Hob Critique - It's Like Zelda

[JosephAndersonChannel]

I feel bad about Hob. It's a shame. I think some people still really enjoyed this game which is saying a lot.

Super Mario Odyssey is next.

[cybroxde]

This makes me kind of sad. It really looks like at least some of the team tried as hard as possible to build something beautiful but nobody could polish the mechanics in the end.

[theviewerofart]

"The game that could have been." Easily the greatest object of my sympathy and melancholy in games. Whenever I see something and feel what the devs wanted to do, end up being dragged along in their passion, only to see the game not living up to its potential for some reason or another, it breaks my heart. People really want these titles to be something special. People really have great visions for them, and as an enthusiast amateur dev myself that kind of thing really gets to me. I remember ranting and raving about Rise of Legends deserving more attention and more development time than it got until my friends started rolling their eyes in preparation of the oncoming speech whenever the subject came up. Here's to what could have been, Hob!

[Dzeeff]

"Or even an ambient sound slider"

The way you deadpan jokes like that gets me every time. Great stuff!

[bench]

You've got to admit the 'shark' looks amazing flying through the air tho

[Carthrine]

You actually sounded so genuinely heartbroken at the end that it made me sad.

[Zalinki]

Always love seeing videos from you pop up. Also, I wonder, have you ever tried the game Rainworld and if so what were your thoughts on it?

[JonnyfromElma]

Honestly, the biggest disappointment of this game was the exclusion of Calvin.

[eekthenan]

newcomers, after Hob's free retail from Epic Games Store, i'm here to tell you that the bugs are vastly gone. nowhere near what we see in this video, at least. other critique still apply. i've finished it twice just now and Janderson makes great points that i agree.

i'd actually love to hear from him more of his perspective of the ending scenes and the lore caves (answer if you please, J). in my mind the alien queen could have said at least three different narratives, and the devs purposefully had it muted to broaden discussion and flex our judgements. granted it's also the convenient choice for them.

bonus tip: keyboard and mouse are a bit lame on this game, since it was built with joysticks in minds and hands. some jumps become easier with an usb-controller. if you, like me, have a generic cheap one, i advise you add Hob to your non Steam games, with Big Picture and all. if needed, i recommend x360ce as an emulator, easy to install and run. feel free to hit questions if in need.

[aidenkolesnikoff]

I've played this on the switch with no issues recently and it's easily one of my favourite games from an artistic perspective. I say it's worth buying and playing for the experience now, is assume most of these issues have been resolved.

[ingeniousclown]

10:15 That's what happened! I SWEAR I drug that box all the way to the square the first time I encountered it, then when nothing happened I wrote it off as a "oh this was just an optional side-path", got the extra collectible in this room and went on with my life. Except that resulted in like 20 minutes of not knowing what to do until I inevitably went back down there to test my assumptions and lo and behold, the elevator activated.

Something like that could have been very easily fixed with better colors on that platform to convey that it's actually a switch. I count myself lucky that I didn't encounter as many awful bugs as you did, but they were there. 15:10 is another one I SORT of encountered, but when I encountered it I actually tried to jump off there, but got the same effect of no animation and just a respawn. That spot is just weird I guess?

I also had some terrible stuttering that seemed to be endemic among 10xx series nVidia owners.

It's hard to say of my opinion of Hob would be more negative if I ran into more of these issues, but based on my experience, Hob is definitely worth a play, even if only for just the feeling of wonder that you mentioned in the beginning.

[rocwood]

Like Joseph said, Runic Games was shut down because its parent company, Perfect World Entertainment, decided to just abandon single player games and focus entirely on MMORPGS because mircotransactions makes so much more money.

[aeteno]

Watching you on twitch definitely helped with the break between videos, but getting the notification still gets me excited.

[LiquidVelocity]

Man, this critique really makes me sad on a personal level. Why? You clearly can't deny the issues mentioned, but I had literally zero problems in my playthrough, resulting in one of my favorite experiences this year. The game felt incredibly polished to me, from the incredibly satisfying sounds, combat and animations to the fantastic level design. Interesting and kind of frustrating how this perception can drastically vary. The theme of healing and environmental care really resonated with me and the game became a warm blanket I eagerly returned to every day when I played it, because it is just so calm and satisfying to explore. Many people will never touch this game now because they think it is a buggy mess but it is really a game worth playing and full of heart.

[nasigil]

I have no plan to play this game but it really looks like to have some great ideas. Given proper development it has the potential to be a masterpiece. What a shame.

[claudiostana]

Thanks for the subtitles.
For who doesn' t speak english very well like me subtitles are really useful.

[nasigil]

Kinda not sure why you used "It's like Zelda" in the title tho... it makes a interesting point at the beginning but became irrelevant to the topic 2 minutes into the video

[subprogram]

Wow, this was abit of a downer. But I think it needed to be. The disparity between the game that could have been and what is is huge, and a great shame that it will likely never be recovered.

[BaconHat]

After having watched ~15 of his videos, I truly believe that Joseph Anderson represents the new golden standard in games journalism.

[joechapman]

Great review. Just got finished playing through Hob today (28.01.18) and thankfully, it seems like almost all of these bugs have been fixed. At least I never encountered a bug that would prevent me from progressing through the game. The popping in and out of environmental objects and enemy models is also something I never noticed. It's an amazing game now that it plays right!