00:00I want you, I need you, to admit you had a choice, and that you made the wrong one.
00:08This is why you need to stay to the end.
00:11Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we're diving into the games developed by smaller studios that nonetheless excelled with their respective
00:19narratives.
00:20It's time for the lesser palingenesis.
00:23Time to bring you home.
00:24Before we begin, we publish new content all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to
00:30get notified about our latest videos.
00:34Brothers, a tale of two sons.
00:44Long before the grit of a way out, the charm of It Takes Two, and the phenomenon that is split
00:50fiction,
00:50Josef Farris demonstrated his skills as a storyteller with a bitter tale of brotherhood and loss.
00:56All with zero dialogue.
00:58With their father fallen ill, a pair of siblings embark on a quest through a fantasy world filled with traps
01:03and dangers of every kind.
01:05While there is certainly whimsy to be found between the brothers' exploits, there's also hardship and maturity.
01:10To accomplish so much, but so little is a testament to the creative powerhouse that is Farris.
01:22Fort Solis.
01:33Walking simulators are, ironically, the toughest of tightropes to walk across.
01:37Narratively speaking, given that it lives and breathes by the strength of its story, rather than its mechanics.
01:43To its credit, Fort Solis took that framework, immersed it in the often saturated sci-fi horror genre, and made
01:49it sing.
01:50Huge props to the likes of Troy Baker and Roger Clark, who act their asses off in this condensed, claustrophobic
01:56venture as workers on a Martian colony.
01:59Where things start to go very, very wrong.
02:02The fear is tangible.
02:04The performances are pitch perfect.
02:06And it just goes to show what a small scale game can do when it polishes its strengths to a
02:10fine finish.
02:16Focus and calm.
02:19Psychonauts.
02:19Excellent.
02:21A victory for good taste.
02:22Now you must strive for precision when targeting.
02:26Say you were set upon by multiple attackers.
02:29One of gaming's timeless tenants.
02:31Tim Schafer can write a bloody good game.
02:34And his magnum opus is arguably the mind-bending mastery of the original Psychonauts game.
02:39After developing psychic abilities, young Raz joins an institution where he believes his powers will be used as a force
02:46for good.
02:46Only to discover a dark conspiracy lurking beneath the wackiness.
02:50By leaping into the psyches of his friends and foes, players not only get to experience the very best of
02:55bizarre out of the box platforming.
02:58But the conflicting dark layers lurking at the heart of its cast.
03:01Funny, freaky and able to deliver an emotional gut punch when the moment calls for it.
03:06This one's a real gem.
03:08Dad, I made it!
03:09You cheated!
03:11No!
03:12I use the acrobatics you taught me!
03:14Don't lie to me, cheater!
03:17You crystal ball readers always cheat!
03:20Firewatch.
03:21It's like, I don't know, a mile and a half east of me.
03:23You just follow the trail up the hill, you can't miss it.
03:25I'll go see what the damage is.
03:27If there ever was a game you should go into with as little information as possible,
03:32it would be this luscious and painfully human jaunt through a national park.
03:36What makes Firewatch shine is how the two prongs of its story interconnect.
03:40On the one hand, you have Henry, a fire lookout and his growing relationship with supervisor Delilah,
03:46which can possibly bloom into a beautiful yet trepidatious entanglement.
03:50And on the other hand, you have a years old mystery concerning an unresolved death and an unseen figure seemingly
03:56following the pair's every move.
03:58It may not be grandiose, but it is truly powerful, serving as another reminder about how life is, above all
04:05else, a series of consequences we can either choose to face or flee from.
04:09I think there might be a raccoon living in it.
04:12Make sure he's comfy, I guess.
04:15Hey, it shouldn't take long for the helicopter to reach you.
04:18Okay.
04:19Banishers. Ghosts of New Eden.
04:22I'm a monster. I deserve no mercy.
04:27No. You're just a sinner begging for help.
04:32While its combat was indeed below subpar, there's no debating just how hard the phantasmic story of Antaea and Red
04:38hit.
04:39In fact, we go as far as to say that every side mission and encounter strewn across this ghost-filled
04:44game was exceptionally written.
04:46Every haunting had ever-increasing shades of grey to it, where the decision to either punish the human or banish
04:52the ghost became the furthest thing from simple.
04:54This all played into the wider story between our two banishers, with the choice to either let Antaea pass on
05:00or bring her back to life becoming consistently heavier.
05:03Love and loss are forever entangled, and this game expertly explores it with a fantastic occult edge to it.
05:19Hellblade. Senua's Sacrifice.
05:22No one will ever know.
05:26Oh, she heard us.
05:31There's no going back.
05:32Games set across the realms of Norse mythology are dime a dozen these days, but we can confidently say none
05:39have tackled it in a manner quite like Senua.
05:41While the backdrop is filled with Nordic creatures and anecdotes, Senua's journey to retake her lover from Hellheim is first
05:47and foremost an intimate and unflinching portrayal of psychosis, trauma, grief, and how the monsters in the mind mingle with
05:55the nightmarish entities of yore.
05:56Paired with exquisite sound design and accurate representation of fractured mental health, Senua's first outing was nothing short of a
06:03chilling triumph.
06:16Disco Elysium.
06:17Abort. You clearly have not thought this through. You won't like what you see there, and you will never unbecome
06:24it.
06:24There are RPGs, and then there are RPGs. Offering nearly limitless freedom of choice, what Disco Elysium accomplishes is borderline
06:34profound, crafting a world rich with politics, history, intrigue, and depravity.
06:39All of which slowly unravels as a broken and drunken detective deals with his own demons, as well as the
06:46vast amount of ideologies and innate character flaws that have been given their own voices.
06:51It's truly the zaniest of cocktails that nonetheless navigates the choppy waters of a police procedural, while branching out with
06:58a staggering amount of choice, depending on how inept you wish to approach every encounter.
07:03There they both are. Two identical shoes. Both copiously green and indiscriminately snakeskin. Reunited on your feet.
07:14Nobody wants to die.
07:16Badge is carrying this lousy scrap metal.
07:20Just don't abuse it, yeah? Remember, you're not reinstated yet.
07:23The fact that this game isn't a triple A title to begin with is a staggering feat in of itself.
07:29Given the richness of its neon noir world and crisp, dilapidated visuals. Thankfully, its murder mystery is just as compelling.
07:36In a future where immortality has been achieved by means of switching consciousness between bodies, an investigator is drawn into
07:42a high-profile case, where the city's elite are being systematically targeted by a serial killer.
07:47All the while his superiors want the results buried no matter what, leading to a bloody journey through the warped
07:53mindset of both the city's most downtrodden and most influential.
07:56Blade Runner fans, eat your hearts out.
07:59Holy shit. It really is Death Cycle from the train. One last time. What are you doing here in the
08:08middle of the night?
08:10The Forgotten City
08:12We're finally alone. I assume you already know who I am. May I know your name?
08:19When the strength of your writing is so top tier, you can seamlessly evolve it from a Skyrim mod to
08:25its own living, breathing title?
08:27You know you've crafted something special. A chance encounter with a portal leads an ordinary soul from modern times to
08:33ancient Rome, where its citizens live in fear of a curse that will inevitably turn them all to gold.
08:38Dialogue and puzzle solving are the name of the game here, using the time loop mechanic to your advantage, shifting
08:44the outcome of the city's fate, dealing with the personal perils of its cast, all the way to its ungodly
08:49revelation.
08:50The story shapes around all of it. Pair that with exquisite pacing and progression, and you've got an industry darling
08:56on your hands.
08:57But the one constant through it all has been my title. God of the Underworld. And I've been watching you
09:04with curiosity, Mortar, ever since your arrival.
09:08One thousand times resist.
09:11Watcher. Can you hear me? I can. You made it through. How do you feel? It hurts.
09:19To say that this might just be one of the greatest scripts in video game history is the furthest thing
09:25from exaggeration, and anyone who has stepped into the shoes of Watcher will undoubtedly echo that sentiment.
09:31In a future where the only remnants of humanity exist through cloning, we switch between the perspectives of various individuals,
09:38chronicling the rise of the All-Mother, and the dismal future she creates following the extinction of all other life.
09:44Depression, identity, generational trauma, vengeance, faith, social friction, all perfectly realised in a sci-fi setting that will cling to
09:53you long after your final choice is made.
09:55This is a story that demands to be experienced.
10:08Which video game narrative do you believe needs to be experienced by all? Let us know in the comments.
10:27We've seen that.
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