History WebAnimation / FullyRamblomatic

* KarmaMeter: {{Discussed|Trope}} in the ''Semi-Ramblomatic'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAfe_u9ADAU "The Moral Dilemna that weren't"]], where he notes that most implementations of a KarmaMeter fail, either because [[StupidEvil the evil option is downright nonsensical, just for the sake of being evil]], very obviously go against the moral the game preaches (as in ''VideoGame/BanishersGhostsOfNewEden'', where the entire game insists on the importance of exorcising ghosts, even if they are your loved ones, but still gives the player the choice of bringing Antea back to life in a ritual that screams "[[ObviouslyEvil this is the wrong choice]]"), or the so-touted "downsides" for making the harder choice really aren't that impactful (such as making combat in ''VideoGame/Vampyr2018'' harder, but in a way that keeps it fun and engaging rather than making it tedious or annoying, further encouraging players to stick to the good path).

-->'''Yahtzee''': I'll take it. It'll do, because all I want from the story is an excuse. It could just tell me that driving my car keeps the baby owls nesting in the carburetor warm, and that'd do, because driving the car is fun!

* PostPunk: One ''Semi-Ramblomatic'' episode discusses this genre and how he uses the term "post punk" in relation to games. To Yahtz, something that is "punk" would be something produced to defy major artforms or trends, while something that is "post-punk" is an evolved form of punk that explores the subversion of the trend rather than merely existing to be an opposite. He considers punk music to be a rejection of classical music theory, while post-punk music continues to be that while being more than "making a bunch of noise in your dad's garage". For a video-game example, he cites the joke {{Game Mod}} ''VideoGame/CrackLife'' as a punk artform,[[note]]''Crack Life'' is largely just ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' -- a representation of "old money establishment game creation at the time" -- but chock full of irreverent changes like sex toys and [[invoked]][[MemeticMutation memes]],[[/note]] while something like ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' is post-punk.[[note]] ''Undertale'' is a {{Deconstruction}} of the entire {{RPG}} genre, yet has its own wholly original elements and things that it does well enough that it can stand even outside that context.[[/note]]
** He also applies this concept to what he calls "dad games" (games where you play as a father or engage in something related to hobbies typically associated with older men) and "post-dad games" (where the same concepts are put in weirder and more fnatastic contexts).

* SadisticChoice: {{Discussed|Trope}} as one of the unique, but failed core elements of ''VideoGame/BanishersGhostsOfNewEden'': the protagonists are an established couple by the start of the game, but one of them ends up killed and becoming a ghost, with the main narrative through-line being the decision of whether she must be exorcised and sent to heaven as per their responsibility as Banishers, or if we should try to bring her back to life with a forbidden ritual that entails sacrificial murder. Yahtzee finds that this falls flat due to it being incredibly obvious which is the narratively "correct" option (aside from one path necessitating ''[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential murdering several innocents]]'', the prologue hammers home that ghosts are unnatural and must be dealt with), and that presumably the stakes were meant to be covered by the audience being investing in the characters -- thus wanting to see them survive -- but in this case, [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic they're not very interesting nor likeable]][[invoked]]. In the follow-up ''Semi-Ramblomatic'', "The Moral Dilemmas that Weren't", Yahtzee comments that the decision might have been harder if the still-living protagonist was not just emotionally, but ''physically'' dependent on Antea -- that instead of Red, a hardened BraveScot who could almost certainly get by on his own against the murder ghosts, you replace him with a vulnerable six-year-old girl who will almost certainly die without her (posthumous) guardian, upping the stakes of the decision.

* HappyEndingOverride: He criticizes ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'' for treating ''[[VideoGame/AlanWake Alan Wake's American Nightmare]]'' as [[CanonDiscontinuity non-canon]][[note]]''American Nightmare'' is technically "canon" in that the events do have an effect on ''Alan Wake II'', but as a result of the game's heavily postmodern narrative, [[SchrodingersCanon the actual events that took place aren't in the game's proper continuity]][[/note]], partly because he felt ''American Nightmare'' had a satisfying ending that tied up all the loose ends that seemingly prevented any obvious [[SequelHook sequel-baiting]] (something that ''Alan Wake II'' itself would do).

* LampshadedTheObscureReference: Yahtz represents the protagonist of a reviewed game as having the head of some other fictional character. For the ''Graven'' review, the protagonist is introduced alongside the phrase "Christ no one's gonna get *this* reference", as some unknown bearded guy fills in for ''Graven'''s protagonist.

* KarmaMeter: {{Discussed|Trope}} in the ''Semi-Ramblomatic'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAfe_u9ADAU "The Moral Dilemna that weren't"]], where he notes that most implementations of a KarmaMeter fail, either because [[StupidEvil the evil option is downright nonsensical, just for the sake of being evil]], [[BrokenAesop very obviously go against the moral the game preaches]] (as in ''VideoGame/BanishersGhostsOfNewEden'', where the entire game insists on the importance of exorcising ghosts, even if they are your loved ones, but still gives the player the choice of bringing Antea back to life in a ritual that screams "[[ObviouslyEvil this is the wrong choice]]"), or the so-touted "downsides" for making the harder choice really aren't that impactful (such as making combat in ''VideoGame/Vampyr2018'' harder, but in a way that keeps it fun and engaging rather than making it tedious or annoying, further encouragigng players to stick to the good path).

* SadisticChoice: {{Discussed|Trope}} as one of the unique, but failed core elements of ''VideoGame/BanishersGhostsOfNewEden'': the protagonists are an established couple by the start of the game, but one of them ends up killed and becoming a ghost, with the main narrative through-line being the decision of whether she must be exorcised and sent to heaven as per their responsibility as Banishers, or if we should try to bring her back to life with a forbidden ritual that entails sacrificial murder. Yahtzee finds that this falls flat due to it being incredibly obvious which is the narratively "correct" option (aside from one path necessitating ''[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential murdering several innocents]]'', the prologue hammers home that ghosts are unnatural and must be dealt with), and that presumably the stakes were meant to be covered by the audience being investing in the characters -- thus wanting to see them survive -- but in this case, [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic they're not very interesting nor likeable]][[invoked]].

** "Post-punk" is a stylistic descriptor he almost exclusively refers to with fondness, describing games (and media in general) that observe deconstructive approaches to genre and medium and build off of them to launch said mediums into new, [[GenreBusting often hard to categorize]], but inventive directions. He frequently celebrates Creator/Suda51 as the forerunner of Japanese post-punk game developers, with ''VideoGame/Killer7'' being his opus.

* AuthorAppeal: Yahtzee's personal enjoyment of {{Grappling Hook Pistol}}s in video games shows up again in his review of ''SANABI'', where his enjoyment of that mechanic excuses the tropey "hairy dad story" in the game.

* SadisticChoice: {{Discussed|Trope}} as one of the unique, but failed core elements of ''VideoGame/BanishersGhostsOfNewEden'': the protagonists are an established couple by the start of the game, but one of them ends up killed and becoming a ghost, with the main narrative through-line being the decision of whether she must be exorcised and sent to heaven as per their responsibility as Banishers, or try to bring her back to life with a forbidden ritual that entails murdering sacrifices. Yahtzee finds that this falls flat due to it being incredibly obvious which is the narratively "correct" option (aside from one path necessitating ''[[VideoGameCrueltyPotential murdering several innocents]]'', the prologue hammers home that ghosts are unnatural and must be dealt with), and that presumably the stakes were meant to be covered by the audience being investing in the characters -- thus wanting to see them survive -- but in this case, [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic they're not very interesting nor likeable]][[invoked]].

* JokeAndReceive: Yahtzee did this to himself at one point: in "The Games of 2023 I Didn't Review", he mocks The Game Awards for basing its award categories on genre, which he feels is a flawed practice for a variety of reasons, remarking that they should instead categorize awards based on what feelings they bring out in you, such as [[VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn "Best Game That Made Us Excited"]], [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 "Best Game That Made Us Scared"]], and [[VideoGame/Doom2016 "Best Game That Made Us Haunted By Our Own Capacity for Violence in a Zero-Consequence Environment"]]. During his later ''Semi-Ramblomatic'' on "How to Predict The Game Awards", Yahtzee admitted that he was just joking at the time, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense, and that if he did have the ability to fix The Game Awards, he would implement this change.

* OurProductSucks: Lightly {{discussed|Trope}} during the review of ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague'', where Yahtzee makes a point that the game defines itself with the narrative motif of ''"we suck"'': [[VillainProtagonist the titular squad of baddies]] suck, [[TheChessmaster the person they work]] for sucks, the city of Metropolis sucks after it was turned into a warzone by the Justice League, who now suck because they're being [[BrainwashedAndCrazy brainwashed]] by "the suckiest dude of them all", [[BigBad Brainiac]], etc. Yahtzee understands the gag the game is trying to pull off, and he doesn't bag on it for "not giving a shit" about itself in an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek way -- rather, he's annoyed that the game ''actually'' doesn't give a shit, with gameplay so perfunctory and repetitive that there's no sense of escalation or satisfaction, carrying an energy that ultimately feels disrespectful and tone-deaf.

* HanlonsRazor: Yahtzee's review of ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague'' is nothing short of a thorough knifing over all of its awful game design decisions, and his most charitable explanation for why the game turned out the way it did was that Rocksteady was using "[[ObfuscatingStupidity weaponized incompetence]]" -- [[FailureGambit willfully making a terrible live-service game to prove to Warner Bros. that such games are a waste of time so they can return to making the world-class, groundbreaking single-player games they were famous for]]. Unfortunately, Yahtzee still notes [[DidntThinkThisThrough the key pitfall]] that ''Suicide Squad'' was actively defiling such work, with its plot being based around overriding the ''Franchise/BatmanArkhamSeries'' in a disrespectful and unsatisfactory way.

* HanlonsRazor: Yahtzee's review of ''VideoGame/SuicideSquadKillTheJusticeLeague'' is nothing short of a thorough knifing over all of its awful game design decisions, and his most charitable explanation for why the game turned out the way it did was that Rocksteady was using "[[ObfuscatingStupidity weaponized incompetence]]" -- [[FailureGambit willfully making a terrible live-service game to prove to Warner Bros. that such games are a waste of time so they can return to making the world-class, groundbreaking single-player games they were famous for]]. Unfortunately, Yahtzee still notes [[DidntThinkThisThrough the key pitfall]] that ''Suicide Squad'' was actively defiling such work with how it overrides the ''Franchise/BatmanArkhamSeries'' in such a disrespectful and unsatisfactory way.