YIIK: A Postmodern RPG Review

While I am definitely a fan of JRPGs (I seem to be one of the only people who likes the original Persona’s remake), I’ve never played some of the more talked-about ones like Earthbound or, even still, Persona 5 (that will be a while).  I’ve also never been into what’s called “post-modernism.”  I guess I interpret things too logically.  I didn’t take much interest in Undertale and the apparent metacommentary in the Danganronpa games and Metal Gear Solid 2 fly right over my head.  I may not be the target audience for a game that calls itself a “postmodern RPG”, but I keep an open mind and I can get behind a game made by 90s gamers full of strangeness and references.  Plus I can recommend practically anything, even a little bit, if the writing’s good, no matter how dreary the rest of it is.  As for whether or not it deserves any recommendation at all, that’s what we’re here to find out.

Warning.  This article goes over some sensitive topics, particularly abuse and sex crimes.

The story of YIIK stars Alex, a nerdy loser who embarks on a madcap quest to find a woman that goes missing.  From there the story slowly evolves into something much more high-stakes.  As part of the “postmodern” part, it gets screwy and using hula hoops and phonograph records as weapons is just the start of that.

Alex is voiced by Chris “Kirbopher” Niosi, who is probably one of the most despised people on the internet by artists and gamers alike.  For at least a decade Niosi has made enemy after enemy through various forms of abuse and crappy behavior.

Longtime readers may remember my very different-from-normal article on Bryon “Psyguy” Beaubien, the notorious pedophile of over 15 years who stole from his fans through fraud and abused over two dozen people, particularly underage girls.  While many people are quick to put everything on Beaubien, he wasn’t alone, and I don’t just mean his pedophile friend Dave “Crikeydave” Smith.  Niosi was a major problem too.  He’s what is called an enabler, a person who encourages or enables negative behavior.

He wasn’t the only one (Martin Billany is another), but he definitely seems to have been the most prominent.  As detailed in posts from one of the victims as well as several of his former associates, Niosi was very much a part of the abuse himself, was aware of the pedophilia and assisted in terrorizing and silencing victims.  This includes one account stating he wanted to doxx one of them (which Beaubien surprisingly spoke against) and another where he encouraged that same one to kill herself, which other people have come out as claiming he did the same to them.  It’s not uncommon for people who knew both Niosi and Beaubien to say that if it weren’t for the fact that Beaubien was a pedophile they would be very much the same.  The same narcissism, the same spoiled brat personality and the same treatment of women.

Even outside of the enabling, Niosi has a very bad history with women in general, which should be obvious by now since the last paragraph alone is a textbook definition of abuser.  He typically uses them and “friends” as emotional punching bags when something sets him off, and with his fragile ego and inability to take criticism, that’s a regular occurrence.  For his girlfriends in particular Niosi is extremely possessive.  As former associate Cailencrow has said:

“When it came to Kirb and women, he would stop at nothing to invade every aspect of a girl’s life, stalking them and obsessing over them. I saw it with this girl, I saw it with Liz, and I saw it with tumblr user Audioerf who I remember would come into calls with complete strangers (such as me) just to hide from Kirb.”

Being a textbook abuser, Niosi also doesn’t take rejection well.  When his girlfriends rightfully leave him, he throws fits.  This is corroborated by ex girlfriends that have come out against him, one having a connection to Lab Zero Games, which he is allegedly blacklisted from, according to another one of his ex girlfriends, who was also one of Beaubien’s victims and whom Niosi attempted to make homeless for not wanting to sleep with him in what I consider to be his ultimate plummet into depravity.

Niosi is actually blacklisted from some animation unions and guilds thanks to his abusive and bratty behavior and artists in general refuse to work with him.  It doesn’t help that on more than one occasion Niosi has embezzled funds and/or refused to pay artists after promising to, such is the case with “his” Brawl Taunts videos.  Check with the credited artists and you’ll find most were stiffed and have reported his videos for infringing their copyright due to breaching an oral contract.

Even in voice acting he doesn't seem to be much more than a scab who took advantage of the voice actor’s strike, in which voice actors were demanding better pay and better working conditions.  The details of the strike are a little complicated, but the point is people like Niosi undercut these demands to treat voice actors right by taking work for nominal pay.  He can afford the lower pay.  He just needs to stroke his ego.
As a writer, where people working for free undercut the writers that value their work, this is insulting to me on a professional level, as I’m sure it is to other voice actors.  If you thought Vic Mignona was creepy prima donna asshole…

He is.  In fact we can now add complacency in rape to Mignona’s rap sheet, but one can still argue Niosi is worse.  Sure Vic is homophobic on top of everything else, but even he doesn’t go into people’s faces about it because he knows it’s not tolerated, although he does a really bad job hiding it.  Contrast Niosi’s treatment of people with Autism.

Niosi hates people with autism, a bit odd considering many claim he is on the spectrum himself (and I mean unironically, not the childish insulting way moronic teens online use it).  By the accounts of people who have had conversations with him, Niosi considers himself above them.  A number of people have attested to this, such as one saying Niosi called him an “embarrassment to people who ACTUALLY have autism” after mentioning having it.  To pull out a more to-the-point quote from one of the sources linked earlier:

“Kirbopher is actively disgusted by people with autism. He is on the spectrum, but sees himself as “better” than others. He has dismissed people with it and has used it as a weapon against them in the past. I have this testimony and should this person step forward I will reveal more. This is a good example of a past event, which he has of course never apologized for and still treats this former fan like garbage."

Treating people like garbage is Niosi’s specialty, unless of course he can use them or they’re sleaze like he is.  He’s good friends with Andrew Dickman, for just one example.  For those who don’t know, Dickman already had a reputation for being egotistical and ill-tempered, but it then came to light that he was more than that.  In addition to being one of the creepiest people you'll ever see, such as a comment about someone being single after their boyfriend died, Dickman abused and sexually assaulted/raped his ex girlfriend, whose friends had to get her away from him without his knowing and have spoken in great detail about it all.

That it’s a vengeful ex spinning a story is more or less impossible.  When she left him (but before the full details came out), Dickman made a whining post about her leaving to try and make himself out as a victim, something that came off as a huge red flag as completely cutting contact and moving away without warning almost never happens unless the person is being abused.

Sure enough, that flag was not false and after his ex came out against him, Dickman once again tried to play the victim, in the process admitting to the sexual assault/rape.  It took him a while to realize he admitted to it and edited it a few hours later, but there are archives of it.  Everyone saw it.  Everyone knows, including Niosi.  This is just the kind of company Chris Niosi keeps.  The kind he invites to Disneyland.

It only makes sense that they would get along because Niosi shares similarities with Dickman as well as the previously-mentioned Beaubien in that he is a coward that has never and will never actually own up to his behavior.  The closest he ever came was two apology posts full of self-serving bullshit that left out tons of details of his actions other people were quick to fill in.  He’ll never try to clarify, correct or even say that something is a lie because acknowledging he did something wrong would make him look bad and that is not something his malignant narcissism allows.
He’ll dismiss it all as rumors, try to get people to harass the accusers or try to plug his ears and close his eyes hoping it goes away, but that will not change that it’s the truth.  He's certainly not going to address everything that's been said against him for years.  From what I can observe he does what typical abusers do and complain that he's being "bullied", but makes sure to never addresses any specific thing anyone says so that he doesn't have to answer to evidence.  Meanwhile he condemns Vic Mignona because apparently it's not bullying when it's against someone else even though Vic has the exact same kind of evidence and testimony against him that he does.

But none of this is anything new.  As far back as his college days there are stories about Niosi being a sycophant leeching off of other people’s work and being an abusive shit all the way up to the present day.  Just recently, 2016 specifically, he tried to make his ex girlfriend homeless, as previously mentioned.

The way that story goes is that although they broke up, his ex (who has her own bad history, but that’s another story) still worked with him and planned to move in with him.  At the last possible second, after signing all the papers, getting everything ready and essentially leaving her past home, Niosi told her she would not be welcome unless romance were involved.  He was basically trying to leave her out on the street if she couldn’t promise sex.  Niosi doesn’t stop at rock bottom.  He drills further.  Thankfully it’s my understanding she still found a place to live and needless to say, Niosi made yet another enemy through his abuse.

He is one of the most toxic human beings around.  He’s an abuser and, by some accounts, possibly an outright criminal who only uses any platform he’s given, voice acting or otherwise, to try and abuse and use more people.  He has not changed, he has not gotten better and considering his behavior is something that’s been going on for practically his entire life, I have no reason to believe he is ever going to.  To quote one of his ex girlfriends:

"I don’t expect Niosi to take any responsibility for this or make any change at all. He can’t turn it into a PR event unless he gets really creative with his ‘YET I AM THE VICTIM’ social media posts and there’s been enough of those (facebook, tumblr) for them to not really mean anything anymore, if they ever did. It’ll be a bunch of paragraphs about how nobody’s perfect and oh, he regrets not doing anything, followed up with regurgitated saturday morning cartoon morals to make anyone who still believes in him feel ‘inspired’ or something. Happened before, will happen again. He’s had years to at least take steps to fix his behaviour and hasn’t changed at all."

The best everyone can do is keep him away, blacklist him (more than they already do, I mean) and maybe take him to court while they’re at it.  Abusers like Niosi rely on people keeping quiet and tolerating them.  Don't.

Unfortunately, this leaves YIIK in a completely contradictory existence from the very start.  The game can only be downloaded.  Without anything physical to actually use, it is completely useless as a fire accelerant.  It doesn’t take a chemist to know that you can’t burn code.  If it can’t even do the bare basics of what it is made to do, it’s worthless.  I give YIIK: A Postmodern RPG a 0 out of 10.