I love the Honest Hearts endings because regardless of which one you choose there are always two constants; Joshua is always satisfied and Daniel is always miserable, it's hilarious.
Daniel is so fucking stupid its not even funny. Across all fallouts and their dlcs (3,4,nv) zion is the safest place with least harmful animals/dangers (only cazadors are present from the really deadly ones and all you have to make a few antipoisons and you will be set.Deathclaws,supermutants,Raiders,synths,big clans would be far more deadly.), you also have no radiation (so in some places tribals without pipboys would just die due to radiation poisoning also they would get radiated through food/water anyway) and like one viable way out of zion that no real army could march through (though i don;t know how white legs got through then, still fortify those places that connect to outside world and you have a fortress, a place where real civilization could be built as in safety civilization can blossom). TLDR Daniel is an idiot.
@@mistermajestic829 He's a coward more than he is a pacifist. He wants to run but even in his ending where you escape Zion it shows that he kind of regretted that decision. Joshua's views are flawed too but that mostly stems from his own personal beliefs. The idea of defending your home from a band of marauding raiders however, especially in the setting of fallout, is well justified. There is merit to wanting to protect the Sorrows innocence, especially after reading the Survivalist's logs but if you take the entirety of fallout into account, they wouldn't have lasted. Sooner or later they would have to do this dance all over again, at best they get to run off elsewhere, at worst they get wiped out. But how long can they keep running? Maybe eventually they'll just end up getting assimilated to a different group. Its a pipedream in the grand scheme.
@@mistermajestic829 That's why the best ending is talking Joshua out of exterminating the White Legs. They learn to defend themselves but also learn mercy. Its honestly the best possible outcome as the Sorrows are no longer push overs but don't become blood thirsty savages either.
You didn't touch upon it, but the companion quests in this DLC further illustrate the difference between Joshua and Daniel in terms of morals and attitudes. Follows-Chalk has a quest wherein, after seeing a lot of landmarks with him, you realize he's genuinely curious about seeing the outside world; He's debating leaving tribal life to see more civilized life. He's conflicted, and asks you to ask Joshua for advice. Joshua emphasizes his preference for tribal life, but makes it clear that it's ultimately up to Follows-Chalk. The player can lie to him, or give their own input on the matter. Waking Cloud's quest, meanwhile, has you follow up on learning about her family by asking Daniel about it. Her husband was killed, and Daniel knows this, but willingly kept it a secret so that Cloud would be more productive. He begs you not to tell her, but ultimately the player can choose whether or not to do so. Joshua has his preferences, but respects that the tribals might hold different views and encourages them to make their own decisions. Daniel lies to and manipulates the tribals when he thinks it would be useful, all the while trying to convert them to his religion. Fuck Daniel.
Yeah, Daniel has a stance of "no no you're getting it wrong!" when it comes to the tribes' interpretation of mormonism, while Joshua is more like "eh, close enough"
@Mister Majestic Not to be rude, but you just proved Danial is evil. Him feeling conflicted over it still and struggles to keep the status-quo is just a justification, not a quantification. It'd be different, if say Danial took time revealing information to her rather then just flat out lying the whole time, or literally at least thought of any other idea and expressed it via dialog or actions as an alternative scenario he could have done. An example would be like after some time say they found her husbands dead body, but haven't confirmed the childs' death ect ect. But don't get me wrong. Josh is evil as well. Literally following the same path as Casar once again. Seeing tribes waging war inefficiently and fixing that problem, both as revenge and to save his own life.
That because, at the end of the day, they see the tribals in different ways. Joshua sees people that can think on their own, Daniel thinks of them as helpless children that shouldn't think on their own.
I always side with Joshua for the simple reason of The Survivalist aka the Father in the Cave wanted his children the Sorrows to fight for their land and to defend themselves against outsiders.
Exactly. Plus what happens when they run and someone else fucks with em. But I go for the mercy ending. They defend their land but know when to show mercy.
Growing up, this DLC was the one reference to Mormons that I had in video games. I remember thinking when missionaries came by, "those guys are gonna outlast all of us somehow"
"Somehow." Just to try and fill in the gap for you, the Mormons can be really good about documenting things and bookkeeping. They have extensive records on all kinds of history of themselves and others, which I imagine is why the creators chose them as the group to survive the apocalypse: when nuclear fire burns away everything, the culture most likely to survive is likely going to be the one that most meticulously cares for the *records* of it's own culture. So yeah, I doubt the devs just thought "lol wouldn't it be funny if those dudes survived" and instead they chose them for the sake of lore consistency and answering the question of "which US subgroup is most likely to retain it's culture to some degree after the nuclear apocalypse?"
@@Longknife the Mormons also as a culture practice disaster preparedness, and they tend to be more close knit than some other groups placing an emphasis on community and familiar bonds.
I've always liked Honest Hearts. But yeah, it's solidly held by the charismatic and fascinating figure that is Joshyua Graham and I actually like a lot of how you're not even the protagonist of the DLC's story, you're more like Max Rockatansky, where you stumbled on the story of these other people. Also, I really liked throwin tomahawks at people.
It always bugged me the way the game treats defeating the White Legs as something not entirely morally justified. It's a necessity, they're Raiders. So what if they dress better than the Khans or Vipers? They're evil, simple as.
I think it’s fair to say it’s always sad wiping out a group. They’re not just raiders, they’re an entire culture. And while I agree they need to go, I feel sad doing so just as I feel sad wiping out the great khans.
They are a brainwashed (by Ulysses) group who are on the crux of extinction themselves. The tribe's that join Caesar's legion are given the option of joining them or going extinct, there is no in-between. The White Leg's themselves can't farm, they don't know how, they are too big to really live off the land, and their territory is largely pretty barren, their options at this point are join Caesar's Legion or join the NCR because their territory is slowly going to be absorbed either way. Ulysses set the White Leg's on their path, and later left them without a real path but the one he'd set them on given their lack of knowledge. This was all to kill Graham who had also radicalized the Dead Horses, while brainwashing them into foreign religion, which essentially starts a tribal war entirely as a result of Graham and Caesar with the Sorrow's trapped in the middle. Just because you can kill someone doesn't mean you should, and if you can stop them without killing them, why wouldn't you? Killing someone ends everything they are or ever could be. This isn't a single person, this is an entire tribe, full of men, women, and children, who could be something more if given a chance. Showing them mercy teaches them this, it gives them a different experience, and maybe they will die out anyway, but it's sure as hell a better option than what they were given. Why should commiting unnecessary genocide be seen as morally justified? Joshua is a monster just as much as Caesar is, but he uses the justification of absolute "good" and "evil" based in Christian religion. The Khan's themselves are morally complex as well, these are a bunch of people struggling to survive in the desert, being brutally put down by the NCR, and then being forced on the run into a desperate situation. It helps if you actually see these groups as people, and not enemy NPCs that exist solely to give you XP. Yes many of these groups do fucked up things, but moral absolutism is a fallacy, and this is a pretty extreme situation. If you do treat them as people and don't see an issue with wiping them out despite having the option not to, that sounds like an empathetic issue.
Sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds is so very obviously written as the "correct" choice to end the game on, which is why it has one of the highest speech checks in the game to complete. And it's for basically all the reasons you said, it's his realization that while the monster that he once was is still inside him, that doesn't mean he has to give in to what it's telling him to do. Not to mention his realization comes right after saying stuff like "I want to make my anger God's anger", which for a mormon is probably one of the most blasphemous things you can say. It suddenly puts everything into perspective for him, that while he may have pulled himself back from the brink last time, he might not be able to do it again if he lets go.
>his realization comes right after saying stuff like "I want to make my anger God's anger" I'm pretty sure the realization came first, and he was just working through his revelations aloud at that point. Confessing his sin, so to speak. Not explaining why he has to continue. Just explaining how he got to this point.
Did you people even play the DLC? If you watch the ending slides, Daniel's ending is the better one. Joshua's ending causes tensions between the tribes.
@@Meurth Daniel's ending teaches nothing, it's moral cowardice for the sake of purity. Joshua may have caused the Dead Horses to become more warlike, but that's preferable to passivity. It means that when another group like the White Legs come, they will be able to protect themselves. Not to mention sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds DOES teach the Sorrows to be tempered by mercy. BUT, all of that is completely irrelevant, the entire point of the dlc means what happens to the tribes does not matter. The thematic point of the dlc is about saving Joshua's soul, everything else is secondary to that.
@@SeruraRenge11 The tribes either live in harmony or in conflict, that's what I find most important. I don't really care about Joshua's soul because he's just 1 person. It's not exactly passive, in Daniel's ending you kill lots of white legs anyways to free the captured tribals, clear the sacred burial grounds and clear the road out of Zion
My first experience with this DLC was funny. At the very beginning of it I sniped Follows-chalk by accident thinking he's the enemy. What that did was basically made me unpopular with all the factions in the entire DLC so my quest failed and turned into finding the grand staircase and a map and then just going back to Mojave which obviously made me think that the entire DLC was just a map with nothing but enemies and a single Quest lmao.
The DLC seems really short because you were supposed to view Zion as an open world asking to be explored and have taken the quests sending you out to find stuff as an excuse to spend more time poking around on your own. Sawyer has mentioned this a few times before, IIRC.
I mean; that's all well and good, but the DLC falls into that age-old trap of creating a false sense of urgency. When you show up your caravan is immediately massacred and you get tasked by Joshua to spearhead their efforts in preparing the evacuation of Zion. Unless you're playing a character with no concept of priority, you're gonna run around and do the missions as quickly as you can; THEN you get forced into the big climactic finale, only after which can you reasonably feel free to go around and explore the map. It also doesn't help that there aren't that many visually distinct landmarks to check out. A handful of abandoned campsites, a buttload of caves, and some ruins that the game directs you towards anyway. For an add-on that wants you to go out and look around yourself, HR didn't do that great a job of incentivizing too.
Unfortunately doing so caused a sacrifice under such time constraints. They made it wider, but shallower. And it doesn't help that Old World Blues followed which had both more story content and a more interesting/fun world to explore
The writing in this DLC was superb. Even the terminals in the cave that Randall Clark, a character you don't even see because he died years ago, was so good and got me to admire a dude who is just a skeleton next to a duffle bag.
For me, there was a different reason for choosing Graham in this DLC. Mainly, that I found the Survivalist Caches and finally the Survivalist himself. If there's anything I wish you spoke about, but understand not because it's not the focus, it's the tale of Randall Clarke. For me, that's what tipped the scales to defeat the White Legs. I mean, I don't need some guy on the internet to justify my liking for the backstory of the dlc locale. XD
@Mister Majestic There's no paradise for you to run to. You can ignore the world around you, but that doesnt mean itll ignore you. Talking joshua down at the end of zion's defense, you both teach the sorrows to not be pacifists while also showing them that there's a fine line between that & being a monster
I think the best part of Honest Hearts might be coming back after the quest is over and just wandering around Zion. It really is a beautiful place. I can see why Joshua considers it holy ground.
fun fact if you dont find the survivalists rifle before the end of the main quest one of the ememies will usually pick it up and start blasting you during it
Joshua Graham is easily on the short list for greatest video game characters of all time. It's such a shame that he only had a small role in New Vegas as a whole.
First time I played I hit the npc behind the white legs and aggro'd to every faction, killed Joshua gram and about 20 minutes into the dlc was looking at a title card thinking wtf was that.
Same. Didn't notice that he had killed the guy shooting at me. So I waste him, everyone aggros, I stumble on Graham, kill him and get all those failed quest notices and was like, uh oh. Time for a reload.
“We warned you at Syracuse, and you persisted. You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion. And now you stand on holy ground, a temple to God's glory on Earth. But the only use for an animal in our temple is sacrifice!" - Joshua Graham Easily the best DLC imo because of the religious themes behind it and the story of the tribes fighting to keep their land but I’m biased being very religious and half Seminole. Keep it up with the great videos 👍🏽
It's honestly a pretty apt reflection of Native American history post-colonization. There's two tribes essentially pushed under external power's (the French and British in real life, here the New Canaanites and Caesar's Legion), with one also pushing to completely replace their tribal culture and religion with a variant of post-apocalyptic Christianity in order to "civilize" them. That's why it's so sad to watch Joshua justify his actions with his faith. He truly believes what he's doing is right, meanwhile he's radicalizing a peaceful tribal people who just want to be left alone, pushing the tribe's into conflict with Caesar's Legion in order, in part, to help the New Canaanites, and committing outright genocide for revenge. Morality is subjective, but I don't think many rational individuals would agree with Joshua's actions. The Sorrow's alone are just absolutely tragic, they don't even realize what's being done to them. Whatever happens, the true victims are the Sorrow's, and even the White Leg's were manipulated by Ulysses, promised power and land by Caesar, and pushed into a confrontation that ultimately sees most of their tribe, men, women, and children, end up dead as a result. Graham is honestly one of the most terrifying character's in the setting. Caesar is incredibly intelligent, a master manipulator, and has great tactical acumen combined with ruthless will, but he doesn't believe he's ordained by God, he doesn't believe in absolute "good" and "evil", and he isn't doing this for any reason but that he thinks it will better prepare the post-apocalyptic society to survive (that and personal power). Graham could easily become a far, far more dangerous leader, and he's going about it in the same way, slowly radicalizing tribal groups and bringing them together under a single banner, but the major difference is that Graham believes he has divine justification in exercising his brand of justice, that's far more dangerous than anything we've seen in the leaders of other factions. If we ever see a sequel to New Vegas, I think Joshua Graham would make a pretty solid antagonist. People like him, and the VA and writing make him rather persuasive, but morally speaking, the man's a monster. I feel like he could be an excellent Far Cry villain.
@@AveSicariusyou pretty eloquently outlined a lot of my misgivings about the factions involved in the DLC. I feel uncomfortable with the colonialist undertones but as you pointed out there's not really any positive outcome that doesn't involve assisting the 'good' colonists. The best you can really hope to do is damage reduction, which is realistic because you can't single handedly undo what's been done, but overall I didn't feel good about any of the options and I wasn't really sure if that was due to the intention of the writers or an oversight on their part. I guess Graham is an inversion of the white saviour trope but the idea that the tribe wouldn't be able to resist Caesar's imperialist ambitions without him due to being too innocent and peaceful muddies that a bit.
It is the best light armor. Joshua graham's armor has an OP critical bonus to it that is too good to pass up Now if by "the best" you mean simply the highest raw DT it would be Sierra Madre reinforced since it has like 18 DT compared to 15 DT for Joshuah armor. But it has no bonuses at all and also weighs over twice as much (17 pounds for Sierra Reinforced vs 8 pounds for joshuah)
HH has all my favorite gear. The Survivalist's rifle and his helmet (forgive me mama) Joshua's armor and his pistol A Light Shining in Darkness. They're all awesome. The Father's armor deserves honorable mention and would be my favorite armor it wasn't for Joshua's armor.
NV and the DLCs make it really obvious that, good or bad, anything Obsidian does with Fallout is still a million times more interesting than anything Bethesda ever comes up with.
Your sound balancing the vast majority of the time is super good, this video included, a lot of time other people probably hope the listeners just turn the audio up a ton, but as a headphones user the sudden cut to metal at the end kinda blew out my ears. As an avid fan I just wanted to say something about it, thanks for another great video
2 words, Randall Clark.... Reading the survivalists' logs is one of only 3 times I've ever cried at a video game, the pain that man went through, multiple times and still maintained his spirit, was beyond moving... The second time I cried at a video game was when I hiked up to the Red Gate to find Randell Clarks body, that wreath and trees that had grown up around him over time, like Zion itself knew who he was and took its turn protecting him... It was quite frankly beautiful
Love your videos as always. I always want to kill salt upon wounds but seeing joshua self-reflect and be more at peace with himself is quite rewarding. Also man this dlc reminds me of The Mission. In The Mission, there's a former slaver who redeems himself and ultimately fights for the natives who will be enslaved, and there's a missionary who teaches the natives and preaches love but can't bring himself to combat the slavers w/ violence-- so while the two characters respect each other, they end up doing different things to express their beliefs in the final battle. And there's some similar dialogue later on in the film. There's a Portuguese colonist in the movie who says the systematic massacre of the natives was inevitable and unfortunate, "We must work in the world; the world is thus", but the cardinal who reluctantly ordered the massacre says, "No, thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it." This kinda parallels the player's potential conversation with Daniel where you can basically tell him that the world is just like this and the tribals have to lose their innocence, protect their land or whatever, and daniel pretty much replies that we fucked up this world for the tribals and the world shouldn't have to be like that-- I forget the exact words and I don't feel like looking for it again. Then the movie ends with john 1:5 "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness hath not overcome it." and you get joshua's .45acp handgun 'light shining in the darkness' at the end of the dlc. Just thought those basic similarities were neat.
👍 Gut-wrenching movie. The "parallels" are very obviously not a coincidence, but rather interactive-homage. (And Deniro as the Josh.) Without even looking, I'm certain that many forums have discussed this over the last decade.
The problem is, there's no reason to assume that's what the outcome will be. Real life is often complicated and has unforseeable outcomes, yes, but in fiction, a satisfying ending has to make sense. Especially in a game, where your choices supposedly determine the outcome. But in this DLC, your choices are to (a) let the White Legs drive the Sorrows to extinction, (b) help the Sorrows flee, which the story up to this point tells us will only delay their annihilation at the hands of the White Legs, (c) kill some of the White Legs but let the rest survive to flee, with their leader, or (d) annihilate the White Legs, ending the threat for good. Three of those choices lead exactly to the outcomes you'd suspect. You do the thing you meant to do, and live with the consequences, which naturally follow. Except for option (C), which is just inexplicably the "right" answer - despite it being less sure to do anything good for anyone, and essentially a moral compromise for the sake of your own conscience. A rational result for (C) is that the White Legs limp away, regroup, and remain a recurring problem for the Sorrows and everyone else - which is exactly what happened with the Khans. We even have an example in the game of that kind of result. But for some reason, in the canon ending for Honest Hearts, this choice is the best of all possible worlds, and leads to the best result. Is it terrible? No. Is it completely incomprehensible? No. But it isn't satisfying, because it's not the ending you chose with your actions. It's a random set of events that follows your actions, that couldn't have been predicted beforehand. There's no reason to assume a genocidal barbarian like Salt-Upon-Wounds will learn anything from mercy except how to nurse a grudge. There's no reason to assume that the White Legs will just go away and fall apart after being allowed to retreat from a losing battle, never troubling Zion again. There's no reason to assume the Sorrows will become overall better from learning this mixed lesson of killing your enemies, but maybe not all of them, if it means your leader's specific past traumas might come back to haunt him. But all of that happens, just because there had to be a "good" ending. None of it's completely implausible, but there's no way to say you caused it to happen. You got lucky that it turned out that way after the fact.
@@nightsong81 I mean even without meta-gaming it's easy to assume the White Legs are doomed. From the information we gather before the final choice, we know: -You, Joshua, and the Zion tribals pretty much wipe out the White Legs's fighting force, rendering the threat they pose fairly negligible. -The White Legs don't have the means or knowledge to be self-sufficient. -The White Legs are being scouted by Caesar's Legion with their task being taking out the New Canaanites. Letting them go still means they're failures in the Legion's eyes. 'Legion was gonna roll over and assimilate what they can anyway but now they might just end up wiping out the entire remaining White Legs tribe. -The White Legs are not native to Zion, but the Great Salt Lake in Utah. This means that in order to go home from Zion they'd, an incredibly weakened group, have to pass through 80's territory. If Joshua & Co, don't wipe out the White Legs it's reasonable to assume other raiders will. Even if they escape Zion, the White Legs will still die out. There is no reason to assume the hatred will go away sure, but what's important is their ability to direct that hatred onto others has been taken from them. The White Legs are crippled by the end of Honest Hearts and no matter what happens to them in Zion, they're done. Though all of this is besides the point of it being satisfying. Letting the White Legs go as an ending isn't for their or your the player's benefit, but Joshua's. Tempering his rage, helping him let go of his trauma, and allowing him to set a better example for the impressionable Tribals, that's what's satisfying to me. It's not a 'mixed' lesson, it's *_mercy_* ,something even the Sorrows's 'god' provided when he let the rest of Vault 22's survivors flee. It's teaching them that there's other options than letting rage consume them.
@@nightsong81 Salt doesn't learn anything, he's just broken by his defeat and it leads to poor leadership that leads to the 80s wiping out the White Legs
@@nightsong81The end of the game tells you how the white legs kill SUW for his failure and disperse into smaller raiders gangs, basically the white legs no longer exist and die off
Or it teaches them to show mercy given it's been shown to them. Beating them uproots their entire cultural basis, and gives them a chance to evolve. Commiting genocide isn't protecting anyone, Caesar's Legion still exists, Joshua just wants revenge, he wants to kill every single man, woman, and child, he's just as bad as them. If you kill the White Leg's you are exactly the same as both of them.
@@AveSicarius Not even close. The white legs only exist to raid and kill everything around them. Exterminating them is the best and most efficient option. Not crossing your fingers and hoping some of them might change for the better. As for the legion, you can cause their downfall as well. The legion deserve the same treatment. Unless Joshua and the courier round up several hundreds or thousands of people to go raiding after exterminating the white legs, they are not as bad as the white legs or legion.
@@UnliveingEnd Dude, it's genocide, it's never justified. The Nazi's were a horrific group of political leaders who ordered the murder of millions of people. By your justification every single German man, woman, and child should have been killed because of this. The Legion isn't a single population, and is an Imperialist faction that falls apart without Caesar. That's very, very different to wiping out an already beaten tribe. The White Leg's were beaten, and then Joshua Graham killed defenceless women and children along with their warriors in revenge for New Canaan. You don't see that as just as wrong? Because it is, it absolutely is.
@@DIEGhostfish Yes, but Graham himself wants to kill EVERYONE and this is largely what people seem to be justifying. Also while you only duel their leader and some adult warriors, you need to think about what Graham has done during this time and what he's going to do after. So even in this case, we are still pretty much abetting genocide fairly directly. Plus the entire tribe is probably going to, you know, die out when you kill most of their adult population. Either way, it's pretty fucked up considering the White Leg's are already beaten. Getting rid of Salt's-The-Wound is very different to what Graham intends, and what you essentially help him go through with.
I liked the DLC, always doing it first every playthrough. They introduced not one but TWO great characters - one was so good even atheists liked him. The other is dead, but they managed to build great picture with overrated mechanics (found notes/PDAs).
I did it first because a silenced 1911 is the best holdout gun for casinos. Always found it a pain that the weapons only magically started appearing after you finished the DLC.
I’m might be the only one who actually loves this DLC. It’s not to often that you get a story in any form of media that shows respect for more religious folks and that doesn’t deem them as a bunch of crazy religious fanatics. But instead shows them a just real people trying to live like everyone else’s.
But you didn't talk about Sneering Imperialist. One of the best perks I've seen. But yeah, General Gobbledegook get shot in all my play throughs. One thing I hate is the, " Oh yeah, he murdered, raped, and enslaved hundreds if not thousand but we're going to show him we're the better person!", type of endings.
Oh, because this DLC faced an impossible challenge. Fo 1 2 and to a large extent 3 were all about being alone with your thoughts in an empty world. FNV is crowded and the Courier is running on a tight schedule. Honest Hearts tried to recreate that feeling of being alone, but instead of an entire sea it had only a backyard swimming pool to work with. The feeling is there, but it's just a bite when you expect a whole huge, thick sandwich.
When I first played this DLC, I shot the first guy running towards me, which apparently had triggered the worst state, and I had to fight my way through the canyon. No story, no nothing haha. I was like "this is it? just a combat map?"
Joshua Graham’s redemption arc is one of the best stories I’ve ever experienced in an medium. It speaks to how well the writing was that you have a one time character that’s this impactful using mostly dialogue alone.
To add onto the moral "dilemma" at the end there: Even today we live in a world where cruelty is tolerated if done by the powerful at the expense of the powerless. The reason the world is cruel is not because of a lack of mercy, but because of a lack of justice. Justice is rendered impotent by commercial and geopolitical interests. Morality takes a backseat because our leaders and industries are bribed into compliance with monsters. Have no mercy on the enemies of all mankind, those who consolidate power and force so as to exploit, enslave and murder your fellows. Otherwise your children and grandchildren will forever suffer for your hubris, for making the mistake of ever thinking that "mercy" was yours alone to dispense. Of course all sorts of atrocities can be justified with this mindset. But that doesn't mean that violence and mercy are mutually exclusive ideologies. One can be merciful to those who deserve it and exact hard justice to those who are less deserving. As for who gets to be the judge? A much harder question. But I think we can say Salt Upon Wounds deserves to die. The wasteland is filled with the graves of innocents and he is responsible for having put many of them there. If mercy is a resource to be dispensed judiciously, then he is not worthy of it.
I have a friend that's literally on vacation in Zion right now and I told her that my knowledge of that place comes from Fallout: New Vegas with the Honest Hearts expansion. What an... oddly specific video to see posted on the topic.
I thought Honest Hearts was basically, “damn this Avellone can write a character” but beyond that, it just wasn't that interesting of a scenario. Take away Graham and it's a pretty limp tribal war DLC. I know people hate Dead Money, but that one had a group of interesting companions with different outcomes, new mechanics, and a great tie in to the overall story thanks to Elijah. Personally, Honest Hearts is my least favorite story DLC, but still good enough to play (it's only comparatively weak).
@@DIEGhostfish You know..That's a really good question! It definitely was Sawyer's baby and I just assumed he did everything but the writing based on how he always mentions collabing with Avellone on the DLCs, but I actually can't find anything stating who wrote dialogue for Honest Hearts. Some people say Gonzales and others say Sawyer. I now assume it's not Avellone though because he Tweeted that he was responsible for work on all the DLCs with the exception of Honest Hearts. Hmmm, given my recent playthrough of the excellent Pentiment, I would probably say that it's Sawyer like you figured. I didn't even think of this but some of the characters in that game have a very similar tone.
@@mistermajestic829 It's interesting to be sure, but worthy of an entire DLC? Would this not be just as interesting if it were a couple settlements with the single big decision bookended by maybe one or two quests? Now granted, I don't think Lonesome Road has a lot of narrative meat either (basically it's all loaded into the Ulysseys encounter, but at least that DLC has an interesting combat zone. I do like the survivalist bits, for sure, but imagine how much cooler finding those logs would have been if the locations you found them in had interesting stories or quests that lead you to them. I'm willing to concede that I find tribals boring in almost every video game. I don't think it's possible for humanity to backtrack in that fashion. The only game that I think pulled it off was Horizon because of the very specific scenario in that game that reset human knowledge. I've always been more of a Junktown man than an Arroyo man, basically.
A review on each DLC would be awesome. HH was always my second-to-least favorite, so I'm interested in what you've gotta say. Keith Szarabajka is an amazing actor, and has worked in most Bethesda games. He's a popular Dunmer voice! Both Sorrows and Dead Horses DO have children, they're just away safe. That's told to you. Unless I'm misremembering? I've only ever heard people complain about DMs difficulty, not it being "dumb".
"It always feels like a waste of a dude when a guy goes from being awesome to being a man of faith." The exhale from my nose would have put out a man who was on fire.
The reason I love Honest Hearts is two fold. Firstly, it explores the original elements of the first two games; the tribes. And then the Geography. It was like the Mojave but only better. As a European, you don't get stuff like Zion.
I use this DLC as a beginning of the game warm up. From Doc Mitchell's house I head straight for Honest Hearts I usually enter the DLC at around level 2 or 3
I like Honest Hearts due to the gecko reinforced leather armor upgrade and on survival there's so much fresh food around you can walk back to New Vegas with enough supplies to last for years.
The only reason I feel thats justified to deduct some chips from dead money's score are the collar mechanics, those can turn into a pain in the ass. Otherwise the storytelling, setting and characters are all fantastic.
Keep the gold coming buddy, I love these videos in this area of the gaming universe… if I may, I would love to see some content about gta vice city, San Andreas and gta 3, in comparison in this new definitive addition… I don’t know man it’s all up to yourself, just an idea!
"I'm with the invisible man over here. These bastards gotta die." I really love this video. This is the moment I subscribed. I also played it so I could talk down Joshua Graham. I also found that ending so much more satisfying. This whole dlc is a great example of when trying to be "good" is the most evil thing you can do. Starting right away by being a dick and scaring off that chem addict. You probably saved his life.-side note: I always bring him so he can be killed I feel like Daniel is the most selfish and evil person in the whole dlc. In the end he only ever cares about his own feelings. He doesn't understand basic math: Die- divided by -fight and then die- always equals -fight squared- !! Don't forget about the service the tribes of Zion would be doing for all the people in the surrounding region by decimating the white legs. No I don't mean the NCR! I mean all the other people who actually live there. The ones the desert rangers used to protect? I also like how it's actually a strategically viable solution. I'm 100 percent sure that if Zion was of strategic interest to the legion the place would be scoured. Thant means that if they can decisively defeat the white legs there's a chance the legion won't immediately crush them. It's like a double layer of not being that important to the legion. If the legion really cared about absorbing the white legs in the first place they would have done it. They are unimportant and unnecessary to Ceasar. They are probably seen as weak by the legion. If they were strong they would have already crushed the tribes of Zion. That's also why I feel the fate of the whitlegs (and eventually the 88s) would eventually be the the same. They were bypassed (but not forgotten) by Ceasar on his way to hoover dam. If the courier never came there I feel like Joshua would have found a way to turn back the white legs, with or without Daniel. Thanks for a great video!
I always felt like Honest Hearts was super long. It's only short if you focus solely on questing, but if you properly explore its almost a pain to get through
The drug trip quest that's optional and involves potentially fist fighting a bear was alright. Honestly there's potential for more 'tribal' quests in zion. Maybe make the last choice more meaningful by interacting more with the white legs with more than just bullets/las/plas/explosives/your hands/a severed deathclaw hands/ a biblical amount of firepower. Though I admit I've never really played F1 or F2, with F3 being my introduction. I do believe that there's plenty of stories to be had with F2's idea- Of interacting with not just the remnants of the wasteland, but what's arising in the aftermath. New society's whole cloth who have forgotten or cast off their "Old world blues" as it where, to put it in a philosophical asshole way. Or at the very least, introduce genuine doubt into wiping out the white legs in a fit of murderous prowess because their genuinely a bunch of raiders and my own opinion is that in the wasteland, you can't afford to feel too bad about people trying to kill, burn, maim, or worse. As your innocence cannot survive in the apocalypse- either by their hand or your own.
I followed the Story of a pre War man who went through some bad time lost many loved ones and ultimately became a ghost that protected the Canyon. By Far the Survivalist story is what made this DLC worth it to me.
Joshua Graham would probably make a pretty good antagonist if we ever see a sequel to New Vegas. He's basically in the position Caesar was originally supposed to have built his legion from. His gradually radicalizing tribals and indoctrinating them into his religion/ideology. He's not afraid to use violence to get what he wants, is vengeful to the point of genocide, and is clearly highly capable. It's easy to see him building up a fanatical religious following of converted tribals who go on to threaten the NCR in a similar way to Caesar's Legion, but with them being zealous fanatic's more than willing to die for their cause (the Legionaries are certainly indoctrinated but they aren't as outright fanatical as we see religious extremists become) as the brand of religion Graham teaches them goes well beyond what the New Canaanites intended. Meanwhile the NCRs expansion and exploitation of tribal people's for their land and resources could easily explain why the new faction turns against them. Joshua is also charismatic, and the writing makes him seem larger than life. People want to like him, want to agree with him, but the man is still an absolute monster, he simply justifies it with faith unlike Caesar who justifies it with some, albeit very flawed, reason. He'd also make a very good Far Cry villain, a bit like the cult leader in 5.
They avoid the caves because of all the traps laid within them. I always assumed every trap on any cave was left by the survivalist, so they avoided them all
I don’t understand how anyone could side with Daniel. Even if you go to the roots of what the sorrows believe in via the Survivalist’s logs, he basically taught them to be kind but to not be a bitch if anyone fucks with them.
It's still my favorite dlc (never played lonesome road) for its moral questions and dialog alone. It just makes me think about my own stances on things everytime. But i always have to make Daniel sad. That is a constant
Wait why wouldn't you play every DLC? The entire downloadable content is almost essential to get the full experience. The lonesome road is a bit edgy but the "real ending" ties everything together in a nice little bow before the second battle for hover dam
Joshua Graham helped me learn to be merciful weeks before a very parallel situation came about in my life. Where my life was threatened, and then moments later I had turned things to the reverse. My whole self was burning to end the man then and there, I had every reason. I would have become a murderer over a man putting an empty gun to my head had I not been tempering myself with these sort of ideas and stories.
IDC what anyyyyy of you say. You can craft over 270-300 healing poultices from this DLC therefore it is a 10/10 dlc for me and my survival role playing character
I've never evacuated Zion. There's only 2 achievements for New Vegas I don't have unlocked even after over 1,400 hours. I'm more likely to win 30 games of caravan in a single save than I am to even consider leaving Zion without being covered in white leg viscera.
Fun little tidbit about Joshua's 'John to our Mathew and Mark' comment. Mark was taken on by Peter the apostle to be an interpreter and so wasn't one of the 12 apostles more interestingly John was the only apostle to die of old age... Meanwhile after rebuffing a king for their lust Mathew was killed. Makes you wonder what Joshua meant when he used Matthew as his stand-in. (Alternatively he could be saying that he is Mark since he was a interpreter in his youth, but that would make Ceaser the apostle Peter so think what you want.)
Weird, this one didn't come up in my feed and had to get it through my recommended. I always thought this DLC was rightly maligned for being short and a bit lacking somehow, though the optional side story with the survivalist stands out above almost any story in the entire New Vegas canon
I would rank the dlcs like this 1-Old world blues, has the best writing and great jokes, not worthless or simple jokes like most Bethesda's games, but dark humor that really expands the world and had some of the best levels in the game and coolest weapons 2- dead money, had the best characters and was the most unique experience, masterfully executed it's themes but still gave you a choice, sure you could go through the pain of getting those gold bars, but they are worth more than you can really sell unless you waist your time going to gunrunners and just wait for Days everytime you sell something, and the levels are amazing the atmosphere is masterful 3-lonesome road, literally gives philosophy to a mailman what more could you want? One criticism you could make is that it gives your mc some backstory however you just can just say, maybe Ulysses is losing his sanity or you simply look like the guy he was after I consider all these three equal but good at different places, but honest hearts really just has two characters, survivor and Joshua which are amazing and their psychology is just something else but everything else in the dlc is so simplistic that it drags it down
I don't consider Daniel's ending the good ending. The good ending is talking down Grahm but driving out the White Legs. See Grahm and me see the real value of Zion. It's a refuge of god in the world. It's an unirradiated place, filled with clean water. If you follow Daniel in trying to 'save the sorrows soul' in this harsh world. The valley is trampled and destroyed by the White Legs, to me that's the worst ending. It's better to have the tribals eat the fruit of knowledge then let Eden fall to the devil. Saving Grahm's soul? That's just a bonus for a man who's been through troubled times.
As always, this is a great breakdown. But I have one gripe, and while I have seen others mention it, I still need to point it out too. Honest Hearts is as much a story of the Survivalist as it is of Joshua Graham and the modern Zion. It is the single most well written and moving story I’ve ever seen in Fallout if not any video game. I don’t know if it would hit me quite the same way today as it did a decade ago, as the mechanic of finding someone’s logs to piece together their story has been done to death at this point, and I was a very different person when I first encountered it. But, it is the only thing I bothered to remember and will always remember from Honest Hearts except for Joshua Graham’s endless supply of 1911s and the Bible verse he quotes about leaving Zion. It is the absolute best case example of “audio log” or “walking simulator” story telling though, and it intertwines with the moral questions of the active plot and the birth of the strange setting, and it is best experienced organically but intentionally as you explore the area. For your own sake, if you didn’t find the Survivalist’s stashes or didn’t bother reading his story, please do so if you ever play Honest Hearts (again).
Talking Joshua down is the best ending. I cared more about his character than everyone else's in this DLC combined. Him finding a meaningful measure of spiritual and personal peace to pair with his purpose will nurse him more than anything could. In such situations, I care not for the dead, but for those who still suffer. The burned man is a great narrative imo. Between that and the survivalist's story, Honest Hearts was better than all of FO3
wait a minute, there was a good ending??? I thought it was suppost to be bittersweet of 'just run away and die' or become evil wastelander like rest of us
@@runelt99 Why the fuck would you listen to daniel? You must've missed the point that the white legs are after the dead horses and sorrows. THEY WILL EVENTUALLY SALT ZION AND CHASE AFTER THETRIBALS. Lmfao
@@lonewanderer1328 Didn't really pay that much attention to story, thought that it was just a local conflict without any legion subtext, aside from burned man himself.
I love all the dlc but I was honestly excited to go with the caravan and see New Canaan. Would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed when that plan abruptly changed
HH was the weakest DLC in my opinion. Even my very first playthrough I wasn't impressed. The entire narrative never drew me in on any level. The Survivalist was the only standout bit of story. I wanted to know about him more than I gave a single fuck about Zion or its inhabitants. Maybe because I'm iconoclastic? I just couldn't relate to the religious overtones on any meaningful level.
@@mistermajestic829 that's kinda what I meant about standout. Even though there was no npc to interact with, I was more drawn to Randall's story than I was to Daniels, or Joshuas or the tribes as they existed in the present. I did like learning what had become of Joshua and learning more about Ulysses' ties to the tribes, but the main plot about the conflict within Zion just didn't interest me as much as most of the sub-plots and backstories. I honestly wonder if it's because of my general disdain for religion is all...
I do agree they kind of muck it up, but I do think the kind of dilemma I think they're trying to convey is a fun and interesting one. And it's a spiritual dilemma, which is not a common thing you see in games. The dilemma is basically "if you're a devout member of a religion that promotes pacifism and forbids murder, what do you do when confronted with an inescapable "kill or be killed" situation?". So do you stick to your faith and die? Preserving the soul at the cost of the flesh. Or do you compromise your faith and survive? compromising the soul to preserve the flesh. They mucked it up because they tried to portray Joshua and Daniel as equally morally gray characters and they kind of misunderstood their audience. Both Joshua and Daniel are doing what they're doing for ultimately selfish reasons. Joshua is a psychopath, who gives lip service to God, but he doesn't care much about what said God has to say. Daniel is a pacifist, who claims to be invested in the physical world around him, but the truth is he's so wrapped up in his faith that he's become blind and ignorant of everything beyond his scripture book. Joshua and Daniel seem morally equal in a void, but when you add the context (as touched upon in the video); Joshua seems justified in his actions, while Daniel comes off as wrong about everything and a bit of a bigot. However, when you get right down to it, the people who play these games aren't going to have many qualms about killing nameless NPCs with red health bars. While most of the people who could empathize with Daniel's, preserve the spirit, argument in any real way, generally aren't the kinds of people who play videogames.
I love the Honest Hearts endings because regardless of which one you choose there are always two constants; Joshua is always satisfied and Daniel is always miserable, it's hilarious.
Daniel is so fucking stupid its not even funny.
Across all fallouts and their dlcs (3,4,nv) zion is the safest place with least harmful animals/dangers (only cazadors are present from the really deadly ones and all you have to make a few antipoisons and you will be set.Deathclaws,supermutants,Raiders,synths,big clans would be far more deadly.), you also have no radiation (so in some places tribals without pipboys would just die due to radiation poisoning also they would get radiated through food/water anyway) and like one viable way out of zion that no real army could march through (though i don;t know how white legs got through then, still fortify those places that connect to outside world and you have a fortress, a place where real civilization could be built as in safety civilization can blossom).
TLDR Daniel is an idiot.
Daniel's perspective makes it very difficult to side with him 🤷♂️
@@mistermajestic829 He's a coward more than he is a pacifist. He wants to run but even in his ending where you escape Zion it shows that he kind of regretted that decision. Joshua's views are flawed too but that mostly stems from his own personal beliefs. The idea of defending your home from a band of marauding raiders however, especially in the setting of fallout, is well justified.
There is merit to wanting to protect the Sorrows innocence, especially after reading the Survivalist's logs but if you take the entirety of fallout into account, they wouldn't have lasted. Sooner or later they would have to do this dance all over again, at best they get to run off elsewhere, at worst they get wiped out. But how long can they keep running? Maybe eventually they'll just end up getting assimilated to a different group. Its a pipedream in the grand scheme.
That's why nobody picks the Daniel ending. He's a whiny baby no matter what
@@mistermajestic829 That's why the best ending is talking Joshua out of exterminating the White Legs. They learn to defend themselves but also learn mercy. Its honestly the best possible outcome as the Sorrows are no longer push overs but don't become blood thirsty savages either.
By far the best thing in this DLC imo is the story of The Survivalist fr
Says a lot about the writing in Honest Hearts. Overhyped yet underappreciated.
How did you see this 4 weeks ago?
@@XxDemon23xX Patreon members can watch stuff early 😌✊
Loved his rifle too.
It's literally the only thing of value to come out of this turd. Joshua Graham had a cool voice too I guess, but he was really badly utilized
You didn't touch upon it, but the companion quests in this DLC further illustrate the difference between Joshua and Daniel in terms of morals and attitudes.
Follows-Chalk has a quest wherein, after seeing a lot of landmarks with him, you realize he's genuinely curious about seeing the outside world; He's debating leaving tribal life to see more civilized life. He's conflicted, and asks you to ask Joshua for advice. Joshua emphasizes his preference for tribal life, but makes it clear that it's ultimately up to Follows-Chalk. The player can lie to him, or give their own input on the matter.
Waking Cloud's quest, meanwhile, has you follow up on learning about her family by asking Daniel about it. Her husband was killed, and Daniel knows this, but willingly kept it a secret so that Cloud would be more productive. He begs you not to tell her, but ultimately the player can choose whether or not to do so.
Joshua has his preferences, but respects that the tribals might hold different views and encourages them to make their own decisions. Daniel lies to and manipulates the tribals when he thinks it would be useful, all the while trying to convert them to his religion.
Fuck Daniel.
Yeah, Daniel has a stance of "no no you're getting it wrong!" when it comes to the tribes' interpretation of mormonism, while Joshua is more like "eh, close enough"
@@mistermajestic829 absolutely right
@Mister Majestic Not to be rude, but you just proved Danial is evil. Him feeling conflicted over it still and struggles to keep the status-quo is just a justification, not a quantification. It'd be different, if say Danial took time revealing information to her rather then just flat out lying the whole time, or literally at least thought of any other idea and expressed it via dialog or actions as an alternative scenario he could have done. An example would be like after some time say they found her husbands dead body, but haven't confirmed the childs' death ect ect.
But don't get me wrong. Josh is evil as well. Literally following the same path as Casar once again. Seeing tribes waging war inefficiently and fixing that problem, both as revenge and to save his own life.
That because, at the end of the day, they see the tribals in different ways. Joshua sees people that can think on their own, Daniel thinks of them as helpless children that shouldn't think on their own.
@Mister Majestic I'm chatty.
I always side with Joshua for the simple reason of The Survivalist aka the Father in the Cave wanted his children the Sorrows to fight for their land and to defend themselves against outsiders.
Exactly. Plus what happens when they run and someone else fucks with em. But I go for the mercy ending. They defend their land but know when to show mercy.
Growing up, this DLC was the one reference to Mormons that I had in video games. I remember thinking when missionaries came by, "those guys are gonna outlast all of us somehow"
"Somehow."
Just to try and fill in the gap for you, the Mormons can be really good about documenting things and bookkeeping. They have extensive records on all kinds of history of themselves and others, which I imagine is why the creators chose them as the group to survive the apocalypse: when nuclear fire burns away everything, the culture most likely to survive is likely going to be the one that most meticulously cares for the *records* of it's own culture.
So yeah, I doubt the devs just thought "lol wouldn't it be funny if those dudes survived" and instead they chose them for the sake of lore consistency and answering the question of "which US subgroup is most likely to retain it's culture to some degree after the nuclear apocalypse?"
@@Longknife honestly makes sense
@@Longknife church leadership heavily encourages prepping as well
@@Longknife the Mormons also as a culture practice disaster preparedness, and they tend to be more close knit than some other groups placing an emphasis on community and familiar bonds.
@@youarenotmadenough655
As well as community rather than “every man for himself” when shit hits the fan.
I've always liked Honest Hearts. But yeah, it's solidly held by the charismatic and fascinating figure that is Joshyua Graham and I actually like a lot of how you're not even the protagonist of the DLC's story, you're more like Max Rockatansky, where you stumbled on the story of these other people.
Also, I really liked throwin tomahawks at people.
Just say Mad Max bro no one knows what a Rockatansky is
@@benjaf1058 True, it's just that with films getting called Mad Max I thought maybe some people would get confused
It's similar to the Champion of Cyrodill in Oblivion, you aren't the main character of Oblivion, Martin Septim is, you just help him.
If it's all the same to you.. I'll drive that tanka!
It always bugged me the way the game treats defeating the White Legs as something not entirely morally justified. It's a necessity, they're Raiders. So what if they dress better than the Khans or Vipers? They're evil, simple as.
It's just about tempering justice with mercy.
@@HulkHogan69 Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
I think it’s fair to say it’s always sad wiping out a group. They’re not just raiders, they’re an entire culture. And while I agree they need to go, I feel sad doing so just as I feel sad wiping out the great khans.
They are a brainwashed (by Ulysses) group who are on the crux of extinction themselves. The tribe's that join Caesar's legion are given the option of joining them or going extinct, there is no in-between. The White Leg's themselves can't farm, they don't know how, they are too big to really live off the land, and their territory is largely pretty barren, their options at this point are join Caesar's Legion or join the NCR because their territory is slowly going to be absorbed either way. Ulysses set the White Leg's on their path, and later left them without a real path but the one he'd set them on given their lack of knowledge. This was all to kill Graham who had also radicalized the Dead Horses, while brainwashing them into foreign religion, which essentially starts a tribal war entirely as a result of Graham and Caesar with the Sorrow's trapped in the middle.
Just because you can kill someone doesn't mean you should, and if you can stop them without killing them, why wouldn't you? Killing someone ends everything they are or ever could be. This isn't a single person, this is an entire tribe, full of men, women, and children, who could be something more if given a chance. Showing them mercy teaches them this, it gives them a different experience, and maybe they will die out anyway, but it's sure as hell a better option than what they were given. Why should commiting unnecessary genocide be seen as morally justified? Joshua is a monster just as much as Caesar is, but he uses the justification of absolute "good" and "evil" based in Christian religion.
The Khan's themselves are morally complex as well, these are a bunch of people struggling to survive in the desert, being brutally put down by the NCR, and then being forced on the run into a desperate situation.
It helps if you actually see these groups as people, and not enemy NPCs that exist solely to give you XP. Yes many of these groups do fucked up things, but moral absolutism is a fallacy, and this is a pretty extreme situation. If you do treat them as people and don't see an issue with wiping them out despite having the option not to, that sounds like an empathetic issue.
@@DIEGhostfish Mercy can only ever be extended to the guilty so your clever aphorism falls flat
Sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds is so very obviously written as the "correct" choice to end the game on, which is why it has one of the highest speech checks in the game to complete. And it's for basically all the reasons you said, it's his realization that while the monster that he once was is still inside him, that doesn't mean he has to give in to what it's telling him to do. Not to mention his realization comes right after saying stuff like "I want to make my anger God's anger", which for a mormon is probably one of the most blasphemous things you can say. It suddenly puts everything into perspective for him, that while he may have pulled himself back from the brink last time, he might not be able to do it again if he lets go.
>his realization comes right after saying stuff like "I want to make my anger God's anger"
I'm pretty sure the realization came first, and he was just working through his revelations aloud at that point. Confessing his sin, so to speak.
Not explaining why he has to continue. Just explaining how he got to this point.
[Sneering imperialist] "Joshua put a cap in general gooblygook". Is clearly the correct option.
Did you people even play the DLC? If you watch the ending slides, Daniel's ending is the better one. Joshua's ending causes tensions between the tribes.
@@Meurth Daniel's ending teaches nothing, it's moral cowardice for the sake of purity. Joshua may have caused the Dead Horses to become more warlike, but that's preferable to passivity. It means that when another group like the White Legs come, they will be able to protect themselves. Not to mention sparing Salt-Upon-Wounds DOES teach the Sorrows to be tempered by mercy.
BUT, all of that is completely irrelevant, the entire point of the dlc means what happens to the tribes does not matter. The thematic point of the dlc is about saving Joshua's soul, everything else is secondary to that.
@@SeruraRenge11 The tribes either live in harmony or in conflict, that's what I find most important. I don't really care about Joshua's soul because he's just 1 person. It's not exactly passive, in Daniel's ending you kill lots of white legs anyways to free the captured tribals, clear the sacred burial grounds and clear the road out of Zion
My first experience with this DLC was funny. At the very beginning of it I sniped Follows-chalk by accident thinking he's the enemy. What that did was basically made me unpopular with all the factions in the entire DLC so my quest failed and turned into finding the grand staircase and a map and then just going back to Mojave which obviously made me think that the entire DLC was just a map with nothing but enemies and a single Quest lmao.
Same. Same, killed the poor guy.
same thing happened with me, only I accidentally shot him with a grenade launcher.
The DLC seems really short because you were supposed to view Zion as an open world asking to be explored and have taken the quests sending you out to find stuff as an excuse to spend more time poking around on your own. Sawyer has mentioned this a few times before, IIRC.
I mean; that's all well and good, but the DLC falls into that age-old trap of creating a false sense of urgency. When you show up your caravan is immediately massacred and you get tasked by Joshua to spearhead their efforts in preparing the evacuation of Zion. Unless you're playing a character with no concept of priority, you're gonna run around and do the missions as quickly as you can; THEN you get forced into the big climactic finale, only after which can you reasonably feel free to go around and explore the map.
It also doesn't help that there aren't that many visually distinct landmarks to check out. A handful of abandoned campsites, a buttload of caves, and some ruins that the game directs you towards anyway. For an add-on that wants you to go out and look around yourself, HR didn't do that great a job of incentivizing too.
Unfortunately doing so caused a sacrifice under such time constraints. They made it wider, but shallower. And it doesn't help that Old World Blues followed which had both more story content and a more interesting/fun world to explore
@@chesterstevens8870 This. OWB does it a lot better because it reinforces the idea that you should take your time.
@@bruhvenant OWB had a significantly higher budget than Honest Hearts.
we need them to be more comfortable with having the quest giver to tell you to run around a bit
The writing in this DLC was superb. Even the terminals in the cave that Randall Clark, a character you don't even see because he died years ago, was so good and got me to admire a dude who is just a skeleton next to a duffle bag.
For me, there was a different reason for choosing Graham in this DLC.
Mainly, that I found the Survivalist Caches and finally the Survivalist himself.
If there's anything I wish you spoke about, but understand not because it's not the focus, it's the tale of Randall Clarke. For me, that's what tipped the scales to defeat the White Legs.
I mean, I don't need some guy on the internet to justify my liking for the backstory of the dlc locale. XD
@Mister Majestic There's no paradise for you to run to. You can ignore the world around you, but that doesnt mean itll ignore you. Talking joshua down at the end of zion's defense, you both teach the sorrows to not be pacifists while also showing them that there's a fine line between that & being a monster
@Mister Majestic ik wym, shouldve been an option to tie in clarke's audio logs if you found em all. Not far off from ullysses' logs in lonesome road
I think the best part of Honest Hearts might be coming back after the quest is over and just wandering around Zion. It really is a beautiful place. I can see why Joshua considers it holy ground.
fun fact if you dont find the survivalists rifle before the end of the main quest one of the ememies will usually pick it up and start blasting you during it
Joshua Graham is easily on the short list for greatest video game characters of all time. It's such a shame that he only had a small role in New Vegas as a whole.
First time I played I hit the npc behind the white legs and aggro'd to every faction, killed Joshua gram and about 20 minutes into the dlc was looking at a title card thinking wtf was that.
I think that happened to me first time I played through as well lol.
I think that happened to me first time I played through as well lol.
Yeah, same here.
Saw him running right at me and buggered the whole DLC 😅
Same. Didn't notice that he had killed the guy shooting at me. So I waste him, everyone aggros, I stumble on Graham, kill him and get all those failed quest notices and was like, uh oh. Time for a reload.
“We warned you at Syracuse, and you persisted. You took advantage of us at New Canaan to drive us out, and like the dogs of Caesar you are, you followed us to Zion. And now you stand on holy ground, a temple to God's glory on Earth. But the only use for an animal in our temple is sacrifice!"
- Joshua Graham
Easily the best DLC imo because of the religious themes behind it and the story of the tribes fighting to keep their land but I’m biased being very religious and half Seminole. Keep it up with the great videos 👍🏽
It's honestly a pretty apt reflection of Native American history post-colonization. There's two tribes essentially pushed under external power's (the French and British in real life, here the New Canaanites and Caesar's Legion), with one also pushing to completely replace their tribal culture and religion with a variant of post-apocalyptic Christianity in order to "civilize" them.
That's why it's so sad to watch Joshua justify his actions with his faith. He truly believes what he's doing is right, meanwhile he's radicalizing a peaceful tribal people who just want to be left alone, pushing the tribe's into conflict with Caesar's Legion in order, in part, to help the New Canaanites, and committing outright genocide for revenge. Morality is subjective, but I don't think many rational individuals would agree with Joshua's actions. The Sorrow's alone are just absolutely tragic, they don't even realize what's being done to them.
Whatever happens, the true victims are the Sorrow's, and even the White Leg's were manipulated by Ulysses, promised power and land by Caesar, and pushed into a confrontation that ultimately sees most of their tribe, men, women, and children, end up dead as a result.
Graham is honestly one of the most terrifying character's in the setting. Caesar is incredibly intelligent, a master manipulator, and has great tactical acumen combined with ruthless will, but he doesn't believe he's ordained by God, he doesn't believe in absolute "good" and "evil", and he isn't doing this for any reason but that he thinks it will better prepare the post-apocalyptic society to survive (that and personal power). Graham could easily become a far, far more dangerous leader, and he's going about it in the same way, slowly radicalizing tribal groups and bringing them together under a single banner, but the major difference is that Graham believes he has divine justification in exercising his brand of justice, that's far more dangerous than anything we've seen in the leaders of other factions.
If we ever see a sequel to New Vegas, I think Joshua Graham would make a pretty solid antagonist. People like him, and the VA and writing make him rather persuasive, but morally speaking, the man's a monster. I feel like he could be an excellent Far Cry villain.
I am subscribed to you, hi
@@AveSicariusyou pretty eloquently outlined a lot of my misgivings about the factions involved in the DLC.
I feel uncomfortable with the colonialist undertones but as you pointed out there's not really any positive outcome that doesn't involve assisting the 'good' colonists. The best you can really hope to do is damage reduction, which is realistic because you can't single handedly undo what's been done, but overall I didn't feel good about any of the options and I wasn't really sure if that was due to the intention of the writers or an oversight on their part.
I guess Graham is an inversion of the white saviour trope but the idea that the tribe wouldn't be able to resist Caesar's imperialist ambitions without him due to being too innocent and peaceful muddies that a bit.
Joshua Graham's armor is one of the best pieces of light armor in the game. Well worth it.
It is the best light armor. Joshua graham's armor has an OP critical bonus to it that is too good to pass up
Now if by "the best" you mean simply the highest raw DT it would be Sierra Madre reinforced since it has like 18 DT compared to 15 DT for Joshuah armor. But it has no bonuses at all and also weighs over twice as much (17 pounds for Sierra Reinforced vs 8 pounds for joshuah)
HH has all my favorite gear. The Survivalist's rifle and his helmet (forgive me mama) Joshua's armor and his pistol A Light Shining in Darkness. They're all awesome.
The Father's armor deserves honorable mention and would be my favorite armor it wasn't for Joshua's armor.
@@Gameprojordan I use joshua's armor until I get Ulysses' Duster, it has more crit and is a lot lighter, at the cost of -2 DT.
@@karlbush1678 what's "the father's armor"?
@@MeurthDesert ranger armor
NV and the DLCs make it really obvious that, good or bad, anything Obsidian does with Fallout is still a million times more interesting than anything Bethesda ever comes up with.
Your sound balancing the vast majority of the time is super good, this video included, a lot of time other people probably hope the listeners just turn the audio up a ton, but as a headphones user the sudden cut to metal at the end kinda blew out my ears. As an avid fan I just wanted to say something about it, thanks for another great video
Shit, I'll have to remember to cut the compression on that track. Little too high at the end, I'll agree.
2 words, Randall Clark.... Reading the survivalists' logs is one of only 3 times I've ever cried at a video game, the pain that man went through, multiple times and still maintained his spirit, was beyond moving... The second time I cried at a video game was when I hiked up to the Red Gate to find Randell Clarks body, that wreath and trees that had grown up around him over time, like Zion itself knew who he was and took its turn protecting him... It was quite frankly beautiful
3:03 I fully respect your opinion now face the wall 😂
Daniel: “There’s an old saying that goes; if you want peace-
Joshua: “I don’t want peace, I want problems, always.”
Finally someone who actually understands the Daniel vs Joshua views! Good work!
Love your videos as always. I always want to kill salt upon wounds but seeing joshua self-reflect and be more at peace with himself is quite rewarding.
Also man this dlc reminds me of The Mission. In The Mission, there's a former slaver who redeems himself and ultimately fights for the natives who will be enslaved, and there's a missionary who teaches the natives and preaches love but can't bring himself to combat the slavers w/ violence-- so while the two characters respect each other, they end up doing different things to express their beliefs in the final battle. And there's some similar dialogue later on in the film. There's a Portuguese colonist in the movie who says the systematic massacre of the natives was inevitable and unfortunate, "We must work in the world; the world is thus", but the cardinal who reluctantly ordered the massacre says, "No, thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it." This kinda parallels the player's potential conversation with Daniel where you can basically tell him that the world is just like this and the tribals have to lose their innocence, protect their land or whatever, and daniel pretty much replies that we fucked up this world for the tribals and the world shouldn't have to be like that-- I forget the exact words and I don't feel like looking for it again. Then the movie ends with john 1:5 "The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness hath not overcome it." and you get joshua's .45acp handgun 'light shining in the darkness' at the end of the dlc. Just thought those basic similarities were neat.
👍 Gut-wrenching movie. The "parallels" are very obviously not a coincidence, but rather interactive-homage. (And Deniro as the Josh.) Without even looking, I'm certain that many forums have discussed this over the last decade.
IMO, letting Salt-Upon-Wounds live is better because he brings the rest of the White Legs down and it lets Joshua finally move on from his trauma
"1v1 me fagit" is also a fun ending.
The problem is, there's no reason to assume that's what the outcome will be. Real life is often complicated and has unforseeable outcomes, yes, but in fiction, a satisfying ending has to make sense. Especially in a game, where your choices supposedly determine the outcome.
But in this DLC, your choices are to (a) let the White Legs drive the Sorrows to extinction, (b) help the Sorrows flee, which the story up to this point tells us will only delay their annihilation at the hands of the White Legs, (c) kill some of the White Legs but let the rest survive to flee, with their leader, or (d) annihilate the White Legs, ending the threat for good.
Three of those choices lead exactly to the outcomes you'd suspect. You do the thing you meant to do, and live with the consequences, which naturally follow. Except for option (C), which is just inexplicably the "right" answer - despite it being less sure to do anything good for anyone, and essentially a moral compromise for the sake of your own conscience. A rational result for (C) is that the White Legs limp away, regroup, and remain a recurring problem for the Sorrows and everyone else - which is exactly what happened with the Khans. We even have an example in the game of that kind of result. But for some reason, in the canon ending for Honest Hearts, this choice is the best of all possible worlds, and leads to the best result.
Is it terrible? No. Is it completely incomprehensible? No. But it isn't satisfying, because it's not the ending you chose with your actions. It's a random set of events that follows your actions, that couldn't have been predicted beforehand.
There's no reason to assume a genocidal barbarian like Salt-Upon-Wounds will learn anything from mercy except how to nurse a grudge. There's no reason to assume that the White Legs will just go away and fall apart after being allowed to retreat from a losing battle, never troubling Zion again. There's no reason to assume the Sorrows will become overall better from learning this mixed lesson of killing your enemies, but maybe not all of them, if it means your leader's specific past traumas might come back to haunt him. But all of that happens, just because there had to be a "good" ending. None of it's completely implausible, but there's no way to say you caused it to happen. You got lucky that it turned out that way after the fact.
@@nightsong81 I mean even without meta-gaming it's easy to assume the White Legs are doomed. From the information we gather before the final choice, we know:
-You, Joshua, and the Zion tribals pretty much wipe out the White Legs's fighting force, rendering the threat they pose fairly negligible.
-The White Legs don't have the means or knowledge to be self-sufficient.
-The White Legs are being scouted by Caesar's Legion with their task being taking out the New Canaanites. Letting them go still means they're failures in the Legion's eyes. 'Legion was gonna roll over and assimilate what they can anyway but now they might just end up wiping out the entire remaining White Legs tribe.
-The White Legs are not native to Zion, but the Great Salt Lake in Utah. This means that in order to go home from Zion they'd, an incredibly weakened group, have to pass through 80's territory. If Joshua & Co, don't wipe out the White Legs it's reasonable to assume other raiders will.
Even if they escape Zion, the White Legs will still die out. There is no reason to assume the hatred will go away sure, but what's important is their ability to direct that hatred onto others has been taken from them. The White Legs are crippled by the end of Honest Hearts and no matter what happens to them in Zion, they're done.
Though all of this is besides the point of it being satisfying. Letting the White Legs go as an ending isn't for their or your the player's benefit, but Joshua's. Tempering his rage, helping him let go of his trauma, and allowing him to set a better example for the impressionable Tribals, that's what's satisfying to me. It's not a 'mixed' lesson, it's *_mercy_* ,something even the Sorrows's 'god' provided when he let the rest of Vault 22's survivors flee. It's teaching them that there's other options than letting rage consume them.
@@nightsong81 Salt doesn't learn anything, he's just broken by his defeat and it leads to poor leadership that leads to the 80s wiping out the White Legs
@@nightsong81The end of the game tells you how the white legs kill SUW for his failure and disperse into smaller raiders gangs, basically the white legs no longer exist and die off
Being merciful to the white legs means leaving people to the mercy of the white legs. I always considered wiping them out to be the good ending.
Or it teaches them to show mercy given it's been shown to them. Beating them uproots their entire cultural basis, and gives them a chance to evolve. Commiting genocide isn't protecting anyone, Caesar's Legion still exists, Joshua just wants revenge, he wants to kill every single man, woman, and child, he's just as bad as them. If you kill the White Leg's you are exactly the same as both of them.
@@AveSicarius Not even close. The white legs only exist to raid and kill everything around them. Exterminating them is the best and most efficient option. Not crossing your fingers and hoping some of them might change for the better. As for the legion, you can cause their downfall as well. The legion deserve the same treatment. Unless Joshua and the courier round up several hundreds or thousands of people to go raiding after exterminating the white legs, they are not as bad as the white legs or legion.
@@UnliveingEnd
Dude, it's genocide, it's never justified. The Nazi's were a horrific group of political leaders who ordered the murder of millions of people. By your justification every single German man, woman, and child should have been killed because of this. The Legion isn't a single population, and is an Imperialist faction that falls apart without Caesar. That's very, very different to wiping out an already beaten tribe.
The White Leg's were beaten, and then Joshua Graham killed defenceless women and children along with their warriors in revenge for New Canaan. You don't see that as just as wrong? Because it is, it absolutely is.
@@AveSicarius The duel involves restraining it to the warriors... Which is most of the adult population, but still not quite all.
@@DIEGhostfish
Yes, but Graham himself wants to kill EVERYONE and this is largely what people seem to be justifying. Also while you only duel their leader and some adult warriors, you need to think about what Graham has done during this time and what he's going to do after. So even in this case, we are still pretty much abetting genocide fairly directly.
Plus the entire tribe is probably going to, you know, die out when you kill most of their adult population. Either way, it's pretty fucked up considering the White Leg's are already beaten. Getting rid of Salt's-The-Wound is very different to what Graham intends, and what you essentially help him go through with.
I really like this DLC with the sneering imperialist perk.
I liked the DLC, always doing it first every playthrough.
They introduced not one but TWO great characters - one was so good even atheists liked him. The other is dead, but they managed to build great picture with overrated mechanics (found notes/PDAs).
It's true I do like him
I did it first because a silenced 1911 is the best holdout gun for casinos. Always found it a pain that the weapons only magically started appearing after you finished the DLC.
Also Joshuas armor with daniels hat is peak drip
"Darkmans wild national park adventure" was too wordy of a title for the DLC
I’m might be the only one who actually loves this DLC. It’s not to often that you get a story in any form of media that shows respect for more religious folks and that doesn’t deem them as a bunch of crazy religious fanatics. But instead shows them a just real people trying to live like everyone else’s.
You're so underated. Keep doing what you love my man, your content is quality.
But you didn't talk about Sneering Imperialist. One of the best perks I've seen. But yeah, General Gobbledegook get shot in all my play throughs. One thing I hate is the, " Oh yeah, he murdered, raped, and enslaved hundreds if not thousand but we're going to show him we're the better person!", type of endings.
Enjoyed this one, Graham was such a compelling character. Looking forward to when you get around to the other DLCs.
Oh, because this DLC faced an impossible challenge. Fo 1 2 and to a large extent 3 were all about being alone with your thoughts in an empty world. FNV is crowded and the Courier is running on a tight schedule. Honest Hearts tried to recreate that feeling of being alone, but instead of an entire sea it had only a backyard swimming pool to work with. The feeling is there, but it's just a bite when you expect a whole huge, thick sandwich.
This DLC is a difference of spiritual attunement and church attendance.
When I first played this DLC, I shot the first guy running towards me, which apparently had triggered the worst state, and I had to fight my way through the canyon. No story, no nothing haha. I was like "this is it? just a combat map?"
"But we can't expect God to do all the work"
Smash cut to TurboTax ad. Amazing
Joshua Graham’s redemption arc is one of the best stories I’ve ever experienced in an medium.
It speaks to how well the writing was that you have a one time character that’s this impactful using mostly dialogue alone.
Perfect start my man, had me in stitches! 🤣
To add onto the moral "dilemma" at the end there:
Even today we live in a world where cruelty is tolerated if done by the powerful at the expense of the powerless.
The reason the world is cruel is not because of a lack of mercy, but because of a lack of justice.
Justice is rendered impotent by commercial and geopolitical interests. Morality takes a backseat because our leaders and industries are bribed into compliance with monsters.
Have no mercy on the enemies of all mankind, those who consolidate power and force so as to exploit, enslave and murder your fellows. Otherwise your children and grandchildren will forever suffer for your hubris, for making the mistake of ever thinking that "mercy" was yours alone to dispense.
Of course all sorts of atrocities can be justified with this mindset. But that doesn't mean that violence and mercy are mutually exclusive ideologies. One can be merciful to those who deserve it and exact hard justice to those who are less deserving.
As for who gets to be the judge? A much harder question.
But I think we can say Salt Upon Wounds deserves to die. The wasteland is filled with the graves of innocents and he is responsible for having put many of them there. If mercy is a resource to be dispensed judiciously, then he is not worthy of it.
I have a friend that's literally on vacation in Zion right now and I told her that my knowledge of that place comes from Fallout: New Vegas with the Honest Hearts expansion.
What an... oddly specific video to see posted on the topic.
Come on, Strat! Motor pool starts at 9, I need your vid at 8 for when I’m in the shower.
I really wish Avellone would do a course or talk on narrative design and writing in video games. He's so consistently good I wonder how he does it.
One of the best to ever do it
@@andrewbowen2837 I love his PWotR work. It's so worth following him around.
No, he's overrated and Honest Hearts in particular was more of J.Sawyer's work anyway.
I thought Honest Hearts was basically, “damn this Avellone can write a character” but beyond that, it just wasn't that interesting of a scenario. Take away Graham and it's a pretty limp tribal war DLC. I know people hate Dead Money, but that one had a group of interesting companions with different outcomes, new mechanics, and a great tie in to the overall story thanks to Elijah. Personally, Honest Hearts is my least favorite story DLC, but still good enough to play (it's only comparatively weak).
Wasn't Graham more Sawyer's project? I know the survivalist was.
@@DIEGhostfish You know..That's a really good question! It definitely was Sawyer's baby and I just assumed he did everything but the writing based on how he always mentions collabing with Avellone on the DLCs, but I actually can't find anything stating who wrote dialogue for Honest Hearts. Some people say Gonzales and others say Sawyer. I now assume it's not Avellone though because he Tweeted that he was responsible for work on all the DLCs with the exception of Honest Hearts.
Hmmm, given my recent playthrough of the excellent Pentiment, I would probably say that it's Sawyer like you figured. I didn't even think of this but some of the characters in that game have a very similar tone.
@@AuspexAO I mean I have many issues with Sawyer simping for IRL Cook Cook but he can still write alright.
@@mistermajestic829 It's interesting to be sure, but worthy of an entire DLC? Would this not be just as interesting if it were a couple settlements with the single big decision bookended by maybe one or two quests? Now granted, I don't think Lonesome Road has a lot of narrative meat either (basically it's all loaded into the Ulysseys encounter, but at least that DLC has an interesting combat zone. I do like the survivalist bits, for sure, but imagine how much cooler finding those logs would have been if the locations you found them in had interesting stories or quests that lead you to them.
I'm willing to concede that I find tribals boring in almost every video game. I don't think it's possible for humanity to backtrack in that fashion. The only game that I think pulled it off was Horizon because of the very specific scenario in that game that reset human knowledge. I've always been more of a Junktown man than an Arroyo man, basically.
@@DIEGhostfish What do you mean with this, "simping for IRL Cook Cook" ?
A review on each DLC would be awesome.
HH was always my second-to-least favorite, so I'm interested in what you've gotta say.
Keith Szarabajka is an amazing actor, and has worked in most Bethesda games. He's a popular Dunmer voice!
Both Sorrows and Dead Horses DO have children, they're just away safe. That's told to you. Unless I'm misremembering?
I've only ever heard people complain about DMs difficulty, not it being "dumb".
I had never seen the White Legs using shishkebabs. Most of the ones I encountered had the throwing axes and pistols.
The White Legs scale with what level you first start the content. So if they're use shishkebab it's when you do it past level 20.
@@SeruraRenge11 ohhh got it, I went to the DLC being level 15 i think. It was hell honestly.
"It always feels like a waste of a dude when a guy goes from being awesome to being a man of faith."
The exhale from my nose would have put out a man who was on fire.
The reason I love Honest Hearts is two fold. Firstly, it explores the original elements of the first two games; the tribes. And then the Geography. It was like the Mojave but only better. As a European, you don't get stuff like Zion.
It really hurts to hear arguably one of the most ambitious games ever made described as “lacking artistic ambition.”
I use this DLC as a beginning of the game warm up. From Doc Mitchell's house I head straight for Honest Hearts I usually enter the DLC at around level 2 or 3
If you kill the friendly tribesman at the start, you can join the baddies
I like Honest Hearts due to the gecko reinforced leather armor upgrade and on survival there's so much fresh food around you can walk back to New Vegas with enough supplies to last for years.
I KNEW IT. They snubbed the base game for Dead Money. No spears, no Legion content, but we get Dead Money? I am mad.
The only reason I feel thats justified to deduct some chips from dead money's score are the collar mechanics, those can turn into a pain in the ass. Otherwise the storytelling, setting and characters are all fantastic.
Keep the gold coming buddy, I love these videos in this area of the gaming universe… if I may, I would love to see some content about gta vice city, San Andreas and gta 3, in comparison in this new definitive addition… I don’t know man it’s all up to yourself, just an idea!
"I'm with the invisible man over here. These bastards gotta die."
I really love this video.
This is the moment I subscribed.
I also played it so I could talk down Joshua Graham.
I also found that ending so much more satisfying.
This whole dlc is a great example of when trying to be "good" is the most evil thing you can do.
Starting right away by being a dick and scaring off that chem addict. You probably saved his life.-side note: I always bring him so he can be killed
I feel like Daniel is the most selfish and evil person in the whole dlc. In the end he only ever cares about his own feelings. He doesn't understand basic math:
Die- divided by -fight and then die-
always equals -fight squared- !!
Don't forget about the service the tribes of Zion would be doing for all the people in the surrounding region by decimating the white legs. No I don't mean the NCR! I mean all the other people who actually live there. The ones the desert rangers used to protect?
I also like how it's actually a strategically viable solution. I'm 100 percent sure that if Zion was of strategic interest to the legion the place would be scoured. Thant means that if they can decisively defeat the white legs there's a chance the legion won't immediately crush them.
It's like a double layer of not being that important to the legion. If the legion really cared about absorbing the white legs in the first place they would have done it. They are unimportant and unnecessary to Ceasar. They are probably seen as weak by the legion. If they were strong they would have already crushed the tribes of Zion. That's also why I feel the fate of the whitlegs (and eventually the 88s) would eventually be the the same. They were bypassed (but not forgotten) by Ceasar on his way to hoover dam.
If the courier never came there I feel like Joshua would have found a way to turn back the white legs, with or without Daniel.
Thanks for a great video!
I love how you self-insert so much. Like "This dialog sucks but here's how I would say it instead."
I always felt like Honest Hearts was super long. It's only short if you focus solely on questing, but if you properly explore its almost a pain to get through
Kinda why I hate Old World Blues, getting all the sink upgrades is a tedious grind.
The drug trip quest that's optional and involves potentially fist fighting a bear was alright.
Honestly there's potential for more 'tribal' quests in zion. Maybe make the last choice more meaningful by interacting more with the white legs with more than just bullets/las/plas/explosives/your hands/a severed deathclaw hands/ a biblical amount of firepower.
Though I admit I've never really played F1 or F2, with F3 being my introduction. I do believe that there's plenty of stories to be had with F2's idea- Of interacting with not just the remnants of the wasteland, but what's arising in the aftermath. New society's whole cloth who have forgotten or cast off their "Old world blues" as it where, to put it in a philosophical asshole way.
Or at the very least, introduce genuine doubt into wiping out the white legs in a fit of murderous prowess because their genuinely a bunch of raiders and my own opinion is that in the wasteland, you can't afford to feel too bad about people trying to kill, burn, maim, or worse. As your innocence cannot survive in the apocalypse- either by their hand or your own.
I followed the Story of a pre War man who went through some bad time lost many loved ones and ultimately became a ghost that protected the Canyon. By Far the Survivalist story is what made this DLC worth it to me.
Joshua Graham would probably make a pretty good antagonist if we ever see a sequel to New Vegas. He's basically in the position Caesar was originally supposed to have built his legion from. His gradually radicalizing tribals and indoctrinating them into his religion/ideology. He's not afraid to use violence to get what he wants, is vengeful to the point of genocide, and is clearly highly capable. It's easy to see him building up a fanatical religious following of converted tribals who go on to threaten the NCR in a similar way to Caesar's Legion, but with them being zealous fanatic's more than willing to die for their cause (the Legionaries are certainly indoctrinated but they aren't as outright fanatical as we see religious extremists become) as the brand of religion Graham teaches them goes well beyond what the New Canaanites intended. Meanwhile the NCRs expansion and exploitation of tribal people's for their land and resources could easily explain why the new faction turns against them.
Joshua is also charismatic, and the writing makes him seem larger than life. People want to like him, want to agree with him, but the man is still an absolute monster, he simply justifies it with faith unlike Caesar who justifies it with some, albeit very flawed, reason.
He'd also make a very good Far Cry villain, a bit like the cult leader in 5.
I will never stop playing this game
They avoid the caves because of all the traps laid within them. I always assumed every trap on any cave was left by the survivalist, so they avoided them all
I don’t understand how anyone could side with Daniel. Even if you go to the roots of what the sorrows believe in via the Survivalist’s logs, he basically taught them to be kind but to not be a bitch if anyone fucks with them.
Ricky jinxed the whole expedition. He probably has the trait with the same name from Fallout 1 and 2.
I'm sure we can all agree that the funny mummy man's ending is the best one. He is based af
21:04 Based cat.
This was my favourite dlc because of the amazing writing and vibe of Zion
I don't get your beef with that one ending. Fuck the White Legs, and Josh is acting perfectly in character.
It's still my favorite dlc (never played lonesome road) for its moral questions and dialog alone. It just makes me think about my own stances on things everytime.
But i always have to make Daniel sad. That is a constant
Wait why wouldn't you play every DLC? The entire downloadable content is almost essential to get the full experience.
The lonesome road is a bit edgy but the "real ending" ties everything together in a nice little bow before the second battle for hover dam
Joshua Graham helped me learn to be merciful weeks before a very parallel situation came about in my life. Where my life was threatened, and then moments later I had turned things to the reverse. My whole self was burning to end the man then and there, I had every reason. I would have become a murderer over a man putting an empty gun to my head had I not been tempering myself with these sort of ideas and stories.
Old world blues is my favorite
IDC what anyyyyy of you say. You can craft over 270-300 healing poultices from this DLC therefore it is a 10/10 dlc for me and my survival role playing character
Wait, people don't like Dead Money? That one was always my favorite out of the main 4.
Same!
Dead Money was the best DLC I've ever played, and anyone who says it's dumb is dumb themselves.
lets not forget joshua grahams motivational speech
Love the paulie walnuts clips you implemented into the video. Rip Tony Cicero
This is an amazing review of quite possibly the MOST DLC for New Vegas, thank you
Had Daniel been voiced by anyone else and not Vito Scaletta, I'd say fuck that homunculus
Hey, it might be a rickety porch on three legs! But it's my rickety porch on three legs and I love it
16:31 “I’m sure Native Americans wouldn’t train their kids to kill.”
Oh you sweet, sweet, summer child…
I'm pretty sure he was referring to the Dead Horses and Sorrows specifically
I've never evacuated Zion. There's only 2 achievements for New Vegas I don't have unlocked even after over 1,400 hours. I'm more likely to win 30 games of caravan in a single save than I am to even consider leaving Zion without being covered in white leg viscera.
I don't like how Honest Hearts pulls a black and white ending. Killing Salt-Upon-Wounds shouldn't result in a worse ending.
Fun little tidbit about Joshua's 'John to our Mathew and Mark' comment.
Mark was taken on by Peter the apostle to be an interpreter and so wasn't one of the 12 apostles more interestingly John was the only apostle to die of old age... Meanwhile after rebuffing a king for their lust Mathew was killed. Makes you wonder what Joshua meant when he used Matthew as his stand-in.
(Alternatively he could be saying that he is Mark since he was a interpreter in his youth, but that would make Ceaser the apostle Peter so think what you want.)
Weird, this one didn't come up in my feed and had to get it through my recommended. I always thought this DLC was rightly maligned for being short and a bit lacking somehow, though the optional side story with the survivalist stands out above almost any story in the entire New Vegas canon
I would rank the dlcs like this
1-Old world blues, has the best writing and great jokes, not worthless or simple jokes like most Bethesda's games, but dark humor that really expands the world and had some of the best levels in the game and coolest weapons
2- dead money, had the best characters and was the most unique experience, masterfully executed it's themes but still gave you a choice, sure you could go through the pain of getting those gold bars, but they are worth more than you can really sell unless you waist your time going to gunrunners and just wait for Days everytime you sell something, and the levels are amazing the atmosphere is masterful
3-lonesome road, literally gives philosophy to a mailman what more could you want? One criticism you could make is that it gives your mc some backstory however you just can just say, maybe Ulysses is losing his sanity or you simply look like the guy he was after
I consider all these three equal but good at different places, but honest hearts really just has two characters, survivor and Joshua which are amazing and their psychology is just something else but everything else in the dlc is so simplistic that it drags it down
I don't consider Daniel's ending the good ending. The good ending is talking down Grahm but driving out the White Legs. See Grahm and me see the real value of Zion. It's a refuge of god in the world. It's an unirradiated place, filled with clean water. If you follow Daniel in trying to 'save the sorrows soul' in this harsh world. The valley is trampled and destroyed by the White Legs, to me that's the worst ending.
It's better to have the tribals eat the fruit of knowledge then let Eden fall to the devil. Saving Grahm's soul? That's just a bonus for a man who's been through troubled times.
YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED LONESOME ROAD!? GO PLAY IT WATER YOU DOING!?
Made my Monday man keep the videos up please!
Great video as always buddy!
As always, this is a great breakdown. But I have one gripe, and while I have seen others mention it, I still need to point it out too.
Honest Hearts is as much a story of the Survivalist as it is of Joshua Graham and the modern Zion.
It is the single most well written and moving story I’ve ever seen in Fallout if not any video game. I don’t know if it would hit me quite the same way today as it did a decade ago, as the mechanic of finding someone’s logs to piece together their story has been done to death at this point, and I was a very different person when I first encountered it. But, it is the only thing I bothered to remember and will always remember from Honest Hearts except for Joshua Graham’s endless supply of 1911s and the Bible verse he quotes about leaving Zion.
It is the absolute best case example of “audio log” or “walking simulator” story telling though, and it intertwines with the moral questions of the active plot and the birth of the strange setting, and it is best experienced organically but intentionally as you explore the area. For your own sake, if you didn’t find the Survivalist’s stashes or didn’t bother reading his story, please do so if you ever play Honest Hearts (again).
Dead money is the best, both in gameplay, atmosphere, and story. One of the best self contained stories in the fallout franchise
Talking Joshua down is the best ending. I cared more about his character than everyone else's in this DLC combined. Him finding a meaningful measure of spiritual and personal peace to pair with his purpose will nurse him more than anything could. In such situations, I care not for the dead, but for those who still suffer. The burned man is a great narrative imo. Between that and the survivalist's story, Honest Hearts was better than all of FO3
wait a minute, there was a good ending??? I thought it was suppost to be bittersweet of 'just run away and die' or become evil wastelander like rest of us
Yeah, locked behind speech 90
@@lonewanderer1328 To be fair, I only played the 'run away' ending, might be a good excuse to restart a new save....
@@runelt99 Why the fuck would you listen to daniel? You must've missed the point that the white legs are after the dead horses and sorrows. THEY WILL EVENTUALLY SALT ZION AND CHASE AFTER THETRIBALS. Lmfao
@@lonewanderer1328 Didn't really pay that much attention to story, thought that it was just a local conflict without any legion subtext, aside from burned man himself.
@@runelt99 Well, now you know better and have a reason to play ttw
Really happy to see you doing the DLCs as well.
Edit:
Holy shit I love the lounge jazz in the background. SO GOOD!
I love all the dlc but I was honestly excited to go with the caravan and see New Canaan. Would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed when that plan abruptly changed
HH was the weakest DLC in my opinion. Even my very first playthrough I wasn't impressed. The entire narrative never drew me in on any level. The Survivalist was the only standout bit of story. I wanted to know about him more than I gave a single fuck about Zion or its inhabitants.
Maybe because I'm iconoclastic? I just couldn't relate to the religious overtones on any meaningful level.
@@mistermajestic829 don't even have an account. Too old for that shit. Try again
@@mistermajestic829 that's kinda what I meant about standout. Even though there was no npc to interact with, I was more drawn to Randall's story than I was to Daniels, or Joshuas or the tribes as they existed in the present.
I did like learning what had become of Joshua and learning more about Ulysses' ties to the tribes, but the main plot about the conflict within Zion just didn't interest me as much as most of the sub-plots and backstories. I honestly wonder if it's because of my general disdain for religion is all...
I do agree they kind of muck it up, but I do think the kind of dilemma I think they're trying to convey is a fun and interesting one. And it's a spiritual dilemma, which is not a common thing you see in games. The dilemma is basically "if you're a devout member of a religion that promotes pacifism and forbids murder, what do you do when confronted with an inescapable "kill or be killed" situation?". So do you stick to your faith and die? Preserving the soul at the cost of the flesh. Or do you compromise your faith and survive? compromising the soul to preserve the flesh.
They mucked it up because they tried to portray Joshua and Daniel as equally morally gray characters and they kind of misunderstood their audience. Both Joshua and Daniel are doing what they're doing for ultimately selfish reasons. Joshua is a psychopath, who gives lip service to God, but he doesn't care much about what said God has to say. Daniel is a pacifist, who claims to be invested in the physical world around him, but the truth is he's so wrapped up in his faith that he's become blind and ignorant of everything beyond his scripture book. Joshua and Daniel seem morally equal in a void, but when you add the context (as touched upon in the video); Joshua seems justified in his actions, while Daniel comes off as wrong about everything and a bit of a bigot.
However, when you get right down to it, the people who play these games aren't going to have many qualms about killing nameless NPCs with red health bars. While most of the people who could empathize with Daniel's, preserve the spirit, argument in any real way, generally aren't the kinds of people who play videogames.
Can’t wait for the other DLC videos this was great
"I'm with the invisible man on this one"