The Problem With Egoraptor

Let's start by saying what Egoraptor says right before going off the deep end against Skyward Sword. We're all entitled to our opinions. His isn't the only one. Take what he admits is a 30 minute rant, and give it your all in response.

So here you are, Mr. Egoraptor. In my opinion, your opinion is not uncommon, as far as opinions go. When you take it apart, you like exploring, you don't like item quests and imposed barriers on exploration. You like 2D more than 3D in Zelda, and you like and dislike a bunch of other stuff. I agree with a big chunk of it. All in all you're a Zelda fan, with an opinion of what you might call the "core" of what makes a Zelda a "Zelda".

Fair enough, except that it becomes difficult to separate Egoraptor from his opinions when he spends as much time pandering over how "he'll be crucified", and stereotyping opposing viewpoints for the sake of cheap humor. If he was simply arrogant, that would be one thing, but in your case, Mr. Ego, it gives the image that you might just be being controversial for the sake of being controversial.

Take for example, The Angry Video Game Nerd. Here's a guy that comes out with consistently opinionated content about traditional games like the Zelda franchise on a regular basis. He didn't take a year to make a review of The Adventure of Link, or any of his videos. Despite this fact, his video reviews are built with a much higher amount of informative content there to influence his opinions. Compare the reactions to his videos, compared to Egoraptor's. When you think about what Egoraptor's opinions are when it comes to the Zelda series, they actually aren't very uncommon or even too unpopular in the 4chan community. They like AVGN, for the most part. Is it any wonder /v/ is almost unanimously against this Ego, and all the ready to crucify him as he asked? Because he's annoying, and it comes across as disingenuous when he claims that "everyone is entitled to their opinion" after insulting them for the last half hour.

The irony gets me every time when someone is moved to make an entire post complaining about how someone else only does something just to get talked about. If you don't like a dude's videos, it might be a better tactic to just stop watching, rather than give him some free advertising.

Also, if you care about (or even generally know) what the "4chan community" thinks, you might have too much time on your hands.

nOt familiar with this YouTube guy, this topic is probably proof that he is effectively taunting Zelda fans though.

All I know is that he criticized modern tutorialization in his Mega Man X video without taking the time to ask why tutorialization has changed between then and now.

Yeah, um... Skyward Sword is a pretty bad game. Especially if you consider the Zelda games that came before it. I was a huge Zelda fan- and Skyward sword did just about everything wrong. It may have been one of the few games with tolerable motion controls, but that was just about it. The rest was linear bullshit.

And yeah, Ocarina was not perfect. It was the right game at the right time- and it still holds up relatively well. Here's the thing: It could not have been perfect. Wasn't possible. It was the first 3D Zelda and game designers were still struggling with 3D game design. Those sequels, however.. they could have been better and most of them just made the same mistakes Ocarina did.

I hope the new one tries a few new things.

I've seen people get more worked up about anything to the scale that people get worked up about Zelda.

He's been around for a pretty long damn time.

@joshwent: The thing is I agree with him, and yet I wish he'd shut up. It's a hard place to be, because I know people are going to listen to him and say "it's all bullshit" when maybe it's only 10% bullshit. My point is to separate the crap from the reasonable stuff. I might come back to talk more about his specific opinions if I feel the need to.

All I know about Egoraptor was that he acted like doofus on the Playstation Tester reality show that I regret watching, but that could have been a result of unfavorable editing.

and

so much this. Not sure why another person's opinion on a videogame bothers people so much.

:) Everyone is entitled to their opinions.

If everyone can have an opinion the "Problem with Egoraptor" isn't a problem. By creating this thread you have said he shouldn't have the opinion he holds.

No, I haven't. I have encountered a problem in an area of the internet involving controversy and I have weighed in on the idea that he's typically right but presents himself in a less then agree-able manner.

Nah. His entire goal after getting on the show was to just be a troll and not take it seriously (which, really, is the best way any contestant could have approached that farce of a program).

Before becoming a YouTuber he was primarily known for making some of the most popular flash animations on Newgrounds. His big break was Metal Gear Awesome and Metal Gear Awesome 2.

@hailinel: Him being on that show was the best thing about it.

Really? Wow I would have respected that more if he did a better job of it. He was just mainly boring.

Kinda feel bad for the other contestants though, they seemed so earnest.

@video_game_king: Agreed, but he does do a great job of showing how ridiculously well designed MMX is, even if his humour is kinda dumb.

Like, state your opinion. Don't speculate about raging nerds with double chins holding torches and picketing to crucify you for having one. That's rude, man.

I think most of the problems he has about 3D Zelda games is that he's just bad at 3D games in general. In Game Grumps videos where Arin is playing a 3D game, you can tell he's lost most of the time and considering he thought that items had no use in OOT compared to ALTTP means he didn't ever try to use items on enemies (such as hook shotting the skeleton so that he stops blocking with his shield). A lot of his complaints on newer games in an established genre is that there is a lot of hand-holding and waiting, and he believes trial-and-error is the way to go when it comes to designing video games. You can tell he really likes intuitive tutorial designs in his Mega Man X Sequalitis video, but dislikes having to be told what to do through text messages in the Zelda video. However this is all asinine, because in numerous Game Grumps videos Arin gets angry that he doesn't know where to go because the game doesn't tell him.

Must be difficult to retain your dignity trying to present an argument while simultaneously struggling to appeal to the Pewdiepie demographic. I couldn't stand one minute of it.

I don't know who is. Did he say that Skyward Sword was shit? If he did then I'm okay with him because he's right. You should probably not get so wound up by random people's opinions on stuff though.

A lot of times the game will tell them but they ignore it. I can forgive Dan because he doesn't play games as frequently as Arin but Arin ignores instructions and doesn't understand why he doesn't know what to do. Games have gotten more complicated over the years and he seems to ignore that fact and plays everything like it's a two button platformer.

It's uncanny how well this applies to the Giant Bomb crew, as well.

True. Though GB seems to miss the hints and tutorials while Arin flat out ignores them.

@sethphotopoulos: They often miss the hints by ignoring them. Same difference, really.

I like Egoraptor, and I liked this video. Really, I'd like to see more video essays like this out of the community. It always strikes me as funny that people will get so worked up about someone having a take, and defending it with evidence. Even if you think they're wrong, that's all an essay needs to do.

(I always assumed the problem with Egoraptor was that he's unapologetically used racist slurs as a joke for his whole career)

I have never heard of Egoraptor prior to this post and have absolutely no care in the world to know anything about who he is or what he thinks.

My issue with Egoraptor is that he has (had???) a habit of generalizing modern games. You know, the ol' "Modern games these days are all just brown hallways with hand holding tutorials."

But whatever. He's an entertainer. I found his animations super funny back in the day.

When I was younger I really liked Egoraptor's 'Awesome' series, and I quite like this video too, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

Although some of the other stuff said about the guy in this thread is making me a bit trepidatious about trying out his other recent work.

Man I liked his old "Awesome" stuff. Haha good times. On the other side of that... he is still a thing!? Wow... Youtube... what a dumb place and not in a good way.

Another thread where we criticize a normal human being for being a normal human being.

I really hope all these people don't hold themselves to the same standards they require for everyone else. There would be a whole shit-ton of hypocrisy if that happened. A whole shit-ton of hypocrisy.

That name is vaguely familiar.

@rollingzeppelin: He's a fantastic animator (self-taught, even), been making gaming-related stuff for years, prior to YouTube and a lot of gaming websites even being a thing. And I think you should really try out his stuff, he's a wonderful person with a lot of intelligent, insightful things to say. I look up to him, have for years.

I don't honestly think he's trolling or saying things to intentionally piss people off. It's perfectly fine to legitimately dislike things a lot of people consider "sacred cows". And I think his reasons are valid, even if I don't agree with all of them. I'd prefer a well-thought-out opinion I disagree with than an opinion I agree with, but has absolutely nothing to back it up.

/v/ is nintendogaf. All their opinions are discarded. And I don't know who this eceleb is. I'm a DSP "fan" myself.

I just think it's so funny when people shit on Skyward Sword. It's my favorite Zelda game, though I do love practically all of them. It's just so funny. Skyward Sword is not shit - you can think so in your own opinion, sure you can hate it all you want. But it is objectively not a shit game. Some, like myself, find it an absolutely fascinating and beautiful adventure. We are probably the minority but it is still super funny to see people act so strongly about it.

:| Really? Really?

Comparing one set of youtube comments with another sounds like the third worst way you could possibly spend your time, after genocide and torture.

An opinion?!?!? On the Internet?!?!??!?!??!?

Well I never!!

Isn't that basically what Jeff does with Yoshi's Island and Shenmue? Sure it's "cheap humor", but I don't see it as a problem.

Really.

An example of a shit game is something like Big Rigs, or like some Barbie shit meant for little girls (that Quick Look comes to mind), or ET, or Wand of Gamelon, or Kabuki Warriors, or Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. These games all are shit. Skyward Sword is just a game in which many fans of the series didn't like how things were executed. That others praised these same things means that it's just a super fucking polarizing game, not a bad one. But, as I said, you're allowed to think it's bad because you didn't like it. That doesn't mean it is in reality though. It just is to you.

Why?

@xyzygy: Wait, so what determines if a game is good or bad in objective reality, independent from anyone's opinions on it? One could just as easily say "Your're allowed to think it's good because you liked it. That doesn't mean it is in reality though. It's just you."

I disagree with his general assessment of Ocarina of Time, but he provides sound reasoning for why he thinks the way he does. Aside from the "rants" against Skyward Sword (which strike me as more about being funny than being malicious), I found the video to be informative of both his opinion on OoT, game design, and what he thinks is the difference between good and bad game design.

I don't see the need for butthurt, but then again the Zelda fandom is still smarting over 8.8 so I suppose any critical analysis of this series will get some form backlash or another.

Egoraptor was relevant about 4 or 5 years ago.

I need to set aside some time for this latest Sequelitis, but I'm glad to hear someone else criticizing Skyward Sword. I think if I had heard more criticism before I wouldn't have spent $60 on that game and even more for a Wiimote Plus. Well, at least it came with that awesome orchestral CD.

I actually really appreciate the Sequelitis stuff, learning about intuitive rather than explicit tutorials. I think it's difficult to relay that information in a modern (read: fully polygonal, analogue controls, nonlinear environments) game, because there really is just so much more going on. I think there's a happy medium between implicit and explicit tutorials, but for now I can't begrudge certain games for leaning more heavily on the latter. Already I'm thinking of ways Batman: Arkham City could have more subtly taught the player certain moves, but there's just too much nuance.

Skyward Sword was really good, while A Link Between Worlds was merely ok.

That's all I have to add to this conversation.

Oh, come on. I think it's a good exercise to understand why some games are bad and some are good, but sometimes it's not worth re-iterating why games that are pretty much universally considered bad have the reputation that they do.

I'll always hold that there's no objective measure of games that are good or bad. However, people seem to think this means you can say "I liked it" and that automatically qualifies it as good or bad. No. Not true. You need to be able to argue for a game's qualities, which is a subjective exercise but it's one that requires some level of thought and examination. Try arguing for E.T. or Daikatana or Superman 64 or Big Rigs as genuinely good games - not really something that can be done.

I have occasionally heard the name "Egoraptor" but never looked into his videos. Seems like I probably don't need to.

Really? Because they are either broken or have no meaningful or set goals. Among so many other smaller factors individual to each game that you'd have to play; EG ET's visual mess and lack of purpose, Gamelon's completely lazy presentation in every aspect of the characters, cutscenes, animations, dialogue, etc, Big Rigs massive mechanical issues and lack of competition (that one is easy)... listing these is really stupid because, as believer said above me, it's pretty common knowledge.

Skyward Sword goes about things differently, and it's never broken. It just does things differently and that's where the issues come from. The backtracking being one huge issue that some people didn't like, but for me I didn't see it as anything major. Which comes back to it being based on peoples opinions, not solid fact.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not solid fact that the game is bad. Stuff like Big Rigs, ET, Kabuki, etc. They sold bad, were poorly received, very often broken games. There is a line. Then there is something like Deadly Premonition. Mechanically bad, but uses and specially focuses in other areas (like the story, characters, dialogue, etc) to make it a unique experience and not necessarily a totally bad game. So I guess sometimes there are things that blur the lines.

Skyward Sword is a functional, completable, but polarizing game. The others mentioned are either broken or have no meaningful or set goals.

Your point is sound, I think people are just giving you shit for using the term 'objective', which tends to be overused by a lot of absolutist, argumentative assholes on the internet and therefore gets a bad rap.