Your channel is a gem. The amount of research you put into every single review is nothing short of admirable, you cover everything in great detail - books or artists that served as sources of inspiration for developers, behind-the-scenes trivia, magazine previews & reviews from that era, pre-release alpha or beta screenshots... I have nothing but pure respect for what you've accomplished, your retrospectives feel like documentaries on a subject. As for Myth and its sequel - they're one of a kind experience, a true lighting in a bottle.
Thanks! My production values and editing skills aren't the best and the topics I cover are usually pretty niche, so whilst I always like to see people enjoying my videos, I don't expect the channel to ever really take off. I just make it for my own enjoyment, really :)
loved how they did archers in this game. loved how the arrow flight and physics were handled. no arrow trails 👌 you can clearly see your missles if they are detailed enough. the speed of the arrows were perfect in relation to the unit move speed
I always liked the unique feel to this game: kind of melancholy and worldly. The production is like a documentary about a fantasy war, with a lot of events taking place somewhere other than the front line where the common soldier fights and dies.
If you enjoy the mood, both the Black Company books and Cook's earlier Dread Empire series evoke much the same feeling. There's a few standalone novels by him that also manage it - Swordbearer and Tower of Fear are standouts. I'd also recommend his Garret PI series, but that's a very different kettle of fish - fantasy noir mysteries written in a pulp detective style.
I have to say that in my last playthrough of Myth II (a few weeks ago), I managed to get my little dwarf Nori to 150 kills and survive all the missions till I had finished the game. I really tried to keep him alive and still useful on the battlefield. Over the course of the missions, I got really attached to Nori and celebrated a little when he survived the final mission.
I remember Myth as a terribly frustrating experience of Dwarven and projectile RNG, but also among the best, most memorable games I've ever encountered. The Black Company-inspired storytelling approach, and the tasteful music and ambience, mixed with the extreme tension of knowing you are a fragile pack of mongrels, beset from all sides, by forces you can't hope to match, with ambushes ready to spring at any given moment; clever tactics your only hope... I can't say I've ever had a gaming experience like it since. Bungie really was a gem of a studio. Your review is fantastically detailed and very well edited and narrated. Thanks for making it! The only part missing is the excellent skirmish mode and MP. Maybe that wasn't until Myth 2...
Awesome video! Myth was one of my first computer games and remains my favorite story. The overwhelmingly bleak and desperate atmosphere is just the coolest. Can't wait for your Myth 2 review! Subbed!
Awesome video man! By far the best review I’ve seen of this game. This game was never perfect, but it’s definitely got some of my best childhood memories attached to it. It’s story was what always stuck out to me, and I’ve always had this weird hope that it’d be turned into a mini-series or something. I’m happy to see people still love it!
Thanks! Yeah I think something like Myth or the first book of The Black Company would fit a TV series really well, something like The Terror or Black Sails or whatever :D
Myth was a revelation at the time. It was a great game, and still is a great game. My best memory is the molotov bombs, so much chaos, so much unpredictability. I'd blow the hell out of the enemy, sometimes I'd blow the hell at of myself - it was hilarious. I loved that game.
One of my favorite games ever. It's one of those games that feels like it's perfectly tailored for me. The art style, story presentation, tone, themes, and gameplay are just right. It's emphasis on physics based gameplay is interesting in hindsight given that they basically used that as a basis for halo ce's gameplay foundation. Would be neat to see a total conversion mod for myth that brings in halo units.
Thanks for this video. I was 11 years old when Myth Fallen Lords was published and played it a lot. This game's brutal violence, difficult campaign and overall feeling of hopelessness makes this game one of my all time favorite.
This was a really deep review of Myth, thanks. I always saw these games on the shelves in the shops but never picked them up as I was put off by the fantasy setting even though they got good reviews.
Thank you so much for referring to Braveheart as a Fantasy film!!! I’m sure lots of viewers saw it as “historically accurate”, but it couldn’t be further from the truth!!!
That was cool man, thanks for putting this up. I remember playing Myth on the ol' family Mac we had--back when it was a different time, before YT, and in the realm of an inchoate internet. I was a teenager then, right around being a 7th grader, and continued playing well into my Freshman year of HS. I've revisited it a couple of times in my twenties. The game's biggest appeal for me was the storytelling. There was something about the game's theme of triumph despite utter and brutal apparent hopelessness. Most of men and their folk--dead, succumbed to this strange sort of cyclical occult dark phenomena; that the heroes of days old were reanimated from the dead to lead forces of classical darkness: skeletons! And, enemies that look eerie, feral, undead, and seemingly impossible to defeat! This is a story about triumph over adversity by directly engaging it with, putting at least some type of effort rather than just give up, and then overcome the odds. This is classic Hero myth archetype stuff. You meet men who gathered, made plans using knowledge and wisdom gained through their own accord, armed with courage and steadfast resolve in fulfilling the plan---you see what's left of men push back---push back to the end to victory! And then Myth II: Soulblighter came out and that was just even more awesome. That was some fun times back then, as I also played some of the Marathon 2 game--I played the demo over and over as it was tons of fun. Those were the days of playing these sweet games and then going on AIM to punt people.
Thanks so much for this. A lot of memories with this game. Replayed both Myth and Myth II this year. I got this for my birthday when I was about 7 or 8. Playing it again at 32 and I missed so many of the nuances. I really enjoy the abstract story telling and I can't help but see a similarity to the personal unit descriptions and their vagueness and the story delivery of Souls games.
First: describing Braveheart as a fantasy movie is brilliant, and will be how I refer to it going forward. Second: I will never forget that slightly bored-sounding voice that says "casualty" every time you lose a unit.
I think Historic Fatasy is a better term. Based on HIstoric characters who are playing in a world created by the writer. I actually wish Historic Fantasy would catch on, would love to play more games like Lionheart, the best example of Historic Fantasy.
One of my favorite game series! I loved Myth 2 actually and a friend of mine send me a Launcher to make that game work in Win10 after almost 20 years. A bit shame Bungie abandoned this game universe after their success with Halo. One thing I liked the storytelling of Myth is that your Narrator is a simple soldier and not a high ranking one, so we only get to see from his point of view how the generals and the "Heroes" did.
Holy hell, I haven't heard anyone talk about Marathon in ages! I gotta see if I can find my old copies somehow, those games were fantastic. (And a godsend back in the day, what with no games ever releasing on mac) It's interesting to think how media coverage of the gaming world has evolved - despite enjoying the Marathon games greatly, I had never heard of Myth, myself. Nowadays it's so much easier to stay in the loop with regards to dev studios you're a fan of, but back then? Used to be a gamble whether or not whatever gaming magazines were sold in your region actually covered that project at all, if they even knew about it themselves.
I made a really long reply to your message but then youtube ate it lol. Anyway, the Marathon games are all free and easily acquired nowadays, just google "marathon aleph one" to find official links and the source port for playing them today :)
@@MrEdders123 Oh hey thank you! Yeah TH-cam likes to do that these days, I can relate. I'll check it out! (I don't think I would have been able to get the old copies to run anymore anyhow, that's more of a nostalgia thing these days.)
Halo is their breakthrough game so it is no surprise that ppl dont know of their earlier work.. Marathon is more well known than Myth today bc it is seen as the precursor to Halo..
@@mostlydead3261 I noticed it had a totally different interface and such to the original games. I did try to get the original Durandal Win95 port running but gave up after a bit. I really wanted to get footage of the Braveheart game too, but I think I'd need to sit down and setup PCem for that (which would require a better computer than I have now tbh).
Another game that defined my youth was Sacrifice with that stellar cast of voice actors and unique gameplay. I'd absolutely kill for a documentary style video on that. Again thank you for the time on this incredible game recap!
For more obscure stuff (e.g. Meat Puppet), nothing beats actually flicking through old magazines. You can find free, legal back issues of Computer Gaming World at the CGW museum. There are also a lot of magazines on archive.org but those are sometimes sniped by the legal owners :( A lot of the games I cover on the channel are just demos, single-page ads or previews I noticed when researching another video :D
@@MrEdders123 I think I didn't now about these games because I was too young at the time, and I first subscribed to a magazine in 1998. It was called Tips & Tricks, and was exclusively console games I think. I did play Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, but that was after this time period. It's possible I simply didn't play advanced enough PC games in those earlier years. I did play games like Freedie Fish, Putt-Putt, etc. It's possible I don't remember these games because I simply didn't shop for non-kid PC games at the time. Most of my catalog up to the late 90s is educational including Math games, Carmen Sandiago, Oregon Trail, etc. Heck, I played Age of Empires II and the second Baldur's Gate game, but those are much later. I bet I simply missed a whole slew of PC games from Doom to Half-Life because I didn't even play Unreal until I pirated Unreal 2.
I cannot recommend playing this game enough. I still go back and play my CD copies of Myth: The Total Codex collection (1 and 2). It is supreme and sublime. Along with its sequel, Soulblighter, Thief 1 and 2, Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom ,and TIE Fighter, it is among the greatest games ever made from the golden age of PC gaming.
Good video, as always, but for me the best part is that it reminded me that War Wind exists. Damn, that game deserved better, and has sadly been almost entirely forgotten...
Unfortunately the version I got from GoG (it was released for free) is extremely choppy. Not sure whether it was something to do with my recording software or compatibillity issues...
I really enjoyed this game, challenging, violent, makes me want to actually boot it up since i haven't thought about this game for at least 2 decades, great video!
(This comment is edited because I’m typing a long message on the phone, and it keeps accident clearing the text. So I’m posting this in segments) Excellent video! That was definitely interesting. I love how you basically roasted the game, while simultaneously praising the game. That was funny. Admittedly I haven’t played Myth because it came out before I was born. I’ve been recently looking into the different old games that Bungie made back in the day. It’s too bad that they’ve abandoned all of their old franchises. It’s really interesting how the setting is really derivative with different Tolkien inspired things. They also have what are essentially bootleg goblins, and other stuff like that. I remember there was this one thing talking about Halo saying when you critically analyze it the story is actually really dumb, and doesn’t have a lot of depth. But the presentation is truly amazing. Their games have really good voice acting, music, and gameplay. Also, what you said about the lore being the perfect mix of giving the player just enough information to make them want to learn more about the world, while also being really cryptic gives the illusion of depth. That can definitely be applied to Halo how they gave almost zero information on the Forerunners because they didn’t flesh them out (if you look at how they develop their games they’ll keep stuff vague until they can expand on it later, and will have multiple contradictory ideas be true until they make up their minds. A good example would be how one side of Bungie wanted the Forerunners to be ancient humans, and the other side wanted them to be unrelated aliens. They’d give contradictory hints that made people debate as to which one was true). They also made each game not knowing they’d make a sequel so they’d add in new stuff that retroactively messes with previous stuff. Despite this it’s still interesting looking into their lore, and figuring out which is correct. It’s too bad that they didn’t ship the game with a level editor, and that the ai was so atrociously bad. That’s interesting how they’ve scripted it so well that it gives the illusion of being intelligent. It would have been really interesting to see what would happen if Halo had become either the third person shooter on the Mac, or an advanced rts game.
(Just now figured out that I can’t emote for whatever weird reason) I unfortunately haven’t read the Black Company books (didn’t even know about them until watching this video). I really like how they’ve executed the tone where you’re just playing as normal people who are struggling for survival. This is an apocalypse, and they’re trying not to be slaughtered. I really like how most of the world have been destroyed. That was really good environmental storytelling. These are some ideas building on what you said about not utilizing the narrator to the fullest, and that all the information is 100% accurate: I think they could have solved this problem by having multiple narrators attached to different squads that follow their journey throughout the war. Each would have a different writing style with a unique perspective based on what they were before the war; and they’d give semi contradictory information making you question the validity of what they’re saying. They also could have had different documents you could find in the levels that talk about the lore. They’d be like the books in Elder Scrolls where they’re a mix of fables, actually history (different text would agree on major events, but vary in terms of motivations and exactly how the events happened), and other miscellaneous stuff. (Elder Scrolls is probably my favorite fantasy universe because it has some really deep lore, cool metaphysics, and they utilize the unreliable narrator a lot. Unfortunately as of late the actual stories in the games were really dumb, and they don’t really have a cohesive continuity) As for the morality aspect I think that could have been done by having certain campaigns take place from the perspective of the bad guys, and go into their worldview. They could have also had humanoids who sided with the villains. Unfortunately this would require them to have professional writers on the team, and would require episodically released expansions that take place over however long this war has been waged for. That’s interesting how in the files they mentioned soldiers having different coats of arms, and how the narrator mentions meeting people he’s never seen before from lands he’s never heard of. I think they could have communicated this in game by having different presets for the different units. That way you’d actually be able to see that this is a rag tag group comprised of people who’ve salvaged whatever they can. I’ll definitely be really interested in seeing your reviews on the other two Myth games, and their mods. What are some other games you think you’ll cover? Are they mostly just retro games? I know this is off topic, but have you heard of this fan made Zelda rts called Hyrule Conquest? It’s made by this guy called UndyingNephalim, and he’s been working on it for over a decade. It started out as a mod for Total War Medieval 2. At the time it was called Hyrule Total War, but he ported it over to the 0ad engine a few years ago. It’s a really interesting project. For the lore he took ideas from the 3 different Zelda Timelines, and reinterpreted a bunch of stuff. It’s grown into it’s own thing. The visuals for the factions are really cool, and each one has a different play style. Although, the story is really dumb. Factions will be at each other’s throats. Then in the corse of a month they’ll be best friends. Alliances will change at the drop of a hat. Granted a big chunk of this is because he wanted the player to experience playing as the different factions, and how it feels to fight alongside/against the other factions. It’s a mixed bag that’s mostly good. Great video, I will be sure to watch your others!
@@shreksnow1918 The multiple narrators sounds like an interesting idea, with the player getting a better understanding of the infighting between the Fallen Lords, the Head etc. later in the game. Re: the Zelda thing I do actually remember that mod! There was a Myth mod for Medieval 2 in development as well, sadly it never got further than custom battles :(
Thanks a lot for this video! Your expert narration and script makes it a treat to follow and listen. I hope you will also cover Myth II and III at some point?
I'm not into the RTS genre, to be honest, but you made this one sound a lot like something I can sink my teeth into. I'll definitely give it a look, once I have the time and energy for experimenting with another old PC game.
I remember reading about Myth in a PC Gamer magazine back in the day. The terrain deformation was such a big deal. When I played the demo I spent hours just creating craters with magic. I truly miss the old days of 3d acceleration and Voodoo 3dFX. We've come so far technologically, but there's still a lot that generation has to offer in terms of soul.
Another great video mate. Enjoyed this one - I have really clear memories of playing this at releaae for about half an hour on a mate's machine and then never really hearing of it again over the years so this detail was fascinating. Looking forward to January's heroquest review. Any interest in covering Julian Gollop's Magic and Mayhem one day? An overlooked little fantasy gem that I never have the heart to play nowadays in case it plays really poorly and ruins my nostalgia
Possibly, although it'll be a while off, as before that I'd like to cover X-Com Apocalypse, which I find the most interesting of all the (released) XCOM games.
In germany this game has the literal translated subtitle "Crusade into the Uncertain" (Kreuzzug ins Ungewisse), what sounds pretty awsome in german, the game was to hard for my younger self and my attempts last year to test it out didn't work (even on a true Win 98 Machine^^). They should have implemented Cheats :P
There is a level skip cheat (doesn't include the secret level though), and if you play it via Myth 2 you can easily edit the light units to be stronger. Not sure about the compatibility issues - I can actually run it on Win 10 using Melekor (sp?)'s TFL launcher and a wrapper for 3dfx mode.
When you were talking about unit veterancy being transferred between missions in some capacity, it reminded me of a game called Warzone 2100. In that game your units would gain veterancy over the course of the campaign, which would improve their accuracy and open them up for different roles. So you'd want to keep your units alive in order for them to keep ranking up, and every loss in that manner was a severe detriment, especially because you could only bring a few units with you on missions and whatnot. I always liked trying to keep all my high ranking veterans on mission to mission from the start to the end of the game. It might be interesting to see if you might have had an interest in that game.
I don't know have any specific plans to cover WZ2100, but I do like doing RTS from the era now and again. I saw it a lot in magazine previews of the era, so I might end up covering it one day.
39:30 for me, one thing that I enjoy about the Myth series that I've never seen replicated anywhere else (leading me to say "I wish there were more games like Myth") is that gameplay loop of positioning your archers, dwarves and melee units, taking into account the location terrain.
Just started watching and already have to applaud calling Braveheart a fantasy movie. It has little to do with history, but was amazing from a dramatic viewpoint.
If you haven't seen Outlaw King I would recommend it! I was looking forward to it for a while as there was a lot of positive buzz about it being a much more historically accurate depiction of the period. Unfortunately it portrays Robert far too favourably compared to the historical record and has an absolutely ludicrous scene at the end of the final battle, but still worth watching.
Enemy had both quantity (undead hordes), mobility (ghouls) and quality (lightning mage fetches, stone giants, myrkidia and fallen lords) All you had was swordsmen, bowmen, demolition dwarves and superior tactical skill (hopefuly).
This was the first game I played with a new set of Logitech speakers and a subwoofer. I'd never heard a sub before and those dwarven satchel charges blew me away! Myth was another great game from the Golden Age of PC Gaming.
I'm glad I watched that. Thanks for making it. As far as where you can go with Myth game play...I think you touched on it yourself. A more expanded way of retaining veterans, providing them with some few, low-impact improvements based on found items or performance could improve a player's attachment to the soldiers. Making them too strong will cheapen the experience. Making folks so attached that the only way people will want to play it is with no casualties is also not reasonable. So, getting attached to characters a bit but being willing to let them die to progress the game is something that needs to be maintained. The frustrations of the game being hard are real, but really all you need to do is save early and often. It was the 90s, saves were like emulator save states. If a thing doesn't work out halfway through a map or you blow yourself up...well, reload it from a few moments earlier and try a new approach. The replayability of the game is something that I thought was fantastic even in TFL, though it was much more so in SB.
i like how your reviews are so well thought out with usual words and then you drop something like "lady luck being a cold bitch". it made me laugh for a bit like "wait what? did he just say that?"
Thank you so much for this awesome in-depth analysis. You have clearly put in a heap of effort into it, which must come from a deep affection for it all these years later. Myth's single player campaign is fantastic, though I do agree with most of your criticisms of it, and have always thought the story was a little too disjointed in parts (some missions being obvious filler narratively, including some of the most fun ones). Although I think that contributed to the tone - soldiers often have no idea why they're doing what they're doing or what happens afterwards. I have always been a bit tickled by the fact that we're sent on this near-suicidal mission into fallen-occupied Covenant to retrieve the Total Codex, and as far as the narrator knows, this has absolutely no bearing on anything that happens afterwards. The multiplayer is absolutely where it shines though. You've mentioned the relatively simple gameplay mechanics, but it's a classic example of easy to learn, hard to master. Expert players are absolute madmen (check out myth2adrenaline's channel), but there's just enough randomness in the game that a novice can occasionally get the upper hand if they do anything more complex than a one-click rush.
Thanks for the comment! I'm not really into multiplayer, so I always gloss over that aspect in these videos. Certainly was an important part of Myth's longevity though. I wonder whether you could use recorded games to "train" AI neural networks to be able to play multiplayer, like researchers did on Starcraft. It's an interesting hypothetical for potentially interesting singleplayer missions too, like having the AI trying to escape hunting parties (similar to A Traitor's Grave) and such. I remember around the time of Myth's release there was still a lot of excitement about the potential of computer AI opponents, but I think these days people are very jaded about that stuff, since it never lived up to the hype.
@@MrEdders123 a lot of myth multiplayer skill is down to how fast you can click (along with situational awareness), and an AI will always have an advantage given it can click instantly with pixel precision. It would be an interesting exercise though, and could be fun with a sliding scale limiting the number of clicks and introducing occasional random mis-clicks. One thing is that the myth recording format doesn’t record clicks, it records individual unit movement commands, which isn’t quite the same thing when you consider you’re usually commanding more than one unit at a time. But if someone could come up with a way to train an AI there’s a huge repository of multiplayer films on gateofstorms.net (every game played on the server gets saved).
@@bahlalthewatcher4790 Cheers, happy christmas to you too! I'll be doing a Myth 2 video next christmas covering the big mods like Chimera, Seventh God, Jinn etc. :D
The vetrency system almost reminds me of the " transfer creature" secrets from Dungeon Keeper 1. While yes you can take a level 10 to the next level, there was no guarantee that " Fap" the level 10 spider was going to go all the way to last level with you, not every level had a "transfer creature" secret. Which saddened me as a kid, but I can see now that I am older how that could've broken the pacing of later levels.
all of the AI follows scripts written by the map creators lol 😂 so if nothing is written for the units they will indeed just sit there. There are certain advanced plugins with hours upon hours of code, the fans of myth created a deeper game than the fallen lords would be on its own, hours upon hours of more work and design.
I actually enjoy Myth's gameplay more than the tactical battles in Total War. It feels somehow more immediate and fluid and organic, whereas Total War often feels like playing rock-paper-scissors. But I do agree that if you were to strip away the story, atmosphere, and well-designed levels, it would lose its appeal, which is why I haven't bitten on any of the few Myth clones yet.
I liked how you referred to the Braveheart movie as a "fantasy" film, with some part of me wondering if you were being cheeky about the fact that it qualified as fantasy because of its loose interpretation of the medieval Anglo-Scottish War of Independence.
Both. Outlaw King is much better but has some ridiculous scenes (end duel) and questionable characterization (Robert as some sort of reluctant nationalist hero).
Best part of Myth 2 was the moded game play. A trow lunching a fire ball? Yes awesome. WW2 tanks during a campaign? Yes it was OP. Anime characters with sound files might have been used. The War Hammer Total War Series carried this type of RTS into the future.
Another great piece. BTW- on your question about where are the myth clones - the TW series. Hit me up with an email for more info. P.s. loved the SS refference
I'm a casual fan of Marathon... and man, does it still sting hearing such repeated echoes of it being dismissed as 'a doom clone' during its time. Like, that series story alone was bonkers more advanced then anything Id would do for years. And it had stuff like... oxygen meters, mouse look and ammo conservation back in freakin' 94-96.
The more I delve into myth for dnd inspiration the more I see it less as an RTS and more as a meticulously balanced tabletop wargame rpg. I remember my dad saying his crowning video game achievement was beating the myth 2 demo on legendary with no losses which I never really appreciated until I went and played the game.
There's something so oddly compelling about Myth from a purely narrative standpoint. Just sheer desperation and constantly fighting the odds as seen from a lowly soldier's POV. Being the closest thing to a Black Company video game probably helped as well, yeah.
Exactly. There aren't any new games with similar narrative structure anymore i.e. beeing a small cog in a much bigger machine since you are not a saviour or a chosen one. Any move forward, against the odds, is a hard win not granted by your special status.
I actually think the same tone was set in my favorite Halo, Halo: Reach. Sure, you play a supersoldier in that game, but in the context of the narrative even a squad of supersoldiers can't save the day. Every hard-won victory by your squad is undone by two steps back in the general war raging around you. The feeling of being an insignificant part of vast events despite your best efforts was really compelling.
1) There's charm about pre-rendered sprites and i find interesting to explore old (and few new) titles that tried to use that approach to animated characters. It's strange that when it feels somehow worse when they are too high resolution or too zoomed in.. maybe the brain appreciates less details so it can fill the gaps in between.. or we grew with those limitations and started to want them :P About animations, a game called Soulbringer tried to split the sprite into separate pieces and animate them with mocap level of quality.. it's a bit weird but pretty cool to see smooth movements (and explosion of enemies in a similar way that Myth). 2) A bit like low res also the concept art added into the narrative is a pretty cool idea.. black and white drawings like classic comics. Maybe they reminded me of Savage Sword of Conan.. Some time ago i replayed Icewind Dale (and seen the reviews about the series here) and recalled how cool those intros (animated in that case) are. Not every enviroment or event should be implemented into gameplay, visual bits together with narration can trigger imagination (even more if the option is to cut them because it costs too much to make 2d/3d assets). 3) How to evolve a subset of a genre like this? I think it's simply what makes it strong: being immersed into the world. New scenarios, units, type of landscapes and so on that creates new challenges and experiences. It's not about adding stats or pure tactical challenges like a classic rts game. I usually play strategy games to see what i can develop more than how well i can win. Translate elements of fantasy books: heroic fantasy, low/high fantasy.. characterization, the classic world map, etc. To mention Soulbringer again, in that game you start with an awkward Diablo like game with weird mechanics, a fragile young man fighting brigants around a snowy village but few hours later a certain narrative element shows up that switches things up to an heroic fantasy thing: new powers and misterious allies, exploring distant lands, recalling the lost history of the world, enemies hidden in society.. that is a way to push you into continuing a game (even with its gameplay issues). Nowadays a charming component like that is often lost or weak.
Funny you mention Soulbringer, it's incidentally related to several other games I'm going to cover in the future (Planescape: Torment and HeroQuest II) and I'd like to do a video on it some day. I should mention the concept art looks worse than it should because the larger pieces are 640 x 480, and the smaller ones with the white blended edges are something like a quarter of that.
@@MrEdders123 Good selection of games to review, i'll take look at them when released! Sometimes the official strategy guides can be a source for higher quality concept art if you are lucky but i'd guess if so probably someone would have already took scans of them. Another example of storytelling by images that i remember now is in Geneforge games. I played the remake of the first one few months ago and then picked up the whole series and indeed they use black and white drawings at the beginning of every chapter, quite interesting idea to break a bit the "wall of text" thing that usually certain style of rpgs use.
Fantastic video man! I just went through your BG video, this and a few others all day at work today If you ever want to talk Warhammer 40k, D&D, or do a collab reach out
I was introduced to the Myth series by Mandalore who made very solid reviews of it. This video intrigued me on the other Myth-likes. Can I know more about them?
A few games were called "Myth-like" by reviewers in the mid-90s, but weren't really that similar (Shogun Total War, for example, was frequently compared to Myth). In terms of direct "Myth clones", Nordic Warriors is clearly homaging it. There are other modern-ish games like Deadhold that claim inspiration as well.
@@MrEdders123 I admit, ever since I learnt about Myth and what it did, it has left me greatly fascinated, and a bit sad at how its style of RTS approach has really not been seen again, or rather, the whole blend and package; i can't think of any other game that got close to how Myth felt to play
"Windup toys" look is not due to the number of frames, but because of the stiff mechanical animation. The number of frames is relatively fine. Anime uses fewer. Bugie were just inexperienced animating stuff in 3d.
I believe Bungie did specifically say during Myth 2's marketing that the stiff animations were due to the number of frames (in the context of promoting Myth 2 doubling it). Could've just been easiest way to communicate it to the public though.
I guess the original Homeworld (not remastered) solved the issue with loosing units rather well, altough it was more traditional with resource gathering and unit building. probably Dark Omen solved it as well? Ages since I played it, can't get it to run (CD lies around here), but that had the issue of getting incredible difficult if you lost missions and/or units. .. .. I would love to see your take on Dark Omen
Your channel is a gem. The amount of research you put into every single review is nothing short of admirable, you cover everything in great detail - books or artists that served as sources of inspiration for developers, behind-the-scenes trivia, magazine previews & reviews from that era, pre-release alpha or beta screenshots... I have nothing but pure respect for what you've accomplished, your retrospectives feel like documentaries on a subject.
As for Myth and its sequel - they're one of a kind experience, a true lighting in a bottle.
Even after finding a bunch of little channels like this its still impressive to me that there is such quality content with so few views
Thanks! My production values and editing skills aren't the best and the topics I cover are usually pretty niche, so whilst I always like to see people enjoying my videos, I don't expect the channel to ever really take off. I just make it for my own enjoyment, really :)
I was just thinking that.
Mark of Chaos, Warhammer RTS from 00s, came pretty close to scratching the Myth itch.
How about Warhammer Dark Omen?
Mark Of Chaos was vastly underrated. It had mega high system requirements at the time though. Top end gaming PC's only.
loved how they did archers in this game. loved how the arrow flight and physics were handled. no arrow trails 👌 you can clearly see your missles if they are detailed enough. the speed of the arrows were perfect in relation to the unit move speed
And if you have good reaction, your units can be like neo from matrix
I always liked the unique feel to this game: kind of melancholy and worldly. The production is like a documentary about a fantasy war, with a lot of events taking place somewhere other than the front line where the common soldier fights and dies.
If you enjoy the mood, both the Black Company books and Cook's earlier Dread Empire series evoke much the same feeling. There's a few standalone novels by him that also manage it - Swordbearer and Tower of Fear are standouts.
I'd also recommend his Garret PI series, but that's a very different kettle of fish - fantasy noir mysteries written in a pulp detective style.
I have to say that in my last playthrough of Myth II (a few weeks ago), I managed to get my little dwarf Nori to 150 kills and survive all the missions till I had finished the game. I really tried to keep him alive and still useful on the battlefield. Over the course of the missions, I got really attached to Nori and celebrated a little when he survived the final mission.
I remember Myth as a terribly frustrating experience of Dwarven and projectile RNG, but also among the best, most memorable games I've ever encountered. The Black Company-inspired storytelling approach, and the tasteful music and ambience, mixed with the extreme tension of knowing you are a fragile pack of mongrels, beset from all sides, by forces you can't hope to match, with ambushes ready to spring at any given moment; clever tactics your only hope... I can't say I've ever had a gaming experience like it since. Bungie really was a gem of a studio.
Your review is fantastically detailed and very well edited and narrated. Thanks for making it! The only part missing is the excellent skirmish mode and MP. Maybe that wasn't until Myth 2...
Skirmish mode?
Black company?? It was inspired by a game that came out decades later?
I've been binge watching your videos, mate. Thanks for an informative trip down memory lane!
Awesome video! Myth was one of my first computer games and remains my favorite story. The overwhelmingly bleak and desperate atmosphere is just the coolest. Can't wait for your Myth 2 review! Subbed!
Awesome video man! By far the best review I’ve seen of this game. This game was never perfect, but it’s definitely got some of my best childhood memories attached to it. It’s story was what always stuck out to me, and I’ve always had this weird hope that it’d be turned into a mini-series or something. I’m happy to see people still love it!
Thanks! Yeah I think something like Myth or the first book of The Black Company would fit a TV series really well, something like The Terror or Black Sails or whatever :D
Myth was a revelation at the time. It was a great game, and still is a great game. My best memory is the molotov bombs, so much chaos, so much unpredictability. I'd blow the hell out of the enemy, sometimes I'd blow the hell at of myself - it was hilarious. I loved that game.
One of my favorite games ever. It's one of those games that feels like it's perfectly tailored for me. The art style, story presentation, tone, themes, and gameplay are just right. It's emphasis on physics based gameplay is interesting in hindsight given that they basically used that as a basis for halo ce's gameplay foundation. Would be neat to see a total conversion mod for myth that brings in halo units.
There's a Marathon mod (more than one actually), not sure about halo though, probably more likely to get copyright claimed or something.
Thanks for this video. I was 11 years old when Myth Fallen Lords was published and played it a lot. This game's brutal violence, difficult campaign and overall feeling of hopelessness makes this game one of my all time favorite.
You're welcome :)
Myth and Myth 2 were bloodie amazing, im sad it ended at the myth 3 game, really sad. Myth 2 still feels great to this day
If all goes well I'll do a Myth 2 video at the end of this year, and Myth 3 sometimes in 2023.
If you combined the improved gameplay of Myth 2 with Myth 1's story, you would have a truly incredible game
@@MrEdders123 really curious about your myth 3 thoughts
Sad, yes. But it had a tale and told it well.
This was a really deep review of Myth, thanks.
I always saw these games on the shelves in the shops but never picked them up as I was put off by the fantasy setting even though they got good reviews.
The fantasy setting is what got me interested :D
just wanted to thank you for this work again. another superb video about a game i've never heard of. Good stuff!
MERRY CHRISTMAS ;)
Cheers!
Thank you so much for referring to Braveheart as a Fantasy film!!! I’m sure lots of viewers saw it as “historically accurate”, but it couldn’t be further from the truth!!!
:O)
That was cool man, thanks for putting this up. I remember playing Myth on the ol' family Mac we had--back when it was a different time, before YT, and in the realm of an inchoate internet. I was a teenager then, right around being a 7th grader, and continued playing well into my Freshman year of HS. I've revisited it a couple of times in my twenties.
The game's biggest appeal for me was the storytelling. There was something about the game's theme of triumph despite utter and brutal apparent hopelessness. Most of men and their folk--dead, succumbed to this strange sort of cyclical occult dark phenomena; that the heroes of days old were reanimated from the dead to lead forces of classical darkness: skeletons! And, enemies that look eerie, feral, undead, and seemingly impossible to defeat!
This is a story about triumph over adversity by directly engaging it with, putting at least some type of effort rather than just give up, and then overcome the odds. This is classic Hero myth archetype stuff. You meet men who gathered, made plans using knowledge and wisdom gained through their own accord, armed with courage and steadfast resolve in fulfilling the plan---you see what's left of men push back---push back to the end to victory!
And then Myth II: Soulblighter came out and that was just even more awesome. That was some fun times back then, as I also played some of the Marathon 2 game--I played the demo over and over as it was tons of fun.
Those were the days of playing these sweet games and then going on AIM to punt people.
This one is a true gem. One of the best stories in tactical games. We need remake (only graphical one) of this and its sequel.
Soulblighter video is hopefully coming at the end of this year (including the most popular SP mods) :D
Thanks so much for this. A lot of memories with this game. Replayed both Myth and Myth II this year. I got this for my birthday when I was about 7 or 8. Playing it again at 32 and I missed so many of the nuances. I really enjoy the abstract story telling and I can't help but see a similarity to the personal unit descriptions and their vagueness and the story delivery of Souls games.
Yeah it was one of the first Windows PC games I played - had to beg the family to buy more RAM so I could play Myth 2 lol
How does this video not have more views? STELLAR effort, MrEdders123.
Thanks :D
First: describing Braveheart as a fantasy movie is brilliant, and will be how I refer to it going forward.
Second: I will never forget that slightly bored-sounding voice that says "casualty" every time you lose a unit.
I think Historic Fatasy is a better term. Based on HIstoric characters who are playing in a world created by the writer. I actually wish Historic Fantasy would catch on, would love to play more games like Lionheart, the best example of Historic Fantasy.
Thank you so much for this video essay, Myth is one of the games I grew up on and fondly remember.
One of my favorite game series! I loved Myth 2 actually and a friend of mine send me a Launcher to make that game work in Win10 after almost 20 years.
A bit shame Bungie abandoned this game universe after their success with Halo. One thing I liked the storytelling of Myth is that your Narrator is a simple soldier and not a high ranking one, so we only get to see from his point of view how the generals and the "Heroes" did.
This was such great work man. Glad I found it!
Thanks Jesus
Holy hell, I haven't heard anyone talk about Marathon in ages! I gotta see if I can find my old copies somehow, those games were fantastic. (And a godsend back in the day, what with no games ever releasing on mac)
It's interesting to think how media coverage of the gaming world has evolved - despite enjoying the Marathon games greatly, I had never heard of Myth, myself. Nowadays it's so much easier to stay in the loop with regards to dev studios you're a fan of, but back then? Used to be a gamble whether or not whatever gaming magazines were sold in your region actually covered that project at all, if they even knew about it themselves.
I made a really long reply to your message but then youtube ate it lol. Anyway, the Marathon games are all free and easily acquired nowadays, just google "marathon aleph one" to find official links and the source port for playing them today :)
@@MrEdders123 Oh hey thank you! Yeah TH-cam likes to do that these days, I can relate. I'll check it out!
(I don't think I would have been able to get the old copies to run anymore anyhow, that's more of a nostalgia thing these days.)
the source port sadly is p lackluster and idiosyncratic compared to what Doom or Duke 3D have.. i wish there were more ports avaiable..
Halo is their breakthrough game so it is no surprise that ppl dont know of their earlier work.. Marathon is more well known than Myth today bc it is seen as the precursor to Halo..
@@mostlydead3261 I noticed it had a totally different interface and such to the original games. I did try to get the original Durandal Win95 port running but gave up after a bit.
I really wanted to get footage of the Braveheart game too, but I think I'd need to sit down and setup PCem for that (which would require a better computer than I have now tbh).
Important contribution to video game history archives, nice work!
Excellent video, I only played a demo back in the day, but it was exciting
Nice to see this old game getting some love. I have an old boxed copy in my collection somewhere, might dig it out and fire up my win98 PC tomorrow 🙂
Wow what an incredible recap - down to the archival of audio recording. Thank you for bringing me back to the nostalgia of this game 😢
Another game that defined my youth was Sacrifice with that stellar cast of voice actors and unique gameplay. I'd absolutely kill for a documentary style video on that. Again thank you for the time on this incredible game recap!
I could've sworn somebody else did a longform video on Sacrifice recently, but I can't find it now.
How have you found a ton of PC games I'd never heard of? It's insane. Your channel is filled with games I should've known as a kid.
For more obscure stuff (e.g. Meat Puppet), nothing beats actually flicking through old magazines. You can find free, legal back issues of Computer Gaming World at the CGW museum. There are also a lot of magazines on archive.org but those are sometimes sniped by the legal owners :( A lot of the games I cover on the channel are just demos, single-page ads or previews I noticed when researching another video :D
@@MrEdders123 I think I didn't now about these games because I was too young at the time, and I first subscribed to a magazine in 1998. It was called Tips & Tricks, and was exclusively console games I think.
I did play Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit, but that was after this time period. It's possible I simply didn't play advanced enough PC games in those earlier years. I did play games like Freedie Fish, Putt-Putt, etc.
It's possible I don't remember these games because I simply didn't shop for non-kid PC games at the time. Most of my catalog up to the late 90s is educational including Math games, Carmen Sandiago, Oregon Trail, etc.
Heck, I played Age of Empires II and the second Baldur's Gate game, but those are much later. I bet I simply missed a whole slew of PC games from Doom to Half-Life because I didn't even play Unreal until I pirated Unreal 2.
I cannot recommend playing this game enough. I still go back and play my CD copies of Myth: The Total Codex collection (1 and 2). It is supreme and sublime. Along with its sequel, Soulblighter, Thief 1 and 2, Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom ,and TIE Fighter, it is among the greatest games ever made from the golden age of PC gaming.
Fantastic review ! You deserve far more subscribers . . .
Thank you :)
Watched 10 minutes of this video, looked at the other reviews on the channel, INSTANTLY SUBSCRIBED
Should've found this before
This intro is absolutely amazing 🙃
Good video, as always, but for me the best part is that it reminded me that War Wind exists. Damn, that game deserved better, and has sadly been almost entirely forgotten...
Unfortunately the version I got from GoG (it was released for free) is extremely choppy. Not sure whether it was something to do with my recording software or compatibillity issues...
I really enjoyed this game, challenging, violent, makes me want to actually boot it up since i haven't thought about this game for at least 2 decades, great video!
(This comment is edited because I’m typing a long message on the phone, and it keeps accident clearing the text. So I’m posting this in segments)
Excellent video! That was definitely interesting. I love how you basically roasted the game, while simultaneously praising the game. That was funny. Admittedly I haven’t played Myth because it came out before I was born. I’ve been recently looking into the different old games that Bungie made back in the day. It’s too bad that they’ve abandoned all of their old franchises.
It’s really interesting how the setting is really derivative with different Tolkien inspired things. They also have what are essentially bootleg goblins, and other stuff like that. I remember there was this one thing talking about Halo saying when you critically analyze it the story is actually really dumb, and doesn’t have a lot of depth. But the presentation is truly amazing. Their games have really good voice acting, music, and gameplay. Also, what you said about the lore being the perfect mix of giving the player just enough information to make them want to learn more about the world, while also being really cryptic gives the illusion of depth. That can definitely be applied to Halo how they gave almost zero information on the Forerunners because they didn’t flesh them out (if you look at how they develop their games they’ll keep stuff vague until they can expand on it later, and will have multiple contradictory ideas be true until they make up their minds. A good example would be how one side of Bungie wanted the Forerunners to be ancient humans, and the other side wanted them to be unrelated aliens. They’d give contradictory hints that made people debate as to which one was true). They also made each game not knowing they’d make a sequel so they’d add in new stuff that retroactively messes with previous stuff. Despite this it’s still interesting looking into their lore, and figuring out which is correct.
It’s too bad that they didn’t ship the game with a level editor, and that the ai was so atrociously bad. That’s interesting how they’ve scripted it so well that it gives the illusion of being intelligent. It would have been really interesting to see what would happen if Halo had become either the third person shooter on the Mac, or an advanced rts game.
(Just now figured out that I can’t emote for whatever weird reason)
I unfortunately haven’t read the Black Company books (didn’t even know about them until watching this video). I really like how they’ve executed the tone where you’re just playing as normal people who are struggling for survival. This is an apocalypse, and they’re trying not to be slaughtered. I really like how most of the world have been destroyed. That was really good environmental storytelling.
These are some ideas building on what you said about not utilizing the narrator to the fullest, and that all the information is 100% accurate: I think they could have solved this problem by having multiple narrators attached to different squads that follow their journey throughout the war. Each would have a different writing style with a unique perspective based on what they were before the war; and they’d give semi contradictory information making you question the validity of what they’re saying. They also could have had different documents you could find in the levels that talk about the lore. They’d be like the books in Elder Scrolls where they’re a mix of fables, actually history (different text would agree on major events, but vary in terms of motivations and exactly how the events happened), and other miscellaneous stuff. (Elder Scrolls is probably my favorite fantasy universe because it has some really deep lore, cool metaphysics, and they utilize the unreliable narrator a lot. Unfortunately as of late the actual stories in the games were really dumb, and they don’t really have a cohesive continuity) As for the morality aspect I think that could have been done by having certain campaigns take place from the perspective of the bad guys, and go into their worldview. They could have also had humanoids who sided with the villains. Unfortunately this would require them to have professional writers on the team, and would require episodically released expansions that take place over however long this war has been waged for.
That’s interesting how in the files they mentioned soldiers having different coats of arms, and how the narrator mentions meeting people he’s never seen before from lands he’s never heard of. I think they could have communicated this in game by having different presets for the different units. That way you’d actually be able to see that this is a rag tag group comprised of people who’ve salvaged whatever they can.
I’ll definitely be really interested in seeing your reviews on the other two Myth games, and their mods. What are some other games you think you’ll cover? Are they mostly just retro games?
I know this is off topic, but have you heard of this fan made Zelda rts called Hyrule Conquest? It’s made by this guy called UndyingNephalim, and he’s been working on it for over a decade. It started out as a mod for Total War Medieval 2. At the time it was called Hyrule Total War, but he ported it over to the 0ad engine a few years ago. It’s a really interesting project. For the lore he took ideas from the 3 different Zelda Timelines, and reinterpreted a bunch of stuff. It’s grown into it’s own thing. The visuals for the factions are really cool, and each one has a different play style. Although, the story is really dumb. Factions will be at each other’s throats. Then in the corse of a month they’ll be best friends. Alliances will change at the drop of a hat. Granted a big chunk of this is because he wanted the player to experience playing as the different factions, and how it feels to fight alongside/against the other factions. It’s a mixed bag that’s mostly good.
Great video, I will be sure to watch your others!
@@shreksnow1918 The multiple narrators sounds like an interesting idea, with the player getting a better understanding of the infighting between the Fallen Lords, the Head etc. later in the game.
Re: the Zelda thing I do actually remember that mod! There was a Myth mod for Medieval 2 in development as well, sadly it never got further than custom battles :(
Very good review of a game of my childhood. I remember myself repainting the manual images. For sure I was'nt old enough to play the game😂
Thanks a lot for this video! Your expert narration and script makes it a treat to follow and listen. I hope you will also cover Myth II and III at some point?
Thanks! Yeah, I will do Myth 2 around Christmas, hopefully, and Myth 3 sometime next year.
I'm not into the RTS genre, to be honest, but you made this one sound a lot like something I can sink my teeth into. I'll definitely give it a look, once I have the time and energy for experimenting with another old PC game.
The main character wasn't entirely a regular grunt, he was part of the Legion, which was an elite part of the military.
I remember reading about Myth in a PC Gamer magazine back in the day. The terrain deformation was such a big deal. When I played the demo I spent hours just creating craters with magic. I truly miss the old days of 3d acceleration and Voodoo 3dFX. We've come so far technologically, but there's still a lot that generation has to offer in terms of soul.
This game - holds great memories for me. Several hours in the 90's were put into this game.
Fun to find a new channel! Its my middle school game
Thanks :D Same, I played it when I was in my early teens (had to upgrade the family PC to 32MB RAM to play Myth 2!)
Another great video mate. Enjoyed this one - I have really clear memories of playing this at releaae for about half an hour on a mate's machine and then never really hearing of it again over the years so this detail was fascinating. Looking forward to January's heroquest review. Any interest in covering Julian Gollop's Magic and Mayhem one day? An overlooked little fantasy gem that I never have the heart to play nowadays in case it plays really poorly and ruins my nostalgia
Possibly, although it'll be a while off, as before that I'd like to cover X-Com Apocalypse, which I find the most interesting of all the (released) XCOM games.
"It can't be hopeless".
Seeing the legacy of this advanced technology RTS become.. well Beta-Halo was mind blowing!
In germany this game has the literal translated subtitle "Crusade into the Uncertain" (Kreuzzug ins Ungewisse), what sounds pretty awsome in german, the game was to hard for my younger self and my attempts last year to test it out didn't work (even on a true Win 98 Machine^^).
They should have implemented Cheats :P
There is a level skip cheat (doesn't include the secret level though), and if you play it via Myth 2 you can easily edit the light units to be stronger. Not sure about the compatibility issues - I can actually run it on Win 10 using Melekor (sp?)'s TFL launcher and a wrapper for 3dfx mode.
When you were talking about unit veterancy being transferred between missions in some capacity, it reminded me of a game called Warzone 2100. In that game your units would gain veterancy over the course of the campaign, which would improve their accuracy and open them up for different roles. So you'd want to keep your units alive in order for them to keep ranking up, and every loss in that manner was a severe detriment, especially because you could only bring a few units with you on missions and whatnot. I always liked trying to keep all my high ranking veterans on mission to mission from the start to the end of the game. It might be interesting to see if you might have had an interest in that game.
I don't know have any specific plans to cover WZ2100, but I do like doing RTS from the era now and again. I saw it a lot in magazine previews of the era, so I might end up covering it one day.
39:30 for me, one thing that I enjoy about the Myth series that I've never seen replicated anywhere else (leading me to say "I wish there were more games like Myth") is that gameplay loop of positioning your archers, dwarves and melee units, taking into account the location terrain.
Just started watching and already have to applaud calling Braveheart a fantasy movie. It has little to do with history, but was amazing from a dramatic viewpoint.
If you haven't seen Outlaw King I would recommend it! I was looking forward to it for a while as there was a lot of positive buzz about it being a much more historically accurate depiction of the period. Unfortunately it portrays Robert far too favourably compared to the historical record and has an absolutely ludicrous scene at the end of the final battle, but still worth watching.
Enemy had both quantity (undead hordes), mobility (ghouls) and quality (lightning mage fetches, stone giants, myrkidia and fallen lords) All you had was swordsmen, bowmen, demolition dwarves and superior tactical skill (hopefuly).
Myth had such an impact on my writing. My "Heavenly Realms" series of novels about the wars between the angels was heavily inspired by Myth.
The ones on Amazon (Empyrean Falling etc.)?
@@MrEdders123 yes! Especially book 4: “Triptych Codex”.
One of my favorite games of all times. Still have and old cd somewhere.
I have always wanted to make a ttrpg just like this. A world that is at the end of it's rope. Thank you for your efforts. I learned lots. o3o
Half moon rank on Myth 2, the only game where I belonged to one of the best of the world. :D
Played endless hours on the Venice map
This was the first game I played with a new set of Logitech speakers and a subwoofer. I'd never heard a sub before and those dwarven satchel charges blew me away!
Myth was another great game from the Golden Age of PC Gaming.
Yep, the trow stomping towards you in the demo sounded amazing at the time. Unfortunately sound seems to have stagnated in modern games...
excellent video about a timeless game! Thank you a lot!!
Amazing video for an amazing game that is maybe my all-time favourite.
Ta
I'm glad I watched that. Thanks for making it. As far as where you can go with Myth game play...I think you touched on it yourself. A more expanded way of retaining veterans, providing them with some few, low-impact improvements based on found items or performance could improve a player's attachment to the soldiers. Making them too strong will cheapen the experience. Making folks so attached that the only way people will want to play it is with no casualties is also not reasonable. So, getting attached to characters a bit but being willing to let them die to progress the game is something that needs to be maintained. The frustrations of the game being hard are real, but really all you need to do is save early and often. It was the 90s, saves were like emulator save states. If a thing doesn't work out halfway through a map or you blow yourself up...well, reload it from a few moments earlier and try a new approach. The replayability of the game is something that I thought was fantastic even in TFL, though it was much more so in SB.
I'm pretty sure playing Myth as a kid is the reason I love RTS as an adult.
i like how your reviews are so well thought out with usual words and then you drop something like "lady luck being a cold bitch". it made me laugh for a bit like "wait what? did he just say that?"
Thank you so much for this awesome in-depth analysis. You have clearly put in a heap of effort into it, which must come from a deep affection for it all these years later.
Myth's single player campaign is fantastic, though I do agree with most of your criticisms of it, and have always thought the story was a little too disjointed in parts (some missions being obvious filler narratively, including some of the most fun ones). Although I think that contributed to the tone - soldiers often have no idea why they're doing what they're doing or what happens afterwards. I have always been a bit tickled by the fact that we're sent on this near-suicidal mission into fallen-occupied Covenant to retrieve the Total Codex, and as far as the narrator knows, this has absolutely no bearing on anything that happens afterwards.
The multiplayer is absolutely where it shines though. You've mentioned the relatively simple gameplay mechanics, but it's a classic example of easy to learn, hard to master. Expert players are absolute madmen (check out myth2adrenaline's channel), but there's just enough randomness in the game that a novice can occasionally get the upper hand if they do anything more complex than a one-click rush.
Thanks for the comment! I'm not really into multiplayer, so I always gloss over that aspect in these videos. Certainly was an important part of Myth's longevity though.
I wonder whether you could use recorded games to "train" AI neural networks to be able to play multiplayer, like researchers did on Starcraft. It's an interesting hypothetical for potentially interesting singleplayer missions too, like having the AI trying to escape hunting parties (similar to A Traitor's Grave) and such.
I remember around the time of Myth's release there was still a lot of excitement about the potential of computer AI opponents, but I think these days people are very jaded about that stuff, since it never lived up to the hype.
@@MrEdders123 a lot of myth multiplayer skill is down to how fast you can click (along with situational awareness), and an AI will always have an advantage given it can click instantly with pixel precision.
It would be an interesting exercise though, and could be fun with a sliding scale limiting the number of clicks and introducing occasional random mis-clicks. One thing is that the myth recording format doesn’t record clicks, it records individual unit movement commands, which isn’t quite the same thing when you consider you’re usually commanding more than one unit at a time. But if someone could come up with a way to train an AI there’s a huge repository of multiplayer films on gateofstorms.net (every game played on the server gets saved).
PS you put so much effort into your videos, I hope Father Christmas brings you lots of subscribers!
@@bahlalthewatcher4790 Cheers, happy christmas to you too! I'll be doing a Myth 2 video next christmas covering the big mods like Chimera, Seventh God, Jinn etc. :D
@@MrEdders123 That sounds awesome! I'm subbed so will look out for it
This game was my childhood, against my parents wishes...
A great look into the direction RTS games could have headed. Sad to see no one pick up this banner (successfuly).
Thank for you detail review!
The story, the music, the mood. I miss this series…
Yeah, dystopian fantasy is underused.
The vetrency system almost reminds me of the " transfer creature" secrets from Dungeon Keeper 1. While yes you can take a level 10 to the next level, there was no guarantee that " Fap" the level 10 spider was going to go all the way to last level with you, not every level had a "transfer creature" secret. Which saddened me as a kid, but I can see now that I am older how that could've broken the pacing of later levels.
I want to meet that designer person, who saw a bright neon rectangle over every selected unit and said "yeah, that's fine".
Great work done with this video.
Great stuff. I loved this game and really loved SoulBlighter. I subscribed.
all of the AI follows scripts written by the map creators lol 😂 so if nothing is written for the units they will indeed just sit there. There are certain advanced plugins with hours upon hours of code, the fans of myth created a deeper game than the fallen lords would be on its own, hours upon hours of more work and design.
Great review, Ed.
It's hilarious how much better I remember these graphics than they actually were. "Damn your eyes!" lol
I actually enjoy Myth's gameplay more than the tactical battles in Total War. It feels somehow more immediate and fluid and organic, whereas Total War often feels like playing rock-paper-scissors. But I do agree that if you were to strip away the story, atmosphere, and well-designed levels, it would lose its appeal, which is why I haven't bitten on any of the few Myth clones yet.
I liked how you referred to the Braveheart movie as a "fantasy" film, with some part of me wondering if you were being cheeky about the fact that it qualified as fantasy because of its loose interpretation of the medieval Anglo-Scottish War of Independence.
Both. Outlaw King is much better but has some ridiculous scenes (end duel) and questionable characterization (Robert as some sort of reluctant nationalist hero).
Nothing beats the suicidal dwarfs
under rated game. thanks for the review!
Best part of Myth 2 was the moded game play. A trow lunching a fire ball? Yes awesome. WW2 tanks during a campaign? Yes it was OP. Anime characters with sound files might have been used. The War Hammer Total War Series carried this type of RTS into the future.
Another great piece.
BTW- on your question about where are the myth clones - the TW series. Hit me up with an email for more info.
P.s. loved the SS refference
I'm a casual fan of Marathon... and man, does it still sting hearing such repeated echoes of it being dismissed as 'a doom clone' during its time.
Like, that series story alone was bonkers more advanced then anything Id would do for years. And it had stuff like... oxygen meters, mouse look and ammo conservation back in freakin' 94-96.
Never heard of this, seems neat
Great analysis.
I still have the Myth 1 and 2 and 3 CD
Damn, such a high quality stuff
Love that game and the mods for it too
Casualty
The more I delve into myth for dnd inspiration the more I see it less as an RTS and more as a meticulously balanced tabletop wargame rpg. I remember my dad saying his crowning video game achievement was beating the myth 2 demo on legendary with no losses which I never really appreciated until I went and played the game.
Myth was one of those games I always looked at from a far,
maybe I should try it…after I get sick of the game I’m on.
This game is a fresh to me as the first day i ever played it
There's something so oddly compelling about Myth from a purely narrative standpoint. Just sheer desperation and constantly fighting the odds as seen from a lowly soldier's POV. Being the closest thing to a Black Company video game probably helped as well, yeah.
Exactly. There aren't any new games with similar narrative structure anymore i.e. beeing a small cog in a much bigger machine since you are not a saviour or a chosen one. Any move forward, against the odds, is a hard win not granted by your special status.
I actually think the same tone was set in my favorite Halo, Halo: Reach. Sure, you play a supersoldier in that game, but in the context of the narrative even a squad of supersoldiers can't save the day. Every hard-won victory by your squad is undone by two steps back in the general war raging around you. The feeling of being an insignificant part of vast events despite your best efforts was really compelling.
1) There's charm about pre-rendered sprites and i find interesting to explore old (and few new) titles that tried to use that approach to animated characters. It's strange that when it feels somehow worse when they are too high resolution or too zoomed in.. maybe the brain appreciates less details so it can fill the gaps in between.. or we grew with those limitations and started to want them :P About animations, a game called Soulbringer tried to split the sprite into separate pieces and animate them with mocap level of quality.. it's a bit weird but pretty cool to see smooth movements (and explosion of enemies in a similar way that Myth).
2) A bit like low res also the concept art added into the narrative is a pretty cool idea.. black and white drawings like classic comics. Maybe they reminded me of Savage Sword of Conan.. Some time ago i replayed Icewind Dale (and seen the reviews about the series here) and recalled how cool those intros (animated in that case) are. Not every enviroment or event should be implemented into gameplay, visual bits together with narration can trigger imagination (even more if the option is to cut them because it costs too much to make 2d/3d assets).
3) How to evolve a subset of a genre like this? I think it's simply what makes it strong: being immersed into the world. New scenarios, units, type of landscapes and so on that creates new challenges and experiences. It's not about adding stats or pure tactical challenges like a classic rts game. I usually play strategy games to see what i can develop more than how well i can win. Translate elements of fantasy books: heroic fantasy, low/high fantasy.. characterization, the classic world map, etc. To mention Soulbringer again, in that game you start with an awkward Diablo like game with weird mechanics, a fragile young man fighting brigants around a snowy village but few hours later a certain narrative element shows up that switches things up to an heroic fantasy thing: new powers and misterious allies, exploring distant lands, recalling the lost history of the world, enemies hidden in society.. that is a way to push you into continuing a game (even with its gameplay issues). Nowadays a charming component like that is often lost or weak.
Funny you mention Soulbringer, it's incidentally related to several other games I'm going to cover in the future (Planescape: Torment and HeroQuest II) and I'd like to do a video on it some day. I should mention the concept art looks worse than it should because the larger pieces are 640 x 480, and the smaller ones with the white blended edges are something like a quarter of that.
@@MrEdders123 Good selection of games to review, i'll take look at them when released!
Sometimes the official strategy guides can be a source for higher quality concept art if you are lucky but i'd guess if so probably someone would have already took scans of them.
Another example of storytelling by images that i remember now is in Geneforge games. I played the remake of the first one few months ago and then picked up the whole series and indeed they use black and white drawings at the beginning of every chapter, quite interesting idea to break a bit the "wall of text" thing that usually certain style of rpgs use.
Fantastic video man! I just went through your BG video, this and a few others all day at work today
If you ever want to talk Warhammer 40k, D&D, or do a collab reach out
Just saw your Dune 2 wind trap, impressive stuff :D
@@MrEdders123 You're the impressive one here Edders.
I was introduced to the Myth series by Mandalore who made very solid reviews of it. This video intrigued me on the other Myth-likes. Can I know more about them?
A few games were called "Myth-like" by reviewers in the mid-90s, but weren't really that similar (Shogun Total War, for example, was frequently compared to Myth). In terms of direct "Myth clones", Nordic Warriors is clearly homaging it. There are other modern-ish games like Deadhold that claim inspiration as well.
@@MrEdders123 I admit, ever since I learnt about Myth and what it did, it has left me greatly fascinated, and a bit sad at how its style of RTS approach has really not been seen again, or rather, the whole blend and package; i can't think of any other game that got close to how Myth felt to play
OH MY GODS!!!! THIS GAME!!!!
ed is like santa.. and not only bc of girth..
No!
@@MrEdders123 What!
"Windup toys" look is not due to the number of frames, but because of the stiff mechanical animation. The number of frames is relatively fine. Anime uses fewer. Bugie were just inexperienced animating stuff in 3d.
I believe Bungie did specifically say during Myth 2's marketing that the stiff animations were due to the number of frames (in the context of promoting Myth 2 doubling it). Could've just been easiest way to communicate it to the public though.
I guess the original Homeworld (not remastered) solved the issue with loosing units rather well, altough it was more traditional with resource gathering and unit building.
probably Dark Omen solved it as well? Ages since I played it, can't get it to run (CD lies around here), but that had the issue of getting incredible difficult if you lost missions and/or units.
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I would love to see your take on Dark Omen
Dark Omen was compared to Myth 2 in a few reviews. I'll probably cover Shadow of the Horned Rat one day.