same LMAO after hearing woolie talk about it on the podcast I realized it's fun to listen to him dunk on its moral quandaries, even if I don't get the context.
I’m glad Everhood exists, because it’s an approach to Undertale’s query (“When you have the power to hurt, what’s the line between it being right/wrong to use it on others?”) that basically counters with (“Well, what if there was a situation where hurting others was the only right action?”). It’s a moral and narrative discussion that has endless potential. But it’s so desperate to justify its argument that it loses itself in its own enormous, hyper-specific context. Rather than setting up a moral dilemma, it gives you only one option while saying ‘no actually trust me this makes sense, this is the right choice’. And the worst part is that it hypes itself up so much as this grand parable, when the success of Undertale hinged on its humility as short, simple game that left many things up to interpretation. Everhood almost feels like a parody rather than a homage to Undertale at this point.
"“Well, what if there was a situation where hurting others was the only right action?”" In all honesty I do not think the devs of Everhood actually meant to comment on anything in the literal/surface level interpretation of the game itself, in my eyes it's more window dressing to the subtext. Undertale was very literal in it's commentary on player choice, I do not think the same mindset allows for a complete reading of Everhood in that I really do not think the game is about "killing" in a literal sense and more about it on a metaphorical level. Kind of like how the Death tarot card does not literally mean death. If anything, I think the Everhood is more a response to Flowey telling you not to replay the game, in that Flowey implies that they are still in some way alive, and Everhood asks "well, wait, aren't we kind of 'killing' these characters when we end the game?". "what if killing good?" doesn't come off as a strong argument because I don't think that's at all what the game wanted anyone to take away from it. I guess what I more mean is, it's not desperate if taken from a metaphorical sense, because the idea that things have endings, that relationships, experiences, stories, etc. are all finite and will someday end is not an argument to be had, it's a fact of life. In that sense "memento mori" would have probably been a better subtitle for the game. There's also a good deal of Buddhist philosophy that inspired the game but as I have never dived into it myself I do not feel qualified to comment on it much in my own reading of the game.
Except Undertale already answered that query with its "final boss" (Humor me) where you only have two options, Fight or Die, the game literally takes your peace prompt and smashes it. I like to think of it as the games final lesson in a series of lessons in resolving conflict. Protest, Patience, Escape, Appeal, and when all else fails, Self Defense, but within reason.
Yeah say what you want about Undertale and it's fandom, but the actual game really takes the piss out of itself and is presented like a Saturday morning cartoon. A lot of the lore and "deep" stuff is either hidden or exaggerated by external forces.
@@sasaki999pro except that is not correct, the option that Undertale gives you is Kill or not Kill, is actually all over the trailers, and it will reward you accordingly, and more importantly doesn't get preachy about it, except to mock you.
I can't get behind this game, the whole "No it's fine to kill these people that don't want to be killed. You know better, they'll thank you for it." is far too sociopathic for my taste.
Couple of thoughts- - Everyone trying to kill you with the music battles makes sense when they're fighting for their lives but is kind of weird for otherwise friendly characters in the first half. "What are you doing, you MURDERER?!" - Previously killed Red over a diploma. -Kind of wish there was more of a focus on the memory loss aspect of immortality like with Blue, like after the "pacifist" ending I feel like they could have looped back to the beginning of the game to really impress that, yes, they're stuck there, they and the world have been degrading for thousands of years, losing their sense of self and the only lucid people are trapped as spirits who can only watch shit get worse. Make it a faster trek to the castle the second time round but a cycle is a cycle and the player would probably feel more inclined to start blastin'. -I think part of why it's hard to kill off everyone is (by the games story) practically anyone who wanted to die already took a trip to the incinerator. A chunk of the characters left are powerful mages who are quite happy being King of Shit Mountain and live comfortably, so it's difficult to see that they're suffering when a bunch of people left were always at the top. -It feels like you spend more time saying goodbye to the characters than getting to know them. There's so many final battles! The songs are great but Is This Truly The End? (its not)x3 gets tiring. Anyway music is great, fun characters I wish had more depth, should have dropped the Undertale meta stuff.
yeah the biggest thing for me is that it's not clear that everyone is actually suffering. It's hard to make a story where killing people is supposed to be the "good" option when you have those people actively fighting you for their life because they don't want to die.
This game is absolutely addicted to "final sendoff" anime moments, but it forgets that to have a final sendoff you have to have character development for the rest of the game first.
The meta element REALLY undermines the message. As Woolie kept putting it: "The Game is telling me to do this awful thing so I guess I have to do it." [Does awful thing.] "Game: "HOW DARE YOU DO AWFUL THING. but not really lmao that was a right choice, see? We're justifying it after the fact." Woolie nails that the game absolutely skips a step by not showing us the journey for how they arrived at this situation where murdering them is a mercy. If the game gave a genuine conclusion to the "leave the Everhood universe in it's present state" and simply drew the logical conclusion from that player choice, I'd understand a little better but the game literally enforces "this is not the intended path." I believe he also used this example on the podcast but Imagine the Nier games without the multiple playthroughs allowing the camera shifting focus to add additional layers of context and tragedy to what were previous clear-cut "murder the baddie" proceedings. You still have to take the time to guiding us through the moral dilemma and what options are available to convince us to act of our own volition to murder. Undertale inversely SCREAMS at you to stop your genocide route. Toby Fox does not like that it is even referred to as a "route" because that wasn't the intention. "Genocide Route" doesn't exist because he decided it should, rather it is simply the logical outcome on the flowchart when you give the player total agency over the life and death of every character in that universe and wrote an outcome that necessitates a meta-narrative that involves the player directly because it is OUR choice, not Frisk's. You have to personally choose at every step of the way to remain on that path out of a compulsion to see what happens if you do.
@@GabeSweetMan I agree with most points. I think another thing the game miss is that they only refer to you in passing as "The Reaper". It would had also been nice to have a fleshing out of why the role of the Grim Reaper is important. The journey of being the Grim Reaper or acceptance thereof the job. This would have helped the story more if the framing made it so that you are handed the role and everyone agreed it was. It just seems off that the game tells you in passing that YOU wanted it, instead of it being a non-desirable but necessary job. It just skips a lot of the road towards and feels like a "the end justifies the means" kinda thing.
Everhood serves as one of those specific, hypothetical morality questions. The question being; If you're the only one in the world of immortals to kill immortals, what do you do? Along with the fact that, for those who wish to die to move on, EVERYONE needs to die. It's an all or nothing situation. Those who are killed/killed themselves with the Incinerator while the world still exists turn into Lost Spirits. This then brings up the question of "Who matters more?" The immortal who wishes to die now, or the immortal who is happy being alive in the moment, but over infinite time may too reach that same point. What do you do then? Do you make those who want to die continue suffering until EVERYONE is on the same page, or do you make the decision for the people who aren't ready yet so that those who are can move on? In a way then making the decision for people who don't want to die yet makes sense in this context. And overall it IS meant to feel bad, because time and time again it's said that it's a hard, unthinkable, necessary evil. I still wholeheartedly agree with the idea that the world should progress to a different state if they choose the pacifist ending. I think it'd serve the narrative better, especially if those who wished to die already became more bitter towards you that you abandoned them at all. How their opinions matter just as much as the ones who wanted to live, and how time mulling over the idea can change those who were initially resistant to it. I do think the game was too concerned with it's own ambiguity at that point. You should be given more upfront confirmation after you receive that pacifist ending. Something like 'Do you believe in reincarnation? What do you think the next lives of these people will be?' Better sowing the idea that what you're doing is an escape from a prison by better illustrating it's Buddhist themes. I do believe there should've been a middle ending. Killing only those who ask, and after you do, you're allowed an ending, but can still return to the game world after it like in the pacifist ending. From there, the people who are still around can be explored more in their reasonings for wanting to keep going, or their reasonings for changing their minds. The immortal aspect of it all muddies the 'I have to choose for you' side of things because at what point is it too much waiting? What if you aren't immortal, what if you are and even lose yourself to the timeless void of immortality, which I believe is part of what Pink represents. If you apply this logic to the real world, that's where it falls apart. Because death is an eventuality for everyone, and no one needs to decide for you. That's why it's a hypothetical moral question. Just as how Undertale's (and I'd rather not compare but everyone else does already) message that PURE pacifism is the correct thing to do, no matter how much your life is in danger or how much evil someone has done, is the right thing to do. Refusing to defend yourself and forgiving mass murderers isn't something that works with real world logic, and so it can only apply to Undertale's logic. Just as Everhood's logic of choosing death for someone only works for Everhood because of how it's world works. In the end, I think 'Don't fear death' is the true message that can apply to life. 'Choosing for others' isn't, but the game could've said that itself. The omnipotent beings speaking to the player could've said 'What you experience here is unique, and not everything said should be taken as fact.' Which is perhaps what the 'Absolute Truths' were meant to convey, but they're too vague. So I understand Woolie's viewpoint, and those who feel the same. I simply say all this as a rebuttal to those who think the story is 100% lazy or exists only to go 'LOOK WE'RE NOT LIKE UNDERTALE' when that very clearly NOT what it's trying to do. And I say all this as someone who does generally believe the death is the end. That it's likely nothing but nothingness, a state of being that cannot be comprehended because there is nothing to think about, to feel, to even dream about. It honestly does still scare me, but I still appreciate the hope the game tries to provide.
"Just as how Undertale's (and I'd rather not compare but everyone else does already) message that PURE pacifism is the correct thing to do, no matter how much your life is in danger or how much evil someone has done, is the right thing to do. Refusing to defend yourself and forgiving mass murderers isn't something that works with real world logic, and so it can only apply to Undertale's logic." While I agree with you I do want to point out that self defense is a viable way of playing pacifist in undertale, it just isn't presented as an obvious option. Monster names will become yellow at about 20% life, so beating the shit out of them but refusing to kill them nets you the exact same outcome as befriending them through acts. Through this, pacifism in undertale is contextualized less about religiously abstaining from violence and more about showing self restraint. You're told countless times that even the strongest monster will get bodied by even the weakest human, hence why both sparing and running are contained within the "mercy" menu; you're showing mercy to a creature you could easily kill.
The fact that the game doesn't even consider the pacifist rout an ending really helps Woolie's case. Beating Frog does not count as an ending for unlocking replay battles. The games is telling you that this is not where the game is supposed to end.
Its unsatisfying but maybe isn’t that, deliberately, the point? If you refuse to follow through, the game is left endlessly open unless you decide to keep playing and end things. It’s a pain and you want closure for the game, which echoes the main theme, so im assuming thats very intentional
The end of the Pacifist Route is at the end of Green's tunnel, though. Woolie had that option open and chose violence for the sake of content. Honestly, he did the right thing.
This game ends like it's the finale to Undertale 3. Probably the biggest thing I bounce off of with Everhood, besides the questionable morality and philosophy, is how the finale acts like an 11 out of 10 when my investment with the characters was only about a 5. They're missing a lot of that depth that made Undertale's main cast so likable, and what made killing them on Genocide so emotionally damaging. That said, I think the game is a really interesting experience, and that the music and atmosphere of the battles absolutely do approach Undertale's level.
I did enjoy the game overall, but yeah, this is honestly the part of the game that grated on me the most. I thought Rasta Beast was kinda cool and really enjoyed Green, but even those two I don't feel like I got enough of. The game is doing a "look, all your best friends are seeing you off!" and I'm just like 'eh I guess I know these people'. That and the game has entirely too many 'okay but for real THIS is the final battle' fakeouts. Like the game is good, but it's a bit big for its britches at the end here, like the devs could just **SEE** the fan animations of these last fights being made already before the game was even finished.
@@UltimateCarl Both you and OP hit the nail in the head so hard it breaks: conceptually, this is pretty much the Hello Neighbor to Undertale's FNAF. It's the "Hey guys look at all these *cool* bossfights with 2014 "nerdy EDM" in the background! Wouldn't it be cool to make some *badass* fanimations of them? Gaster is in them! It's just like one of those AUs! It's *subversive!* Anyone? G-guys...?"
Congrats to Everhood for being probably the first piece of media to have both an "everybody dies" ending followed by an animated kids movie style dance party
I'm so glad I came across you guys. The conversation from 22:08 is so good, you managed to articulate perfectly the problem that I felt conflicted about, but couldn't pinpoint. The game does not really give you a good enough justification why immortality is bad for EVERYONE, even for those who seem to be happy living in Everhood. It looked more like Frog and other Lost Souls being selfish - they couldn't move on to afterlife until Everhood was emptied, so they set you up to the task
"Good job you gave everyone their well deserved rest by killing them all!" "Now let's spend eternity on some undescribed afterlife, which for some reason is entirely better and not suffering from the same existential issues that immortality would bring!"
You two really hit the nail on the head with that discussion. I myself like Everhood more than most but I really appreciate you two being so direct and upfront about your issues with it.
@@Foogi9000 That's the nice thing though isn't it? Liking a piece of media and acknowledging it as critically "good" are two different emotional experiences. I think allowing yourself to like a piece of media without shying away from its shortcomings is very mature, and people should be willing to understand and respect the distinction.
@@ethanotoroculus1060 Exactly, don't get me wrong Undertale is great but the combat is honestly kinda bad in my subjective and biased opinion. Undertale has a better story and characters but the gameplay and music for Everhood is in a league of it's own. I also just prefer the psychedelic visuals Everhood uses. I'm very thankful that i'm not epileptic as the image sensitive mode while i understand the necessity of it, i feel like bosses like the shopkeeper don't hit as hard visually with it turned on.
@@Foogi9000 I definitely agree there's a lot more aesthetic appeal to Everhood, like for sure. UT had a handful of atmospheric moments but they were few and far between and did not contribute to a particularly consistent style despite feeling somewhat grounded at times.
I feel like the fact that everyone is relieved and happy is an attempt of giving the players some aftercare after a rough SM session. Theres some foreshadowing here and there but I think if they added in a bit more here and there, like Frog showing up occasionally to tell you to keep your chin up, the pill might have been easier to swallow. I guess the doors serve that purpose but....i dont think it was as effective.
Imo, this game should have been about convincing people to not fear death and embrace it, rather than actively fighting people. OR at least it should have been a thing where like "Oh I don't want to fight you because I don't want to die" and you have to convince them to fight you. That way they could have explored different aspects of the theme through those characters as each quest about them would be about things like finally getting around to tying up loose ends or absolving fears and such.
It's perhaps the most clumsily delivered parable on reincarnation I've ever seen. The game seems pretty straightforward in condemning all the murder as evil, albeit a necessary one in the light of there's being some 30 people left chilling for aeons while an indeterminate number of others are bogged up in the waiting room. It's just...they don't communicate that at all until *after* you've killed everybody. And the road there is played about as straight as can be in the nobody wants to get merced sense. And there are NG+ endings that add more to it (albeit not that much more, I think). Game needed a more vocal spirit council, or Frog giving you something more solid than "just trust me bro and if you don't I'll hit you with my sick metal", or characters being more visibly *done* as opposed to somewhat bored. All sorts of little plot elements that could've been moved outside of the denouement. Still a good game, overall. But firmly in the bucket of "Except...".
To be fair, and I didn't watch this playthrough as I've had midterms, there are several notes and characters who say they've been around for way too long and don't know they wish for death
Agreed. I understand where Woolie is coming from but in this case with this game's story is u have 2 groups. One group of people who want to die (A) and move on but can't because the other group (B) wants to keep living. Basically the group A is being held hostage and is being forced into their own personal hell thanks to group B. There is no compromise here because group A can NOT move on until everyone is dead. That's the part that I don't think Woolie gets. Killing ONLY the ones who wish to die doesn't work, they're still trapped in Everhood only now without a body. No compromise. Either they all die or not. I suppose the player could have put it to a vote, but your still going to have a group of people passed no matter which option is chosen. Not that the game explains this well in the beginning. Probably should have layed it out more a little sooner.
The mirror scene doesnt sound like Pink talking to themselves, or even Red. It sounds like Pink is talking directly to YOU, the player. Once you leave the game, Pink is left to deal with the consequences of the actions you took puppeteering Red. It's absolutely Pink passing the blame onto you, but part of the commentary this game is TRYING (I dont know about succeeding...) to make is that "You can stop at any time. You can walk away. You can leave this world and its inhabitants behind and let it all be." But that's my take.
I agree the game has a lot of subtle storytelling going on that woolie either forgot or disregarded when it came to the analysis but I can understand scary language can taint your viewpoint on the subject. So many games expect you to genocide characters with almost no observation being made to that is what you are doing i.e. any fromsoft title or sifu both of which woolie has played
Just gonna throw it out there. As a passive watcher who wasn't paying 100% attention at all times, the vibe that comes across to me is that the game isn't about death as death; it's about death as a metaphor for change. It comes across to me very much as the human resistance to, and fear of, change; the inherent behavioral tendency to find a "safe cave" and just stay there no matter what, no matter how stagnant or self-destructive that "safe cave" existence is for them. And in that context, to me, it's not that "killing people is good", but more that "change is inevitable and you can't escape it, and the best results can only happen if you embrace it."
@@mrkraz Hey, sometimes certain things just hit us in certain ways and we have deep emotional responses to our perceptions and interpretations of those things. And also, when you have a barrage of people telling you you shouldn't think what you think or whatever, like I expect Woolie and Reggie get on a constant basis, the mental reaction is not to submit and conform but rather to double down and entrench. Human brains are weird and fascinating things. 😆
Until today I didn't even know I could get tired of "big epic true final boss who shows up after you think it's all over" but this game has somehow done that three times in a row now and it's getting old.
I've said this before, but I think it's really important to note that if you want to really 'get' what Everhood is trying to say, you have to understand that a lot of its philosophy and ideology is heavily rooted in Buddhism - Siddhartha himself showing up just drives that point home. Under that religious framework, life ISN'T meant to last forever - life, death, and rebirth are a constant cycle called Samsara; and it's viewed as a cycle based in pain, suffering and dissatisfaction. The end goal is to gain virtue and wisdom across your reincarnations and build Karma, moving your soul closer and closer to Enlightenment, a state where you realise and accept the Four Noble Truths (which are very similar to Everhood's absolute truths). Once that happens, you're able to break free of Samsara and further existence and suffering of your soul ends in non-existence. If we look at Everhood in a Buddhist context, then it begins to all make a lot more sense - without physical death, your soul cannot move on from Samsara. The characters are intentionally locking yourself into an eternity of suffering. The Human takes the role of Boddhisattval, an enlightened being that has delayed their entry into Nirvana in order to help others also attain enlightenment. Whether you agree with the principles of the game is one thing - but I think it's important to understanding Everhood to understand the ideological frameworks it's based upon. It's not just pissshit edgy "Immortality is a curse" cliches, it's based in the fundamentals of a major world religion.
@@pausebreakreviews I get that the game is based on Buddhism, but why does it force you to murder others? Did the message really need that part? It even goes out of its way to do what can only be intentional creepy shit, like the lost souls, and the red text, or creepy music slowdown (some of which is a shout out to UT but it doesn't help if the good thing that needs to happen is given a creepy fucked up airboat it).
Yeah I had the same reading that you did, just wish there was a little more questioning or ambivalence on whether or not it's morally correct. I'd be more alright with it if the game just outright ended without saying "YOU DID GOOD". Overall rad game though.
The game repeatedly said the killing is horrible and bad. The reason that it ends up "good" has more to do with the lore of the game. To sum that up, they all have lived for billions of years, are literally the only life left on a dying universe and no souls can move on nor a new universe can be made. Countless lives were tortured for eons by characters in the game due to immortality and the resulting stagnation that lead to more extreme ways to stimulate oneself. Y'know, just casually inflicting pain during your eternity just to feel alive The game can be a bit too subtle perhaps with it's story but the gist is there as long as you pay attention and explore a bit. I personally thought the killings, while bad, were a necessary evil given the context.
@@SomeDumbSpider The issue comes from the super fucked up justification. They don't want to die. You can tell me they actually wanted to after the fact, but they told you they wanted to live. At that point it's evil to kill them. There's also the fact the game revels in "You're such a bad person, you murderer! But you have to, though!" Undertake works because the core premise is "It's kind of fucked up that given the choice to attack, you'll slaughter everything you see without considering other options. These are goofy little cartoons!" Which works perfectly, because it plays with conventions of the genre and morality, and it mainly shits on you for being evil when you go out of your way to be a mass murdering asshole. There may be a game about genocide actually being morally correct that can do it well. I doubt it, but it may be out there. But this really isn't it. I wouldn't say it's subtle, because it hits you over the head with its message over and over. The problem is that the message is supremely fucked up and only works because the game tells you it was all for the best after the fact in a Buddha asspull. Which, by the way, is not how Buddhism works.
@@patrioticshitstain The justification isn't that complicated, furthermore, the game never tells you that you're a bad person for doing it. OTHERS, are doing that. It's a similar complain I've heard about Undertale that you mentioned and compare to, that Undertale "Guilt trips you" when doing a non-genocide run. You have to keep in mind there's a difference between what the game and those who push for a certain goal out of necessity say, and what characters say from their perspective. Frog, the Universe entity both encouraged you and never called you a murderer nor heartless, instead they sympathized with the difficulty of having to act as the reaper in a world of immortals clogging up the system and preventing rebirth. I am still unsure why the idea of the degradation of soul and mind is that difficult to understand, especially when the game outright tells you that many of the characters you see in the game have tortured others for thousands of years for their own amusement. No one is innocent and are preventing countless souls from being reborn. We're talking a whole Universe that needs to die and start over, but can't because 20 or so chucklefucks are left and even THEY aren't happy, hence the dialogue in the reconciliation phase. They have lived for virtually an eternity, tortured people for an eternity and their minds, as you very obviously can see, aren't exactly healthy. They're goofy, yes, but they're goofy *because* they're broken. Every person in the game is a former, regular human, this is outright explained in the game. The game has clearly explained both, that the characters have lived for so long that they even resorted to torturing just to feel a thrill. The ghosts themselves explained they cannot move on, I don't know how much more the game needs to spell out that it's necessary from a philosophical and moral standpoint. I think a problem is that people seem to assume that decisions are and should be black and white. That there's a objectively "Good" decision and a "Bad" decision The honest truth is, often you need to do something bad, because it's what the truly good choice is. Sometimes what appears to be the good choice is the bad, evil choice, because you do it for your own peace of mind and to avoid consequences.
50:25 isn't red supposed to be the player insert? pink gets to feel a less gulity becuse the task of killing is in the player's hands. Thus brealking the 4th wall and puts on red's( player )head band allowing you to take control of the character( pink) to finish the task that could not be done. thus saying it's you who are killing.
I really loved this game, the gameplay and music is so incredible but I do agree with Woolie and the people in the comment section about the story and ending. There was a comment that summed it up nicely that basically said 'you can see how much love and care the devs put into the game with how much they put into the ending' That got me thinking on how this was maybe more emotional for the devs than it was for the players and why they kept doing the 'one more thing' bit, they did spent around 3 years on this game so they were likely very attached to it. But we never really got to spend anytime with these characters outside fighting them. With Undertale's main characters you spend like 1+ hour(s) getting to know a character and get like a 5 minute fight with them but with Everhood you spend 15+ minutes fighting them and get 5 minutes or less getting to know them and then are told to go kill them right in what feels like act 2. I liked Everhood's characters and agree on how it would have been better to see the consequences of being immortal rather than just being told so the game would've definitely benefited from being longer and expanding on the world and characters and showing why they felt ending the world was justified but that probably would've taken way too long for the devs to double the game's length. It would be great to see something like a prequel to Everhood in the future for this reason but that is entirely up to whatever they want to do but I would be so damn ready to inject more gnome beats directly into my cerebral cortex
This is why i really love this game. Im a sucker for pretty pixels and kickass music, from a gameplay standpoint. but on a personal one, i've had several times in my life when i had an existential crisis over death and the though of mortality, the game did make me do a little reflectin. Now while i will absolutely vouch for this game 100%, i also agree whole heartedly with woolie. I get that insanity brought about by immortality is the reason given for brinin them to an end, but ONE PERSON SHOULD NOT HAVE THAT RESPONSIBILITY ALONE. that's not somethin i can get behind either. and I hate that it's kinda forced on you the way that it is. and i absolutely agree with the hypocrisy with pink resistin both the player and the abyss and that actually pissed me off too. the endin with buddah kinda softens it a bit, but not completely. also i don't like how it drags on a bit, but i didn't hate it due to the fact that i got to hear the music more.
Good talk on the game's theme and ending. I agree with almost all of what you mentioned. The only interesting question the game kinda hints at is people dying in Evrehood becomes gasters and have to wait until everyone else also dies. Is their suffering fair? Should other people be forced to give up their lifes for the gasters' sake? It's only briefly mentioned but could have lead to something better than what the game is. Some people say it's unfair to compare Everhood to Undertale, but the game is constantly begging to be compared. And to me it feels like it wants what Undertale did, but fast and easy. "Look at all these characters! They are your friends, be sad when they die!!" Nah... "Ooooh, our ending has so many twists" Okay, Columbo.. I'm happy I've watched you play it and I need to find the OST album right now, but man..... it's not a good game, is it? (Battle sequences aside, of course)
I don't know if I'd go that far. I guess it depends on what you good means, but I would agree with Reggie and say even if the second he of the story doesn't hold up well, the character's and diologue are all pretty fun, and ones like green and rasta are of a higher tier than the others as well. But that's maybe just me.
Seems to me that this story was written by a guy who has read some basic philosophy, took some LSD, and got really sanctimonious about it. Either that or he took some LSD and was inspired to read philosphy, and then got really sanctimonious about it.
Like I commented on a previous video or two, it has a good system. The music and battle system is well done. The character designs are neat and the world and setting is interesting. Even the lore even if it gets kind of bungled with it trying to be vague. It wants to be an Undertale contemporary so bad with it's own identity just it was to justify the morals of it's story. But I think the ones writing the story seemed to not really consider the nuances and what they were insinuating. I think the plot really needed another go-over to make it sound like it made sense. It wants to be Undertale but it feels like a parody of Undertale. It thinks it's being profound and grand it's going to be the next big indie hit alongside Omori but it kind of like. . bungles it? It's too proud of itself and there's a lot of things to be proud of in the game's design! But the fact it hides a lot of it's lore with secret endings and leaving things up to interpretation, and this hyper-specific situation that makes the player feel like the baddie and not in the profound way that it thinks it wants it to be. It doesn't give anything meaningful to choice despite it saying "killing is a choice!" and then you say "but I don't want to kill them" then shame you and it doesn't feel good at all. It takes control out of the player's hand when these kinds of games try to encourage that it's the player's choice throughout the way. Also just a tangent, but the story's flow didn't feel too natural. Some of the character dialogue felt a bit too stiff
Woolie's talk about never being morally justified in choosing when someone else gets to die is completely right in real life but doesn't work in Everhood. The game doesn't do a good enough job showing it, but no one is allowed to actually die until everyone is dead. No one can move on until everyone is moving on (that's the whole point of the Gaster lookalikes). It reminds me of COVID vaccines. Yeah, if the choice only affected you, then of course no one should tell you what to do. It doesn't concern them. But if the choice directly affects other people, things get more complex than the black and white "you can never tell someone else what to do with their life" that normally should apply. You can't use a blanket statement in that case. Rasta Beast choosing not to die would be perfectly fine if his choice wasn't holding everyone else in Everhood hostage in eternity.
This? This was what I was waiting for once I heard that they were gonna play everhood, even with the Manga being a pain of brain worms, because at the end of this game's core is at some point to be a discussion, (even with the reference in it's subtitle) and yes it fumbled along the way but goddamn was it an enjoyable experience. I hope Foreign Gnomes makes more games, and more folks check this out.
"....You can't have them go 'You decided for me but in the end it was the right decision for me, thank you for doing that." I think there is absolutely a story where this works, but yeah, a story about what is tantamount to the inevitability of death is not that story
I agree with pretty much everything Woolie was saying, but there are plenty of times where people just don't get the option of choosing when its their time to die. Even in a palliative care situation like he described, death comes swiftly and unfairly. This game definitely tries to make you see what it'd be like if death was a person with thoughts and feelings, though whether it succeeded or not is up for debate.
Writing that assumes you agree with it from the get-go is just so grating, man. No matter what the subject matter is, you can tell when a writer spent no time accounting for the fact that maybe everyone just doesn't think like this, and it won't hit the notes they want to hit as well as if they were reading the story themselves. It's just so superficial and condescending if you're not 100% into its aesthetic from the main menu. Game about the sky being blue that makes you feel like maybe you want to fight this really, *really* simple fact, just because of the way it's written. It even got in the way of me enjoying the music. I just fucking can't with Everhood.
Agree with what? The game and characters repeatedly tells you outright that the killing is bad. The necessity comes from the perspective of those that has lived for eons and other lore tidbits explained in game. Ever asked yourself why there's only like, a dozen or so characters at most of all humanity and even the universe?
@@nothingineternityterms Not that hard to create nameless NPCs you don't need to interact with. The game outright explains why only a few beings is still alive and no one else lol
There's no capacity for empathy ever discussed - zero recognition of anyone's essential agency. But the author grasps that it's important on some layer, so they gesture, poorly, at it.
A lot of people just glossing over the base premise that this story takes place in a world in which death has stopped functioning, and that does kind of radically alter the rest of the moral dilemma. Woolie harping on about "you don't get to decide when it's my time to go," but that time, in this instance, was a long time ago according to natural law, and the option has been taken off the table for anyone wanting to get off the ride for the sake, primarily, of powerful people who are no less miserable but are in denial about it and dragging everyone else down with them. It's also worth backing that up with just pointing out that, yes, they did illustrate the mental degradation immortality leads to in several characters, like Blue and most of the mages. It's also important to point out that the setup is an all or nothing situation, specifically so that you have to grapple with the pros and cons of each approach. It's weird seeing it compared to post hoc justification by a serial killer when there's this entire fantasy premise surrounding everything that adequately sets the stage for this normally immoral thing to be reframed as moral pretty handily. That, and Pink's hypocrisy is not the story's hypocrisy, it's actually just addressing the concerns anyone is bound to have about the story? Also the Dark Souls comparison is pretty laughable, because it's virtually the same situation in both instances, actually. One person deciding for the lot because there is an unnatural alteration to the system that is demonstrably causing undue suffering.
I really hope that people are able to discuss this in the right way. I've seen several let's plays of Everhood, and it always feels rewarding hearing people's reactions at the end, but I'm always worried about how the discussion continues in the comments and the community afterwards. Everyone's opinion is OK, and it's good to talk, but be kind y'all.
This game runs into some pretty heavy topics so it's basically built to have its themes talked about at length regardless of where your own thoughts lie. Woolie had mentioned on the podcast that he had already received a bunch of full caps lock angry comments sent at him for not getting the game a while back which is a shame that people can't chill a bit and let the game get finished first.
Thing I will say is that the "just make it up" is technically true, like how we make hypothesis, we have some scientific fact, but may not have the full equation so we have to make it up how we think it works, yes it's ultimately backed up or disproven by later evidence but ultimately it was someone making a guess based on their knowledge
I feel that, one, this game goes on wayyy too long and should’ve ended closer to fighting the Sun, at least Genocide-wise. BUT. I ALSO feel this game also needed to be longer to work on the whole “Red/Pink being friends with everyone” bit and also done more to show how effed up everyone is over being immortal for nearly 3 million years now. It feels like the game justifies its actions by either going “trust me, bro” or “pink/you wanted this”, but it’s not doing either of those paths well. The message gets extremely muddied due to lack of execution and it feels like they’re saying “killing everyone if YOU know they’re suffering but THEY don’t is A-OK!!”, and NOT in the absurdist, dark-humor way that would make that message actually work.
People did the math for how many marks were on the endless corridor and Green Mage has lived for at least 2 million years or more. The same can most likely be said about every other character. I also agree that the game was messy in trying to convey it's themes and messages. Everhood 2 was announced recently this year so hopefully that game will be better. Generally though people can't fathom what living for 2 million years would be like, no wonder GM is so batshit insane. 2 million years for reference is around when Homo Erectus started to appear and then spread across the globe. Modern humanity only started appearing 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.
reggie brings up a good point of pink kinda overshadowing red we shoulda got a pink vs red fight the ultimate "FACE URSELF" battle that and a character select because I care about Red's story more than pink's story
I understand where is coming from but in the case with this games story is u have 2 groups. One group of people who want to die (A) and move on but can't because the other group (B) wants to keep living. Basically the group A is being held hostage and is being forced into their own personal hell thanks to group B. There is no compromise here because group A can NOT move on until everyone is dead. I suppose the player could have put it to a vote, but your still going to have a group of people passed no matter which option is chosen. Killing ONLY the ones who wish to die doesn't work, because they're still trapped in Everhood only without a body now.
I don't think the "you can walk away, uninstall the game" thing is meant as a cheeky "haha, you fool, we're going to *force* you to do this and you can't do anything about it" sorta deal, or any kind of attempt to get you (or anyone else) to actually stop playing the game. I think it was the devs legitimately trying to warn people that there *is* no pacifist route, and that trying to find one is a waste of time. I'll admit it *is* a little bit clumsy, and adding extra content specifically for players trying to go pacifist is super counterproductive to that goal, but I never saw it as a subversive thing in itself.
I think this game illustrates some things really well, and while it's hard to see, it's message makes sense. The main message? Immortality is hell. Life needs to end. Life means something because it ends, you have limited time to fuck around and figure it out. But when you've done everything you could imagine doing, experienced all there was and still kept going, what's the point of your life, just to keep living? The game illustrates the concept of this world and it's immortality. Woolie did the pacifist run, he finished, he came back into the world, and talked to people, they all kept doing the same things they had been doing, he could go and race go karts, and do the obstacle course, etc. all he wanted. Why didn't he just keep doing that? Why didn't he turn the game off as soon as he read what everyone had to say after he'd spared the world? Because there was no end... It was incomplete, everything there was pointless to do over and over. They would have continued living their immortal lives forever, in the same hell they had been. Another point that illustrates this really well is green's basement hallway. Woolie mentioned thinking it was a commentary on seeing everything there was to see in video games. I'd disagree. It's more of a commentary made to illustrate just how mind numbing it would be to live like that. You notice how woolie refused to walk down the hallway and spend four hours on one task, meanwhile every tally on that wall represented a year? The unwillingness to spend time doing something so pointless? You're not seeing something that's in the game for lol's you're seeing thousands of years of effectively torture, that just keep going, and would continue to keep going. Goldpig was the perfect example of someone who scrambled and gripped onto life for no reason other than to keep getting money at the expense of everyone around him. When your endless life spirals to the point where all the immortal beings are just taking turns making eachothers lives awful, then why would anyone hold on to that? There are a couple other small points that are done well though not as impactful as the first. 1, killing shouldn't be easy, it's brutal, and for someone who doesn't actually want to do it, it's far harder than the alternative. The difficulty spike between woolie doing a pacifist run, and then doing a genocide run was perfect there. 2, more adding to the original point, the games theme is immortality, woolie kept talking about the columbo effect. Yeah, that's because it keeps going, it doesn't stop, as many times as you think it ends it keeps going, it shows you just how long it can drag out, and keep dragging out, constantly.
@@kyubiiofrage Especially since the update(s depending on whenever the IV patch lands this year) make the game hilariously *worse* in multiple aspects.
The way the ending is so joyful makes me think the creators are trying to gaslight players. The game repeatedly asking you if you're having fun reminds me of how games like Pony Island try to make the player feel guilty for playing the game to its fullest. The Cat God showing up after the farewell sequence makes it look like you'll discover something sinister in NG+. But aside from a new fight (and a few secrets for the next game the devs are making), you learn something you already knew. Spoilers: It's how Pink keeps getting puppet bodies from Orange.
I got kind of worried about how Woolie would handle this game based on how some people were commenting on the LP early on, but it turns out they just wanted him to get behind the "murder is okay" angle. The premise could have been interesting, but the execution was... no bueno.
Yeah... Welcome to me trying to voice my complaints about this game the week it launched. The people that REALLY want to defend this game constantly get into "You just don't GET IT, man" territory instead of accepting that, whether you agree with the message or not, it has some severe clumsiness to its execution.
I was of the opinion that this game was kind of dark in terms of tone. I did also get the feeling that the game was desperate to make you feel like it's okay. They couldn't tell you that the reincarnation thing was an important factor and that it was an 'everybody or nobody' situation. The fact is... The game tells you to trust it and that it's the right thing. To do it on faith. And that honestly isn't a good enough reason. If it wasn't a game, it would never be a worthy reason for genocide, even with the ghosts going 'we need them to be freed'. That said, the moral is similar to other games. Immortality is a curse when it cannot end. Minds warp, personalities twist, and interests turn perverse as the amount of stimulus needed to affect you grows. 'Time corrodes everything' more or less, and things must end before they can begin again.
I feel like you can divorce the game's "message" (which doesn't really add up to much more than memento mori) from Pink's role as the grim reaper. Maybe it's different watching it than playing it, but: A. there's not much reason to get attached to these characters. They're mostly losers, and the first half of the game is not enough time to get to know any of them (besides Blue, who I think it's the best character in this game) B. This world has a harbinger of death. It's pink, and by proxy you. Death doesn't discriminate. Everyone dies whether they want to or not. I don't think the game is advocating for killing people, especially since Pink is not a person. What I mean is that Pink is not an inhabitant in the normal sense, pink(red) was made to bring about the end. Obviously, there's not a real world analogue for that, except for someone who is terribly mentally ill. C. The game doesn't ask you to make moral judgements. There is no ending for killing some people and not others (unlike Undertale). Either everyone dies, and the game ends, or no one dies and the real ending is postponed. The morality of killing any specific inhabitant can't be a consideration when the only options are kill everyone or no one. D. In fact, the only real objectives of the game are obtain arm; reap souls. If you don't want to do that, the game practically tells you(after the frog fight) to go do something else. Kind of a bold move for developers to advocate for not playing their game, but this is a strange one. Regardless, I've enjoyed watching this (rather the cliff notes version, definitely sped through some of the longer fights).
You know what's Funny I feel like the Reasoning for Killing would have been justified if they added one more Easter Egg but it's not an Easter Egg but a Side Quest Feat Frogg as a Playable Character showing his Point of View up to when from what theories say Frogg asks Pink to kill them and they do leading to Cutscenes of Cutscenes of things happening over the Eons as a Lost Spirit seeing the Suffering and being the only one to know there is actually a place after Death. Things to really think about ya know?
I think that Everhood's message would have been less muddied if it were more from the angle of pet euthanasia rather than a person. "Listen, they're suffering, and they're going to continue to suffer unless you take action. They don't want to die, but this is to help them." But when you're bringing it to a human being, it gets incredibly uncomfortable.
So what you're saying is that when I'm old and in pain, no one's gonna listen to me when I ask for death with dignity? They're just gonna focus on how uncomfortable it makes them? Like a bunch of selfish dicks?
@@josh-oo If you ask for it, then sure. It's your body. Pets can't ask, though. And more than half of the cast of Everhood certainly weren't asking for it.
So ends another game that thinks it's saying a lot without actually saying anything. Also, spinning half truths is complete nonsense. That's just stupid if your goal is to find out what is true in the world.
Yeah someone should keep a close eye on the creators of this game. The whole "No it's a good thing you killed them all. YOU knew better." is SUPER not ok. That's some serious serial killer thinking right there.
The characters in the game have literally lived for eons, millions or even billions of years where most of humanity either begged to be killed until they were, or were tortured for thousands or millions of years. Why were they tortured? Because when you're immortal, experiences will become more dull and the need for something to make you feel alive, to feel excited become harder and harder until... Well, you can probably guess What you see in the game is the only people left in the entire universe and is currently preventing a new universe from being born and souls from passing on simply by existing. Their minds are warped and most characters aren't even happy and can simply never be truly happy. Their very souls have detoriated. Now keep all this in mind and also remember the fact that they're immortal. Let me then ask you, what is more cruel? To kill them or to have them live on for many billions of years more and descent further into madness and corruption? The reason some characters are against it comes more from the simple instinct of self-preservation, it has nothing to do with their happiness. Now, the game has repeatedly said the killing isn't a good thing. It never glorified it. What it did say though is that you had to do horrible things, for their and others sake so that all the countless souls can finally move on and be reborn in a new universe
@@SomeDumbSpider I'm not sure where "For immortals, everything becomes dull until it becomes torture" comes from. Is that something that we're just supposed to accept as fact because the game said so?
@@AnnCatsanndra It's quite literally what leads up to the current state in the game and why there characters in the game are the only ones left. It's told in game even. Even outright from the characters themselves. Eternity may in the long run cause things once exciting to become more and more dull. If you need a very simple,clear example, you can look at horror as a genre and what scares people back then and now. It's common for people to become desensitized and I'm sure you yourself have encountered the situation where some things you once thought fun become monotone or even boring if you do it for too long. I am not sure what you expect the game to do when it both explains how characters and others have suffered. "Just accept" implies it didn't explain or show, which it has.
@@SomeDumbSpider I used to go see my mother in the nursing home every night for a year and a half. I can't buy into the assumption that everything inevitably becomes dull for immortals because I have seen people blissfully reliving their favorite memories over and over, and I've seen people reliving the same memories of horrific deaths over and over. And there are experiences like my first time playing Cave Story that would be fantastic if I could not remember having played it anymore. None of this means I'm in the clear to start executing these people without their consent. Even stretching that out to suggest that state lasts eons infinite doesn't change the underlying morality of executing those people, not their difference in the perception of their situation. The game may have wanted to assert a game-specific outcome of immortality but it fails to suggest the situation is unique to its own setting rather than a property of immortality as a concept in and out of game.
Alright, having finally caught up with the podcast in this subject (since I started ignoring this LP series early on) I want to at the least try and explain why I at the least (possibly others, I dunno) reacted so badly to the way you kept talking about the game. The short version: It's entirely fine if you dont like its themes and story as a thing of their own; But the way you kept talking about it, it made it seem like you disliked it because it wasn't undertale and honestly made it feel like expected the game to be something completely different. The long version: When you, from video one, started comparing everything on it to undertale or making undertale jokes... it kind of made it seem that you went in expecting a clone, was dead set in believing it was nothing more than a clone and that its themes and execution where going right over your head because you where too busy with the comparison. I cant say Its the same for everyone, but I do know other fans of the game (including some that dont agree with its themes but like it due to combat, characters and/or music regardless) who, like me, are downright fed up of having it constantly be compared to undertale, and specially fed with it being called a clone (its a common enough issue that even Yathzee of zero punctuation gave it a negative review where he treated the game like a poorly made clone that 'failed to understand undertale's themes'. Not to say it doesn't take elements from it, but it also has tons of other inspirations (with a big clear one being the likes of Yume Nikki) that everyone else ignores. But it's honestly fine if you just did not like the game's themes and story and such, you just gave a really negative first impression to how you were handling the game.
nah you don't get to do that to him bro. this is a game that very clearly takes heavy inspiration from undertale. it is completely valid, then, to compare them to eachother, and in how the game uses it's inspiration. if you're inspired by, say, ratm, and you want to make a hardcore punk protest album, it is reasonable for people to be put off by you making an ethnonationalist folk album. because it's strange that you seemed to take all of the wrong lessons from ratrm's music.
It's just a bunch of references and reddit tier humour like the last one was with mad lib I just graduated from college level writing to fill in the blanks. You're overthinking the equivalent to a pamphlet for a nerd convention.
This seems like a good place to start this LP
That's literally what I'm doing, as well
Me too
same LMAO after hearing woolie talk about it on the podcast I realized it's fun to listen to him dunk on its moral quandaries, even if I don't get the context.
Cant wait till you guys retroactively reach FROG
@@gloomsi When on the podcast did they talk about it?
I’m glad Everhood exists, because it’s an approach to Undertale’s query (“When you have the power to hurt, what’s the line between it being right/wrong to use it on others?”) that basically counters with (“Well, what if there was a situation where hurting others was the only right action?”). It’s a moral and narrative discussion that has endless potential.
But it’s so desperate to justify its argument that it loses itself in its own enormous, hyper-specific context. Rather than setting up a moral dilemma, it gives you only one option while saying ‘no actually trust me this makes sense, this is the right choice’. And the worst part is that it hypes itself up so much as this grand parable, when the success of Undertale hinged on its humility as short, simple game that left many things up to interpretation. Everhood almost feels like a parody rather than a homage to Undertale at this point.
"“Well, what if there was a situation where hurting others was the only right action?”" In all honesty I do not think the devs of Everhood actually meant to comment on anything in the literal/surface level interpretation of the game itself, in my eyes it's more window dressing to the subtext. Undertale was very literal in it's commentary on player choice, I do not think the same mindset allows for a complete reading of Everhood in that I really do not think the game is about "killing" in a literal sense and more about it on a metaphorical level. Kind of like how the Death tarot card does not literally mean death. If anything, I think the Everhood is more a response to Flowey telling you not to replay the game, in that Flowey implies that they are still in some way alive, and Everhood asks "well, wait, aren't we kind of 'killing' these characters when we end the game?". "what if killing good?" doesn't come off as a strong argument because I don't think that's at all what the game wanted anyone to take away from it.
I guess what I more mean is, it's not desperate if taken from a metaphorical sense, because the idea that things have endings, that relationships, experiences, stories, etc. are all finite and will someday end is not an argument to be had, it's a fact of life. In that sense "memento mori" would have probably been a better subtitle for the game.
There's also a good deal of Buddhist philosophy that inspired the game but as I have never dived into it myself I do not feel qualified to comment on it much in my own reading of the game.
Except Undertale already answered that query with its "final boss" (Humor me) where you only have two options, Fight or Die, the game literally takes your peace prompt and smashes it. I like to think of it as the games final lesson in a series of lessons in resolving conflict. Protest, Patience, Escape, Appeal, and when all else fails, Self Defense, but within reason.
Yeah say what you want about Undertale and it's fandom, but the actual game really takes the piss out of itself and is presented like a Saturday morning cartoon. A lot of the lore and "deep" stuff is either hidden or exaggerated by external forces.
@@sasaki999pro except that is not correct, the option that Undertale gives you is Kill or not Kill, is actually all over the trailers, and it will reward you accordingly, and more importantly doesn't get preachy about it, except to mock you.
I can't get behind this game, the whole "No it's fine to kill these people that don't want to be killed. You know better, they'll thank you for it." is far too sociopathic for my taste.
I have to say learning Reggie thought Kanye and Jay Z hated Montreal and kept doing encores out of spite is the best part of the debate
Reggie blessed everything he touches
Couple of thoughts-
- Everyone trying to kill you with the music battles makes sense when they're fighting for their lives but is kind of weird for otherwise friendly characters in the first half. "What are you doing, you MURDERER?!" - Previously killed Red over a diploma.
-Kind of wish there was more of a focus on the memory loss aspect of immortality like with Blue, like after the "pacifist" ending I feel like they could have looped back to the beginning of the game to really impress that, yes, they're stuck there, they and the world have been degrading for thousands of years, losing their sense of self and the only lucid people are trapped as spirits who can only watch shit get worse. Make it a faster trek to the castle the second time round but a cycle is a cycle and the player would probably feel more inclined to start blastin'.
-I think part of why it's hard to kill off everyone is (by the games story) practically anyone who wanted to die already took a trip to the incinerator. A chunk of the characters left are powerful mages who are quite happy being King of Shit Mountain and live comfortably, so it's difficult to see that they're suffering when a bunch of people left were always at the top.
-It feels like you spend more time saying goodbye to the characters than getting to know them. There's so many final battles! The songs are great but Is This Truly The End? (its not)x3 gets tiring.
Anyway music is great, fun characters I wish had more depth, should have dropped the Undertale meta stuff.
yeah the biggest thing for me is that it's not clear that everyone is actually suffering. It's hard to make a story where killing people is supposed to be the "good" option when you have those people actively fighting you for their life because they don't want to die.
Hell, the forest spirit wanted to die but forced you into a battle anyway. At least the brown mushroom gave you the option to skip the fight
This game is absolutely addicted to "final sendoff" anime moments, but it forgets that to have a final sendoff you have to have character development for the rest of the game first.
The meta element REALLY undermines the message. As Woolie kept putting it: "The Game is telling me to do this awful thing so I guess I have to do it." [Does awful thing.] "Game: "HOW DARE YOU DO AWFUL THING. but not really lmao that was a right choice, see? We're justifying it after the fact." Woolie nails that the game absolutely skips a step by not showing us the journey for how they arrived at this situation where murdering them is a mercy. If the game gave a genuine conclusion to the "leave the Everhood universe in it's present state" and simply drew the logical conclusion from that player choice, I'd understand a little better but the game literally enforces "this is not the intended path."
I believe he also used this example on the podcast but Imagine the Nier games without the multiple playthroughs allowing the camera shifting focus to add additional layers of context and tragedy to what were previous clear-cut "murder the baddie" proceedings. You still have to take the time to guiding us through the moral dilemma and what options are available to convince us to act of our own volition to murder. Undertale inversely SCREAMS at you to stop your genocide route. Toby Fox does not like that it is even referred to as a "route" because that wasn't the intention. "Genocide Route" doesn't exist because he decided it should, rather it is simply the logical outcome on the flowchart when you give the player total agency over the life and death of every character in that universe and wrote an outcome that necessitates a meta-narrative that involves the player directly because it is OUR choice, not Frisk's. You have to personally choose at every step of the way to remain on that path out of a compulsion to see what happens if you do.
@@GabeSweetMan I agree with most points. I think another thing the game miss is that they only refer to you in passing as "The Reaper". It would had also been nice to have a fleshing out of why the role of the Grim Reaper is important. The journey of being the Grim Reaper or acceptance thereof the job.
This would have helped the story more if the framing made it so that you are handed the role and everyone agreed it was. It just seems off that the game tells you in passing that YOU wanted it, instead of it being a non-desirable but necessary job.
It just skips a lot of the road towards and feels like a "the end justifies the means" kinda thing.
Everhood serves as one of those specific, hypothetical morality questions. The question being;
If you're the only one in the world of immortals to kill immortals, what do you do?
Along with the fact that, for those who wish to die to move on, EVERYONE needs to die. It's an all or nothing situation. Those who are killed/killed themselves with the Incinerator while the world still exists turn into Lost Spirits.
This then brings up the question of "Who matters more?" The immortal who wishes to die now, or the immortal who is happy being alive in the moment, but over infinite time may too reach that same point. What do you do then? Do you make those who want to die continue suffering until EVERYONE is on the same page, or do you make the decision for the people who aren't ready yet so that those who are can move on? In a way then making the decision for people who don't want to die yet makes sense in this context. And overall it IS meant to feel bad, because time and time again it's said that it's a hard, unthinkable, necessary evil.
I still wholeheartedly agree with the idea that the world should progress to a different state if they choose the pacifist ending. I think it'd serve the narrative better, especially if those who wished to die already became more bitter towards you that you abandoned them at all. How their opinions matter just as much as the ones who wanted to live, and how time mulling over the idea can change those who were initially resistant to it.
I do think the game was too concerned with it's own ambiguity at that point. You should be given more upfront confirmation after you receive that pacifist ending. Something like 'Do you believe in reincarnation? What do you think the next lives of these people will be?' Better sowing the idea that what you're doing is an escape from a prison by better illustrating it's Buddhist themes.
I do believe there should've been a middle ending. Killing only those who ask, and after you do, you're allowed an ending, but can still return to the game world after it like in the pacifist ending. From there, the people who are still around can be explored more in their reasonings for wanting to keep going, or their reasonings for changing their minds. The immortal aspect of it all muddies the 'I have to choose for you' side of things because at what point is it too much waiting? What if you aren't immortal, what if you are and even lose yourself to the timeless void of immortality, which I believe is part of what Pink represents.
If you apply this logic to the real world, that's where it falls apart. Because death is an eventuality for everyone, and no one needs to decide for you. That's why it's a hypothetical moral question. Just as how Undertale's (and I'd rather not compare but everyone else does already) message that PURE pacifism is the correct thing to do, no matter how much your life is in danger or how much evil someone has done, is the right thing to do. Refusing to defend yourself and forgiving mass murderers isn't something that works with real world logic, and so it can only apply to Undertale's logic. Just as Everhood's logic of choosing death for someone only works for Everhood because of how it's world works.
In the end, I think 'Don't fear death' is the true message that can apply to life. 'Choosing for others' isn't, but the game could've said that itself. The omnipotent beings speaking to the player could've said 'What you experience here is unique, and not everything said should be taken as fact.' Which is perhaps what the 'Absolute Truths' were meant to convey, but they're too vague. So I understand Woolie's viewpoint, and those who feel the same. I simply say all this as a rebuttal to those who think the story is 100% lazy or exists only to go 'LOOK WE'RE NOT LIKE UNDERTALE' when that very clearly NOT what it's trying to do.
And I say all this as someone who does generally believe the death is the end. That it's likely nothing but nothingness, a state of being that cannot be comprehended because there is nothing to think about, to feel, to even dream about. It honestly does still scare me, but I still appreciate the hope the game tries to provide.
"Just as how Undertale's (and I'd rather not compare but everyone else does already) message that PURE pacifism is the correct thing to do, no matter how much your life is in danger or how much evil someone has done, is the right thing to do. Refusing to defend yourself and forgiving mass murderers isn't something that works with real world logic, and so it can only apply to Undertale's logic."
While I agree with you I do want to point out that self defense is a viable way of playing pacifist in undertale, it just isn't presented as an obvious option. Monster names will become yellow at about 20% life, so beating the shit out of them but refusing to kill them nets you the exact same outcome as befriending them through acts. Through this, pacifism in undertale is contextualized less about religiously abstaining from violence and more about showing self restraint. You're told countless times that even the strongest monster will get bodied by even the weakest human, hence why both sparing and running are contained within the "mercy" menu; you're showing mercy to a creature you could easily kill.
Game about death not being a matter of finality that's obsessed with bombastic finality.
The fact that the game doesn't even consider the pacifist rout an ending really helps Woolie's case. Beating Frog does not count as an ending for unlocking replay battles. The games is telling you that this is not where the game is supposed to end.
Its unsatisfying but maybe isn’t that, deliberately, the point? If you refuse to follow through, the game is left endlessly open unless you decide to keep playing and end things. It’s a pain and you want closure for the game, which echoes the main theme, so im assuming thats very intentional
The end of the Pacifist Route is at the end of Green's tunnel, though. Woolie had that option open and chose violence for the sake of content.
Honestly, he did the right thing.
The reviews of the game are in:
Chara: 10/10
Thanos: 5/10
This game ends like it's the finale to Undertale 3. Probably the biggest thing I bounce off of with Everhood, besides the questionable morality and philosophy, is how the finale acts like an 11 out of 10 when my investment with the characters was only about a 5. They're missing a lot of that depth that made Undertale's main cast so likable, and what made killing them on Genocide so emotionally damaging. That said, I think the game is a really interesting experience, and that the music and atmosphere of the battles absolutely do approach Undertale's level.
I did enjoy the game overall, but yeah, this is honestly the part of the game that grated on me the most. I thought Rasta Beast was kinda cool and really enjoyed Green, but even those two I don't feel like I got enough of. The game is doing a "look, all your best friends are seeing you off!" and I'm just like 'eh I guess I know these people'. That and the game has entirely too many 'okay but for real THIS is the final battle' fakeouts.
Like the game is good, but it's a bit big for its britches at the end here, like the devs could just **SEE** the fan animations of these last fights being made already before the game was even finished.
@@UltimateCarl Both you and OP hit the nail in the head so hard it breaks: conceptually, this is pretty much the Hello Neighbor to Undertale's FNAF. It's the "Hey guys look at all these *cool* bossfights with 2014 "nerdy EDM" in the background! Wouldn't it be cool to make some *badass* fanimations of them? Gaster is in them! It's just like one of those AUs! It's *subversive!* Anyone? G-guys...?"
@@just_matt214 being compared to hello neighbor is probably the most devastating criticism this game can get for its ambitions for its impact
5? As in, out of 10?
Look. Rasta Beast and Green Mage are solid 7's, but on average? We're looking at a 3.
@@woopiegoldberg the game is better in execution of course, but like...yeah, the "we're the second best please pay attention" vibe is there.
Congrats to Everhood for being probably the first piece of media to have both an "everybody dies" ending followed by an animated kids movie style dance party
Reading this after Bayonetta 3 re-opened old wounds lol
I'm so glad I came across you guys. The conversation from 22:08 is so good, you managed to articulate perfectly the problem that I felt conflicted about, but couldn't pinpoint. The game does not really give you a good enough justification why immortality is bad for EVERYONE, even for those who seem to be happy living in Everhood. It looked more like Frog and other Lost Souls being selfish - they couldn't move on to afterlife until Everhood was emptied, so they set you up to the task
"Good job you gave everyone their well deserved rest by killing them all!"
"Now let's spend eternity on some undescribed afterlife, which for some reason is entirely better and not suffering from the same existential issues that immortality would bring!"
To be fair that is not the afterlife, they are just on a waiting room before being reincarnated
You completely misunderstand the ending.
You two really hit the nail on the head with that discussion. I myself like Everhood more than most but I really appreciate you two being so direct and upfront about your issues with it.
Yeah, it's an amazing game and personally i like it more than undertale but it has some pretty deep flaws.
@@Foogi9000 That's the nice thing though isn't it? Liking a piece of media and acknowledging it as critically "good" are two different emotional experiences. I think allowing yourself to like a piece of media without shying away from its shortcomings is very mature, and people should be willing to understand and respect the distinction.
@@ethanotoroculus1060 Exactly, don't get me wrong Undertale is great but the combat is honestly kinda bad in my subjective and biased opinion. Undertale has a better story and characters but the gameplay and music for Everhood is in a league of it's own. I also just prefer the psychedelic visuals Everhood uses. I'm very thankful that i'm not epileptic as the image sensitive mode while i understand the necessity of it, i feel like bosses like the shopkeeper don't hit as hard visually with it turned on.
@@Foogi9000 I definitely agree there's a lot more aesthetic appeal to Everhood, like for sure. UT had a handful of atmospheric moments but they were few and far between and did not contribute to a particularly consistent style despite feeling somewhat grounded at times.
I feel like the fact that everyone is relieved and happy is an attempt of giving the players some aftercare after a rough SM session. Theres some foreshadowing here and there but I think if they added in a bit more here and there, like Frog showing up occasionally to tell you to keep your chin up, the pill might have been easier to swallow. I guess the doors serve that purpose but....i dont think it was as effective.
Imo, this game should have been about convincing people to not fear death and embrace it, rather than actively fighting people. OR at least it should have been a thing where like "Oh I don't want to fight you because I don't want to die" and you have to convince them to fight you. That way they could have explored different aspects of the theme through those characters as each quest about them would be about things like finally getting around to tying up loose ends or absolving fears and such.
It's perhaps the most clumsily delivered parable on reincarnation I've ever seen.
The game seems pretty straightforward in condemning all the murder as evil, albeit a necessary one in the light of there's being some 30 people left chilling for aeons while an indeterminate number of others are bogged up in the waiting room. It's just...they don't communicate that at all until *after* you've killed everybody. And the road there is played about as straight as can be in the nobody wants to get merced sense. And there are NG+ endings that add more to it (albeit not that much more, I think).
Game needed a more vocal spirit council, or Frog giving you something more solid than "just trust me bro and if you don't I'll hit you with my sick metal", or characters being more visibly *done* as opposed to somewhat bored. All sorts of little plot elements that could've been moved outside of the denouement.
Still a good game, overall. But firmly in the bucket of "Except...".
To be fair, and I didn't watch this playthrough as I've had midterms, there are several notes and characters who say they've been around for way too long and don't know they wish for death
Agreed. I understand where Woolie is coming from but in this case with this game's story is u have 2 groups. One group of people who want to die (A) and move on but can't because the other group (B) wants to keep living. Basically the group A is being held hostage and is being forced into their own personal hell thanks to group B. There is no compromise here because group A can NOT move on until everyone is dead. That's the part that I don't think Woolie gets. Killing ONLY the ones who wish to die doesn't work, they're still trapped in Everhood only now without a body. No compromise. Either they all die or not.
I suppose the player could have put it to a vote, but your still going to have a group of people passed no matter which option is chosen. Not that the game explains this well in the beginning. Probably should have layed it out more a little sooner.
Remember, it's okay to kill people as long as they're *really* bored
The mirror scene doesnt sound like Pink talking to themselves, or even Red. It sounds like Pink is talking directly to YOU, the player. Once you leave the game, Pink is left to deal with the consequences of the actions you took puppeteering Red. It's absolutely Pink passing the blame onto you, but part of the commentary this game is TRYING (I dont know about succeeding...) to make is that "You can stop at any time. You can walk away. You can leave this world and its inhabitants behind and let it all be."
But that's my take.
I agree the game has a lot of subtle storytelling going on that woolie either forgot or disregarded when it came to the analysis but I can understand scary language can taint your viewpoint on the subject. So many games expect you to genocide characters with almost no observation being made to that is what you are doing i.e. any fromsoft title or sifu both of which woolie has played
Just gonna throw it out there. As a passive watcher who wasn't paying 100% attention at all times, the vibe that comes across to me is that the game isn't about death as death; it's about death as a metaphor for change. It comes across to me very much as the human resistance to, and fear of, change; the inherent behavioral tendency to find a "safe cave" and just stay there no matter what, no matter how stagnant or self-destructive that "safe cave" existence is for them.
And in that context, to me, it's not that "killing people is good", but more that "change is inevitable and you can't escape it, and the best results can only happen if you embrace it."
Agreed. But I guess Woolie really had to explain "Murder is bad!" for 30 mins.
@@mrkraz Hey, sometimes certain things just hit us in certain ways and we have deep emotional responses to our perceptions and interpretations of those things.
And also, when you have a barrage of people telling you you shouldn't think what you think or whatever, like I expect Woolie and Reggie get on a constant basis, the mental reaction is not to submit and conform but rather to double down and entrench.
Human brains are weird and fascinating things. 😆
Until today I didn't even know I could get tired of "big epic true final boss who shows up after you think it's all over" but this game has somehow done that three times in a row now and it's getting old.
That's how I felt after playing Okami, lol
I've said this before, but I think it's really important to note that if you want to really 'get' what Everhood is trying to say, you have to understand that a lot of its philosophy and ideology is heavily rooted in Buddhism - Siddhartha himself showing up just drives that point home.
Under that religious framework, life ISN'T meant to last forever - life, death, and rebirth are a constant cycle called Samsara; and it's viewed as a cycle based in pain, suffering and dissatisfaction. The end goal is to gain virtue and wisdom across your reincarnations and build Karma, moving your soul closer and closer to Enlightenment, a state where you realise and accept the Four Noble Truths (which are very similar to Everhood's absolute truths). Once that happens, you're able to break free of Samsara and further existence and suffering of your soul ends in non-existence.
If we look at Everhood in a Buddhist context, then it begins to all make a lot more sense - without physical death, your soul cannot move on from Samsara. The characters are intentionally locking yourself into an eternity of suffering. The Human takes the role of Boddhisattval, an enlightened being that has delayed their entry into Nirvana in order to help others also attain enlightenment.
Whether you agree with the principles of the game is one thing - but I think it's important to understanding Everhood to understand the ideological frameworks it's based upon. It's not just pissshit edgy "Immortality is a curse" cliches, it's based in the fundamentals of a major world religion.
You shouldn't be expected to have a doctorate on religious studies to "get" a videogame
@@bruno17289 What a stupid, small-minded comment.
@@pausebreakreviews I get that the game is based on Buddhism, but why does it force you to murder others? Did the message really need that part?
It even goes out of its way to do what can only be intentional creepy shit, like the lost souls, and the red text, or creepy music slowdown (some of which is a shout out to UT but it doesn't help if the good thing that needs to happen is given a creepy fucked up airboat it).
Podcast time.
I don’t think I have ever agreed with Woolie about a game more than this. It’s spot on so far.
I really hope Foreign Gnomes make another game.
Yeah I had the same reading that you did, just wish there was a little more questioning or ambivalence on whether or not it's morally correct. I'd be more alright with it if the game just outright ended without saying "YOU DID GOOD". Overall rad game though.
The game repeatedly said the killing is horrible and bad. The reason that it ends up "good" has more to do with the lore of the game.
To sum that up, they all have lived for billions of years, are literally the only life left on a dying universe and no souls can move on nor a new universe can be made. Countless lives were tortured for eons by characters in the game due to immortality and the resulting stagnation that lead to more extreme ways to stimulate oneself. Y'know, just casually inflicting pain during your eternity just to feel alive
The game can be a bit too subtle perhaps with it's story but the gist is there as long as you pay attention and explore a bit. I personally thought the killings, while bad, were a necessary evil given the context.
@@SomeDumbSpider The issue comes from the super fucked up justification. They don't want to die. You can tell me they actually wanted to after the fact, but they told you they wanted to live. At that point it's evil to kill them.
There's also the fact the game revels in "You're such a bad person, you murderer! But you have to, though!" Undertake works because the core premise is "It's kind of fucked up that given the choice to attack, you'll slaughter everything you see without considering other options. These are goofy little cartoons!" Which works perfectly, because it plays with conventions of the genre and morality, and it mainly shits on you for being evil when you go out of your way to be a mass murdering asshole.
There may be a game about genocide actually being morally correct that can do it well. I doubt it, but it may be out there. But this really isn't it. I wouldn't say it's subtle, because it hits you over the head with its message over and over. The problem is that the message is supremely fucked up and only works because the game tells you it was all for the best after the fact in a Buddha asspull. Which, by the way, is not how Buddhism works.
@@patrioticshitstain The justification isn't that complicated, furthermore, the game never tells you that you're a bad person for doing it. OTHERS, are doing that. It's a similar complain I've heard about Undertale that you mentioned and compare to, that Undertale "Guilt trips you" when doing a non-genocide run. You have to keep in mind there's a difference between what the game and those who push for a certain goal out of necessity say, and what characters say from their perspective. Frog, the Universe entity both encouraged you and never called you a murderer nor heartless, instead they sympathized with the difficulty of having to act as the reaper in a world of immortals clogging up the system and preventing rebirth.
I am still unsure why the idea of the degradation of soul and mind is that difficult to understand, especially when the game outright tells you that many of the characters you see in the game have tortured others for thousands of years for their own amusement. No one is innocent and are preventing countless souls from being reborn. We're talking a whole Universe that needs to die and start over, but can't because 20 or so chucklefucks are left and even THEY aren't happy, hence the dialogue in the reconciliation phase.
They have lived for virtually an eternity, tortured people for an eternity and their minds, as you very obviously can see, aren't exactly healthy. They're goofy, yes, but they're goofy *because* they're broken. Every person in the game is a former, regular human, this is outright explained in the game.
The game has clearly explained both, that the characters have lived for so long that they even resorted to torturing just to feel a thrill. The ghosts themselves explained they cannot move on, I don't know how much more the game needs to spell out that it's necessary from a philosophical and moral standpoint. I think a problem is that people seem to assume that decisions are and should be black and white. That there's a objectively "Good" decision and a "Bad" decision
The honest truth is, often you need to do something bad, because it's what the truly good choice is. Sometimes what appears to be the good choice is the bad, evil choice, because you do it for your own peace of mind and to avoid consequences.
50:25 isn't red supposed to be the player insert? pink gets to feel a less gulity becuse the task of killing is in the player's hands. Thus brealking the 4th wall and puts on red's( player )head band allowing you to take control of the character( pink) to finish the task that could not be done. thus saying it's you who are killing.
I really loved this game, the gameplay and music is so incredible but I do agree with Woolie and the people in the comment section about the story and ending. There was a comment that summed it up nicely that basically said 'you can see how much love and care the devs put into the game with how much they put into the ending' That got me thinking on how this was maybe more emotional for the devs than it was for the players and why they kept doing the 'one more thing' bit, they did spent around 3 years on this game so they were likely very attached to it. But we never really got to spend anytime with these characters outside fighting them. With Undertale's main characters you spend like 1+ hour(s) getting to know a character and get like a 5 minute fight with them but with Everhood you spend 15+ minutes fighting them and get 5 minutes or less getting to know them and then are told to go kill them right in what feels like act 2.
I liked Everhood's characters and agree on how it would have been better to see the consequences of being immortal rather than just being told so the game would've definitely benefited from being longer and expanding on the world and characters and showing why they felt ending the world was justified but that probably would've taken way too long for the devs to double the game's length. It would be great to see something like a prequel to Everhood in the future for this reason but that is entirely up to whatever they want to do but I would be so damn ready to inject more gnome beats directly into my cerebral cortex
This is why i really love this game. Im a sucker for pretty pixels and kickass music, from a gameplay standpoint. but on a personal one, i've had several times in my life when i had an existential crisis over death and the though of mortality, the game did make me do a little reflectin.
Now while i will absolutely vouch for this game 100%, i also agree whole heartedly with woolie. I get that insanity brought about by immortality is the reason given for brinin them to an end, but ONE PERSON SHOULD NOT HAVE THAT RESPONSIBILITY ALONE. that's not somethin i can get behind either. and I hate that it's kinda forced on you the way that it is. and i absolutely agree with the hypocrisy with pink resistin both the player and the abyss and that actually pissed me off too.
the endin with buddah kinda softens it a bit, but not completely. also i don't like how it drags on a bit, but i didn't hate it due to the fact that i got to hear the music more.
Good talk on the game's theme and ending. I agree with almost all of what you mentioned. The only interesting question the game kinda hints at is people dying in Evrehood becomes gasters and have to wait until everyone else also dies. Is their suffering fair? Should other people be forced to give up their lifes for the gasters' sake? It's only briefly mentioned but could have lead to something better than what the game is.
Some people say it's unfair to compare Everhood to Undertale, but the game is constantly begging to be compared. And to me it feels like it wants what Undertale did, but fast and easy. "Look at all these characters! They are your friends, be sad when they die!!" Nah... "Ooooh, our ending has so many twists" Okay, Columbo..
I'm happy I've watched you play it and I need to find the OST album right now, but man..... it's not a good game, is it? (Battle sequences aside, of course)
I don't know if I'd go that far. I guess it depends on what you good means, but I would agree with Reggie and say even if the second he of the story doesn't hold up well, the character's and diologue are all pretty fun, and ones like green and rasta are of a higher tier than the others as well.
But that's maybe just me.
Seems to me that this story was written by a guy who has read some basic philosophy, took some LSD, and got really sanctimonious about it. Either that or he took some LSD and was inspired to read philosphy, and then got really sanctimonious about it.
Like I commented on a previous video or two, it has a good system. The music and battle system is well done. The character designs are neat and the world and setting is interesting. Even the lore even if it gets kind of bungled with it trying to be vague. It wants to be an Undertale contemporary so bad with it's own identity just it was to justify the morals of it's story. But I think the ones writing the story seemed to not really consider the nuances and what they were insinuating. I think the plot really needed another go-over to make it sound like it made sense.
It wants to be Undertale but it feels like a parody of Undertale. It thinks it's being profound and grand it's going to be the next big indie hit alongside Omori but it kind of like. . bungles it? It's too proud of itself and there's a lot of things to be proud of in the game's design! But the fact it hides a lot of it's lore with secret endings and leaving things up to interpretation, and this hyper-specific situation that makes the player feel like the baddie and not in the profound way that it thinks it wants it to be. It doesn't give anything meaningful to choice despite it saying "killing is a choice!" and then you say "but I don't want to kill them" then shame you and it doesn't feel good at all. It takes control out of the player's hand when these kinds of games try to encourage that it's the player's choice throughout the way.
Also just a tangent, but the story's flow didn't feel too natural. Some of the character dialogue felt a bit too stiff
Woolie's talk about never being morally justified in choosing when someone else gets to die is completely right in real life but doesn't work in Everhood. The game doesn't do a good enough job showing it, but no one is allowed to actually die until everyone is dead. No one can move on until everyone is moving on (that's the whole point of the Gaster lookalikes). It reminds me of COVID vaccines. Yeah, if the choice only affected you, then of course no one should tell you what to do. It doesn't concern them. But if the choice directly affects other people, things get more complex than the black and white "you can never tell someone else what to do with their life" that normally should apply. You can't use a blanket statement in that case. Rasta Beast choosing not to die would be perfectly fine if his choice wasn't holding everyone else in Everhood hostage in eternity.
This? This was what I was waiting for once I heard that they were gonna play everhood, even with the Manga being a pain of brain worms, because at the end of this game's core is at some point to be a discussion, (even with the reference in it's subtitle) and yes it fumbled along the way but goddamn was it an enjoyable experience. I hope Foreign Gnomes makes more games, and more folks check this out.
"....You can't have them go 'You decided for me but in the end it was the right decision for me, thank you for doing that."
I think there is absolutely a story where this works, but yeah, a story about what is tantamount to the inevitability of death is not that story
I agree with pretty much everything Woolie was saying, but there are plenty of times where people just don't get the option of choosing when its their time to die. Even in a palliative care situation like he described, death comes swiftly and unfairly. This game definitely tries to make you see what it'd be like if death was a person with thoughts and feelings, though whether it succeeded or not is up for debate.
Writing that assumes you agree with it from the get-go is just so grating, man. No matter what the subject matter is, you can tell when a writer spent no time accounting for the fact that maybe everyone just doesn't think like this, and it won't hit the notes they want to hit as well as if they were reading the story themselves.
It's just so superficial and condescending if you're not 100% into its aesthetic from the main menu. Game about the sky being blue that makes you feel like maybe you want to fight this really, *really* simple fact, just because of the way it's written.
It even got in the way of me enjoying the music. I just fucking can't with Everhood.
Agree with what? The game and characters repeatedly tells you outright that the killing is bad. The necessity comes from the perspective of those that has lived for eons and other lore tidbits explained in game.
Ever asked yourself why there's only like, a dozen or so characters at most of all humanity and even the universe?
@@SomeDumbSpider The answer to that question is because it was made by a small group of people lol
@@nothingineternityterms Not that hard to create nameless NPCs you don't need to interact with. The game outright explains why only a few beings is still alive and no one else lol
There's no capacity for empathy ever discussed - zero recognition of anyone's essential agency. But the author grasps that it's important on some layer, so they gesture, poorly, at it.
A lot of people just glossing over the base premise that this story takes place in a world in which death has stopped functioning, and that does kind of radically alter the rest of the moral dilemma. Woolie harping on about "you don't get to decide when it's my time to go," but that time, in this instance, was a long time ago according to natural law, and the option has been taken off the table for anyone wanting to get off the ride for the sake, primarily, of powerful people who are no less miserable but are in denial about it and dragging everyone else down with them.
It's also worth backing that up with just pointing out that, yes, they did illustrate the mental degradation immortality leads to in several characters, like Blue and most of the mages. It's also important to point out that the setup is an all or nothing situation, specifically so that you have to grapple with the pros and cons of each approach. It's weird seeing it compared to post hoc justification by a serial killer when there's this entire fantasy premise surrounding everything that adequately sets the stage for this normally immoral thing to be reframed as moral pretty handily.
That, and Pink's hypocrisy is not the story's hypocrisy, it's actually just addressing the concerns anyone is bound to have about the story?
Also the Dark Souls comparison is pretty laughable, because it's virtually the same situation in both instances, actually. One person deciding for the lot because there is an unnatural alteration to the system that is demonstrably causing undue suffering.
I really hope that people are able to discuss this in the right way. I've seen several let's plays of Everhood, and it always feels rewarding hearing people's reactions at the end, but I'm always worried about how the discussion continues in the comments and the community afterwards. Everyone's opinion is OK, and it's good to talk, but be kind y'all.
This game runs into some pretty heavy topics so it's basically built to have its themes talked about at length regardless of where your own thoughts lie. Woolie had mentioned on the podcast that he had already received a bunch of full caps lock angry comments sent at him for not getting the game a while back which is a shame that people can't chill a bit and let the game get finished first.
The song you were thinking of, was Children by Robert Miles
Thing I will say is that the "just make it up" is technically true, like how we make hypothesis, we have some scientific fact, but may not have the full equation so we have to make it up how we think it works, yes it's ultimately backed up or disproven by later evidence but ultimately it was someone making a guess based on their knowledge
I feel that, one, this game goes on wayyy too long and should’ve ended closer to fighting the Sun, at least Genocide-wise.
BUT.
I ALSO feel this game also needed to be longer to work on the whole “Red/Pink being friends with everyone” bit and also done more to show how effed up everyone is over being immortal for nearly 3 million years now.
It feels like the game justifies its actions by either going “trust me, bro” or “pink/you wanted this”, but it’s not doing either of those paths well. The message gets extremely muddied due to lack of execution and it feels like they’re saying “killing everyone if YOU know they’re suffering but THEY don’t is A-OK!!”, and NOT in the absurdist, dark-humor way that would make that message actually work.
People did the math for how many marks were on the endless corridor and Green Mage has lived for at least 2 million years or more. The same can most likely be said about every other character. I also agree that the game was messy in trying to convey it's themes and messages. Everhood 2 was announced recently this year so hopefully that game will be better. Generally though people can't fathom what living for 2 million years would be like, no wonder GM is so batshit insane. 2 million years for reference is around when Homo Erectus started to appear and then spread across the globe. Modern humanity only started appearing 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.
That intro hits different after the previous episode...
Woolie talks about it's bad you kill people because that's bad for 30 minutes
*Everhood Buddha:* I hope you found this experience interesting and enjoyable.
*Me:* I suppose 1 out of 2 is a passing grade in some countries.
Which one was it?
@@t.dmattocks6119 You know... It fluctuates. It's never both at the same time.
reggie brings up a good point of pink kinda overshadowing red
we shoulda got a pink vs red fight
the ultimate "FACE URSELF" battle
that and a character select because I care about Red's story more than pink's story
I understand where is coming from but in the case with this games story is u have 2 groups. One group of people who want to die (A) and move on but can't because the other group (B) wants to keep living. Basically the group A is being held hostage and is being forced into their own personal hell thanks to group B. There is no compromise here because group A can NOT move on until everyone is dead. I suppose the player could have put it to a vote, but your still going to have a group of people passed no matter which option is chosen. Killing ONLY the ones who wish to die doesn't work, because they're still trapped in Everhood only without a body now.
3 bosses left.
I don't think the "you can walk away, uninstall the game" thing is meant as a cheeky "haha, you fool, we're going to *force* you to do this and you can't do anything about it" sorta deal, or any kind of attempt to get you (or anyone else) to actually stop playing the game.
I think it was the devs legitimately trying to warn people that there *is* no pacifist route, and that trying to find one is a waste of time.
I'll admit it *is* a little bit clumsy, and adding extra content specifically for players trying to go pacifist is super counterproductive to that goal, but I never saw it as a subversive thing in itself.
I think this game illustrates some things really well, and while it's hard to see, it's message makes sense.
The main message?
Immortality is hell. Life needs to end.
Life means something because it ends, you have limited time to fuck around and figure it out.
But when you've done everything you could imagine doing, experienced all there was and still kept going, what's the point of your life, just to keep living?
The game illustrates the concept of this world and it's immortality. Woolie did the pacifist run, he finished, he came back into the world, and talked to people, they all kept doing the same things they had been doing, he could go and race go karts, and do the obstacle course, etc. all he wanted.
Why didn't he just keep doing that? Why didn't he turn the game off as soon as he read what everyone had to say after he'd spared the world?
Because there was no end... It was incomplete, everything there was pointless to do over and over. They would have continued living their immortal lives forever, in the same hell they had been.
Another point that illustrates this really well is green's basement hallway. Woolie mentioned thinking it was a commentary on seeing everything there was to see in video games.
I'd disagree. It's more of a commentary made to illustrate just how mind numbing it would be to live like that.
You notice how woolie refused to walk down the hallway and spend four hours on one task, meanwhile every tally on that wall represented a year?
The unwillingness to spend time doing something so pointless? You're not seeing something that's in the game for lol's you're seeing thousands of years of effectively torture, that just keep going, and would continue to keep going.
Goldpig was the perfect example of someone who scrambled and gripped onto life for no reason other than to keep getting money at the expense of everyone around him.
When your endless life spirals to the point where all the immortal beings are just taking turns making eachothers lives awful, then why would anyone hold on to that?
There are a couple other small points that are done well though not as impactful as the first.
1, killing shouldn't be easy, it's brutal, and for someone who doesn't actually want to do it, it's far harder than the alternative. The difficulty spike between woolie doing a pacifist run, and then doing a genocide run was perfect there.
2, more adding to the original point, the games theme is immortality, woolie kept talking about the columbo effect. Yeah, that's because it keeps going, it doesn't stop, as many times as you think it ends it keeps going, it shows you just how long it can drag out, and keep dragging out, constantly.
Considering how much Woolie like Silent Hill 2 and Undertale, he should DEFINITELY play OMORI.
That's like saying you should play YIIK if you like earthbound, bro.
@@MethodiaLordae Woolie playing YIIK would be such a experience.
@@MethodiaLordae you say that, but I would LOVE for Woolie or Pat or Paige to play YIIK. I want to see how they’d react.
@@kyubiiofrage Especially since the update(s depending on whenever the IV patch lands this year) make the game hilariously *worse* in multiple aspects.
@@jtlego1 at least it SOMEWHAT sped up battles, yeah. Like it went from unbelievably long and boring to just long and boring lol
The way the ending is so joyful makes me think the creators are trying to gaslight players.
The game repeatedly asking you if you're having fun reminds me of how games like Pony Island try to make the player feel guilty for playing the game to its fullest. The Cat God showing up after the farewell sequence makes it look like you'll discover something sinister in NG+. But aside from a new fight (and a few secrets for the next game the devs are making), you learn something you already knew.
Spoilers:
It's how Pink keeps getting puppet bodies from Orange.
I got kind of worried about how Woolie would handle this game based on how some people were commenting on the LP early on, but it turns out they just wanted him to get behind the "murder is okay" angle. The premise could have been interesting, but the execution was... no bueno.
Yeah... Welcome to me trying to voice my complaints about this game the week it launched. The people that REALLY want to defend this game constantly get into "You just don't GET IT, man" territory instead of accepting that, whether you agree with the message or not, it has some severe clumsiness to its execution.
Im 100% with you Woolie, it is never morally right for you to choose when it's somebody else's time to die.
I was of the opinion that this game was kind of dark in terms of tone. I did also get the feeling that the game was desperate to make you feel like it's okay. They couldn't tell you that the reincarnation thing was an important factor and that it was an 'everybody or nobody' situation.
The fact is... The game tells you to trust it and that it's the right thing. To do it on faith. And that honestly isn't a good enough reason. If it wasn't a game, it would never be a worthy reason for genocide, even with the ghosts going 'we need them to be freed'.
That said, the moral is similar to other games. Immortality is a curse when it cannot end. Minds warp, personalities twist, and interests turn perverse as the amount of stimulus needed to affect you grows. 'Time corrodes everything' more or less, and things must end before they can begin again.
I feel like you can divorce the game's "message" (which doesn't really add up to much more than memento mori) from Pink's role as the grim reaper. Maybe it's different watching it than playing it, but:
A. there's not much reason to get attached to these characters. They're mostly losers, and the first half of the game is not enough time to get to know any of them (besides Blue, who I think it's the best character in this game)
B. This world has a harbinger of death. It's pink, and by proxy you. Death doesn't discriminate. Everyone dies whether they want to or not. I don't think the game is advocating for killing people, especially since Pink is not a person. What I mean is that Pink is not an inhabitant in the normal sense, pink(red) was made to bring about the end. Obviously, there's not a real world analogue for that, except for someone who is terribly mentally ill.
C. The game doesn't ask you to make moral judgements. There is no ending for killing some people and not others (unlike Undertale). Either everyone dies, and the game ends, or no one dies and the real ending is postponed. The morality of killing any specific inhabitant can't be a consideration when the only options are kill everyone or no one.
D. In fact, the only real objectives of the game are obtain arm; reap souls. If you don't want to do that, the game practically tells you(after the frog fight) to go do something else. Kind of a bold move for developers to advocate for not playing their game, but this is a strange one.
Regardless, I've enjoyed watching this (rather the cliff notes version, definitely sped through some of the longer fights).
Time to shart some Ideas around, boys
You know what's Funny I feel like the Reasoning for Killing would have been justified if they added one more Easter Egg but it's not an Easter Egg but a Side Quest Feat Frogg as a Playable Character showing his Point of View up to when from what theories say Frogg asks Pink to kill them and they do leading to Cutscenes of Cutscenes of things happening over the Eons as a Lost Spirit seeing the Suffering and being the only one to know there is actually a place after Death.
Things to really think about ya know?
And this, kids, is why you shouldn't aim to out-write Toby Fox on your first project.
Wow, still not final? Beeeg debate.
THIS IT!
(Next hour)
FAREWELL!
(Next hour)
IT'S TIIIIIME TO SAAAAY GOOoooOdBYEEEEEE
*Columbo voice*
"Just one more thing..."
Aren't they planning on doing the "superbosses"? That'll probably be like 3 more hour-long videos, at least.
FoR tHe AlGoRiThM
I think that Everhood's message would have been less muddied if it were more from the angle of pet euthanasia rather than a person.
"Listen, they're suffering, and they're going to continue to suffer unless you take action. They don't want to die, but this is to help them."
But when you're bringing it to a human being, it gets incredibly uncomfortable.
So what you're saying is that when I'm old and in pain, no one's gonna listen to me when I ask for death with dignity? They're just gonna focus on how uncomfortable it makes them? Like a bunch of selfish dicks?
Idk man even the way you described that was pretty uncomfortable.
@@josh-oo If you ask for it, then sure. It's your body.
Pets can't ask, though. And more than half of the cast of Everhood certainly weren't asking for it.
@@josh-oo Yes. 100%
@@lazarusrat6159 Those future assholes!
no 18 FINAL?
No bitches?
@@ZionSype no maidens...
Everhodd sure has great music, but is so goddamn pretentious.
The comments are really negative. Screw em.
Woollie killed the JoJo LP but not this one, truly shows the message of the game had a poor delivery.
*read with sarcasm*
So ends another game that thinks it's saying a lot without actually saying anything.
Also, spinning half truths is complete nonsense. That's just stupid if your goal is to find out what is true in the world.
No offence meant, but genuinely are you presuming knowing what's true in the world's is something this game is at all concerned with? If so why?
This game game is so far up its own ass. Great music though.
Yeah someone should keep a close eye on the creators of this game. The whole "No it's a good thing you killed them all. YOU knew better." is SUPER not ok. That's some serious serial killer thinking right there.
The characters in the game have literally lived for eons, millions or even billions of years where most of humanity either begged to be killed until they were, or were tortured for thousands or millions of years. Why were they tortured? Because when you're immortal, experiences will become more dull and the need for something to make you feel alive, to feel excited become harder and harder until... Well, you can probably guess
What you see in the game is the only people left in the entire universe and is currently preventing a new universe from being born and souls from passing on simply by existing. Their minds are warped and most characters aren't even happy and can simply never be truly happy. Their very souls have detoriated.
Now keep all this in mind and also remember the fact that they're immortal. Let me then ask you, what is more cruel? To kill them or to have them live on for many billions of years more and descent further into madness and corruption?
The reason some characters are against it comes more from the simple instinct of self-preservation, it has nothing to do with their happiness.
Now, the game has repeatedly said the killing isn't a good thing. It never glorified it.
What it did say though is that you had to do horrible things, for their and others sake so that all the countless souls can finally move on and be reborn in a new universe
@@SomeDumbSpider I'm not sure where "For immortals, everything becomes dull until it becomes torture" comes from. Is that something that we're just supposed to accept as fact because the game said so?
@@AnnCatsanndra It's quite literally what leads up to the current state in the game and why there characters in the game are the only ones left. It's told in game even. Even outright from the characters themselves.
Eternity may in the long run cause things once exciting to become more and more dull. If you need a very simple,clear example, you can look at horror as a genre and what scares people back then and now. It's common for people to become desensitized and I'm sure you yourself have encountered the situation where some things you once thought fun become monotone or even boring if you do it for too long.
I am not sure what you expect the game to do when it both explains how characters and others have suffered. "Just accept" implies it didn't explain or show, which it has.
@@SomeDumbSpider I used to go see my mother in the nursing home every night for a year and a half. I can't buy into the assumption that everything inevitably becomes dull for immortals because I have seen people blissfully reliving their favorite memories over and over, and I've seen people reliving the same memories of horrific deaths over and over. And there are experiences like my first time playing Cave Story that would be fantastic if I could not remember having played it anymore. None of this means I'm in the clear to start executing these people without their consent.
Even stretching that out to suggest that state lasts eons infinite doesn't change the underlying morality of executing those people, not their difference in the perception of their situation.
The game may have wanted to assert a game-specific outcome of immortality but it fails to suggest the situation is unique to its own setting rather than a property of immortality as a concept in and out of game.
@@AnnCatsanndra 👏👏👏
Well put.
Alright, having finally caught up with the podcast in this subject (since I started ignoring this LP series early on)
I want to at the least try and explain why I at the least (possibly others, I dunno) reacted so badly to the way you kept talking about the game.
The short version: It's entirely fine if you dont like its themes and story as a thing of their own; But the way you kept talking about it, it made it seem like you disliked it because it wasn't undertale and honestly made it feel like expected the game to be something completely different.
The long version:
When you, from video one, started comparing everything on it to undertale or making undertale jokes... it kind of made it seem that you went in expecting a clone, was dead set in believing it was nothing more than a clone and that its themes and execution where going right over your head because you where too busy with the comparison.
I cant say Its the same for everyone, but I do know other fans of the game (including some that dont agree with its themes but like it due to combat, characters and/or music regardless) who, like me, are downright fed up of having it constantly be compared to undertale, and specially fed with it being called a clone (its a common enough issue that even Yathzee of zero punctuation gave it a negative review where he treated the game like a poorly made clone that 'failed to understand undertale's themes'.
Not to say it doesn't take elements from it, but it also has tons of other inspirations (with a big clear one being the likes of Yume Nikki) that everyone else ignores.
But it's honestly fine if you just did not like the game's themes and story and such, you just gave a really negative first impression to how you were handling the game.
nah you don't get to do that to him bro. this is a game that very clearly takes heavy inspiration from undertale. it is completely valid, then, to compare them to eachother, and in how the game uses it's inspiration. if you're inspired by, say, ratm, and you want to make a hardcore punk protest album, it is reasonable for people to be put off by you making an ethnonationalist folk album. because it's strange that you seemed to take all of the wrong lessons from ratrm's music.
Woolie had some surprisingly pro-life reasoning.
It's just a bunch of references and reddit tier humour like the last one was with mad lib I just graduated from college level writing to fill in the blanks. You're overthinking the equivalent to a pamphlet for a nerd convention.