Zisteau of Youtube, originally known for his Piggy Temple (not available) and Survival Island videos, has over the past year crafted an engaging experience through Vechs' Super Hostile map series in Minecraft. After a hard drive failure in March 2011 ended his previous works, Zisteau began a video memorializing his lost save files and film footage, after which he falls into a trap and finds himself stuck at the beginning of Super Hostile 06 Kaizo Caverns.
Super Hostile custom maps, created by Vechs, were intended to be a Minecraft version of the infamous Kaizo Mario hack, pitting the player against dangers in what is often considered to be too easy of a game. Much of the success of the series can be attributed to Zisteau's let's play, as well as his earlier videos of Super Hostile 01 Sea of Flame 1.0 (also lost in the hard drive crash). This map series incorporates a design called Complete the Monument, where the player must survive and pass various difficult trials and deadly traps to find chests filled with wool and return these colored wool to complete a victory monument. Super Hostile therefore combines both survival and adventure Minecraft play for a truly unique experience. Several other map designers have attempted similar CTM projects, but none of these approach the quality and deviousness of Vechs' Super Hostile maps.
Zisteaus's careful and methodical pacing in SH 06 (and later in SH 07) is indicative of his skill as a player, as is his low number of deaths in one of the most difficult Minecraft custom maps ever created. The struggle can be likened to a dungeon crawl with an evil dungeon master always one step ahead of the intrepid hero. Vechs's craft often addresses Zisteau and other Youtube LP'ers directly with cameos on signs and references to earlier adventures, which strengthens the feeling that Vechs is actually staring down at the player from a scrying mirror. As Zisteau progresses the rooms become increasingly perilous, but he continues to be lighthearted against the spiteful creator, even creating a large scale working rollercoaster in one of the chambers, with concession stands staffed by monsters. This mocking back and forth commentary is reminisce of Diomedes who, after wounding both Ares and Aphrodite on the battlefield of Troy, stood his ground against Apollo. Vechs is the deity of the map, and it is his intent in all cases to kill the player as many times as possible.
After a 50 episode struggle culminating with the Citadel of Demons, Zisteau triumphantly completes the victory monument and seeks to escape Kaizo Caverns through the Nether. This is not to be, as like Oddyseus he is waylaid from his path and sent to peril in Super Hostile 07 Legendary. Unlike Kaizo Caverns which claims the title of merely "very difficult", Legendary is deemed "ROM-hack hard". This is both in reference to difficulty and its unforgiving nature, as traditionally ROM-hacks such as Kaizo Mario included unfair cruelty to the player. This is most apparent in I Wanna Be The Guy, a sidescrolling action/puzzle platformer with unfair traps at every step intended to frustrate and enrage. Zisteau takes this change in stride, and continues his systematic conquering under Vechs' gaze. That he has twice fallen back into a Super Hostile map 'against his will' alludes that like Sisyphus he may never escape his hell, but who knows if Sisyphus was not content.
In transitions, opening sequences and footage editing, Zisteau shines. Behind the scenes footage shows that the fall from grace into Kaizo Caverns was a well crafted TNT explosion all the way to bedrock, taking many hours and several attempts to film. In both series the title sequence for each episode sets the mood with appropriate music. This is especially apparent in Legendary, where a cinematic of the episode's landscapes flash with Night on Bald Mountain as background can best be described as epic. Tedious footage of building and mining are expertly cut and blended together with little lost. It seems Zisteau may even be setting off various traps intentionally to provide catharsis for the viewer, though there is no direct evidence of this.
Zisteau's commentary style for these series is blind, and he is actively disinterested in spoiling his experience with knowledge of what comes next. The commentary flows from his excitement and fear, yet he is more like a Greek hero than an unfortunate, donning his "manpance" armor and wielding a sign. He has a love affair with unconventional weapons, including the aforementioned signs, maps and lava buckets, which he calls "advanced lighting techniques". Zisteau makes pronouncements as a king commanding nothing but himself. Thankfully, he has little in the way of catch phrases so his speech is otherwise natural sounding and unscripted, and he is not overly serious, willing to laugh at himself as he fails.
Zisteau may one day escape the clutches of Vechs, but that is yet to be seen. His LP of Legendary is ongoing, with perhaps 1/5th of the map finished after 14 episodes.
No comments:
Post a Comment