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[Shamrock7r]

Never heard of johnathan blow prior to this thread.

I skimmed about 30-40 minutes of the video, mostly the intro. He seems like a below average video gamer in terms of learning how to play a new game. It seemed like a good chunk of his complaints boiled down to him just being bad, and not a fault of the game itself.

His other complaints just seemed so random and contradictory. It's plain as day he came into the game with an agenda of wanting to hate on it. At one point he is complaining that link looks 12, then complaining that link doesn't have the abs of a 12 year old. He then complains about the game giving him too much of a tutorial (literally a 3 second pop up window) and a few moments later complaining that the game didn't give him enough help when he was stuck on a puzzle in a shrine.

And maybe I'm just getting old but his humor attempts were pretty terrible and the video seemed catered to attracting fanboy haters more than being an honest play through of the game.

 

[Kuro]

He plays like my grandparents. Took him like hours to figure out how to drop a weapon.

 

[Budi]

Stream Witcher 3 next Blow. You'd love it, you can quick bind the lemons!

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Yeah I expected this.

 

[jett]

Same old Blow. He hosted a conference on how Bioshock 1 was such a terrible game.

Sorry Blow, you're not as good of a developer as you think you are.

After Braid and The Witness, I'd qualify him as a genius-level developer.

Bioshock is trash.

 

[KLoWn]

And maybe I'm just getting old but his humor attempts were pretty terrible and the video seemed catered to attracting fanboy haters more than being an honest play through of the game.

Yeah, this is basically what i got from it too, but I'm getting old too, so maybe it's just us lol.

Seriously though, he's really bad, and I wouldn't take anything someone like this is saying about the game seriously.

Bioshock is trash.

Nope.

 

[Raysoul]

This is a video of a 6 year old girl beating a fucking Lynel

 

[Arttemis]

This guy is such an annoying hypocrite.

He spends 10 minutes repeatedly dying trying to climb down the cliff on the edge of the Great Plateau and bitching about the game not directly telling him not to repeat it...

Then, he bitches about the game making a chime for succeeding in solving a step in a puzzle because it's insulting.

 

[Nickle]

You guys should have been on Twitch when the game came out, you had world class speedrunners and extremely intelligent esports professionals get stuck at half the puzzles. Maybe it's harder to think when you're also trying to entertain an audience.

 

[Tom_Cody]

I just skipped around through the video and every moment I landed on was literally just him whining.

Why did he even make this?

 

[Nyoro SF]

You guys should have been on Twitch when the game came out, you had world class speedrunners and extremely intelligent esports professionals get stuck at half the puzzles. Maybe it's harder to think when you're also trying to entertain an audience.

I think there might be a slight difference between people who are not puzzle-inclined and a person who seems determined to be dumb on purpose.

 

[Shamrock7r]

You guys should have been on Twitch when the game came out, you had world class speedrunners and extremely intelligent esports professionals get stuck at half the puzzles. Maybe it's harder to think when you're also trying to entertain an audience.

Sure, but you don't fault the game for it like this guy, lol

To add, he seemed to not be grasping the basic gameplay mechanics, which is quite different from being stumped by a puzzle.

 

[RoninChaos]

It keeps timing out on me otherwise I'd watch it.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

This is a video of a 6 year old girl beating a fucking Lynel

Man and I struggled playing Super Mario 64 and Pokemon Yellow back then.

 

[NAPK1NS]

Woah, this is super-painful to watch. I had no idea he was such a whiny person, my gosh. He's pretty witless, too. None of his attempts at humor or his insistence on idle sing-songing was funny or charming.

 

[Interfectum]

After Braid and The Witness, I'd qualify him as a genius-level developer.

Bioshock is trash.

Yup. Bioshock 2 was a much better game than either the original or Infinite.

 

[Tarextherex]

Are you kidding me? Every Zelda game since the NES era has had traditional tutorials. Some quite extensive. And so what if other games have lots of tutorials? There are plenty of people shitting on those too, I assure you.

We have a different definition of traditional tutorials then. To me those are when the game basically throws you out of the game to explicitly teach you the actions, kind of like a fighting game's challenge mode. For example, look at Twilight Princess' intro. It's heavily criticized because it basically has a bunch of contrived tasks to do before you get to the Hyrule Field moment of the game opening up. Yet, this is still happening within the game's world and it's a part of the story, that's why even this would count as a non-traditional/creative way of teaching the player. Running errands for the villagers taught you about riding your horse, using various items, etc. Saving the kids basically got you a sneak peek of the usual Zelda gameplay. Since you do all of this in areas that are relevant to the story, it doesn't really feel too much as a tutorial section.

I feel bigger series with a lot of entries have it way too hard on that aspect. You got people overblowing Skyward's Sword's intro yet they praise Red Steel 2 as a game. Sure, it had suprisingly good controls and was overall impressive since it was a sequel to a bad launch title, yet that game was insufferably explicit during all of the game. I got halfway through it yet I always thought I was in a tutorial because you always had action prompts or interactable objects flashing. Even when you unlock skills you're forced of testing them on a dummy instead if trying them out against enemies. You don't hear too much of those complaints when they are about games that are "underdogs", but you will hear about them forever for renowned series

 

[John Kowalski]

This is a video of a 6 year old girl beating a fucking Lynel

Yes but does she walk to school by herself?

 

[Budi]

I don't get the hate, he seems less whiney and hyperbolic than average Gaffer.

 

[RedFury]

Yes but does she walk to school by herself?

Creeper

Spoiler

JK

Edit: fail

 

[Aldric]

This is a video of a 6 year old girl beating a fucking Lynel

Zelda confirmed game for babbies.

No wonder such a lowbrow experience is unbecoming of a sophisticated gentleman like Sir Blow.

 

[Archanfel]

Breath of the W

Spoiler

itness

 

[Jeff-DSA]

My 8-year old son and my 4-year old son both, without help, had an easier time getting through the opening areas of Zelda than Blow did...and my 4-year old doesn't know how to read.

Seriously.

 

[Dio Brando]

I don't get the hate, he seems less whiney and hyperbolic than average Gaffer.

ikr.

He being pretentious is regardless of him playing BotW and criticizing it tho.

i know, but it doesnt really pertain to the video itself. people can say that he entered this with a predisposition to dislike botw, but pretentiousness has nothing to do with it. you can disagree with him, but he provides arguments for why he thought x or y was bad.

 

[Peltz]

This is a video of a 6 year old girl beating a fucking Lynel

So cute! Kids are playing Zelda. All is right with the the world.

 

[AndrewDean84xX]

Does he have other games that he's streamed that aren't his? I'd love to see how he plays other games. I'm sure they're full of more cringe worthy gameplay.

 

[Risk Breaker]

It's funny how he overthinks every single puzzle because they are made for literally 8 year old kids.

 

[Nitpicker_Red]

I think the main part was that the chat was unhelpful. Streaming a game puts an extra pressure that makes you miss/skimp a lot. He hasn't found any Korok, and the chat pushes him to do stupid stuff or gets impatient when the game is not fun to watch.
If he went at his own rythm, he would have played totally differently. Might have taken more time to figure stuff out, but would have understood the idea behind the things that were presented to him.

 

[RedFury]

I don't get the hate, he seems less whiney and hyperbolic than average Gaffer.

Yup. Have people saying Bioshock 1 is shit, come on now. Then you got the hypocrites going over to Horizon threads and saying it's shit. What's wrong with you people. Generation of man babies that can't take any criticism. Criticism is only bad if you don't learn from it.

 

[Charamiwa]

Before he started playing:

"Some people say this game is amazing. I don't tend to believe that kind of thing. From what I've seen of the game I can't tell why people like it so much, except that maybe, it's got the magical Nintendo 20 points score boost or something."

I have nothing against Jonathan but I cannot take someone's opinion seriously when he goes in with this kind of attitude.

I mean after this quote I think there's nothing left to say. Just because he's a talented dev doesn't change the fact that this was basically a troll stream and we're all falling for it arguing back and forth.

 

[sirap]

I traveled back in time, gave a Switch to my 1 year old self and even he had an easier time with BoTW!

 

[jman2050]

Why are so many video game developers actually seemingly terrible at video games?

 

[PedroLumpy]

I mean after this quote I think there's nothing left to say. Just because he's a talented dev doesn't change the fact that this was basically a troll stream and we're all falling for it arguing back and forth.

Yup.

 

[ghibli99]

My 8-year old son and my 4-year old son both, without help, had an easier time getting through the opening areas of Zelda than Blow did...and my 4-year old doesn't know how to read.

Seriously.

Thanks for saying this... you totally reminded me of something.

When I saw Spirited Away at the El Capitan in LA ~15 years ago, Miyazaki and Suzuki where there doing a Q&A. One of the things they said is that when Princess Mononoke released in Japan, one of their most interesting observations was that children -- especially girls -- were able to grasp the themes of that film without any problems, whereas many adults were confused or thought it was too complex.

I think perhaps the same can be applied here, where if you go into a game like BOTW with the mindset of over-analyzing things or that you are trying to apply too much of your own knowledge/expectation to it, things that come naturally to others will absolutely baffle, confuse, and aggravate you.

I decided to watch a little bit of this just now, and I found it absolutely fascinating from an intellectual/sociological perspective. It was pretty much 100% the opposite of my own experience.

 

[John Kowalski]

I watch his code videos a lot, they're really good stuff to have in the background while you study.

 

[KLoWn]

Then you got the hypocrites going over to Horizon threads and saying it's shit.

Who has done that?

 

[Jeff-DSA]

Why are so many video game developers actually seemingly terrible at video games?

Probably no time to actually play...

 

[HellofaMouse]

i mean, im not as big of a fan of botw as most ppl are either, but he sure nitpicks the living sht out of that game

 

[Shamrock7r]

Yup. Have people saying Bioshock 1 is shit, come on now. Then you got the hypocrites going over to Horizon threads and saying it's shit. What's wrong with you people. Generation of man babies that can't take any criticism. Criticism is only bad if you don't learn from it.

I've read through most of the thread and the only defense for Blow seems to be "lol you can't take criticism". There is no substance there. I'm guessing because the majority of his negativity in the game isn't really defensible.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Johnathan makes a game: Awesome, bold vision, fresh, beautiful, very smart

Jonathan gives a presentation: Makes you sit there with a smile on your face about how clever some things are or how well but boldly summarized other things are

Jonathan gives an interview: Wow, that's really narrow-minded, can he not restrain himself and be at least a little tactical about his opinions. Does he really not see that you can have that opinion, but you absolutely can't say it like that?!

Jonathan plays a game: Maybe he should take some time off to explore and actually PLAY MORE GAMES before his studio takes on another game (after the smaller one, the semi-side project gets released [next year? whatever]). It's obvious that he doesn't play many games. He doesn't understand gaming culture logic. Before this, I thought he just disagrees with gaming conventions, but it seems he doesn't even know them / has experienced them on his own. Even if only from a "know your enemy" point of view, he really should play more stuff that was out after like 2003... the stuff that's high on metacritic. Get some perspective that's your own.

 

[Ferrio]

Why are so many video game developers actually seemingly terrible at video games?

Gamers in general can be pretty damn terrible at games. I'm not even talking about Dark Souls type stuff, just game knowledge and picking up context clues and experimenting with controls etc. I swear sometimes it's like people have never played a video game before when they try a new game.

 

[Hindl]

Who has done that?

Tons of Zelda fans have derailed several Horizon threads since its release comparing it to Zelda

 

[BY2K]

Tons of Zelda fans have derailed several Horizon threads since its release comparing it to Zelda

The opposite has also happened.

 

[AgeEighty]

Yup. Bioshock 2 was a much better game than either the original or Infinite.

Gameplay-wise, yes. Story-wise, god hell no.

 

[RedFury]

Who has done that?

Go to any Horizon thread and look for avatars from this thread or just look at post histories. I don't have the time to detective gaf this shit(I'm at work), or care enough really. You have a lot of the same people screaming bias a blow, praising BotW without acknowledging it's faults, then doing the same thing they accuse blow of doing in the Horizon thread (some flat out didn't even play the game). Seriously it's so bad you can see people in this thread joking about it.

 

[Tarextherex]

All I see these Zelda fans (In my experience I've never seen fans of any game or franchise get as testy) do is complain about any negative reception and say "see 98% that means I'm in the right". They won't listen to what other people have to say and challenge their OWN opinions. Again being in the majority does NOT make you right(not directed at you)!

If Zelda fans reply with fallacies that's due to most criticism being fallacious as hell too. Look at the tweets from the post you quoted. When they pre-emptively dismiss Zelda with garbage like "it gets a free pass due to it's name" or "I haven't grown up with Nintendo so their games won't do anything for me", well don't be surprised of getting shitposts or majority fallacies in return. I know those guys are big PC gamers that rarely buy consoles in general. Even then, how can you be so close minded towards the worldwide face of videogames when you're a developer yourself. That's like if you were a filmmaker but you completely disregard the countless classics that are from the USA. I know a lot of Nintendo fans are pretty close minded as well but when freaking developers participate in that garbage by essentially disregarding entire game libraries it's a much worse look for videogames in general.

 

[NSESN]

Yup. Have people saying Bioshock 1 is shit, come on now. Then you got the hypocrites going over to Horizon threads and saying it's shit. What's wrong with you people. Generation of man babies that can't take any criticism. Criticism is only bad if you don't learn from it.

I am sorry, but you are the one sounding like that can't take criticism calling people that disagree with him man babies.

 

[Cuburt]

the biggest problem of those first 4 hours was that some convinced him to use pro mode right after starting. he had no idea what to do, and just tried going down the plateau numerous times.
hoping he can put that behind and doesnt let that sour his experience.

lol I always knew this attitude that "the only real way to play is in pro mode" would ruin some people's experience.

It's something you can definitely play without, but if you don't at least understand all the mechanics that are in the game in the first place, there is a lot of info you miss out on without the HUD.

Blow probably only played because fans kept bugging him about how parts of BotW reminded them of The Witness. Maybe that comparison makes him bitter. Who knows?

 

[KLoWn]

Tons of Zelda fans have derailed several Horizon threads since its release comparing it to Zelda

The opposite has also happened.

Yeah, was about to say that.

Being someone who played Zelda when it came out, the amounts of Horizon fans drive-by shit posting in Zelda threads were pretty ridiculous.

I'm sure the Horizon threads got some shit thrown at them by idiots too though.

 

[SeanR1221]

Skipped around and had to stop at 1:45:00 ish when he continuously tried to set a bomb on a moving platform to blow up a wall instead of just throwing the bomb and blowing it up mid air.

How does the guy who created the witness act this dumb on puzzles?