go. I felt like I owed to the other person to see the entirety of the game together. It moved me to tears. In Dear Esther, I realised the chemical schematics on the walls were ethanol (alcohol), and the circuits and gears to be car parts. Because of that it was easy to deduce that the story reveal would be about DWI. This realisation was more enjoyable than the story itself.
"Dear Esther has far too many fucking words" that made me laugh considerably more then it should have because it came out of nowhere. Oh do I love your dry humor.
Such an amazing content you got. Recently found your channel and now watching the videos I thought that I wanted to see first. This video is from 2012 and now it's 2022, it's amazing. Keep up the good content, all the best.
Dear Mr Sir, I started with your BS Infinite video, and stayed for the generally great content. I appreciate your hard-nosed analysis, as well as the obvious love of diverse experiences in videogames. Kindly remain awesome.
I love how, since your analysis is always so down to earth, it makes it hilarious when you break once in a while. Just saying how Dear Esther has "too many fucking words" ended up being the funniest thing I've heard today.
I had exactly the same feelings about these games and you summarized everything really well and also explained everything behind the scenes really well and made me understood why I felt the way I felt. Thanks.
Journey used the medium at its fullest, it's an example of how to use games to tell stories without interrupting the player. Meanwhile, Dear Esther is a fucking mess that attempts to be a game but it clearly wants to be an abstract expressionist painting from the new millennium aka it sucks. I should had watched this first instead of purchasing it on Humble Bundle, at least I got Hotline Miami as well. It's just that most of the time I prefer watching your reviews after playing the games in discussion hahaha
After watching this video quite a few times, I feel as though Dear Esther could have been taken in a better direction than it was, and most of it was to be explained near the end. Instead of having the cave symbols showing nothing, they could of have shown the lack of communication between the narrator and Esther as they only communicated in written letters and due to the obtuse wording of the letters, even that communication wasn't very good. The neurons and circuit diagrams could of shown this very well as they relate to the theme of communication and the Fibonacci swirl could have symbolized the overly obtuse nature the narrator took when writing these odd letters to Esther and how pointlessly obtuse they were. Also the minimal gameplay could have also reflected the lack of interactivity between the narrator and Esther as the gameplay is so basic for the player as they slowly lose interest in the narrator himself. The use of the alcohol symbol and the car could have symbolized the death of the narrator by a drunk car accident and now he is in purgatory trying to find his way out. It would have been powerful if the narrator brought mention at the end that he regretted being so obtuse with his wording and letters towards Esther and how he lacked communication during his life and now it would be too late to go back and change it now he was gone. The reading of the letters could have been meaning to show Esther now looking back on the letters the narrator had sent her to remember him yet being confused by his obtuse ways making it harder to remember him. Now, because the narrator was so obtuse, that he would be forgotten forever in death as he didn't openly explain his thoughts and opinions towards the people he loved in life. This could have also been shown in the environments of how he was so alone and usually huddled in caves to show how isolated he was from the world with only the ghosts of his past memories wandering in the distance. This could have been a powerful moment whilst the narrator walked near the tower and climbed the ladder as he explains all these points in a very direct way, in contrast to the obtuse ways of before showing how he now wants people to understand what he says. Then it would have ended with him falling off and dying which could end the game as it shows that nothing more happens when you die. This could have made the experience of Dear Esther more interesting in retrospect as we see a person who tried to cloak his feelings in too many words as he makes the most simple things so complex and that the simpler words and explanations in life are more important in every way. This could have been a more interesting turnout for the game, and possibly make less of a weak attempt at a foggy experiment and more of a great moral message to give people. But if that was what the original intention of the game, then it failed in its current state to make it apparent to the reader.
I loved journey. I played it at a friends house to the end, and despite being next to someone and joking and kidding with them, I felt genuine emotion, and had great memories and remember every second of the game. I would have finished the game, if it weren't for the fact that I clipped through the cave walls in the game's finale. Despite this, I greatly enjoyed journey, and most importantly, I had fun. I had fun with an art game.
Great thoughts on the games. A really interesting way of comparing the two games, too. I played Journey and loved it. Played the old Dear Esther mod way-back-when, and found it gave me nothing, just as you described. Perhaps the problem is that Dear Esther, having been set in a relatively real world, and with so much "information" thrown at you--the diagrams, the symbols, the letters--it actually _communicates_ so little. Whereas Journey, set in a relatively unreal world, with the odd set of pictorial images, communicates so much through them. Okay, there's not really that much communicated by Journey, as a lot of it is still left to the guesses and imagination of the player, but what is there gives you concrete clues to go on. Dear Esther, on the other hand, effectively bombards you with gobbledigook with nothing whatsoever substantial at the heart of it.
This is by far the best I've seen from you. You should do all of your videos like that. This is about half an hour shorter than your other videos, yet it's not less "in depth" than your other "reviews". It just doesn't have all that unnecessary filler. Well done.
really great video, im surprised i never saw it before, since Journey is a game that even today i treasure among my top favorite games, if not the top. It felt honestly like going through a journey with all the emotions that could possibly imply. What im most glad for though is that i waited for almost a year to be back home and be able to buy and play it without watching any videos or reading any spoilers. This is honestly a game you have to experience, and damn im glad i did.
Dear Esther is all you have to avoid while producing a videogame, after all, interactivity is the point of the medium isn't it? It is obvious that it had no rational thought behind it, and was meant to be a pretentious art-piece that tries to be deep and meaningful, or better said, tries to LOOK deep and meaningful, and ends up offering nothing to the player but good visuals. It doesn't take advantage of the videogame medium in any way. Nothing bothers me more than this falseness, so exploited lately by indie games, that way of hiding bad gameplay and lack of ideas under the "it's an experiment" excuse. The good thing is that, in the end, only one of those two games will be remembered.
While I think that interactivity is a defining trait of the medium, I don't think that means that games should be discouraged from commentating on the nature of interaction in an art medium and what it means to be interactive. I think Metal Gear Solid, The Stanely Parable and certain other first person walkers like Dear Ester attempt this with carrying degrees of success. But Dear Ester is still a shitty game and is an outright failure though.
***** MGS "Combines" game play sections with cinematic scenes, it has nothing to do with Dear Esther, which has no interactivity at all. Actually MGS is one of the most interactive games out there, talking about the game play sections, its crazy the amount of different mechanics you can experiment with. Years after years of playing the same game yet not having done everything. Very "sandboxy". It uses the cut-scenes to push forward the story (along with the codec convos) and engage the player with snake and its motives. Although I think the best way to produce in this medium is through making the player "play" the story, rather than tell it to him (Half-Life Style, or Deus ex-scy) Metal Gear archives a nice balance between game play and movie-like moments. Of course that depends on the title, "MGS3:Snake" Eater is the perfect mix of the formula. One if not my favourite game of all time.
Sadly, I think Dear Esther will always stick around in my memory, mainly because of how disappointed I was when I finished the game. I was left thinking "that's it"? at the end, and that's a feeling I don't think I'll forget.
In a way, they're reviewing two completely different games. I know it sounds odd because obviously they are the exact same game but what separates Jon's experience and Matthew's experience is their individual preconceived notions of the game. Matthew did not go into the game with any preconception of what the game was about or picked it up because it had a lot of praise. In fact, the people behind didn't even know it was going to blow up like it did. That's because the game was so new, so no reviews were made for the game thus nobody had any idea what it was going to be like until the played it themselves. That's what Journey's greatest strength is - the unknown and trying to make sense of this world with no narrative by deciphering the images. In Jon's case, he went in with such a incredulously impossible expectation for Journey's port to PS4 that the marketing presented. Jon's impressions that did not meet those expectations, which is completely reasonable. Jon was expecting an experience that would transcend the expectations given to him and the game simply did not meet those expectations. It's like watching a trailer that reveals a twist in the movie. For instance, what if the trailer for Star Wars revealed that Vader was Luke's father? That trailer is going to be everywhere and everyone who sees the trailer will be spoiled of that twist. Now that you know what the twist is, the plot of the movie becomes more and more predictable is it is building up to this major twist. In Journey's case, the marketing highlighted reviews that praised the game by stating it as a "life changing experience", so that's what Jon was waiting for... but this "life changing experience" never happened! On top of this, Jon simply wasn't as focused on the game as Matthew was. Jon is a "Let's Player" and any new game he plays he basically has to be entertaining while giving a review and first impression playing at the same time. This means Jon has to focus more so on the gameplay - which he considers the very simple puzzles to be a poor design which don't require a lot of thought - and less so on the atmosphere of the game which requires full attention, because other wise you'll get lost and lose your sense of purpose in the game. That's what Journey's intention is - to make you think through as little words and direction as possible - and Matthew absolutely loves that about Journey because Matthew didn't need to give a review at the same he played it and devised his full attention to the game. In Jon's case, he absolutely hated it because he had to give a review at the same time and tried to find ways to be entertaining at the same time and often lost focus or missed how the mechanics of the game work. Besides, Journey is not the type of game to give a hands on experience about, as Jon covered in the video he made in response to all the negative feedback.
On my playthrough of Journey I lost my partner aswell, in the sunken city area before the giant flying "whales". I remember him/her sitting and after a bit banishing, and me just looking around the area trying to find him/her again. Was also the only companion i found, which made it all the more heartbreaking and memorable, its amazing the feelings that ran through me on that moment , the things this game made me feel--- well personally i think no other game has ever made feel so much.
What you said at 7:54 was the exact effect Journey had on me. I still tear up just thinking about the game. (And that shot at 8:44 brought those tears back, not to mention that longer bit about Journey after 15:10 which almost had me crying)
Hey man, I liked this video a lot more than some of your others, because you just said how you felt, instead of trying to get attention of and disprove others.
Leaving a comment on am old video feels pointless but here we are. I loved Dear Esther and found it had a big impact on myself and what I look for in games. Having said that it's a terrible game but an amazingly atmospheric experience. The feeling of loneliness and desolation while exploring the frigid environment is only surpassed by the perfect soundtrack. I love Dear Esther for how it makes me feel but that feeling is the only thing I took away from the experience.
I played Journey when it came out a decade ago and I sat through Dear Esther yesterday. It's telling that I can remember the former perfectly but I can't remember anything from the latter aside from a few neat visuals.
That's a relief. I was worried I missed something with Dear Esther. Most of my experience with that game was drowning repeatedly while trying to find ANYTHING to interact with.
Do you think you'll ever do a video on the kind of interactive stories that Telltale Games do? Either about those kinds of game in general, or about a particular series(specifically, The Walking Dead).
I loved Dear Esther as I like artsy fartsy stuff so unlike many people I didn't either think it was pretentious or didn't mind. So at the beginning of this video I got sad since I loved it and saw you didn't, but in the end I agree with nearly all your points on both. If I had a PS3, I'd definitely want to play Journey now.
Which is why it's a polarising thing, and it's intent is very different to Journey despite similarities in how both are about minimalist interactivity, little mechanical complexity, and overarching goal. Either way it's interesting criticism of Dear Esther, and have you say your review videos are damn, damn excellent.
I'm surprised that not that many people noticed that the scarf thing was an energy bar. I thought it was pretty noticeable. It's cool that they put that in with the intentions of it being kinda hidden and camouflaged.
to be honest i had completely forgotten about dear esther. and it would seem i should be glad i did. i do remember there was a lot of comparison between journey and dear esther, but almost everyone agreed journey was flat out better then dear esther. please continue making these high quality videos i enjoy them a lot. ( even though you were a bit late to the discussion :) )
I thought the fact that Dear Esther was obtuse and didn't make sense on first playthrough is what made the game so great. I liked that I had to look up stuff in Dear Esther and think about what was being said to piece together an interpretation of what was happening. I think the slow pacing helped it because it helped provide emphasis on this issue, though I agree that it got annoying at times during subsequent playthroughs. I didn't think about the gameplay as much as I did about the story.
"That said, Dear Esther has far too many fuckin words." Thank you for that. I had no idea about the existance of these two games. I'm an exclusive Nintendo fan myself, but I will CERTAINLY be recommending Journey for any PS3 owning friends.
"You don't learn anything by creating something which doesn't work...and then stubbornly trying to insist it does." There are several game publishers and developers need to have this quote framed and mailed to them...then riveted to their desks.
Your shortest video is also by far your most insightful and deep. You should really execute the rest of your videos in a similar manner. There's no need to run the player through every facet of the game. This one was hugely entertaining and thought provoking without any needless filler to pad it out. Kudos.
wonderfully thorough video, as always. If you don't mind me asking, why do you dislike mediums that attempt to be multi cultural? That comment interested me
I actually really enjoyed Dear Esther and was a bit amazed by it. But I hadnt slept for 24 hours and had a few beers in me, so not sure how accurate my view is, but I remeber sitting there at 5am playing through Dear Esther just staring at the bright colours in the cave.
+Ze Germanz Same. While everything matthew says here is true, some people like myself are REALLY good at "filling in the gaps", adding value to something that might not have any value whatsoever. I did however think the visuals had value, and that was enough to make the experience meaningful for me, as a visually driven person. The music was also pretty nice. It's these secondary things that can make up for an otherwise dry concept, depending on how gullible and open minded the player is.
I understand your distain with Dear Esther, and I haven't played Bastion, but Sword & Sworcery was one of the best games I played last year, along with Journey. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but makes me think throughout. I am a huge fan of Point and Click Adventure games, and I understand not everyone is, so it might not be great for some people. Artistically it is great as well, and I cannot wait for the next game from Superbrothers.
Journey is co developed by sony so its pretty safe to say that it wont ever be on another console. If you like these artistic type of games a PS3 is your best gaming option right now, since sony is investing a lot in these original ideas. Check out these two games, "the unfinished swan", and "Rain"
I enjoyed listening to your insightful analysis of each game and the connective aspects of their events. You've made exceptional criticism of Dear Esther, particularly where the overly long narrative is concerned. I will decidedly stay away from Dear Esther, and purchase and relish my experience with Journey.
*I think it comes from not realizing that when playing a game, you don't need to be the actual character, but inhabit them as much as possible to feel like you have done and made the certain decisions that they themselves have made, in order to gain a better understanding of what he/she has went through.* *Journey felt like a short but nevertheless great 'Journey' as you powered through with great focus and determination to reach your goal, the mountain in the distance.* *Dear Esther, however, felt like you were reading some overly depressed guys journal, which had no connection with your own life, nor anything to even bring you into his situation 'in game.'* *It seems they felt compelled to remove any interaction that wasn't of their own choice, so much so that you couldn't even control whether or not you turned the torth on/off. WHY! Why do this?!*
Yeah i'm on PS3 and i'll usually see at least 2-3 people on a playthrough. It's a short game but has a lot of replay value so theres always a few people floating about.
When you said "It just felt like a bunch of discoherent stuff thrown onto an island in the hopes that will look meanigful and artistic" I was sure you were going to make a LOST reference! :)
Matthew is a non-wafty Errant Signal, also he doesn't just store a thesaurus with him to sound more intelligent. In other-words Matthew is naturally intelligent and doesn't pretend to be some super smart ass. Thus Matthew is better.
So basically Journey was an experiment to see how much story you can have in a game with no words and Dear Esther was an experiment to see how many words you can have in a game with no story?
parokki WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA mind blown.
#NailedIt
That F bomb at five minutes is so much more powerful because of how scantly you say it
*Long, passionate ode to words*
"...That said, Dear Esther has way too many fuckin' words."
Gets me every time.
well, now I'm imagining Dear Esther narrated by Joseph
"Is this some new genre of walking simulators that will really take off?"
Matthewmatosis: Unwittingly predicting the future of the games industry since October 19, 2012.
lmao
+Victor Viridian
Less than a year before gone home was released and indie games became an inescapable cesspool of opinionated shit.
the man is an oracle.
Now we're back to normal.
Except everyone wants to talk about mental illness. As someone with no mental illnesses whatsoever, I feel kind of excluded.
Mighty Commander Clearly, you have social anxiety. Better get to designing!
To be fair to Gone Home, the level of interactivity you have with that game far exceeds Dear Esther, even if it just means picking up documents and opening locked doors. You feel like you're uncovering the house and the story yourself, as opposed to being told the story in a jumbled up way with an infinite amount of words that say nothing at all. Gone Home's narrative is elevated by being a game. Of course, there is room for growth for Gone Home, and the game "What Remains of Edith Finch" is a perfect example of a narrative that simply wouldn't function without being interactive, even though you are just walking for the majority of it.
Also, indie games have always had "opinionated shit", look back at Braid or Papers Please. Being opinionated about social topics isn't inherently bad, but the opinions themselves, or the way they're experienced absolutely can be.
"That said, Dear Esther too many fuckin' words."
Eloquently put Matthew.
You know it's pretty bad when Matthew curses.
Fookin*
"dear esther has far too many fuckin' words." I love this. You rarely ever swear at all in your videos, so this makes your sparing use of them very poignant, so this simple statement holds much more depth than if anyone else had said it.
I know this is very old but I noticed that too and thought the same thing!
Well said!
It also made me laugh!
10 years later and I still love that underhanded dig at DE in the beginning right before the review proper.
Another thing Journey taught me: *That everyone in this world is likeable when you don't need to communicate nor know fuck all about them*
=)
This may be an example of sarcasm. Great job!
I'm very confused.
>I have no agenda against words..
>Saying that, Dear Esther has too many fucking words
Love this guy
I feel that my experiences with both games come down to my reactions playing them with each of my parents. With Ester, my dad and I were simply wowed at the caves visual design. With Journey however my mother and I felt more connected and hugged after the end while she thanked me for the experience. I feel that you've represented that perfectly in this comparison.
It still amazes me how Journey seems to just leave most players emotionally vulnerable so quickly. It's something about the way it presents itself, in a purely visual and phonetic way without words or text, that just completely strips away your preconceptions about emotion, or something. I'm a very reserved person when it comes to emotions, and yet Journey can make me cry just by REMEMBERING my several playthroughs of it. It was soooo emotional and I still can't explain why.
+´Tomas Muir Yeah, it's pretty bizarre. I haven't played Journey in over a year, and I was just thinking that my mind has changed to the point where I'd probably react differently to it now. However, just watching this video and hearing some of the music had me close to tears in a public place. So weird!
Journey has a hidden story based on the book "the heros journey" The book basically explains how we tell stories, and that each story is actually really similar in its raw form. Journey is based on this.
+Stef Morojna Quick correction: the book is called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," by Joseph Campbell, and the "Hero's Journey" is the name of the storytelling model the book discusses. ^_^
Same.
@gibbdude Hero is indeed a tough read meant primarily for students of anthropology, but to deny that it's had an impact on contemporary art is a bit silly considering star wars is like the biggest franchise ever and george lucas admits to reading it and intentionally trying to copy the hero's journey with star wars. Books such as Vogler's The Writer's Journey distill campbell's discoveries into actionable screenwriting advice, and vogler is a prominent story consultant for hollywood. Highly recommend the writer's journey btw, it's a much more accessible and well organized explanation of campbell's work than anything the man himself wrote, and does a good job explaining, for instance, how "death of the mentor," can be a part of every story when not every story has an old man that dies, which is something cambpell never really explains because it just wasn't his focus. It helped me realize one character can fulfill multiple archetypal roles, or that roles can be filled by things other than people even though we generally refer to them as people.
For better or worse, many people are now trying to consciously follow the hero's journey because they think it sells rather than unconsciously falling into story patterns that naturally exist in the human brain.
This is by far the best criticism of DE I've seen. For once it's nice to hear someone criticising it on it's own terms rather than "not a game! pretentious! hipster! etc!"
Jesus Christ For a game to be a game it needs to have entities struggle against each other.
Jesus Christ
It does have gameplay. It lets you walk and use the torch. It's not much, but you still get to do something.
Jesus Christ
No it wouldn't. It's not a movie in any way, shape or form. A movie is a series of static pictures shown in a pre-determined sequence.
no failure state = no game. (not advancing the story could be considered a failure state for graphic adventures).
A game, however, is only the vague definition of interactivity instead of a failure state; a "game" only needs to be interactive to be a "game." You can't say that 21 isn't a game because there's no failure state (besides losing)...
This is why the argument that Heavy Rain, and Beyond: Two Souls aren't "games" is mute by David Cage... It is a game. If I can interact with it, it's a game.
When you criticize the Fibinachi symbol, you're really just arguing over lines in the sand.
I think that callback was intentional.
You made me burst out laughing MM: "That said, Dear Esther has too many fucking words." Classic.
I remember getting to that Fibonaccci spiral in Dear Esther, and, the optimist that I was, thinking that there was a nearby puzzle I had too solve.
One thing that really stands out to me about Journey, which I replay occasionally, is that whilst its mechanics are minimal, it feels absolutely gorgeous to control. The jump, the float, the slide; everything is so well tuned to feel enjoyable to do. Far too many of the 'emotional, minimal' indies that have come up since fail to nail the gamefeel that helps elevate Journey.
The first time I played Journey, I was in the first area when a gold dude who looked just like me showed up and started following me around. My friend told me it was the multiplayer and that he must have gotten some kind of special upgrade to look gold. The gold guy then led me through the game and help me out, and shortly before the snow level(underground with all the enemies and you slide down) he sacrificed himself to distract the enemies. I finished the Journey just for him. ;~;
Great video.
11:20
My favorite part about this review: Matthewmatosis talks about the enemies in Journey twice in this review, yet never actually shows those enemies in action. To me this feels purposeful, as the reveal of the enemies is one of the best parts of the game, and felt like he didnt want to spoil it
Great, I laughed out loud when you said the best thing Dear Esther did was let you think about journey more clearly. I just found that hilarious!
Matthew, I feel like a better term for 'games should be fun' is that games should be ENJOYABLE. Even though (good) horror games instill a sense of fear, panic, foreboding, or tension these feelings can still be enjoyable to people that are into that sort of thing.
Also as long as I'm the topic, I very much enjoy all of your content and have watched most of it. I would very much like to see a review on a horror game as I'd be interested in your analysis of what the genre's successes and failures have been. I'd suggest Silent Hill 2 or 3, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, or even a more obscure series like Fatal Frame.
Either way I will continue to be a supporter of your fine work.
Totalbiscuit also talked abou this in his review for "This War of Mine". He stated that games do not need to be fun, but they need to be compelling.
Raptor Jesus Not all games even need to be cathartic though.
Sure, I don't play Silent Hill for the warm fuzzies. I play it to feel a sense of foreboding that sticks with me even after the game is turned off.
+Raptor Jesus I think “engaging” hits the mark
Whatever feeling the game is going for, the player wants to be involved and engrossed in it.
+Raptor Jesus mmmm I think that's debatable. I will often play games like Gone Home and Dear Esther just to arrive at a conclusion and hope that it provokes some thoughts that I hadn't experienced before. So in this case, for me, I went in to these games knowing exactly what they were, not to enjoy them, but to experience them and possibly learn some sort of lesson. Gone Home definitely succeeded in this, while Dear Esther did not.
Perhaps, if novelty is what attracts me, novelty must be enjoyable for me, and thus these games can be enjoyable. It depends how much you want to stretch the meaning of "joy".
15:21 '...I though about my life and what had happened to me during the game. Halfway through my first playthrough I lost my partner.....'
wow, heavy stuff
'.....and I spent a few minutes waiting to see if they would catch up to me, or if they were gone for good.'
Oh, he's talking about the game.
Nevermind
Lmao ass off I thought the same XD
I'd love to give my two cents on this:
I think that one of the key differences between Journey and Dear Esther that he failed to explore was the cohesion between the different elements of the game.
In Dear Esther the storytelling and game play don't complement each other at all; if the point of the game is to deliver the story, then having the player wander around an island to discover bits of the story hardly works as an effective complement to it. Think of it like this: If you completely removed the game play and visuals from Dear Esther, and instead made it an audio book, the experience wouldn't lose much, as the visual storytelling is completely secondary to the verbal storytelling. This is in stark juxtaposition to Journey, in which verbal storytelling is completely absent, so the story must be told in visuals and actions.
Like Matthew said, Journey is a completely silent game, meaning that compared to Dear Esther, it can actually be seen as *less* complex. Dear Esther has three elements: auditory, visual, and gameplay. Journey has two: visual and gameplay. Because Journey has fewer elements, it's storytelling is less restrictive. This means that, in contrast to Dear Esther, where the visual and game play elements can be removed because the story is being explicitly told, in Journey, none of the elements can be removed, because the story is being created by the player. The visual element uses locations to show the player the main plot points, and the gameplay fills in the details with the player's own experience. The visual and the gamplay mesh better in Journey because the game accepts that it's a game, embracing that different people will have different experiences playing it, and so makes the player's own experience a part of the story. This is why Journey is a success: because it's gameplay, instead of just being the means by which the player gets from point A to point B, is the tool by which Journey allows the player to project their own experience onto the game.
Journey is a great experience, and really encapsulates how games are unique in their ability to engage the player to tell a story. Dear Esther misinterprets this, using its visuals and gameplay as a backdrop to the story being told instead of as an integral part of the story being told.
gibbdude Looking back on this five years later, and I gotta agree with you
@gibbdude Yeah, it's just not good writing, which is a totally separate issue from how good it is (isn't) as a video game. If I picked up a short story collection, and that was the first story in it, I'd toss that shit in the trash without even looking at the second story.
Did you leave the narrator in the background too loud while you were talking on purpose to show how annoying he is?
Losing a companion in journey is the most sad experience i ever had in a video game. Even only for this moment you should buy the game!
You obviously never been ganked in Dark Souls.
+Irgentsoein Typ Seeing my companion collapse in the snow storm nearly brought a tear to my eye.
Journey was one of the most emotional experiences I've ever had playing a game. It's an absolute masterpiece.
I just played the game for the first time today and I made it to the end with the same companion on my first journey. I thought they might’ve been a bot but when I made it to the end and it turned out it was a real player, it felt like it meant something. I feel that in the real world humans end up causing so much strife and hatred towards one another.
So it was beautiful to see how the game showed that beneath all the stupid bullshit people perpetrate on each other in daily life, if people exist in a simpler, environment, where all we have is each other, we have so much capacity to care for one another, and help. Journey made me feel positive about humanity.
Found this channel only today, and I must say I really enjoy your in-depth analysis, all your points are fair and it's obvious that you do a lot of research for your reviews. Keep up the good work!
"That said, Dear Esther has far too many fuckin' words."
That came out of nowhere and made me laugh so much XD
Journey has had a huge impact on me and I only just recently got to experience it in full. And just now, I literally just finished a playthrough of Dear Esther. And now I've found this 4 year old video and it explains everything that I'm thinking perfectly.
I enjoyed Dear Esther, but I think it's because I took the story in a different way than you did. The entire time, I felt that the person walking through the island was Esther, or some other person, who was looking for the narrator. I felt that the whole narration was a letter (or series of them) that was sent to this person, and throughout the walk, we have the walker recollect the narrator's letter, reaching the conclusion of it during that cutscene. This may not have been the interpretation intended by the writers, but I believe it works better, for each time you 'find' a piece of dialogue, you're finding something that relates to Esther and the narrator's relationship, rather than the character you are controlling just monologuing.
I took most of the oddities, from the circuit symbols and chemical diagrams, to show how far the narrator has gone in his madness from the car crash. As we get closer and closer to the end, we see just how far off the deep end the event has taken him. It never was supposed to mean anything: instead, it was to show the narrator's attempt to find meaning (he even says that most of the diagrams are to make religious scholars in a hundred years puzzle.)
I would recommend trying to make the walker not the narrator, and see how you feel about the experience then. As I said earlier, this may not have been as the writers intended, but that honestly does not have too much weight, especially with an attempted artistic piece like Dear Esther, where the creator doesn't have full control over his work's meaning.
Thanks for the rest of the review, it was quite good like all the others.
"If there's one good thing about Dear Esther, it's that it helps me think more about journey."
You forgot something. The soundtracks!!!
What a masterpiece (for journey)
In my opinion, both soundtracks capture the tone of their game (moments). Dear Esther's use of chamber-like elements make the experience uncannily lonely, yet the unvaried instrumentation and even the texture of its pieces did not allow for a coherent and satisfying conclusion to an already stale product -- to clarify, I mean this for Dear Esther rather than for Journey.
When making games:
- You have a visual medium. Use it. Getting as much story into as few words as possible is already recommended for a text-based work; it's paramount for a visual work.
- You have an interactive medium. Use it. Allow players to determine how they feel about a situation (when Journey presents you with a new vista and lets you have your own thought process about it) rather than telling them how to feel (when Dear Esther presents you with a new vista and then promptly describes it to you- even though you're looking right at it- and tells you what it means).
Or maybe I just love minimalism too much.
For what it's worth, I do think that having very little "gameplay" can still be valid in interactive experiences. For instance, if there's environmental storytelling I wouldn't have absorbed in a different medium. It can be engrossing to be dropped into a new area and explore it at your own pace (despite the criticism, I think Gone Home is a particularly strong example of this). But that exploration has to be interesting, and I have to feel like I'm learning as I'm going, rather than simply being told what I'm seeing and how I should feel about it.
SelfAwarePedant Baldurs Gate,Pillars of Eternity,Dragon Age.
Old CRPG's like Fallout 1-2 and Arcanum are mostly text based and honestly they feel like you are reading a book where you are in control of the main character.
What i like about these old games, specially Fallout, is the attempt by the author to describe what you are seeing.
In many modern RPG's when you look at a NPC you just see him based on what you see on your screen (usually a souless creepy uncanny valley virtual creature). In the old games if you clicked on an NPC 2d sprite, the author will show a text describing his looks, his odor, what he is doing, what is his attitude, maybe even some relevant comedic pop culture reference to help you visualized.
In your mind, your imaginations feels in the blank and create a character that is more convincing and believable compare to a 3d high polygon, high texture, well animated virtual entity.
And that doesnt end on NPC, rocks, buildings, cars, grasses, trees all have their own text description.
gelyn miranda Yeah, looking at this comment a year later, I'm honestly surprised I wrote it. It feels a bit too restrictive to me. I still, personally at least, really like the idea of making meaning without words, though.
Dear Esther, from what I understand, doesn't actually have a story at all. Its not a complete story told in random pieces: the narration is made out of like 4-5 stories that have nothing to do with one another, and bits of each are taken randomly. All the symbols and written quotes you see throughout the game just vaguely allude to some of the stories, and many of those are also randomized.
The point of the original Dear Esther mod, the free one, was to put vague elements together randomly and see what people would interpret from them.
How far can people push an interpretation of a story that doesnt actually exist? How much can people "piece together"? Would people in forums and gaming communities eventually come to some consensus on what the story "really" is, not knowing they are actually really creating it?
It was for some sort of university paper about how players react to stories they don't or cant understand. You can find a PDF of it somewhere online.
I think the original mod was more random and had less "events", and the final version added some things that were inspired from people's interpretations of the original. I think the car crash scene was added in that way.
I guess that when the mod got popular, they decided they could try selling it after prettying it up and adding to it. Paying some of those student debts...
My opinion on it is, It was pretty, had some atmosphere, but I was a bit disappointed at the end. Later learning that the narration was meant to be nonsense put some perspective on what the game was "about", but the slight disappointment remains. It was still just 10 bucks, and it WAS pretty. I think pretty can be worth 10$...
It really doesnt, and by design! The paper they wrote about their game experiment is called "Dear Esther: an interactive ghost story built using the Source engine", if you google that you might be able to find it. They just say it outright: the game is actually not meant to have a linked story, its all supposed to be a creation of the player.
FrankieSmileShow kind of like this guy said about DSII?
Has two different stories that are out together my friend. If you've played the game (which I'm guessing you havent based upon what you've wrote) you would know. Dear Esther is about a man (who may be going insane) who's lover died in a car crash, the other person in the crash is named Paul. Well that's an obvious story. The other one is about a writer and his writings of a legend namesmd a hermit, each died in strange ways. If you cant seem to put two and two together, you must not be able to comprehend the English language. Literally all I see for Dear Esther is hate comments that make no sense. Like this guy in the video complaining about The amount a narrating in Dear Esther when the game in obviously a game of poetry.
@@prussianeagle1941 Here's the thing though. Completely putting aside how successful (or not, as the case may be) Dear Esther is as a game, the writing that is its primary focus just isn't good. It's not just a quantity issue, it's a quality issue. It's not poetry, first of all. It's flowery prose, specifically flowery, steam of consciousness internal monologue. But perhaps it's more accurate to say its trying really hard to be flowery (which shouldn't be a goal in and of itself) despite the clunkiness and pointlessness of its sentences so the end result is a bit like a raving idiot trying to sound really smart.
For reference, here's a similarly distracted, flowery internal monologue from an absolute masterpiece novel with actually a pretty similar premise to dear esther. It's a mentally scattered protagonist (that if the reader pays really, really close attention is almost certainly a ghost, sorry for spoilers but I'm like 98% sure nobody in this thread will ever read it so lul) reflecting on the tragedies of his life lived in a quiet midwestern town. It really is one of the best I've ever read, and I've read close to a thousand books at this point.
"Sitting before my little fire, I know, when the wind blows outside, moaning in the fieldstone chimney I caused to be built for ornament, shrieking in the gutters and the ironwork and the eaves and trim and trellises of the house, that this planet of America, turning round upon itself, stands only at the outside, only at the periphery, only at the edges, of an infinite galaxy, dizzily circling. And that the stars that seem to ride our winds cause them. Sometimes I think to see huge faces bending between those stars to look through my two windows, faces golden and tenuous, touched with pity and wonder; and then I rise from my chair and limp to the flimsy door, and there is nothing; and then I take up the cruiser ax (Buntings Best, 2 lb. head, Hickory Handle) that stands beside the door and go out, and the wind sings and the trees lash themselves like flagellants and the stars show themselves between bars of racing cloud, but the sky between them is empty and blank."
The best part of this is that what seems like meaningless metaphor to you, having no context, in most cases, actually isn't, instead tying directly into plot and character. The huge faces touched with pity and wonder MEAN something. The obsessions with america as a planet unto itself or an edge of something keeps coming back throughout the novel and MEANS something to the main character. Metaphor is not used here simply to lend a vague flowery feel to the language and trick you into thinking something deep is happening, deep things actually ARE happening. Which is absolutely not the case for dear esther. Would anything of the car crash story be lost on the "player" without this sentence?
"Those islands in the distance, I am sure, are nothing more than relics of another time, sleeping giants, somnambulist gods laid down for a final dreaming."
Fuck does that even mean? What does that add to the story? Why is a dude reflecting on a tragic car accident pontificating about islands in the distance that have nothing to do with the supposed source of his restless thoughts which all exist on THIS island? It makes no fucking sense, and most sentences in dear esther are exactly this, meaningless filler metaphors trying to sound smart and failing fucking spectacularly.
The fifth most liked goodreads review of the book puts it much better than I can:
"Alden Dennis Weir loses his knife and goes looking through his house for it. And sort of gets lost in some of the best prose of the late twentieth century. Everybody should read this book."
I'll leave it to you to find the name of the novel if you're actually interested, I've given you plenty of material to plug into google.
*OH MY GOD,* the scarf in Journey was an energy bar right beneath my nose!
Don't ever sell out, man. We need people like you among the paid off mainstream reviewers. I've never played Journey, but after listening to this double review, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want a PS3 right now so I can experience it.
I´d like to tell an anecdote from both games:
I played Journey all the way to the end on one sitting, and I had the same companion through the whole game. I was at a friend´s house to do something else but I found myself unable to let go. I felt like I owed to the other person to see the entirety of the game together. It moved me to tears.
In Dear Esther, I realised the chemical schematics on the walls were ethanol (alcohol), and the circuits and gears to be car parts. Because of that it was easy to deduce that the story reveal would be about DWI. This realisation was more enjoyable than the story itself.
I think that feeling of loss and regret you mentioned is what Dear Esther was going for. It's a game about bereathment after all.
"Dear Esther has far too many fucking words" that made me laugh considerably more then it should have because it came out of nowhere. Oh do I love your dry humor.
Thank you so much for this video. The way you analyzed the experience of both games was amazing and so very interesting... thank you!
Such an amazing content you got. Recently found your channel and now watching the videos I thought that I wanted to see first.
This video is from 2012 and now it's 2022, it's amazing. Keep up the good content, all the best.
I played and enjoyed both games, but you convinced me to change my mind about Dear Esther, good video and good argument, thank you sir.
Dear Mr Sir,
I started with your BS Infinite video, and stayed for the generally great content.
I appreciate your hard-nosed analysis, as well as the obvious love of diverse experiences in videogames.
Kindly remain awesome.
I love how, since your analysis is always so down to earth, it makes it hilarious when you break once in a while. Just saying how Dear Esther has "too many fucking words" ended up being the funniest thing I've heard today.
I love both of these games, I have played them both tonnes of times. I love most compositions in both games. Two of my top three favourite games!
That I've faverouted this video despite being a fan of Dear Esther is testament to the creativeity and skill of the narrator.
I had exactly the same feelings about these games and you summarized everything really well and also explained everything behind the scenes really well and made me understood why I felt the way I felt. Thanks.
Journey used the medium at its fullest, it's an example of how to use games to tell stories without interrupting the player. Meanwhile, Dear Esther is a fucking mess that attempts to be a game but it clearly wants to be an abstract expressionist painting from the new millennium aka it sucks. I should had watched this first instead of purchasing it on Humble Bundle, at least I got Hotline Miami as well. It's just that most of the time I prefer watching your reviews after playing the games in discussion hahaha
Weird to think that this video is more than 10 years old and talking about Journey and Dear Esther as the new games at the time.
It's so sad that Journey is wasted as an ps3 exclusive, it should live forever on the pc and I would really like to play it.
If it DID come out on PC, it's production values would be shite. Since no one would support it.
Bacon
If it was a properly optimized port then why in the world wouldn't it be good?
Port? The dev is OWNED by Sony.
I mean the games
Bacon That's why I'm saying it's wasted.
After watching this video quite a few times, I feel as though Dear Esther could have been taken in a better direction than it was, and most of it was to be explained near the end.
Instead of having the cave symbols showing nothing, they could of have shown the lack of communication between the narrator and Esther as they only communicated in written letters and due to the obtuse wording of the letters, even that communication wasn't very good. The neurons and circuit diagrams could of shown this very well as they relate to the theme of communication and the Fibonacci swirl could have symbolized the overly obtuse nature the narrator took when writing these odd letters to Esther and how pointlessly obtuse they were.
Also the minimal gameplay could have also reflected the lack of interactivity between the narrator and Esther as the gameplay is so basic for the player as they slowly lose interest in the narrator himself.
The use of the alcohol symbol and the car could have symbolized the death of the narrator by a drunk car accident and now he is in purgatory trying to find his way out. It would have been powerful if the narrator brought mention at the end that he regretted being so obtuse with his wording and letters towards Esther and how he lacked communication during his life and now it would be too late to go back and change it now he was gone.
The reading of the letters could have been meaning to show Esther now looking back on the letters the narrator had sent her to remember him yet being confused by his obtuse ways making it harder to remember him. Now, because the narrator was so obtuse, that he would be forgotten forever in death as he didn't openly explain his thoughts and opinions towards the people he loved in life. This could have also been shown in the environments of how he was so alone and usually huddled in caves to show how isolated he was from the world with only the ghosts of his past memories wandering in the distance.
This could have been a powerful moment whilst the narrator walked near the tower and climbed the ladder as he explains all these points in a very direct way, in contrast to the obtuse ways of before showing how he now wants people to understand what he says. Then it would have ended with him falling off and dying which could end the game as it shows that nothing more happens when you die.
This could have made the experience of Dear Esther more interesting in retrospect as we see a person who tried to cloak his feelings in too many words as he makes the most simple things so complex and that the simpler words and explanations in life are more important in every way. This could have been a more interesting turnout for the game, and possibly make less of a weak attempt at a foggy experiment and more of a great moral message to give people.
But if that was what the original intention of the game, then it failed in its current state to make it apparent to the reader.
I loved journey. I played it at a friends house to the end, and despite being next to someone and joking and kidding with them, I felt genuine emotion, and had great memories and remember every second of the game. I would have finished the game, if it weren't for the fact that I clipped through the cave walls in the game's finale. Despite this, I greatly enjoyed journey, and most importantly, I had fun. I had fun with an art game.
Great thoughts on the games. A really interesting way of comparing the two games, too. I played Journey and loved it. Played the old Dear Esther mod way-back-when, and found it gave me nothing, just as you described.
Perhaps the problem is that Dear Esther, having been set in a relatively real world, and with so much "information" thrown at you--the diagrams, the symbols, the letters--it actually _communicates_ so little. Whereas Journey, set in a relatively unreal world, with the odd set of pictorial images, communicates so much through them. Okay, there's not really that much communicated by Journey, as a lot of it is still left to the guesses and imagination of the player, but what is there gives you concrete clues to go on. Dear Esther, on the other hand, effectively bombards you with gobbledigook with nothing whatsoever substantial at the heart of it.
All your reviews are brilliant! They both support and challenge my opinion in a way that tickles my fancy endlessly.
This is by far the best I've seen from you. You should do all of your videos like that. This is about half an hour shorter than your other videos, yet it's not less "in depth" than your other "reviews". It just doesn't have all that unnecessary filler. Well done.
really great video, im surprised i never saw it before, since Journey is a game that even today i treasure among my top favorite games, if not the top. It felt honestly like going through a journey with all the emotions that could possibly imply.
What im most glad for though is that i waited for almost a year to be back home and be able to buy and play it without watching any videos or reading any spoilers. This is honestly a game you have to experience, and damn im glad i did.
Dear Esther is all you have to avoid while producing a videogame, after all, interactivity is the point of the medium isn't it?
It is obvious that it had no rational thought behind it, and was meant to be a pretentious art-piece that tries to be deep and meaningful, or better said, tries to LOOK deep and meaningful, and ends up offering nothing to the player but good visuals. It doesn't take advantage of the videogame medium in any way. Nothing bothers me more than this falseness, so exploited lately by indie games, that way of hiding bad gameplay and lack of ideas under the "it's an experiment" excuse.
The good thing is that, in the end, only one of those two games will be remembered.
While I think that interactivity is a defining trait of the medium, I don't think that means that games should be discouraged from commentating on the nature of interaction in an art medium and what it means to be interactive. I think Metal Gear Solid, The Stanely Parable and certain other first person walkers like Dear Ester attempt this with carrying degrees of success. But Dear Ester is still a shitty game and is an outright failure though.
***** MGS "Combines" game play sections with cinematic scenes, it has nothing to do with Dear Esther, which has no interactivity at all.
Actually MGS is one of the most interactive games out there, talking about the game play sections, its crazy the amount of different mechanics you can experiment with. Years after years of playing the same game yet not having done everything. Very "sandboxy".
It uses the cut-scenes to push forward the story (along with the codec convos) and engage the player with snake and its motives.
Although I think the best way to produce in this medium is through making the player "play" the story, rather than tell it to him (Half-Life Style, or Deus ex-scy) Metal Gear archives a nice balance between game play and movie-like moments. Of course that depends on the title, "MGS3:Snake" Eater is the perfect mix of the formula. One if not my favourite game of all time.
Sadly, I think Dear Esther will always stick around in my memory, mainly because of how disappointed I was when I finished the game. I was left thinking "that's it"? at the end, and that's a feeling I don't think I'll forget.
I actually stopped watching at the spoiler warning at the start and basically waited years for Journey to come to PC. I'm really glad I did.
10 years later. I still remember Journey and it still looks good. I forgot Dear Esther existed by 2013.
Woah the art style of Journey looks amazing.
What a fascinating contrast between your review of Journey and ManyATrueNerd's review of Journey.
Sucks he went in terribly cynical about it and ruined his experience.
In a way, they're reviewing two completely different games. I know it sounds odd because obviously they are the exact same game but what separates Jon's experience and Matthew's experience is their individual preconceived notions of the game.
Matthew did not go into the game with any preconception of what the game was about or picked it up because it had a lot of praise. In fact, the people behind didn't even know it was going to blow up like it did. That's because the game was so new, so no reviews were made for the game thus nobody had any idea what it was going to be like until the played it themselves. That's what Journey's greatest strength is - the unknown and trying to make sense of this world with no narrative by deciphering the images.
In Jon's case, he went in with such a incredulously impossible expectation for Journey's port to PS4 that the marketing presented. Jon's impressions that did not meet those expectations, which is completely reasonable. Jon was expecting an experience that would transcend the expectations given to him and the game simply did not meet those expectations.
It's like watching a trailer that reveals a twist in the movie. For instance, what if the trailer for Star Wars revealed that Vader was Luke's father? That trailer is going to be everywhere and everyone who sees the trailer will be spoiled of that twist. Now that you know what the twist is, the plot of the movie becomes more and more predictable is it is building up to this major twist.
In Journey's case, the marketing highlighted reviews that praised the game by stating it as a "life changing experience", so that's what Jon was waiting for... but this "life changing experience" never happened! On top of this, Jon simply wasn't as focused on the game as Matthew was. Jon is a "Let's Player" and any new game he plays he basically has to be entertaining while giving a review and first impression playing at the same time. This means Jon has to focus more so on the gameplay - which he considers the very simple puzzles to be a poor design which don't require a lot of thought - and less so on the atmosphere of the game which requires full attention, because other wise you'll get lost and lose your sense of purpose in the game.
That's what Journey's intention is - to make you think through as little words and direction as possible - and Matthew absolutely loves that about Journey because Matthew didn't need to give a review at the same he played it and devised his full attention to the game. In Jon's case, he absolutely hated it because he had to give a review at the same time and tried to find ways to be entertaining at the same time and often lost focus or missed how the mechanics of the game work. Besides, Journey is not the type of game to give a hands on experience about, as Jon covered in the video he made in response to all the negative feedback.
On my playthrough of Journey I lost my partner aswell, in the sunken city area before the giant flying "whales". I remember him/her sitting and after a bit banishing, and me just looking around the area trying to find him/her again. Was also the only companion i found, which made it all the more heartbreaking and memorable, its amazing the feelings that ran through me on that moment , the things this game made me feel--- well personally i think no other game has ever made feel so much.
What you said at 7:54 was the exact effect Journey had on me. I still tear up just thinking about the game.
(And that shot at 8:44 brought those tears back, not to mention that longer bit about Journey after 15:10 which almost had me crying)
Another fantastic video matt, I wish you I could share your videos with everyone I know.
Hey man, I liked this video a lot more than some of your others, because you just said how you felt, instead of trying to get attention of and disprove others.
also original Dear Esther didn't have the issue with the cliff writing. Entire passage was visible from the beach
"Esther has too many fucking words!" you caught me off guard lol
Leaving a comment on am old video feels pointless but here we are. I loved Dear Esther and found it had a big impact on myself and what I look for in games. Having said that it's a terrible game but an amazingly atmospheric experience. The feeling of loneliness and desolation while exploring the frigid environment is only surpassed by the perfect soundtrack. I love Dear Esther for how it makes me feel but that feeling is the only thing I took away from the experience.
I played Journey when it came out a decade ago and I sat through Dear Esther yesterday. It's telling that I can remember the former perfectly but I can't remember anything from the latter aside from a few neat visuals.
You my friend, are absolutely brilliant! Don't stop making videos!
That's a relief. I was worried I missed something with Dear Esther. Most of my experience with that game was drowning repeatedly while trying to find ANYTHING to interact with.
please make more videos. your reviews are very well thought out and sound intelligent.
if i was asked to choose a game for someone to play,who had never played a computer game before,it would be journey.
just a stunning piece of work :-)
Love listening to you talk, whether about this or legend of zelda. Great insights at 15:36. Kepp it up!
thank you egoraptor for tipping me off to this guy! these videos really make you think.
Do you think you'll ever do a video on the kind of interactive stories that Telltale Games do? Either about those kinds of game in general, or about a particular series(specifically, The Walking Dead).
"That being said, Dear Ester has too many fuckin' words." Just like that I'm on the ground laughing
You've introduced me to my new favorite video game (Journey). Thanks!
Ironic, that I've only recently been able to play Journey for the first time. It's still wonderful, eight years later.
I loved Dear Esther as I like artsy fartsy stuff so unlike many people I didn't either think it was pretentious or didn't mind. So at the beginning of this video I got sad since I loved it and saw you didn't, but in the end I agree with nearly all your points on both.
If I had a PS3, I'd definitely want to play Journey now.
Which is why it's a polarising thing, and it's intent is very different to Journey despite similarities in how both are about minimalist interactivity, little mechanical complexity, and overarching goal. Either way it's interesting criticism of Dear Esther, and have you say your review videos are damn, damn excellent.
I'm surprised that not that many people noticed that the scarf thing was an energy bar. I thought it was pretty noticeable. It's cool that they put that in with the intentions of it being kinda hidden and camouflaged.
to be honest i had completely forgotten about dear esther. and it would seem i should be glad i did. i do remember there was a lot of comparison between journey and dear esther, but almost everyone agreed journey was flat out better then dear esther. please continue making these high quality videos i enjoy them a lot. ( even though you were a bit late to the discussion :) )
I thought the fact that Dear Esther was obtuse and didn't make sense on first playthrough is what made the game so great. I liked that I had to look up stuff in Dear Esther and think about what was being said to piece together an interpretation of what was happening. I think the slow pacing helped it because it helped provide emphasis on this issue, though I agree that it got annoying at times during subsequent playthroughs. I didn't think about the gameplay as much as I did about the story.
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"That said, Dear Esther has far too many fuckin words." Thank you for that. I had no idea about the existance of these two games. I'm an exclusive Nintendo fan myself, but I will CERTAINLY be recommending Journey for any PS3 owning friends.
I fucking love the sand physics in journey
"You don't learn anything by creating something which doesn't work...and then stubbornly trying to insist it does."
There are several game publishers and developers need to have this quote framed and mailed to them...then riveted to their desks.
Your shortest video is also by far your most insightful and deep. You should really execute the rest of your videos in a similar manner. There's no need to run the player through every facet of the game. This one was hugely entertaining and thought provoking without any needless filler to pad it out. Kudos.
wonderfully thorough video, as always. If you don't mind me asking, why do you dislike mediums that attempt to be multi cultural? That comment interested me
I actually really enjoyed Dear Esther and was a bit amazed by it. But I hadnt slept for 24 hours and had a few beers in me, so not sure how accurate my view is, but I remeber sitting there at 5am playing through Dear Esther just staring at the bright colours in the cave.
+Ze Germanz Same. While everything matthew says here is true, some people like myself are REALLY good at "filling in the gaps", adding value to something that might not have any value whatsoever. I did however think the visuals had value, and that was enough to make the experience meaningful for me, as a visually driven person. The music was also pretty nice. It's these secondary things that can make up for an otherwise dry concept, depending on how gullible and open minded the player is.
Good review man! I loved Journey so much!
holy shit a new video I LOVE YOU
fantastic summarisation of both games.
I understand your distain with Dear Esther, and I haven't played Bastion, but Sword & Sworcery was one of the best games I played last year, along with Journey. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but makes me think throughout. I am a huge fan of Point and Click Adventure games, and I understand not everyone is, so it might not be great for some people. Artistically it is great as well, and I cannot wait for the next game from Superbrothers.
Journey is co developed by sony so its pretty safe to say that it wont ever be on another console. If you like these artistic type of games a PS3 is your best gaming option right now, since sony is investing a lot in these original ideas. Check out these two games, "the unfinished swan", and "Rain"
I enjoyed listening to your insightful analysis of each game and the connective aspects of their events. You've made exceptional criticism of Dear Esther, particularly where the overly long narrative is concerned. I will decidedly stay away from Dear Esther, and purchase and relish my experience with Journey.
*I think it comes from not realizing that when playing a game, you don't need to be the actual character, but inhabit them as much as possible to feel like you have done and made the certain decisions that they themselves have made, in order to gain a better understanding of what he/she has went through.*
*Journey felt like a short but nevertheless great 'Journey' as you powered through with great focus and determination to reach your goal, the mountain in the distance.*
*Dear Esther, however, felt like you were reading some overly depressed guys journal, which had no connection with your own life, nor anything to even bring you into his situation 'in game.'*
*It seems they felt compelled to remove any interaction that wasn't of their own choice, so much so that you couldn't even control whether or not you turned the torth on/off. WHY! Why do this?!*
Journey is poetry transformed! Just heart touching!
2019
Dear Esther looks bad.
Journey looks perfect just like the first time I played it, many years ago.
You were right about it :)
i think dear esther still looks good
I really regret not playing Journey when it came out. Seeing as its meant to be cooperative, are people still playing this?
Really? :'D
Yeah i'm on PS3 and i'll usually see at least 2-3 people on a playthrough. It's a short game but has a lot of replay value so theres always a few people floating about.
i played it for the first time a week ago and i met 4 other players
When you said "It just felt like a bunch of discoherent stuff thrown onto an island in the hopes that will look meanigful and artistic" I was sure you were going to make a LOST reference! :)
Matthew is a non-wafty Errant Signal, also he doesn't just store a thesaurus with him to sound more intelligent. In other-words Matthew is naturally intelligent and doesn't pretend to be some super smart ass. Thus Matthew is better.