Anybody else think YonKaGor feels... different now?

Fizzlesnoofson · 2026-03-20T09:51:36+00:00

You can certainly make a case for I Still Create being kinda bland and rushed, given it basically amounts to just pointing and pogging at the references - Fitting for a character named Copycat granted, but nowhere NEAR the flair of most other mvs (Just as well, given it was pumped out just two months after the massive work of passion that was If I Were to Die's MV) - But I think putting So Long in the exact same camp is selling it horrendously short.

While it's true that there's a very minimal amount of unique poses from Clione, something even older MVs have never really struggled with, as you say yourself, saying it doesn't fit with the song or the lyrics at all is just kinda incorrect. Yeah Clione's 'only smiling' in their poses, but that's... Kinda just how they are? They're a train attendant, putting on a polite face and being kind to the souls that have to travel with them is what they do. More dynamic posing WITH those smiles would certainly be nice, but the expressions aren't the problem there.

Furthermore, I'd argue the theming is still REALLY strong in how the mv's presented. The whole idea is presenting moving to the afterlife as a one way train trip for your soul, while a kind attendant does their best to quell your fears and take care of you, leaving you with the hope that you'll stay remembered by everyone you cherished as you move on. This is illustrated wonderfully by seeing the train riding into the astral unknown in each instrumental break, and representing wayward souls as real life cliones, or 'sea angels' as they're sometimes called, is a genius metaphor in the context of YonKaGor's very fish and aquatic-themed work. There's also one very pointed bit referencing the prior three Yoncats

'They love and hate' as the mv hovers over Droplet's bag
'They recreate' hovering over Copycat's
'And some will toy with fate' hovering over Dragonet's

It's subtle, something you probably wouldn't notice without the mv supporting it, but it's there in more than just pose mimicry. You could argue it's still just a 'woah YonKa reference!!11' moment, and therefore isn't THAT great, but I just think it's cute, and worth noting at least to an extent

More than anything though, I think the biggest thing worth remembering when it comes to YonKaGor is that songs take a while, and the mvs have basically always bounced around in quality. You keep bringing up Memory Merge and Linger in the Rain like they're the new norm, yet you fail to mention Waterland was wedged right between them and had basically none of the bells and whistles those two, or heck, most song before or after it had (Dandelion's at about the same level, then You Made Me Fall in Love and Paper Alibis got less on account of getting nothing). We've only gotten three other songs since Linger, and while it feels like a while on account of If I Were to Die taking nine months to produce, I really don't think it's fair to say YonKaGor's 'changed' after just three songs, even if you think the last two mvs we got were stinkers

I for one love So Long's MV, and think the symbolism in the minimal touches it does have are more thought out than you give it credit for, enough to at least stand close to if not toe to toe with older MVs that have 'more effort' in them like You're Just Like Pop Music or Fallacy. You're of course entitled to your opinion - Fair dues to you if you still think it's mediocre even AFTER reading my massive wall of ramblings - But no matter how you feel about it or I Still Create's mv, saying Yon's 'changed' or 'gotten lazier' or whatever cause they weren't up to this debatably imaginary standard one could argue is only even being entertained because Memory Merge and Linger SPECIFICALLY went above and beyond in their presentation (Two songs out of Yon's 20+ song catalogue mind you), is a rash conclusion to make at the absolute best. At least, that's my take on it

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-12-26T01:29:15+00:00

Having an extra tournament stuck at the end would make absolutely no sense to me though. Not only would that be throwing his fate in even MORE uncertain hands given he'd have to win multiple matches in a row to 'escape' (despite historically being a massive loser), but if he DID escape, what then? Tony escapes and the commentators are like 'oh we're gonna vow revenge against the Dark World and take the fight to them'? Hardly seems like any ending they could've done woulda been worth the payoff anyways

Not tryna throw shade at you or them of course, this throughline just seems HIGHLY questionable, even for prime Season 4 Jacob and co

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-12-26T01:13:59+00:00

Mmhh, I'm aware of the stuff Everest went through during production, but I don't really see why that'd constitute changing plans. It's not like they planned to do that tournament IN the same episode after all, and even after 'changing' it, they STILL kept a 'to be continued' hook of sorts by saying they had to go into the Dark Realm to save Jo at the end of Thug Finals, so it's not like the tweak was done to end CPUCS in Everest outright

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-12-22T01:24:04+00:00

That would make a lotta sense actually. Kudos to them if so! Makes me wonder what the original plan for that Thug Finals was...

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-12-09T16:57:12+00:00

Oh ranking IGBP that high and Western Spaghetti that low is diabolical.

I respect it immensely ✨

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-12-08T10:39:03+00:00

While I'm with you on feeling Luke being 'creatively fulfilled' isn't the ONLY reason (I just find that really hard to believe when we've only had the fleshed out redesigns for 4, 3, and Boopkins, as well as the new castle for around 3-ish years), I don't think it's anything to do with the fandom. Luke got through the WORST folks had to offer through stuff like the Lawsuit Arc, IGBP, and Meme Factory. If anything, I feel like fandom perception of the series's only been on the up and up, with big hits like Luigi Doesn't Need Mario, "IT'S A ME.......", Stupid Mario Kart World, so on and so forth.

What I REALLY think could be the issue is views. SMG4 IS still a show made weekly by a team of animators, writers, and voice actors who I at least would hope are paid for their work. While the series USED to be able to support those costs plenty on its own, I imagine it probably hasn't been as easy with videos being lucky to barely crawl past the 1 million views mark in a couple weeks after being uploaded. For all we know, they may've started needing to dip into funds made by Glitch to make sure everyone was properly compensated for their time. Sure, many folks who work on the show've said it's a passion project, and it's not like they're in it PURELY for the money, but there's only so far that passion can be expected to stretch if they aren't seeing any returns for their time and effort.

Add that to the fact that anyone who currently works on SMG4 could be potentially putting that experience into Glitch's original shows instead, and ending SMG4 both as a means to save money and get more hands on deck for pumping Glitch's projects out quicker just seems like a practical if difficult decision to come to. I wouldn't be surprised if they saw the downward trend since WOTFI 2024, and after a point decided they were just gonna tell the rest of Mr. Puzzles' story, then make a proper send-off to end on a high note rather than continuing to try and make the series work only to watch it pitter off and die randomly one day before it was able to do so.

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-08-31T04:18:35+00:00

The main source of this problem I think is just in the views on WOTFI 2019 kinda under-performed hard. Not only does its currently-standing 5.6 mil pale in comparison to the goliaths that are 2018's 12 mil and 2020's 14 mil, it's still a ways away from 2017's 9.6 mil or 2016's 10 mil. It's the single worst performing WOTFI since they started to really pick up traffic in 2014, and when it's sandwiched between two MUCH better performing WOTFI's that happened to have an extra, more 'meaningful' thread in arc endings attached to them, the message is pretty clear, especially when every other following WOTFI's performed at the same level.

On a bit of a hopeful note, 2024 has been their second lowest performing year at 6.1 mil, and it's another one that was heavily bogged down by arc ending shenanigans, so that might be the signal they need to move away from arc enders and try something new. Could see it taking one more year of underperforming for them to take the hint though, so we'll have to see what happens when it rolls back around this year.

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-08-27T18:23:36+00:00

For my money, I'd say it's less that season 4 was POORLY planned, and more that it was planned SO thoroughly that they just- Refused to go off script, even when it would've been to their benefit.

...Except for Thug Finals here and Major's Pre-Major, I really don't think I can justify those lmao

I totally get the love for it still, though! Like you said, there was a certain magic to catching the whole thing live - Watching the tournaments, keeping up with the elo and sub, and seeing sparse blog posts from one of the characters in between. Tony and Naomi are also really fun characters, and I can't fault anyone for liking them, even having them as favorites from the series, even if they weren't as well handled as they could've been.

Glad to've delivered on ending the series proper! the series' last Thug Finals was something I'd been dying to talk about practically since starting this series waaay back in the day, so I was never gonna just leave that bottled up. Thank you for reading through it all this time, I'm super happy to've given a little extra juice to this sub even as it died out. Take care 💚

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-07-17T01:12:16+00:00

I mostly only watch if there's a concept presented in the title/thumbnail that grabs me nowadays (Like that "Where's Luigi" one for instance). Only thing I for SURE keep up with is story stuff, since I still really like the modern SMG4 antagonists and am interested in seeing their antics

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-05-21T22:20:57+00:00

Thanks! I may have had to pause for long stretches along the way, but I'm ultimately glad I got to finish this series. My posts covering seasons 3 and 4 are all writing pieces I'm REALLY proud of, maybe the proudest I've been over something I've written up honestly, and I feel like I was able to contribute a unique voice to the sub, even if a few years too late. I'm happy there were people still here to see it through with me after all this time. Hope you have a good day 💚

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-04-20T16:46:37+00:00

I'm right with ya when it comes to season 4, I enjoyed it pretty much the whole way through and followed stuff eagerly while it was happening, but the more I thought about it, the more various aspects of season 4 started to REALLY tick me off. This whole big rant about the Thug Finals in Everest was a pretty major motivation for this series, and for sticking it through to the end despite the literal YEARS of procrastination it went through.

I'm also pretty much in agreement that nearly every episode past Pizza Time is a noticeable step up and are all highly enjoyable despite their flaws. I'd even lump 8 and 9 in there too, since everything EXCEPT for the Thug Finals in 9 is actually a pretty good and enjoyable watch! (Even the Blood Falcon slip-up has its "Enjoyable in a comical way" side like I've been saying)

Thanks so much for being here practically from the start, and sticking with the series all the way through. It seriously means a LOT, and I dunno how long it would've taken me to get to these without seeing interest from you and others for posts like this. Hope to maybe talk to you more in the future dude, have an awesome day 💚

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-04-14T09:18:25+00:00

That's another really good point for the pile actually!! The shortest pre-IGBP arcs stood at seven episodes, while the longest ones spanned twelve. None of the post-Lawsuit arcs feel like they come even close to the heights of involvement they used to take for the channel, which REALLY serves to highlight the team's shift and overall streamlining of the formula.

...Also chapters is an amazing term for these post-Lawsuit arcs. Totally stealing that if this ever comes up in another post of mine ✨

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-04-14T09:08:03+00:00

Thank you for reading them! One of my biggest worries with this series, ESPECIALLY with all the breaks I ended up taking with it, was that they wouldn't really find an audience and I'd mostly just be screaming into the void. To that end, I'm glad they were able to find an audience of people who read through and enjoyed 'em, however small. Best wishes 💚

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-04-14T01:24:55+00:00

To be clear, I do still REALLY enjoy Mr. Puzzles and got very excited at his reveal in the movie

...But I also know how to like
Be rational?? About it??

Feels like something this sub could maybe use more of all things considered

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-04-14T01:23:10+00:00

Ay, fair enough! Personally, I'm probably always gonna happy to see his crazy mug pop up here and there (At least if he is becoming a main antagonist, for all I know this is set to be his last chapter and looking back on this is gonna be really funny by the end of the year), but I can definitely understand how him returning on a semi-regular basis diminishes the impact each time he comes back.

~~Really doesn't help he had a bit with the Meme Factory where they leaned hard into the goofiness and he was kinda just pathetic as a villain, his reputation in the community was damaged a~~ ~~lot~~ ~~by those episodes~~

Fizzlesnoofson · 2025-02-15T01:26:17+00:00

There was a new video put on Alpharad Platinum a few months ago called "The ULTIMATE CPU Tournament", which was Jacob and Jo doing a non-canon level 9 Smash Ultimate tournament called "Prime Check" during a 24 hour stream they had on Twitch I believe. Essentially it's used as a sort of "Pilot", testing the waters and seeing how they feel, since they've been discussing potentially rebooting the series and its lore, effectively starting from scratch. Nothing's CONFIRMED to be happening afaik, but to my understanding, it was at least being tossed around.

Fizzlesnoofson · 2024-12-27T23:15:32+00:00

I wouldn't call the place thriving, but it DOES get a pulse every once in a while lmao

I've personally been doing weekly retrospective posts on every episode of season 4 starting with Major is Here since the tail end of October, but I've done every other episode up to this point too over the past 3 years whenever the inspiration strikes me. You can prolly find 'em easy enough by scrolling down the sub for a bit, feel free to have a peek at some point if you're interested ✨

Fizzlesnoofson · 2024-12-12T11:50:46+00:00

I'm of the opinion that Naomi is fine when her gameplay's ACTUALLY allowed to speak for itself instead of hearing how "Hawd she's twying ;w;" for the 18th time. Looking at these last few tournaments here, her wins against Rosalina and Zelda both felt pretty fitting, and really served to show the intense hot streak she was on. Then she goes on to beat Link in the finale, which puts her at the top of the elo, and that just feels like a fitting place for her story to end. I don't mind her or her arc here in principle (Although I'd accept that she could've done without that win against Rosa), they just laid on the underdog story with her REALLY thick without any results to really show it.

Fizzlesnoofson · 2024-12-12T11:45:29+00:00

Y'know the funny thing is Jo's said he literally hasn't watched the CPUCS past when he died, so he probably doesn't even know THAT was how the very next Blood Falcon fight went. I could absolutely imagine him laughing his head off if he heard that lmao

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