YIIK: A Postmodern RPG

Yiik has been a guilty little pleasure of mine for a while now, something I've looked on and laughed about, something that brought me much joy in how bad it was.
When I heard they were reworking the game AGAIN I knew that I had to give it a go. the initial trailers for the new update also intrigued me. were they remaking the story?
so when the update dropped, I bought the game immediately.
and then didn't play it
for 6 months I didn't play this game until finally I decided I must see what it had become.
I expected to find a slog of game who's only redeeming grace would be how hilariously bad it was.
I was wrong,
I was oh so wrong.
This game is a masterpiece.
Conceptually it is brilliant and I feel appeals only to my sensibilities.
They built not one, but two games upon the corpse of Yiik, a corpse they were able to breathe some new life into with additional story beats and an entirely new (and admittedly quite fun) battle system, so while the festering carcass of old Yiik dwelled beneath, the new additions were more than enough to entertain and engage me.
I found myself enraptured, and with each hour that passed I sunk deeper into the mire.
This game is brilliant.
Upon completion, I thought "wow, that was excellent, it was still a bit shoddy, and the old story still has many of the same problems, the new additions are clearly a lot better and more interesting, overall, decent game."
and then new game plus begun,
and that sealed it.
This game is a masterpiece and a mastercraft in meta-narrative exploration.
I laughed and I cried
but most importantly
I yiiked out.

This game is the biggest waste of time and will actively disappoint you and make you feel dumber the longer you play.
If you're thinking of playing it you should

a comeback story for the ages
there's no other game out there quite like yiik, and honestly, its biggest weakness is its reputation. put your trust in yiik and its developers, and it'll reveal to you a thematically rich, intricate puzzle box narrative presented with a hell of a lot of style - it'll give you a lot more to think about than the average video game narrative, if you let it
shoutout to fraildog

This game's a window to another universe's Evangelion, where it was made by Atlus, directed by Suda51 and its OST made by a bad ending version of Dingaling.
It's PIIK.

It's genuinely really good once you understand that Alex is a lying dumbass. Seriously though the story is good and fun to piece together

YIIK: I.V might be one of my favorite games, and if not one of my favorite games, it's definitely one of the most impactful games I've experienced.
I think I had a similar experience as most people with Yiik, where the game was laughed at and ridiculed relentlessly online on it's initial launch, so much so that it wasn't really a game, but more just a meme to laugh at. But I saw my friend streaming the I.V. update and hopped in, and was instantly asking questions, keeping track of what's happening, analyzing our favorite protagonist Alex like a specimen in a lab. I was taken aback at how interesting this story was, and how unique it's presentation was, and even more so when stumbling across Hellkrai's analysis videos on the first game, where there's a distinct point made that the analysis was based on the first version of the game. I had no idea that the story always had this much depth to it from the very beginning, and it had gone passed up and laughed at for years until it finally got a second breath with I.V.
I.V. improves on many aspects of the original game, one of which is the gameplay itself. I personally haven't played the original version, but I know the combat was rough and slow. That is not true at all with I.V's Karta system. Throughout the multiple breakthroughs I've done and watched of I.V., I feel like I rarely saw the same Karta decks or party layouts. Deciding when to discard your karta for its active effect vs. when to keep it around and try to keep it healed up to get as much out of its passive as you can, there's a lot of depth between cards, and even more-so when incorporating character specific abilities/passives (e.g. Rory being a pacifist who only counter attacks getting multiple attack/crits up to be a strong glass cannon, buffing Michael before blinding the party for his mechanic and turning into a one-shot machine).
The edits made to the story and its presentation are astounding. Some of the most cinematic shots I've seen from a game, and they had me and my friends discussing each cutscene to death, and each story beat. There's so much that can be learned from as early as the first alex monologue, and even moreso with what follows. One example that stands out (that will be spoilered, just to be safe, but it's from the cutscenes in the factory hotel section of the story at the beginning), is that during one of Alex's monologues, he ask's Sammy where she's from, and she responds that she's "from here, where else?". Alex takes this to mean that she lives in the factory, but what I think she's actually saying is that she's from Alex's mind, as all of his monologues take place in a place in his own head.
I don't want to say too much, but play the demo to see if you vibe with the gameplay and presentation, as it shows the first chapter of the game (including the first of many Nameless Child sections), and lets you play a little bit with the karta system. We love you Alex Yiik, and thank you Allanson's for such a solid game!!

They apparently "fixed" it with the gameplay and narrative changes in the 1.5 update, but it's still really janky and awkward so the true experience has not been lost.