I may need to rethink some of my process after putting this video together. On one hand, I don’t take YouTube too seriously. I feel like we’ve reached a stage where anyone and everyone can have a YouTube channel where they spill their thoughts on whatever hobby occupies their time. It should be fun, enjoyable, and be a place of expression.
On the other, it wasn’t until I realized just how much of the video would be voice comparisons that I realized I lacked a good title because I lacked a central thesis for which to discuss the new Star Fox. I simply jotted down my thoughts on the game, thoughts I felt appropriate to get out there seeing as I’d just made a video on the originals for the Super Nintendo and N64, and then went to recording the audio. Those voice comparisons were not only a slog to put together, they added about eight minutes of additional time. It is literally half of the video.
Clearly, it’s time to get a bit more intentional again.
I may not be as timely as I was with the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond video, but as I sit here, typing this, I am amazed I completed this video just two weeks after The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales launched. Unlike Metroid Prime 4, I certainly had a few additional distractions&emdash;namely, the release of Star Fox. However, I managed to put this script together surprisingly quick, all things considered, and am largely satisfied with the end product.
It’s not the best video I could have made on the game. To have made that, I would have required at least one additional playthrough, if not two more to really dig into the guts of the mechanics and the narrative. However, in addition to time being a factor in regards to algorithmic relevance, I wanted to just put together a quick review for now and perhaps revisit the game more in-depth another time. Which is something I say often these days, such as with Resident Evil Requiem, but I’d like to work on a video for the new Star Fox next, and hopefully be ready to do some content for the Halo franchise.
Yes, I have plans again, though just a month ago I felt like I had none.
After several months of struggling with scripts, doubt, and the ticking clock of relevancy, I managed to pull together a brand new video with ease and in a short span of time. It has only been half a month since Pragmata, and yet here I have a longer video that took less than half the time to make. Of course, I also don’t feel like I have much to lose with this one. I have no idea how it will perform, though I’m naturally hoping it will do better than the last. Be it my thumbnail work or my title, Pragmata is my worst performing video in a long, long time.
I have a good feeling that this one should at least do okay, though I cannot really predict how the algorithm will bless me or curse me. I’m hoping the title and thumbnail work better, but if there’s anything wrong with this video, it’s that I didn’t really have a cohesive thesis aside from looking back on a favorite game and its sequel that I’ve resented for some reason. I sincerely do not recall when such resentment had begun, just that I began to look upon Star Fox 64 with ill favor some time around college.
Either way, I’m starting to wonder if I should just lean into Nintendo properties more.
I have not been able to recapture that energy which spurned me to create the Metroid Prime 4: Beyond video in seven days. This is, in part, due to how real life has been going. Employment continues to elude me despite the resumes and cover letters I send out, and I am frequently alone to assist my sick mother with doctor’s and hospital visits. Life has, honestly, just not been easy. However, it was in organizing my thoughts on the story that I really struggled.
Discussing and editing everything involving the gameplay was easy. I knew exactly how I felt and thus explaining all of that flowed with ease. However, my problems with the story were not so simple as they were with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which is likely one of the reasons I found Resident Evil: Requiem so difficult as well. Putting my thoughts into words for things that have redeemable qualities but are otherwise still disappointing is, surprisingly, difficult. Moreover, I am somewhat nervous that having negative thoughts on the story is going to get me slammed negatively again. The Resident Evil Requiem video has simply not performed, and I think it is, in part, due to how I had titled it. I tried to change its name, and it created a minor burst of new interest, but at this point I feel like I’d rather just revisit the story later or move on.
With Pragmata, it is important that I communicate that disappointment in the narrative, but I can only imagine it’ll similarly be met with negativity.
Man, who would have known that “The Best and Worst of the Series” would have applied better to Resident Evil Requiem than it had Resident Evil Village? Though it remains applicable in different ways.
This was a rough video to try and get through, largely because the script just failed to take shape. I felt greater time pressure on this one. Unlike something where my thoughts and feelings were pretty locked in, such as Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, I had a lot of complicated, and even conflicting, thoughts regarding Requiem. Even now I feel as if my assessment is not set in stone, which is why I’m open to revisiting the game in future videos. I once believed every video ought to be evergreen, but I’m starting to embrace a more fluid, dynamic approach to content creation.
If I could do the video again with more time, though, I’d do a better job working out the Leon combat section, perhaps even reducing it, and focusing more on the story. If anything, the story got the short straw in this video as there is so much to be said, both complimentary and critically.
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