I cannot talk about NOMOIDA without getting my bias out of the way first. They gave my work an extended shoutout in their Yume Nikki video, and also have been a wonderful help mastering the audio of LOVEWEB episodes since then.
Anyway all bias aside, NOMOIDA makes some of the best videos out there!! The way I'd describe their vids is that they are "maximalist documentaries".
Before talking about their Yume Nikki video, I need to tell a little story first. I remember seeing years ago a looong video about Yume Nikki that seemed promising, only for it to end up spending most of its runtime just listing off everything that's in the game. It was completely uninteresting as a fan of Yume Nikki, and people who didn't know Yume Nikki just got the entire experience spoiled for them. I swear some videos on YouTube have for sole purpose to spoon-feed you pre-chewed content meant to replace experiencing the piece of art itself. ANYWAYS When NOMOIDA's 5 HOURS LONG VIDEO popped into my recommandations, I thought it would be the same. I was so so wrong. This is 5 hours of research, analysis and retrospective. I actually learned so much about Yume Nikki from this video and I say that someone who used to watch every single videos about Yume Nikki.
Same goes for their video about Shenmue, a topic where I know nothing about instead of knowing everything. That 2 hours 22 minutes video is a complete recontextualisation of the game in the era it came out in and what makes important in the world of teh videos games and to NOMOIDA. And despite the lenght, I still get to play the game for myself with an understanding of the context the game came out in instead of knowing everything that's gonna happen in advance!
The highest praise I can give to their work is that I can't wait for my next long trips to rewatch their videos. Same applies to the next video makers on the list.
Kiki and Alicia's work is my personal coup de cœur. No matter what they talk about, it's ALWAYS INTERESTING. Especially because they always offer a different, novel and "advanced" angle to any piece of media they talk about. In the world of video essays on YouTube, this is as good as it gets.
One video I recommend is Did Japan ACTUALLY Hate Spyro?. It's an analysis of the changes done to Spyro the Dragon (PS1 1998) in Japan, and specifically the uncharitable reaction of western gamers to those changes. Team Transparency Boo here did what the average gamer could never do and actually research WHY those changes were put in place and what Japanese reviewers actually thought of the game.
Another wonderful video is Aquanaut's Holiday | A Game About Doing Nothing. Another video about a PS1 game analysing its history and reception and gameplay and everything inside out. This video in particular perfectly encapsulate the vibes of the game through its video editing stylings. And not a minute is wasted in this 2 hours 37 minutes video about a game where you just look at fishies. I stopped watching midway through to emulate the game myself.
