The Gran Turismo of Animal Crossing
September 27, 2022 2:40 PM Subscribe
Tim Rogers explores the nature of nostalgia, Kansas, the 8-hour intro of the original Dragon Quest 7, Japan's relationship with summer break and the idealization of its rural countryside, the nostalgia of others, tank controls and more in Action Button's (6-hour long) review of Boku no Natsuyasumi: a summer vacation adventure video game.
Looking forward to watching this when I have time.
Always worth mentioning: as with his previous very long reviews of Doom and Tokimeki Memorial (both very much worth watching), they aren't intended to be watched just in some marathon session.
If you think of it more like a miniseries about a game it makes more sense, with each "episode" focusing on a different aspect or perspective. The chapters are easily marked for you to treat it this way. It's either that or spread it across 6 videos or whatever in a playlist, and hope YouTube doesn't recommend some horrible stuff between them.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:59 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Always worth mentioning: as with his previous very long reviews of Doom and Tokimeki Memorial (both very much worth watching), they aren't intended to be watched just in some marathon session.
If you think of it more like a miniseries about a game it makes more sense, with each "episode" focusing on a different aspect or perspective. The chapters are easily marked for you to treat it this way. It's either that or spread it across 6 videos or whatever in a playlist, and hope YouTube doesn't recommend some horrible stuff between them.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 2:59 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
Beat me to it!
Last night I told my partner that I'd give her an overview of this video, as I know she finds them interesting (just not interesting enough to watch 6hrs of YouTube). And as I prepared to explain the narrative thread of the review, some glamour was dissolved and I found myself with a pile of unrelated, disconnected topics that I could only recite one after the other
He's a magician is what he is, and a master of using editing trickery to throw in way more meat in the sandwich than he could otherwise get away with
posted by billjings at 4:11 PM on September 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Last night I told my partner that I'd give her an overview of this video, as I know she finds them interesting (just not interesting enough to watch 6hrs of YouTube). And as I prepared to explain the narrative thread of the review, some glamour was dissolved and I found myself with a pile of unrelated, disconnected topics that I could only recite one after the other
He's a magician is what he is, and a master of using editing trickery to throw in way more meat in the sandwich than he could otherwise get away with
posted by billjings at 4:11 PM on September 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
Tim Rogers previously: Cyberpunk 2077, Tokimeki, Doom.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:00 PM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 5:00 PM on September 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
The whole first season is fantastic! A favorite highlight is this aside on Namco arcade game names
But they're all great:
Pac-Man
The Last Of Us
The Final Fantasy VII Remake
posted by billjings at 5:25 PM on September 27, 2022
But they're all great:
Pac-Man
The Last Of Us
The Final Fantasy VII Remake
posted by billjings at 5:25 PM on September 27, 2022
Somehow, I think what I'd enjoy more is him reviewing his own videos.
Recursion is life.
posted by angelplasma at 5:49 PM on September 27, 2022
Recursion is life.
posted by angelplasma at 5:49 PM on September 27, 2022
I just beat Dragon Warrior Quest III for the first time last night. After much grinding for a Thor's Sword, I finally got tired and just decided to see how I'd do against Zoma. Turns out Zoma and the end bosses are a bit of a pushover when everyone's at Level 45, so you can call me Erdrick.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:13 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:13 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
his comments about his memory (in part 5) are so....devastating
i have been frothingly waiting for this and i'm so happy it's here and i'm really trying not to just watch it all in one shot (but as you can see i'm not doing very well at that since i'm already up to part 5)
posted by capnsue at 7:18 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
i have been frothingly waiting for this and i'm so happy it's here and i'm really trying not to just watch it all in one shot (but as you can see i'm not doing very well at that since i'm already up to part 5)
posted by capnsue at 7:18 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
I’ll repost what I said in the action button discord
a bit over an hour in and this one hit me right in the nostalgia (time and distance versions) guts. i spent a year in university in shiga prefecture and then went to tokyo to intern for the summer. this was 2002. went back with a gf to tokyo for a short trip around 2007 and kinda never thought i'd go back, my "good" japanese rotted away.. and all this inaka feel-talks is pulling me back to like.. empty ass train stops on the way from hikone east to the middle of nowhere town my friends lived in, eating pizza buns and drinking teaposted by thedaniel at 11:08 PM on September 27, 2022 [6 favorites]
in other words, this video may not just cost me 6 hours, but thousands of euros in flights
this is causing me to experience an ice cream headache of nostalgia. I also just got a racing wheel how is this the video for me
What is this? Oh no.
posted by WaylandSmith at 12:43 AM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by WaylandSmith at 12:43 AM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
At one point I ran into his livestream, and that too was performance art.
posted by pan at 6:46 AM on September 28, 2022
posted by pan at 6:46 AM on September 28, 2022
Chapter 5 alone deserves to win some kind of award.
posted by ob1quixote at 7:58 AM on September 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 7:58 AM on September 28, 2022 [4 favorites]
thedaniel: where in Shiga? I was at Ryukoku (Seta/Otsu) for a year and have similar fond memories of the summer around Biwa, just riding the train around the lake and hopping off at random spots to explore.
posted by curious nu at 8:05 AM on September 28, 2022
posted by curious nu at 8:05 AM on September 28, 2022
Lived in Hokkaido (Muroran to be specific) from 2006 to 2009 and I'm absolutely crying with how much this hits that very specific nut. And I'm only two hours in. I miss inaka roads. I miss smoking in family restaurants at 2am. I miss conbini egg salad. I miss hot canned coffee. I miss watching the parapara gang practice at DJ Bar Jam.
The way he retells interactions between him and his two coworkers - lord a mercy.
God I love Tim Rogers.
posted by RobertFrost at 7:41 PM on September 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
The way he retells interactions between him and his two coworkers - lord a mercy.
God I love Tim Rogers.
posted by RobertFrost at 7:41 PM on September 28, 2022 [2 favorites]
He's a magician is what he is, and a master of using editing trickery to throw in way more meat in the sandwich than he could otherwise get away with
He can definitely cast a spell. I find his videos to be entertaining, witty, interesting. I enjoy them a lot! By the end though, I often feel like they are less than the (prodigious) sum of their parts. His Cyberpunk video convinced me to play the game, but I found that afterwards I felt his opinions did not really seem to relevant to my experience of it.
This one though is good so far. I was not so much an anime nerd as TR but I do know that feel of cynicism and despair from the old days though, where only a trickle of cool stuff can make its way over here.
I'm wondering when I can get to the part where I can tell if Boku no Natsuyasumi is, like, actually a good game, one I would actually enjoy, one that has something to bite into, beyond the surface level charm and interest I have in it. I'm ready to love, and maybe one of these hours, Rogers will cough up something that feels like actual substance to me.
posted by fleacircus at 8:00 PM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
He can definitely cast a spell. I find his videos to be entertaining, witty, interesting. I enjoy them a lot! By the end though, I often feel like they are less than the (prodigious) sum of their parts. His Cyberpunk video convinced me to play the game, but I found that afterwards I felt his opinions did not really seem to relevant to my experience of it.
This one though is good so far. I was not so much an anime nerd as TR but I do know that feel of cynicism and despair from the old days though, where only a trickle of cool stuff can make its way over here.
I'm wondering when I can get to the part where I can tell if Boku no Natsuyasumi is, like, actually a good game, one I would actually enjoy, one that has something to bite into, beyond the surface level charm and interest I have in it. I'm ready to love, and maybe one of these hours, Rogers will cough up something that feels like actual substance to me.
posted by fleacircus at 8:00 PM on September 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
As good as Tim Rogers is, his experience of these games are the content - not the game. Calling this or any of these 'reviews' seems misleading. Yes, these are the equivalent of a dude living in Bushwick reviewing Merzbow's boiler room set in 2012 - but maybe that's the meat of it. Don't think he's trying to sell you on Merzbow. Just his Hot Takes.
posted by RobertFrost at 8:58 PM on September 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by RobertFrost at 8:58 PM on September 28, 2022 [3 favorites]
Chapter 5 alone deserves to win some kind of award.
Truly.
What I also love about this is I have no way to recommend this to anyone I know.
How could I?
"No, you need to watch the first THREE AND A HALF HOURS of this review of an obscure japanese video game to get to this beautiful personal reflection on memory. No, it won't work if you skip ahead".
posted by malphigian at 12:36 PM on September 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
Truly.
What I also love about this is I have no way to recommend this to anyone I know.
How could I?
"No, you need to watch the first THREE AND A HALF HOURS of this review of an obscure japanese video game to get to this beautiful personal reflection on memory. No, it won't work if you skip ahead".
posted by malphigian at 12:36 PM on September 29, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm about half-way through now. Similarly to malphigian, I've been feeling the need to share this with people in my life, but I'm also aware that attempting to explain to most of my friends why they should commit even 15 minutes to watching the beginning of this will result in blank stares, eye-rolling, or at best, a kind-hearted "sure, I might." It took me about an hour to even realize that this was storytelling disguised as a game review.
posted by WaylandSmith at 7:40 PM on September 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by WaylandSmith at 7:40 PM on September 29, 2022 [1 favorite]
What I also love about this is I have no way to recommend this to anyone I know.
Right?
When this video popped up for me, I immediately started shouting with excitement. My partner came over to see what I was excited about. "It's — just — okay, you have to watch this." And I hit play on the video.
After about two minutes of footage of a sunflower field set to cicada sounds she noped out
posted by billjings at 11:15 AM on September 30, 2022
Right?
When this video popped up for me, I immediately started shouting with excitement. My partner came over to see what I was excited about. "It's — just — okay, you have to watch this." And I hit play on the video.
After about two minutes of footage of a sunflower field set to cicada sounds she noped out
posted by billjings at 11:15 AM on September 30, 2022
@curious_nu - hikone for school, can’t remember the inaka town my friends worked in but I do remember the Brazilian bar under an ez-up in a parking structure next to the tower block where all the Brazilian factory workers lived. Happened to be there when a local mob boss got out of jail and bought us all beers..
posted by thedaniel at 12:32 AM on October 3, 2022
posted by thedaniel at 12:32 AM on October 3, 2022
« Older Passive Income is Neither | Machines Parlantes Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Impressive work.
posted by tclark at 2:54 PM on September 27, 2022 [2 favorites]