It is not a joke to say that this video has been two-and-a-half years in the making. More, actually. Though the primary footage I used from the Nintendo Switch version of the game is dated August of 2020, I had actually decided to make a video during a random play through in 2019. It was then that I first began to notice my little, nit-picking gripes with the Twilight Cathedral, but in order to properly convey my thoughts I needed footage from the 3D Zelda games. This is what kick-started the intended Zelda series, beginning with A Link to the Past and intended to conclude with Twilight Princess, then leading into Darksiders.

Unfortunately this did not come to pass for many reasons, some of which I’ve already gone into. Getting laid off pre-Covid, depression, and undue pressure upon myself with each video made led to the lengthy absence from YouTube. Nonetheless, in August of 2020, at least, I was contemplating just cutting ahead to Darksiders anyway.

In truth, I needed that time away to make this video. The baggage dragging me down and causing each video to be more stressful than enjoyable needed to be unpacked and sorted out. There was no way I’d have dared make a video this long, and I would have been tempted to give up at the script level as I tried to condense all of my thoughts into something far shorter.

It is not perfect, but this lengthy deep-dive look at one of my favorite games is precisely what I needed it to be.

One of the more curious delays in content creation was the simple need to move away from Windows Movie Maker 6. To many it may seem an obvious move, but as I’ve documented in the past, Windows Movie Maker 6 had a method of taking a video file and automatically splitting it up between “scenes” that make it “easier” to scrub through footage; or so I had believed. To me, the idea of having to scroll through individual, several hours-long video files for what might just be five seconds of footage would make an already lengthy project take even longer.

Ultimately it became clear that Movie Maker 6 was just not going to cut it, having problems running on not only Windows 8, but Windows 10 as well. While I’d have stayed with Windows 7 forever, I needed a new machine, which meant I’d inevitably have to change video editors at some point. So, having been laid off, I decided to go with a bundle of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. The former would do everything I needed in an image editor, and the latter would be a simple enough transition to a “real” video editor.

It turned out I was actually saving myself a lot of time with this switch. In order to use a video file in Windows Movie Maker 6, it needed to be converted into WMV format. This meant every single bit of footage I was using needed to first go through a conversion process, which meant a lot of time spent waiting for hours and hours of gameplay to be modified for use. This inevitably meant a downgrade in quality as well.

For several months in late 2022 I had tried putting together scripts and concepts for shorter, easier to edit videos just to practice with Adobe Premiere. I had gone so far as to record and edit audio and then begin editing, but I never actually enjoyed the content being made. This wasn’t the same pressure as before, though. This was me evaluating the product as something I, personally, would enjoy.

It seemed crazy to make my first real project with new video editing software a lengthy, deep dive analysis over an hour long, yet, in the end, it was the right decision. There were some setbacks at times as I tried playing with that Premiere Elements could and could not do, but I not only came to find myself a rhythm, I also realized that scrubbing through all that footage was not as time consuming as I had anticipated. In fact, Premiere Elements has a lot of time-saving measures that make seemingly disastrous, little mistakes into minor adjustments. One such error was discovered at the eleventh hour, frightening me into believing I had a lengthy, risky fix to perform. Instead, it was a mere few seconds to repair the damage.

The only part of this process I’m undecided on was the new approach to recording audio. Typically I’d record the entire script in one go, edit the entire thing, and then chop it up for video editing. This time, I spread the audio recording out across several days, recording a few portions of the script before editing them down and inserting them into the video editor, where I’d cut everything together until I needed more audio. On one hand, this prevented me from getting bogged down in any one specific activity. Audio-editing is by far the most tedious process, but it can also take less time than video editing. However, there was one week in which progress was stalled because I was sick. In fact, somewhere around the middle you might be able to identify a sudden change in my voice. I decided to record audio despite not being fully recovered on that day. I could have continued editing the video while sick, but without any audio to insert, the entire project ended up reaching a standstill.

On the whole I think the process worked well. It just needs some polishing up. The only other thing I learned with this project was a simple confirmation of myself: I never would have been able to actually work in video games. Over the last two weeks I’ve been itching to move onto the next project. In many ways this was a refreshing feeling, as in the past I’ve typically been ready to move on due to losing all confidence in the video. This is one of the reasons the gaps between individual Resident Evil VI videos became wider and wider. Here, however, I hadn’t lost confidence in the video. I was just done with the analysis, mentally. I left it all out on the table. It’s been said, and now I want to move onto digging into other games.

It’s refreshing to be this excited to move on without having a foul taste for the video just made.

Not that there aren’t things I would have liked to do better. You’ll notice several different notes and corrections sprinkled throughout the video, many of which are the result of forgetting about something until I was editing, or only picking up on while scrubbing through footage. The image directly above? Of the Griever looking to the side? Despite having played through this game so often over the past few years, I had somehow never noticed she was looking towards her nest. This better contextualizes why the Griever keeps attacking War throughout the dungeon, and why she remains in one static spot the entire boss fight. Unfortunately, there’s never a moment where the player gets a good look at the nest, and therefore that connection is unlikely to be made.

This is something that I need to improve at. One of the reasons I don’t do as much research into the making of a game these days is because I simply don’t have the same amount of time that I used to. My current job is far more demanding, though also far more rewarding. I do what I can in what time available, but I just do not always have the ability to try digging through interviews for answers that may not exist.

However, when discussing narrative, cut-scenes, and puzzles, it is clear that my memory occasionally becomes jumbled together. I’ll remember things out of order, or forget individual parts of a scene. I recall Samael smacking the Watcher out of the way in the scene where War gets his Chaos form back, but I had forgotten Samael’s demonstration of power on him. Even so, it’s not like the Watcher was left powerless the whole time. He was clearly moving freely before War delivered the massive punch, and so he could have continued using his hold the whole time. It would have made more sense for Samael to hold the Watcher down for War. Besides, even if this little detail were explained away, it still doesn’t convey why or how War retains his Chaos form back. A glimmer upon his gauntlet is not an explanation.

There is one last technical hiccup as well. I did not find out about it until too late in the editing process, but I upgraded my Elgato HD60 to the new Elgato HD60 X, a mostly superior machine for capturing footage. However, every so often there’d be sudden stuttering in the recording that was neither present in gameplay nor the preview window. I have suspicions about the cause and am investigating other recording methods using it, but this is one of the reasons I stuck to Switch footage where I could. It is also why you may see some choppy footage on occasion. Hopefully this will not be a consistent problem, as it would not do to have this sort of graphical hitch for future videos.

Nevertheless, despite needing to brush up my process in the future, I feel pretty confident in this video. I know I’ve said that in the past, but I mean it this time. I think those who follow will be rewarded for their patience with some of my best work. Will I continue going this in-depth in the future? I don’t know. I have several ideas for what to do next, and technically even began a potential project already, but I think I just need some time to relax and see what lights the strongest fire inside.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed the video, and I hope you enjoyed this little behind-the-scenes glimpse into the making of my Darksiders analysis.