"I can't tell if this fanbase loves them or wants to take an aluminum baseball bat to their heads."
The fanbase of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle got really upset for how Pat and Woolie mishandled the DLC but due to their negative impressions on the game's simplistic combos, unbalanced cast, long loading times and poor framerate. Some people say they did wrong by comparing JoJo with a competitive fighting game as it is supposed to be "fanservice" while others say a patch fixed it. Nevertheless, Pat and Woolie have made it clear they are not searching for any fanservice in their apology video which is why they are not recommending the game.
In one of the mailbags, upon receiving yet another sword in the mail, there was a point in the video that was later cut out where they complained about the sword they received. While they later apologized, quite a few fans were quick to call them ungrateful, while others defended them by stating that they had said not to send dangerous items like weapons in the first place.
The Shaolin Monks playthrough not having Pat despite his interest in the franchise. As a result, some find it boring. Other points of contention include their general cluelessness on how to progress, the poor audio quality on some of the videos, and the fact that they barely ever use Fatalities(though to be fair on that last one, performing Fatalities on the Xbox version, which they're playing, is very counter intuitive).
Some of the first and continued comments on the Super Best Friends Watch Samurai Cop video appear to have invoked this, with some fans declaring that 'they thought the Best Friends were only about video games' and some even declaring that they're going to unsubscribe. Granted, while it is the first time the Zaibatsu have watched a full movie that doesn't really have any association with games, Samurai Cop is perfectly in keeping with their kind of humour, and the Best Friends have a history of putting out videos that are just them shooting the shit or goofing off in videos separate from their longer LP's.
The playthrough for Season 2 of Walking Dead has earned more polarizing responses from viewers than those for Season 1's, and most of it concerns Matt and Pat's frequent ribbing of Kenny.
There are a number of commenters who believe it to be over the top, especially given how the things that the Friends accuse him of (notably, getting people killed out of reckless self-preservation) are things that Pat himself is guilty of (in particular, getting Alvin killed at the end of Episode 2). It also doesn't help that the guys continue to needle him even in scenes where Kenny is nothing but sincere and caring toward Clementine, such as when Kenny took the blame for finding the radio so Clementine wouldn't be beaten by Carver.
Another group agree with the Friends opinion but believe that the ribbing itself is unfunny and forced, thus overshadowing the rest of the game, and that it negatively influences Pat's decisions (in that Pat's decisions are less about doing what he thinks is right, and more about doing what he thinks will piss Kenny off the most).
Those in defense of the Friends are quick to point out that, as over the top as the commentary is, Kenny is still pretty unhinged in Season 2, and somewhat deserving of the lampooning.
They also continued the disdain for Rebecca as the LP has gone on, despite the game's attempts to make her a little more even-handed, although this could be due to the oft-noted problem with Season 2 where the characters just haven't had enough time to develop - partly due to the massively different, slightly less casual situation the episodes throw the cast into.
The Best Friends ended up taking a liking to Jane almost immediately, despite the fact she does very little in Episode 3, and continued to be mostly on her side, largely because she ended up standing in direct contrast to Kenny's point of view.
2014's Shitstorm of Scariness 3 has proven to be divisive too, partly due to the Best Friends decision to play four games for seven days straight and get as far as they can into the games before that deadline, partly due to them picking a game they've already played during the first Shitstorm to kick things off (although it is worth noting that Call of Cthulhu is one of the most demanded full LP's they've ever had thanks to 2012's Shitstorm), and partly due to the lack of Plague ofGripes-made intro for some fans.
Some fans are a bit annoyed at how Liam keeps bringing up Paper Mario: Sticker Star in every part of the Super Mario RPG playthrough just to constantly remind Pat and the viewers how much he hates the game. Even fans that agree with Liam wish he'd just let it go already for fear his tirades might become the new "Kenny hate" situation.
Another problem that's come up is Liam skipping tutorials and instructions on gameplay (which is odd since all the friends does that but Liam get usually the most hate for it). While the Best Friends have addressed complaints about their lack of min-maxxing and skipping optional side-quests, Liam's failure to work with the action commands, as well as not bothering with exploring the game mechanics, have some frustrated over the stale gameplay and lack of variety.
Which is invoked hilariously during their Sonic Adventure LP, as Liam immediately picks up the shovel claws with Knuckles and confidently hops onto the spot he has to dig in... And doesn't know how to dig, despite the game just telling him.
The Bloodborne LP has had this since about episode 10. Simply put, a number of fans see Woolie and Pat playing the game completely wrong. The two friends treat Bloodborne more or less like a Souls game- defensive, slow paced and methodical. Unfortunately, due to the fast paced kill-fast-deal-heavy-damage nature of Bloodborne, this strategy has begun to bite them in the ass. Woolie and Pat face such problems as pumping the endurance stat when the soft cap has already been reached, never or very rarely using the gun, spamming powerful but slow attacks all the time leaving them open, never switching out the Hunters Axe for other weapons, ignoring strength entirely so they're incredibly weak, Woolie taking his time and playing extremely cautiously, etc. A number of fans have sworn off the LP entirely due to these factors, while another camp is completely addicted to it. Even Matt and Liam have gotten in on ribbing the LP, and it's obvious that Pat considers it somewhat of a mistake.
In fact, the fandom has coined the name and now refers to this LP as "SnailBorne".
Made even worse about the fact that it's incredibly obvious that Pat has played ahead, as several trophies don't pop up when they should upon defeating a boss, basically making it like Dark Souls 2 in that Woolie is mostly going in blind while Pat knows much more. As seen by the Ludwig battle, Pat already knew about the boss' second form and used a summon to beat it, either you like it because they are not wasting time dying or you hate it since it's not a blind LP.
At the start of the Silent Hill: Shattered Memories playthrough, Matt and Pat said they'd be quiet during cutscenes so Liam, who has never played the game before, can hear all of the dialogue. Both of them gave up on sticking to this plan very quickly, which has annoyed some fans who really want to hear the dialogue (though subtitles are turned on).
Some fans are also annoyed at how Liam is going about playing the game, as they feel he's not taking this playthrough very seriously (not helped that Liam's shown in the past that horror games are not something he's big into due to being scared easily), mostly through doing things like purposely avoiding extra bits of plot via the shadow memories, and doing certain actions like zooming in on stuff like characters faces and crotches over and over, or walking away from characters whom are talking, apparently forgetting that even goofing around in this game CAN result in the story changing in a way the player does not want. Some also feel that him choosing to place all the cards in the first psych test in part 6 as "dead" was another case of "Liam goofing off and not taking this seriously," worrying fans that Liam's not going to get an ending he'll be satisfied with.note Because the game specifically looks for whether or not you're taking things seriously, dismissing the cards or looking around a room tells the game you (the character) aren't taking therapy seriously..
The Woolie/Matt LP of Her Story has proven to be divisive with some fans declaring it to be boring; surprisingly, however, another portion of the fanbase is calling out the negativity as people are downvoting/disliking the videos the instant they go up, and were declaring it boring in the first episode, before the story even had a chance to go anywhere.
Woolie has decided to do a solo LP of the Reboot PS1 video game, but the main issue people have is that Woolie himself said the videos aren't going to be posted on any regular schedule due to him finding the game to be such a chore to play through (thanks to bad controls, annoying enemies, and the possibility of the game crashing).
The comments on the ECW Anarchy Rulz video seem to focus more on the video's 10 second intro by Gaijin Goomba than on the actual video itself.
The fact that the Best Friends didn't start playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Painimmediately upon release became a sore point for some fans, who complained that the playthrough of Until Dawn was taking too long because they'd seen other playthroughs completed in the time Matt and Pat had uploaded four half-hour videos, and that Until Dawn was an old game. Even though the Best Friends had been running four LP's at once in addition to the last days of Rustlemania coming out, most videos feature Matt meaning his time is divided between games, and the fact that Until Dawn has barely been out a couple of weeks at the time of writing.
The playthrough in itself has become this, with detractors accusing Liam of playing at a pace that is somehow even more glacial than the Bloodborne LP, purposefully gimping himself in terms of equipment because he doesn't want to overspend GMP (despite the fact that stockpiling GMP is trivially easy), missing obvious tactical edges and instead just rushing into combat, and constantly misinterpreting or even outright making up the game's story while acting insufferably smug and self-righteous whenever the others and/or the viewers try to correct him.
Oddly, others are accusing him of going so fast that he's making it quasi "speed run" and playing the game in his signature gun jumping style instead of as a stealth game. Go figure.
Just a look their Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girlsvideos dislike bars reveal another broken base. The plot is difficult to understand unless you played the previous Danganronpa games, making it very hard for the audience to keep up, but instead of explaining the plot, Liam and Woolie keep talking over the cutscenes, skipping the conversations and ranting about how much the dub sucks. The dislikes increased when they changed the voice acting to Japanese without asking the viewers, which is pointless since they still skip dialogue and talk over cutscenes. Many fans felt insulted by this lack of consideration, and despite all that, the friends say that people keep disliking it just because it's not Until Dawn nor Metal Gear. Even after ending the Until Dawn LP, the Danganronpa videos keep getting dislikes so, are they just haters or they really don't like the LP? Even the people who enjoyed the LP got divided when Woolie started complaining. Some agree with him and think the game IS kinda boring until the end, and that the infamous "molestation minigame" was distasteful and creepy. While others started hating him, because he is ruining the LP and trying to blame the game's quality for the dislikes.
Any instance in which one of the Best Friends tries to predict a story beat, or what will happen based on the information they have at that point in the game will promptly get torn apart by comments from the fans, even though in most instances the fans commenting know what is going to happen because they've watched other LP's and are only privy to their knowledge of the game because of that, and most of the guesses (typically from Pat) are not really that far out of left field. It's also not like the Best Friends are the first players to try and predict where a story is going, typically making the comments some particularly Jerkass-flavouredHypocritical Humour.
Fans were first glad to hear that an LP of Undertale would be happening, but then come the first episode and fans of the game were quick to point out that Matt failed to properly grasp one of the game's most important mechanics, and very quickly had locked the playthrough into one that will end up with results fans were sure Matt would not like. Matt responded by saying the LP will be restarted on a fresh save by part 3 in order to play the game in a way that Undertale fans will find more enjoyable.
Which only further divided fans who wanted a purely blind run and are upset over what they feel is a "spoiled run", and fans defending the reset by saying that it was announced to be happening after episode 2, since the very beginning of the LP.
SOMA is an interesting example. At first, everyone was head over heels over it due to it being a genuine horror game and the hilarity of watching Pat alternate between his now-legendary inability to solve puzzles and being scared out of his mind. However, as the LP went on, more and more complaints began to arise, claiming that Pat's aversion to puzzles went from hilarious to soul-crushingly painful when he spent literally the entirety of part 5 and half of part 6 struggling to solve one of the game's easiest puzzles, and coming to conclusions about the game's plot that range from silly to downright nonsensical. The latter is not helped by the fact that Pat is constantly taking over dialogue that outright explains the exact stuff he doesn't understand. Then again, the commentary is what defines the Best Friends, so some believe this last one to be an odd complaint.
Not nonsensical, just incorrect. The issue might be that Pat has a tendency to constantly make guesses about where the plot will go, but things like "They're gonna betray us!" and "It's all just a Matrix dream!" are perfectly plausible considering the genre and themes in the game.
After so much waiting and asking, the best friends finally play Blazblue on Friday Night Fisticuffs! ... Except they didn't. They pick the PC version just to spite people, play story mode but edit out the fighting, and don't play versus mode at all. Some people laughed along and let it go while others, unsurprisingly, are either mad at them for "ruining christmas" with such a stupid joke or sad and wish they didn't even bother playing it at all. Matt later apologized for the video on his Twitter, saying that, while it seemed like a funny idea at the time of recording, the video was poorly timed and poorly executed. However, this did nothing to quell backlash, and the video even caused some people to swear off the channel forever.
The playthrough of Deus Ex: Human Revolution began earning some ire early on as the comments started picking apart Pat's ability to shoot, despite Pat actively having not played the game in a few years and advising he went for pure stealth when he had; there have also been complaints about his approach to hacking and that he doesn't seem to know how it works... Which is entirely explained by the reasoning above. Others still are divided about the main Best Friends playing a game they're enjoying rather than something 'shitty'.
The response to the Pat and Woolie led Minecraft Story Mode LP has been mixed as well for reasons such as complaining about Minecraft in of itself, and complaining about the "Telltale formula." In the case of the former, people who hate Minecraft (or more specifically, people who hate fans of Minecraft) think the LP is a good way to get a sense of validation on their dislike of the game, while fans of Minecraft feel Pat and Woolie are just being overly critical about a game that Pat admits he never got into simply because he doesn't like games where the goal is to "do whatever." In the case of the latter, detractors of Telltale agree with Pat and Woolie that Telltale's formula is getting stale, while fans of the company believe the company is still really strong with their writing and story driven games, and that Pat and Woolie are just becoming overly cynical because of maybe one or two missteps in the company's library. Woolie even apologizes for the LP as early as the second part as he know there are people out there who absolutely love Minecraft and Telltale, but Pat says that they're doing the LP anyway "because [they're] asshole."
Pat grinding offscreen in Dark Souls 3 caused this. At one side, it's not very funny to watch an overleveled player take down bosses with ease, on the other, the LP isn't slow as Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne were. This worsened by part 12 of the LP as Pat had clearly been doing so much off screen grinding and questing that opinions further divided on the LP, resulting in probably one of the more disliked videos on the channel since the Blazblue video. Some have said the offscreen grinding is "ruining the LP" as it looks like Pat will be too overpowered for most bosses, while others have said the complainers need to "stop bitching" and just "enjoy the fact the LP probably won't drag on as long as Dark Souls II and Bloodborne did." By part 21 Pat reaches level 100, something you're only supposed to achieve by new game plus. Unsurprisingly, some fans hate him even more for doing it "out of spite" while others say Pat should play how he wants and "to be fair", he still has a hard time fighting despite the overleveling. To summarize, the whole comment section boils down to "Pat ruined everything!" and "Stop being salty!" comments.
Pat is constantly making lore mistakes, some are fair misconceptions while other are absurd leaps of logic. Depending on who you ask, these mistakes are either hilarious, painfully dumb, or Pat is faking stupidity for laughs.
The whole "Blind LP" thing didn't hold at all, since Pat got so much external info and Woolie used a walkthrough to get the ending they want. Either you're OK with it because it's the internet so Pat cannot possibly not get spoiled, while others aren't so forgiving and blame Pat for actually checking the wikia, talking to other players, watching videos, etc and yet he fakes blindness during the game. A rather bad case is when Pat already had a fire rapier and a mace prepared for certain enemies, and another case where he pulled the torch to remove leeches before fighting the enemy, and after he fights and removes the leeches he acts like he discovered it by himself.
Things got worse for Pat come Part 25 where his inability to properly figure out how the Storm Ruler works until it was too late lead to Siegward dying during the Yhorm fight. The comments for the video quickly became full of people telling Pat how much he screwed up, and it also amassed a decent amount of dislikes in only a few short hours. On the other hand, some people have said it wasn't all bad since Pat technically finished that questline.
Having Laura Kate Dale on episode 184 of the podcast was very divisive due to some fans taking issue with Dale herself, particularly anyone who was already familiar with her through Jim Sterling's own podcast.
Their Dark Souls LP is heading this way due to Woolie's slow playstyle and countless backdowns, not to mention Pat seesawing between letting him play the game blind or spoiling some of the surprises. Just about any large area like Blighttown is bound to take a lot of episodes because of that. There is also the fact they spend at least one episode merely discussing weapons and going back to the hub to upgrade them. It's getting worse now that Woolie took a detour from Anor Londo to the Painted World - a comparatively small area but is now taking several episodes of exploration because they want to get every item. Fans are split whether or not to keep those moments - as they ARE a large part of a Souls game - or cut them because they are not especially interesting.
A fan known as the "Woolie Watcher" took it upon themselves to lead Woolie along certain parts of Anor Londo, ostensibly to keep the playthrough from becoming another Snailborne. This was also divisive because some fans thanked the player for their service while others found him annoying for trying to insert himself into the playthrough. Woolie and Pat themselves became disgruntled when he invaded again in the Painted World, and it later was revealed that this player was using cheats to instantly find where the Best Friends character was and invade. Needless to say he was asked to stop and complied, but fans were still torn on whose side to be on.
Their Resident Evil 7: Biohazard LP, while initially well received, quickly became this for various reasons, mostly due to Pat's unbelievable blindness and poor memory. He often misses important resources that are at eye level or clearly marked (even when he's using the item solely made to clearly highlight all items for a short period of time), and whenever a phone rings in early episodes, he often tools around for stretches of ten minutes or more before finding it and answering it. As the playthrough goes on, he seems to actively get worse at playing, whether he's completing the Happy Birthday deathtrap the exact same way that he saw on the tape, rather than bypassing to the lock as you're meant to or spending almost the entirety of one climactic episode managing his inventory and obsessively backtracking to save every few seconds. The fact that, in typical Best Friends fashion, they drastically misinterpret several critical plot points late in the game due to talking over cutscenes or missing documents (ex: they decide that the Dead Person Conversation with Jack Baker is a flashback that everyone just forgot about rather than Ethan being linked to the Hive Mind, which makes absolutely no sense) and end up having a less-than-clear idea of the story, doesn't help matters.
The same mistakes are made in much of the DLC. Matt and Pat willfully ignore the tips on beating the last part of 21 — the only part where your victory is supposed to be scripted — and end up giving up, and Bedroom goes no better as Pat first tries to play the tense, slow-paced Room Escape Game like a speed run and obviously fails, and then ignores Matt's suggestions on his second try and only wins by brute-forcing obvious puzzle solutions. They did get some minor praise for finding the Golden Ending of Daughters, when most predicted they would find the bad ending and give up, but Pat openly admits to cheating to accomplish this.
The Yakuza 0 playthrough was one of their most popular in 2017 when it started, but it became divisive (though still generally popular) around the halfway point for various reasons. Gameplay-wise, Pat has a tendency to ignore useful things or not experiment with styles if he initially misunderstands them until much later, and once he unlocks Majima's final style, he turns every single climactic battle with Majima into an Anti-Climax by relying on a brokenOne-Hit Kill counter that takes out even the Final Boss in only a few hits. Worse is how they approach the story: while Pat — as a fan of the series already — is initially enthusiastic and trying to pay attention, Matt steadily loses focus and enthusiasm as he tries to poke holes in things that are repeatedly explained or deliberately ridiculous, and they quickly fall back into their habit of talking over cutscenes and misinterpreting (or straight-up missing) big moments. By the time the endgame rolls around, Pat has lost much of his enthusiasm for the plot as well, while Matt's commentary is little else but whining, groaning, and snark.
The Bully playthrough slowly but steadily became this. When it began, most fans were happy that they were playing the game, and early on, both Matt and Pat seemed to be enjoying themselves and recognized why it was a Cult Classic. However, their increasing incompetence eventually tested most of the audience. Major complaints were that they somehow missed incredibly obvious or important things, talked over some cutscenes that left them confused later on, and completely forgot different kinds of mechanics. While some of the comments in the videos were supportive, hyped, filled with jokes, in-jokes, and the like, a lot of reactions threw shade at their general incompetence and some even showed passive-aggressiveness that rivaled their Yakuza 0 or Resident Evil 7: Biohazard LP.
Another point of contention with this LP is that Matt seemed as though he was doing everything in his power to avoid playing optional content, and generally didn't seem like he was having a good time. Many fans picked up on this and let their opinions be known in the comments.
The Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE playthrough maybe one of the most hated in a long time. Already a controversial RPG on its own, videos tend to get hit with many dislikes (though often more likes), and the comments screaming "BORING". Not helped by episodes that are almost all random battles with little to no editing. Also not helped by coming off the heels of the insanely long KOTOR playthrough, and TMS#FE videos are sandwiched between the far more popular God of War (PS4) and Detroit: Become Human playthroughs, leading to angry comments about this not being those two. However, those who enjoy the LP call it one of the best the channel has ever had, thanks to Matt and Woolie's increasingly funny commentary on the bizarre Japanese nonsense that fills it, and the duo themselves had great fun with the LP and regard it as a Cult Classic.
Kingdom Hearts hoo boy. In another case of "Matt doesn't fucking pay attention", the playthrough has been plagued with baffling mistakes like not using Scan (shows the enemies health, with several moments where they ask if their attacks did anything), thinking that the Magic option is only for Donald, and worst of all, ignoring the Cure spell in favor of wasting money on Potions. The comments are littered with anger, with a lot of "I figured this out when I was a kid!" Unfortunately, due to the channel officially ending on December 16th, 2018, this playthrough ended up being Cut Short.
As much as the Best Friends tried to avoid it with a simple and eloquent explanation that their members have drifted apart, the fanbase has now broken into a number of groups blaming all manner of things and individuals for the split; this includes Leanna, Paige, and Liam alongside Matt and Pat themselves, the latter subject to all manner of pulling receipts over his attitude. The only one free from being blamed at all is Woolie, who has set forth on his own podcast and working with Pat on smaller projects, and receiving nothing but well-wishes from the fans for doing so.
dislike bars reveal another broken base. The plot is difficult to understand unless you played the previous Danganronpa games, making it very hard for the audience to keep up, but instead of explaining the plot, Liam and Woolie keep talking over the cutscenes, skipping the conversations and ranting about how much the dub sucks. The dislikes increased when they changed the voice acting to Japanese without asking the viewers, which is pointless since they still skip dialogue and talk over cutscenes. Many fans felt insulted by this lack of consideration, and despite all that, the friends say that people keep disliking it just because it's not Until Dawn nor Metal Gear. Even after ending the Until Dawn LP, the Danganronpa videos keep getting dislikes so, are they just haters or they really don't like the LP? Even the people who enjoyed the LP got divided when Woolie started complaining. Some agree with him and think the game IS kinda boring until the end, and that the infamous "molestation minigame" was distasteful and creepy. While others started hating him, because he is ruining the LP and trying to blame the game's quality for the dislikes.