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Are you ready for a breath of fresh air in the open-world gaming sphere? Join us as we embark on a captivating journey through The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, along with our good friend Joe. We uncover the innovative gameplay, open-world design, and the lasting impact this game has had on the industry. Trust us; you don't want to miss this adventure through one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.
We dive headfirst into the evolution of Zelda games, comparing Breath of the Wild's groundbreaking nonlinear structure and emphasis on exploration to earlier titles such as Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. In doing so, we also analyze the game's storytelling, combat system, and puzzles, sparking the age-old debate on whether future Zelda games should continue in the Breath of the Wild style or return to a more traditional dungeon-based design. With so many questions to ponder, we're just getting started!
As we continue our exploration, we'll also delve into the rich experiences provided by both Breath of the Wild and its sequel, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. We tackle the divisive weapon durability system and discuss its impact on gameplay, as well as the challenges posed by targeting multiple enemies in the heat of battle. So, grab your swords and shields, and join us in this engaging conversation about one of the most beloved games of all time!
What's up everybody, Welcome back to The Neighborhood and thank you for spending part of your day with us today. If you're a returning listener, thank you and welcome back, and if this happens to be your first episode, thank you and welcome to the show. On this episode, we're talking about the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild. Welcome to the podcast where two longtime friends, and sometimes a guest, talk about their favorite games from the perspective of an average player. My name is Andrew Kimball and I'm Dylan Ren and we are your friendly neighborhood gamers. The Legend of Zelda. Breath of the Wild is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo EPD for the Nintendo Switch and the Wii U. Set at the end of the Zelda timeline, the player controls an amnesiac link as he sets out to save Princess Zelda and prevent Calamity Ganon from further destroying Hyrule. Players explore the open world of Hyrule while they collect items and complete objectives such as puzzles or side quests. Breath of the Wild's world is unstructured and encourages exploration and experimentation. The story can be completed in a nonlinear fashion. Critics praised its open-ended gameplay, open world design and attention to detail, though some criticized its technical performance. It is the best-selling Zelda game and one of the best-selling video games of all time, with 30.69 million copies sold by 2022. We'll see how tears of the kingdom stacks up. Breath of the Wild is considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Journalists described it as a landmark in open world design for its emphasis on experimentation, physics-based sandbox and emergent gameplay. Numerous developers cited Breath of the Wild as inspiration and it is a popular point of comparison among open world games. Do you agree with that, joe?
Speaker 3:Yeah, every single word of that. Uh, you, i'm back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, welcome back to the show and figure we'll get your voice on here as we get into this episode. as the people are aware, there are three people talking about the game this week. but yeah, you agree with that. Yeah, you agree with every word Pretty much. yeah, i'm excited to get into it then because we'll see how Dylan feels, if he agrees with every word or not.
Speaker 2:You know, we'll see. Gonna play the contrarian on this one.
Speaker 1:I'll say this is why I'm on this one Back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, andrew couldn't take me by himself. This is a classic.
Speaker 3:Joe needs to tell Dylan he's wrong. I'm sure it will come out. Get back to the original bit.
Speaker 1:For this episode. as we move through this conversation, we're just going to speak openly and freely about this game.
Speaker 2:The story is Contrary to what we normally do Yeah, typically we Typically Andrew's holding me back.
Speaker 1:Typically, we break it up and we try to save spoilers for the back half of the game. The story of this game is pretty basic. There are a few little twists when compared to how Zelda games are traditionally structured and what happens in the story. The story of this one is a little bit darker in tone and more melancholy. But yeah, we're just going to talk about everything at once. We're not going to segment this conversation. So consider this your spoiler warning if you have not played the game and don't want to have the story stuff spoiled for you. So to start this thing off, let's just talk about our experiences with this game, because they're all a little bit different. Joe, let's start with you.
Speaker 3:Oh geez, I wasn't prepped for this. It's been a real long time since I played it, Yeah exactly. I want to say I played it pretty immediately after it came out, but that was like four or five years ago at this point.
Speaker 1:Wait, did it come out? It came out in 2017.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay, so it would have taken me maybe a year then to get to it.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I think you had played it relatively recently when we recorded our level playing field episode about it, which would have been Yeah in 2017, i was still in college and I didn't play it until after college.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I also wasn't super heavily spoiled on it, so it was a relatively blind experience, which I think largely. It's easy to go that way into Breath of the Wild because it is such an open game that you might see little bits of gameplay here and there or even get some specific spoilers. That's really not going to tell you how the game is going to be for you, because it's very specific to how you approach things. Yeah, but I played it all the way through pretty normal completion, didn't go anything crazy completionist and try to skip anything. I did the DLC where you get the bike, which is a little unfortunate that that came later, because the bike is pretty cool. It's just, by the time you get it, you kind of don't need it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i don't think I ever played with the bike because I never went back to the DLCs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the DLC. There's just like one more kind of dungeon that you do and then you do like a little combat gauntlet. I think the lore tie-in is that it's like the Sages dungeon or whatever. And then they're like oh, you've got the power. I know you can have this bike. And it's a little like totally weird to have a dirt bike as your reward from these like ancient sages, but like it was fun to like just hop on and zoom around. It's kind of like the master sword And then like it. I think it had like a certain amount of time it could be out and then it went away.
Speaker 1:Not quite as tonally weird now that we have Tears of the Kingdom.
Speaker 3:No, not yet, Now that they've, like, really established that apparently the ancient sages had like flame thowers and rocket launchers it's like okay, it makes more sense why that was that way. And I also did try the like master ascend through all 50 levels and I kept getting stuck on like level 40.
Speaker 1:And that was like a was that a combat thing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. Yeah, you spawned in with nothing and you could like pick stuff up on each level And you had to beat every monster and you would go like up and up and up and it would get progressively harder And then I think if you beat it, you would get like a master sword that didn't have to recharge or something like that. Nice, i never tried to play like the main game on their like ultra hard mode where they place a Lionel in the starting zone. Yeah, the master mode.
Speaker 1:Yeah Yeah. So listening to you talk I can kind of see like talking about that combat gauntlet They kind of do. They kind of incorporated that into the sequel a little bit with some of the shrines. Which leads me into my experience with this game, which was I played it like a year after it came out and had a great time with it, also just kind of did the basic play through, beat it. I didn't really like looking any guides, i didn't try to collect everything and collect all the gear, the outfits, whatever. I just played it until I began. But I'm currently I meant to look at my time, but it's got to be quite a bit of hours into Tears of the Kingdom. So I'm going to do my best to try to look at Breath of the Wild isolated from that. But it's going to be a little bit challenging because I'm like my most fresh Zelda experience is Tears of the Kingdom.
Speaker 3:Yeah, It's hard to ensure that the memories you're having of Breath of the Wild aren't things you did in Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah, because they're very easy to trick yourself into thinking you're remembering one but it's the other. Yeah, because it's just like a step.
Speaker 1:It's definitely a sequel. It's like they took another step in that world. It's the mechanically very different, but vibes and what you're doing pretty similar. So, dylan, you played Breath of the Wild most recently. Yeah, and also I meant to ask you this, joe, but probably have the least attachment to the series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before this, the only Zelda game I had ever beaten was Twilight Princess, and I had really only ever played Twilight Princess and the boat.
Speaker 1:Wind Waker.
Speaker 2:Wind Waker And I didn't really care for Wind Waker much And I've very briefly dabbled in like Ocarina of Time but like I wasn't playing them.
Speaker 3:I think Twilight.
Speaker 2:Princess was the only one I actually played kind of when it came out. All the rest it was. It's been a thing where I kind of like went back to it after the fact, like Wind Waker, i think I tried to play after Twilight Princess, but I was just not vibing with it at all. Very different vibe. And so for me, i think I got I know I got Zelda when I got my Switch, which I think was like 2018, 2019, somewhere in that time frame, and I, you know, started playing it a little bit then and then, just, you know, got distracted by some of the other games that I had on there. I think you know, like it was a new console, new bunch of new games. I found one that like I stuck with and played and it wasn't Zelda. And then I've tried to like kind of go back to it a couple of times over the years And I've just kind of like bounced off, whether it's some other game has come out or something else that I've been playing around the same time has just grabbed me more than Zelda has or just like hitting points where I'm frustrated at Breath of the Wild And so I'm just like I'm going to go play something else instead. But in the lead up to Tears of the Kingdom, i was watching you know some of the trailers or you know people talking about it preview events and kind of like getting into the hype a little bit for Tears of the Kingdom, and I was like I can't, i can't get Tears of the Kingdom, having never beaten Breath of the Wild, because it is like Tears of the Kingdom is an iterative sequel, so like if I can't force myself to get through Breath of the Wild, then like paying $70 for more of the same is not a good good thing, like not a good sound, like in person. I could just put that $70 towards something else. But then also, you know it, to an extent it feels a little bit like gaming homework. This is a game that pretty much everybody universally is like, yeah, you should play it, like you should try it, you should, like it's really good. And so I was like, you know, i just need to go ahead. I'm in between things right now, i just need to go ahead and play it. So I picked it up finally, played through it. It was fine. I mean some of its hindsight you know it's been what? six years or so since the game has come out, so there have been things that have progressed. I also am playing it in like a post Elden Ring World for me, which I much preferred over Breath of the Wild personally. But yeah, i mean like it's. I didn't really do any of the DLC, i didn't do a completionist run of the game. I kind of like hit a point where I had done sort of the four big objectives and gotten the sword, and so it was just kind of like, well, let me just like mess around in like the Hyrule Castle area, and I just kind of went through to the end of the game at that point.
Speaker 1:So didn't you do the same thing, Joe, Where you just like ended up there I feel like I remember you talking about this where you were like I just ended up in the castle and just kept going And before I knew it I had beat Ganon.
Speaker 3:So I guess, Yeah, i started poking around the castle to like figure out that You know. It's like okay, i'm not going to be able to just walk in and fight Ganon, like that. You could see the castle was big and like let's figure out the past again And it is like how long it'll take to get to him. And then, as I was going through, i just walked into a room and like there was Ganon and like Think I one shot that fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cuz you have the divine beasts, it's pretty yeah.
Speaker 3:I. I was getting close to the end of the game, anyways, and then once I had beat Ganon, it was like well, i guess I don't actually want to go and do all that side stuff. No, yeah that's it.
Speaker 1:I rolled credits. I have that issue with games too. I mean, we were talking about this last night where once I roll credits and they dump me back in the world, i'm kind of like, well, what's my motivation? Yeah, like I did the thing. So, yeah, this Zelda game they they took they took the vibes and they took The charm and everything from the past games, but then they just completely shook up the gameplay. So this was the first one that was open world The. The way that you just can, as soon as you leave the tutorial area, the great plateau, you can theoretically just go fight Ganon if you want to, and all you're doing is Is getting stronger before you do that. That was all very non-traditional. The way that you could approach any of the divine beasts and any of the kind of side characters and side regions in any order, that was all very New and fresh for the series and kind of for gaming at the time. This there wasn't much else Like this in the open world video game genre. I don't know if any other game was doing anything like this at that time. So I think that's probably a good place to start is just kind of where they, how. They just changed everything, while retaining the the Zelda vibes. What did you guys think of that?
Speaker 3:It was. It was definitely what the series needed, because Zelda was really kind of like Tanking in quality. You watch your mouth. In the like like Wind Waker was a good peak for um. Twilight Princess was Decent, like it was a pretty good Zelda game, but it also I think there was very like Like I think the darker tone didn't vibe with a lot of people. Yeah and then what was the one skyward sword like a pair and Lee was just really not Great, but we did not help that. Yeah, i never got a chance to play it, but from all reports it really kind of doubled down on what Twilight Princess did, which is present this very linear Run from Dungeons, dungeon and then begin, and then you're done.
Speaker 1:Game well skyward sword was. It suffered from a lot of repetition. You went back to the same kind of three areas But they would change as you progress through the game and it was too long, too bloated and then it suffered from motion controls. The actual core world and Zelda story of it was back really good And it has some of the best music in the series in my opinion. But yeah, the we just Technically and then the motion controls and everything. But it had a lot of the Prec. Like you could see some of the Breath of the Wild ideas in there, because you could jump out of the sky, fly and like land anywhere in the world that you wanted to, and then you had a stamina meter That would allow you to do different things, but you couldn't upgrade it or do anything with it. So there were some ideas there that they took and then completely fleshed out and made like core elements of Breath of the Wild.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i was Not. I'm thinking about it. It's the the formula that they've been using for their handheld titles, but that wasn't really translating super well into the console, like three, you know, 3d full featured title market. And granted, i've played Twilight Princess several times now, but Going back to my most recent playthrough, i was definitely points where I was just kind of bored. Especially it was like anything that wasn't dungeon content tended to feel like filler.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:It wasn't. It wasn't terribly good content, like running from place to place And so for I think Breath of the Wild almost said here's the kingdom. For Breath of the Wild to completely like turn on its head, i think was kind of What the series needed, because I really returned you to the, the sense of like actually Exploring a world. And I think back to like that the first Zelda I played, which was Oracle of Ages, it was a Gameboy Color exclusive. It was like okay, here you wake up, your link, here's Something bad happens. Okay, now go do eight dungeons to collect the eight random spheres and then You can, you know, go and fight the the big boss. But what made it cool as a kid and what was interesting was you could just kind of wander around the map and you could find NPCs and talk to them and like See what's up. And then you know you would find parts of the map you couldn't quite get to yet. I mean you get nine in a dungeon and you're like, oh, now I can go there, now I can go and explore this thing and that's cool. And so it Established that formula that feels comfy. And then Twilight Princess and, i'm assuming, skyward, sort of something similar Where it's like, okay, here's the eight dungeon model, excepts, we're really gonna cut back on the overworld Exploration, like Twilight Princess has an overworld But you're really not supposed to do much in it except go to the next dungeon. There's not really an encouragement to go and wander around the map And that act. In Twilight Princess They even will just remove parts of the map until you get to the story beat that unlocks that part of the map Which made the game feel very like linear and constrained, even though it's sort of the same formula. And then breath of the wild kind of Reopen that back up. And they did. They dropped the like eight dungeon model and we can Discuss if that was a good or a bad idea there, because I think the weakest part of breath of the wild was the lack of a proper Zelda dungeons. But it had that like hey, here's an open world and you can go Anywhere and kind of like do anything Which feels the truest to the game's spirit, which is just, and which is just that you're just a, an adventurer, like Exploring yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, i think the I've not played a lot of the earlier games But like my understanding of them was it's kind of a lot about Exploration, but obviously limited by the hardware that it was on at the time. You know like you couldn't necessarily easily do a massive like open world exploration thing on the n64 or the Like NES, snes, that sort of thing, and so when they start hitting like Gamecube era and stuff and it's Not really letting you explore that much, i do think the return to form Almost of breath of the wild, is like no, we are kind of making this way more about the exploration piece again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the original games were all about you couldn't, you couldn't do certain things or go to certain places till you had a certain item, whereas with breath of the wild they kind of just kit you out in the beginning and, yeah, you use that through the whole game to just solve a variety of different kind of puzzles, either in the dungeons or in the world, or the shrines, whatever the mini even, like finding the Koroks and stuff Everything is kind of a little bit of a puzzle. But when you look back and especially, i think, for you, dylan, you went back to this game after, like you said, playing Elden Ring, yeah, but also after playing like Assassin's Creed Origins, which, yeah, assassin's Creed Origins came out and said, hey, you can go to that mountain that you can see in the distance, and that was all well, up here mid. That was all inspired. By breath of the wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like I have played a lot of games that were Inspired by breath of the wild, and so it's always kind of you know, it's, i think, kind of a crapshoot in those situations when you go back and you play a game that's been inspired, like that inspired other games, it's kind of like you're you're going back and playing almost the prototype of a lot of those ideas that have since been iterated on and Sort of evolved or or we're just put into like environments and worlds, that in game systems that you prefer.
Speaker 1:Like, yeah, if the whimsy and silliness and whatever of Zelda isn't your necessary vibe at this point, you have like, yeah, your Assassin's Creed version, your yeah, from software version.
Speaker 2:Yeah and like it. There's definitely, you know, some games that just pull things from Breath of the Wild just because it was popular and some exec told them like you need to put this in your game because people like this and they Didn't really like take the lessons of breath of the wild and do it yeah and then there have been other games since then that you know have Understood the assignment basically and are like, hey, people liked breath of the wild because of these things. How can we capture that same feeling, you know? and it's not. I definitely think breath of the wild holds up, you know, like it's Going back and playing it, even if it's like a what? six, seven year old game at this point was not. It didn't feel like I was playing something from ancient history or that like didn't hold up, that didn't scale, you know, like it number one. I was impressed that some of the stuff that they were doing was stuff they could do on a switch.
Speaker 1:Six years ago.
Speaker 2:You know like we tell you get to the sequel, yeah, but also just like the, a lot of those ideas are things that, like, you still see in games today, you know, and so it. I don't think it was. It's not, i guess, a case where it's like Oh, i can understand how this inspired a lot of games, but I much prefer those games. It is, i think, much more down to like the personal preference versus like. Old game is old and the new stuff just does it better because it's newer. You know, it's still one that I well, i don't know that I'd say, pick this one up anymore when you're getting a switch. You may just pick up tears of the kingdom, i don't know. You guys can maybe say more about that later, but I mean, neither is ever gonna go on sale, so they're gonna be like 60 and 70 dollars for the rest of time you might get like five dollars off every now and then, maybe, yeah, maybe all ten.
Speaker 1:Whoa so we talked about like the nonlinear structure that kind of feeds into the storytelling as well. What did you guys think of the the Zelda story and the Way it's presented?
Speaker 2:so you guys have clearly played more. Zelda than I have was it not just like Basically the the same core story of almost every Zelda game, with obviously like slightly, very slight variations? like in Twilight Princess you're a wolf and then you know, wind Waker, you have a boat that talks and the world is fly, but like, at its core It was basically like to me, ganon's back, you got to go help Zelda. To do that, you got to go make friends with like these four different like groups, like other races in Hyrule. You know, in older games you did their dungeons. Now you're doing like the divine, the divine beasts part of it, but like and then once you do that, you go fight Ganon and then you're done. I mean like I know that technically they Shook up the formula because you can ignore all of the divine beasts part and just go fight Ganon and be done in like 30 minutes Or whatever. But I don't know like the story. Personally, for me the story was a very big like. I don't think it was bad, but it didn't strike me as like, oh, this is so different, it's sound. It kind of just was like this is the same story But you've like put a different coat of paint on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think it was more interesting in how it was remixed, yeah, and presented in the fact that you Finally have some voice acting in this game. And then a lot of Zelda games deal with time and either time travel or time in manipulation or whatever. This one dealt with time and the fact that link had just been Sleeping for a hundred years, yeah, and so you were dealing with him seeing how the world had changed because he failed, and then Going back and seeing what happened to the people that you left behind and then kind of helping them find closure. Ultimately, yeah, the grand story It's still yeah save princess, defeat Ganon. But it was just remixed like everything else, like in traditional Zelda. A lot of times It's there's this evil, and you don't know that you're a swordsman or a hero, and then it kind of gets bestowed upon you And then it turns out oh, the evil is Ganondorf, who saw that coming, and then Ganondorf snatches your friend, who happens to be the Princess. This game I feel like just kind of laid it all out Immediately is like hey, yeah, it's Ganon, you're the hero, zelda is the princess, she's using her power to contain him. Like it was like everything that normally happens in a Zelda game had already happened and Then you failed and then in a last ditch, as effort, zelda locked you away And now you're coming back after all that had happened, i guess yeah and and like don't get me wrong, I mean it was an interesting like just the environmental storytelling and just like post-apocalyptic fantasy stuff was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I guess I was looking at it and I was like I mean, this is not.
Speaker 1:Something else.
Speaker 2:I well, some of the people that I've heard talk about this just on, like other podcasts and stuff, are talking about how Emotionally charged the story is and how it moved them to tears and blah, blah, blah and I'm just like this is It's just a guy saving a princess and fighting off evil, like I mean, i'm not saying that that can't do that for you, but and to be fair, i didn't collect all of the memories because that was tedious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just look that up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do a lot better job with that in the in the sequel and like I mean like there was definitely like moments of like, oh man, like that little fish lady. That's the stuff that I love Zelda, or whatever, or loves Link Yeah, that's the stuff.
Speaker 1:I think that's more like emotional is the fact that you did fail and now everybody that you knew is dead, or Or really?
Speaker 2:old because it's been a hundred years.
Speaker 1:I think that when I say I describe the story as melancholy and I think that's why it's just because of the like big time jump where link is like out of place with the people that he knew and so you're going back and Everything that happened is pretty sad because you failed in Ganon one, essentially. But I don't think that the core like link, ganon, yeah, zelda story is much different or very like emotionally charged or sad. Link and Zelda's Relationship is a little bit different in this but it's different and like all then they put a little spin on it. But I think it's more about the like, the setting, the time and the like, the apocalyptic nature of it that makes it more melancholy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we need a real fans answer cuz Dylan no, i wouldn't even claim to be a Zelda fan.
Speaker 3:Define nuance. Dylan hasn't even played all like 30 something Zelda games. What do you do on this?
Speaker 2:podcast. Well, i only have to play like through one of the three timelines. Right, that's how it works, or do they all converge again? I?
Speaker 3:forget. I don't keep as much track of I mean, i know that it exists, but breath of the wild also kind of throws a weird Rengen to it all early. All that that timeline really does is it just lays out how the games are connected. Yeah, because the games otherwise have no, no connection between them, other than people learn. It's like, oh, ganon keeps coming back, and then finally they laid out this timeline of like here's the setup for each of these Universes and and all that stuff that this is it that the main difference, like Andrew said, is that like there's actual voice acting in, like cut scenes, yeah, which some of the games have had, cut scenes, but not really voice acting, certainly not to the level that Breath of the Wild had, and that also this stuff. Like it starts out and you failed Normally and every Zelda game link is just some random guy. He mean, he's still like chosen by the triforce, but you just start out as some random guy and you like stumble into the adventure, yeah, but breath of the wild, you, the adventure already happened and you're coming into the aftermath of that and you like already knew people and now You're discovering, like how you knew them and then all the memories with the Zelda and link actually like Giving the two of them character development, which again doesn't really happen, even though it's it's the legend of Zelda. Zelda herself is only in like well, i think technically she's in every game, at least a little bit. But there are some games where the point of the game is not Rescuing Zelda and stopping Ganon. There's like in the handheld ones. Often the villain is just like some, some one-off villain And you're like just I mean, it's the same idea. Yeah, you're stopping there, they're planned for taking over the world. But I like that. But the one that do have Zelda, you don't really like talk to her a Whole lot, she's just there exception of Skyward Sword and and Wind Waker, probably because in those games Zelda's like Link's best friend.
Speaker 1:Well, she's the pirate. Yeah, it's a little different than Wind Waker.
Speaker 3:She's a character throughout, but yeah. Um, the rest of the bottle is very different, and that they actually established the dynamic up front that like, oh yeah, link and Zelda are like, they know each other and the champions, like the whole group, yeah. Link. Yeah, link's like been recruited to like Watch Zelda and so they actually have like a dynamic, which is weird, because Link doesn't talk, yeah, but they, they still do, and so there was some actual story there to Explore, although it's still kind of a, i would say, a secondary, yeah, concern, just because so much of the gameplay is like not Story driven and even in the previous Zelda's, even like Twilight Princess is a very heavily story driven game, but it is still kind of like secondary to the gameplay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's one of those things too where it's like I know this is a Nintendo game which is clearly designed for, like, children as well Not not to the same level that maybe like a Pokemon is.
Speaker 1:No, but it's.
Speaker 2:Pokemon always blows my mind that people expect a very deep story from it, but, like you know, this is like T rated game, so I think right.
Speaker 1:So E 10 for the new one.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Breath of the Wild is probably similar, so yeah, they're expecting you know, like preteens and up, to be able to follow the story. Yeah, yeah, and it is.
Speaker 3:I will say that's part of the appeal of these games, yeah Is that most of us played it when we were a kid And so the like you know, classic, like grab your sword and go rescue the princess story, like appeals.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:A lot more, because those are like the kinds of stories that when you're a kid, you those are the most common to you. And so here's the video game Like, oh, now you can play that. Yeah, isn't that cool. Which, i wonder if that's something that'll I don't want to like completely sidebar, but, like kids today, if that's something that will still like resonate with them.
Speaker 1:There's always something cool about finding a sword and swinging it.
Speaker 3:I feel like Yeah, i was just. I was thinking like like watching like your kid and like her options for, and like she's going up in a world of entertainment where, like she, gets a lot more choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:What's what's out there, whereas when we were kids, you know, it was very much like you. Whatever like VHS you had, yeah, was like your thing and you would just watch that over and over. And granted, i think kids today will still pick their favorite thing and like watch it over and over. But because of the way they can make more niche stuff, even if it's targeted at kids, if, if that concept of like the you know, a game based on that classic story, will appeal as much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think it probably still will, because like in a sense, it's still kind of like almost that sort of heroes journey, archetype, situation Classic for a reason. Yeah, and so you know, like I do agree, i think today's kids definitely have way more options easily accessible to them. You know whether it's they. Pick up their sword and go save the world. They pick up their lightsaber and go save the world. They pick up their you know, super power, super suit and go save the world. You know, i think it's it's still going to resonate. But yeah, i think it's. It's a much more like divide, like niche, like which niche do you fit into? Like for us growing up, the two biggest ones I can really think of were like side of the rings or Star Wars, were kind of like the two big ones. And, like you know, because we were growing up in a time before superhero movies were really like a thing Spider-Man was kind of it that we had.
Speaker 1:Yeah definitely before they were good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i guess I could see.
Speaker 2:Well, Spider-Man 2 is a masterpiece.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i'm like those. That was kind of the turning point. Yeah, i saw a commercial pop up. I was looking at some streaming service to completely sidetrack us for Howard the Duck, like they made a Howard the Duck movie.
Speaker 2:Like back in the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, terrible looking I'm shocked.
Speaker 2:George Lucas made it, Or Peter Jackson one of the two of them.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was like someone big.
Speaker 1:So is there anything else you guys want to say about kind of the story or story structure? Because I think we'll after that we'll open it up to just a big old gameplay conversation where we talk about puzzles, dungeons, combat everything and kind of wrap it up with that. So is there anything else story wise that you feel like we need to mention? I?
Speaker 3:don't think so. I mean, it is a pretty straightforward story, all things considered.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's just delivered in a straightforward manner. From what we've gotten used to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so gameplay This is probably where it definitely is where the most sticking points and any sort of kind of criticism at the game comes from. You mentioned dungeons earlier, joe. That's something people bring up. The lack of dungeons, the breakable weapons, are divisive. There's definitely loud people that whine about them. Whether or not there's a lot of them as hard to determine. And then I know, dylan, you in particular, we're not a huge fan of just combat in general. Yeah, no.
Speaker 2:No at all.
Speaker 1:But yeah. So basically, the gist of the gameplay is you're exploring in whichever way you want. You're going to come across like four main areas with different races that have a different stick, and they're going to have a problem with the divine beast. The divine beast were designed to fight Ganon, but they malfunctioned. The giant elephant is flooding this place and the camel is causing a dust storm, so your job is to go in and help them, and so, as you're exploring, you're fighting enemies. You're finding shrines, which were another way that they incorporated more dungeon-esque puzzles into the game, and your reward for those were heart containers. If you've got four of those, you could either get a boost to your stamina or a boost to your hearts, and so, yeah, you would just kind of travel around and, as you came across these things, do them in whatever order you felt like doing, or the game kind of pulled you. There is a kind of golden path that the game sort of subtly kind of nudges you along which I think is the way I did it which is where you end up going to like the water first, and then the Gorons, and then the bird people, and then Gerudo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you kind of make it counterclockwise.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Circle of the map.
Speaker 1:Which I've completely. Just I'm playing Tears of the Kingdom in some of like the most non-traditional way. I think I'm so curious to hear how other people have played that game. But this one I followed what was kind of the guided path. I feel like, especially when I played this game I was less comfortable with just going off and seeing what I could do, as opposed to now where I'm like I wonder if I could just go this way and if I'll be able to do it. And then I did it, whereas back then it was like I kind of want to follow, i want to see what the game was designed to play like, and so I just kind of followed where it guided me. But they don't guide you with like a waypoint or things like that. It's just more like subtle nods or characters mentioning, hey, this thing over here. And so I'm like, oh, go that way then. Yeah, so we'll just kind of dive in and as we get to things we'll discuss them. So what did you guys think just overall about that gameplay structure?
Speaker 2:I mean overall, I would say I liked it, but not as much as I expected to Like on on paper, like the things that I like about video games are things that this video game does some of the best in the business at. I love getting to explore in video games. This is a ton of exploring. You know, I love sort of the fantasy vibes and the sort of environmental storytelling and this game does that very well. I love the sort of puzzle solving aspects and you know there were a lot of those in this game And then actually playing the game. I did not enjoy it as much as I thought that I would And I think a lot of that comes down to the combat. I was not, as Andrew mentioned earlier, I was not the biggest fan of the combat system. I don't think that it like at its core the combat system is like OK, you have a sword and a shield, but also like half the weapons you're going to be able to find since everything breaks are weapons that don't allow you to use a shield while you hold them. They're either like a big, heavy sword or they're like a spear thing that, like, realistically, should let you hold a shield with it but doesn't for some reason. But yeah, like, so you're either trying to like kind of jump side to side, which usually doesn't work, or do like the backflip at the right time to open a window where you can jump in and like get a flurry attack in, or something like that. Or Perry, but the Perry also wasn't super consistent. I was never able to feel like I got the timing down perfectly, And that's coming from someone who has played a bunch of like from software games where the I feel like the Perry window is probably much tighter and is something that I have been able to do. So for me to be missing it constantly in Breath of the Wild, I'm like either I'm not understanding how this is working or I need to get good, or just like it's not as perfected as I would. Essentially, I felt like the combat was very basic but also very frustrating. Like you can lock on to enemies, but they throw groups of enemies at you constantly And so it suffers from the same thing I think some from software games do. When they throw just a group of enemies at you is just it feels unfair because there's not a great way to target things without locking on to them but also locking on handicaps you so brutally when there's like five enemies on screen because they just surround you and beat the crap out of you. But then also, like I never felt like my weapons were doing a ton of damage to the enemies, I never hit the point where I felt powerful. In the Zelda game, you know, like it always just kind of felt like I was bumbling through the world and every enemy that I came at like I loved the exploring part of it, but the exploring part so often led to enemies that I then had to deal with in a combat system that I did not enjoy. I got the backflip timing down but then Link would do like a flurry where he hit the thing 14 times and it had like two thirds of its health left And it's like you know. Ok, maybe I'm using the wrong weapons or whatever, but it's like I'm using the weapons that these things are dropping.
Speaker 1:You know, i'm using the sticks and the clubs No.
Speaker 2:I mean, like you know, the three-forked boomerang thing, like you know, good weapons, weapons that were in like the 40s or 50s, right up there with the Master Sword. It just never felt like they were actually like doing good damage to me personally And, like I said, so often, you just find yourself in a group fight situation which I never felt like I would like it was good, like I always felt frustrated by that The times. I guess my experience with previous Zelda games, though limited, was always that combat was much more of a puzzle And this never felt like a puzzle. It felt like a chore. I can think of Wind Waker, where it's like, oh, i've got to like hit this thing in the eye or I've got to like wait until the plant is like straight up so that I can cut the neck off of it or whatever, like cut the stem, and this always much, or even just like some of the other ones, where it's like they make an attack and then you circle around back and you cut the like armor off of them or something like that's that, to me, was always the Zelda combat.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And this was much more just like hack and slash dodge at the right time, do a flurry attack. Dodge at the right time, do a flurry attack, dodge at the right time, do a flurry attack And hopefully it's dead after three flurry attacks. But usually it's not And that really hampered the game play for me, because so much of it that I enjoyed just took me to a boss fight. That was a chore, or not even a boss fight, but just an enemy fight. That was a chore to me.
Speaker 1:How'd you feel about the guardians?
Speaker 2:The guardians sucked. Like I said, i never felt good about the parry timing and like I could get it maybe 50% of the time, but the 50% of the time you miss, even with like 14 hearts or whatever it was, it's still pretty much one shot you. And you know, maybe I didn't invest the like 10,000 rupees. I needed to upgrade my armor to like tier four or whatever And I didn't engage with like the cooking system super hardcore, like I cooked a bunch of the meals that would give you like six extra hearts or whatever you know, because that seemed like the most obvious And then whenever I needed to go somewhere that was cold or hot, i would cook. Whatever the thing is that gives you like the heat resistance or the cold resistance, but like the guardians, always just like there was a whole, like the whole middle of the map to me was pretty much just like why would I bother exploring this? Because not only is it frustrating with the combat and the guardians, but it's also like they will one shot you and set me back to you know, the last time it bothered saving. You can manual save, thank God, but it's still kind of just one of those things where it was just like really, come on.
Speaker 1:I don't remember the saves being. I don't remember how they were in Breath of the Wild And tears of the kingdom. I feel like it saves constantly, which is nice. It's the same thing where there's big enemies wandering out, no guardians though, which is nice. I never parried once in Breath of the Wild, Like I forgot you could do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for me it was. what did you do for the guardians that I'd break their legs?
Speaker 1:No, I waited till like closer to the end of the game And then I would just I would shoot them in the eye, because if you shoot them in the eye with an arrow it stuns them, And then when they're down stunned I would break their legs. But it would. You would have to like you couldn't do that early on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because did you have to have, like the special arrow or whatever?
Speaker 1:No, but but if you used their like ancient arrows and ancient weapons and stuff, you did way more damage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I was going to say I didn't mind the guardians in the Ganon's Castle because it was constantly drip, feeding you like the, the guardian arrows or whatever.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, this is probably how yours, because I found the guy who will sell them to you, but that by that point, like I would have farmed up and bought a bunch of those arrows and actually explored more. But I just kind of hopped in to see if I could go through the castle. And then I did and I began and I was like, ok, fine, i guess I'm done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, i think the combat is is fine. I agree with some of your points. I don't think it it bothered me nearly as much as it did you, but I do. I like the kind of comparison you made to like older games being more of a puzzle And this one they tried to make it just kind of more action combat, which I mean it being an open world that you can approach in from any direction. they couldn't really like have enemies that gate you or anything like that, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It seemed like they would scale with me because eventually I started seeing like the silver bokoblins or whatever that just take a ton of damage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the world had had some sort of scaling property so that, as you powered up, the monsters would somewhat keep pace with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like you could kill the red ones pretty easily still, but it stopped spawning the red ones and started spawning like the blue and the green and the silver ones instead, or the black ones, and it was just kind of like oh, so you just made it like it was like that Assassin's Creed game that did it Odyssey, where, yeah, where it never felt like it always was kind of equal with you, which some people really love But it also meant that you could never go back to an early area and just feel like you were actually getting like kind of like Dark Souls, where you run through Undead Burg for like the first time and it's just kind of like really tough because you're lower level and you have kind of crummy weapons that you haven't upgraded and you're unfamiliar with like the game. And then you come back at a later time and like those things can still mess you up, but you've upgraded, you've leveled up and also you're just better at the game. And I never hit that point in Breath of the Wild where combat didn't feel like a slog and didn't like it never felt like I progressed any in the combat. It always kind of felt like it was right there with me, like getting a really cool, like getting the Master Sword or whatever was cool, but then it didn't feel like it did any more than you know, like killing a Lionel with that felt the exact same as killing a Lionel with like a Traveler's Sword earlier on And like the first one you have to kill up in the Zora place.
Speaker 1:I don't know what I did differently than you, but I do remember feeling stronger at the end and I was upgrading my armor and I was doing stuff like that, but the weapons, i mean, they just rotate in and out. So yeah, i don't know if maybe I just vibed with it better, but I still think that the combat is not. It's not like S? tier combat and it's not something I don't think it's like the strongest point of the game, but it definitely didn't bother me as much as you. What about you, joe?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not the greatest combat ever, but it didn't like super super bother me And it's a little repetitive, Like you kind of tend to do the same thing over again. Which other Zeldas shook it up more by having enemies countered by specific gadgets, But that worked because they could at any point in the game know what gadgets you had. But this they obviously they can't do that.
Speaker 1:There was another thing that Brother of the Wild got criticized for is like lack of enemy. variety is kind of the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, it is pretty like yeah, here's just the same enemies over and over, which the point is also kind of to not to fight everything you come across. You can definitely just go around or or find a way to use the environment against them, which I don't know if this is legit, but it does feel like and it really feels this way in terms of the game, it feels this way in terms of the kingdom, that they don't want you to do the, the breath of the wild equivalent of right bumper spam just to to get through things. They want you to consider what you have and to use your powers to, you know, weaponize the environment against them to find a way to pull them off, one at a time. Do do anything else than just like wander into them, mash your quick attack and told her dead and yeah, and move on to the next pack.
Speaker 1:And I think you are right. I think that that was the idea in Breath of the Wild and I don't think it was necessarily executed, yeah, that well. But in tears of the kingdom I think they found a really nice balance. You can tell that that was the goal, but then they've. I feel like they've gotten a lot closer to that goal now. And in Breath of the Wild, i think, using your skills and like your tools and like, oh, i have electric arrows, i have bomb or you know Fires, i have these specific weapons or these items that I could bring out in this fight if I need to, like that was always an option, yeah, but environmental options were very like. You had to kind of set that up intentionally. Most of the time it felt like, whereas in cheers of the kingdom, i think it's a lot easier to realize you're in a fight and then organically be like okay, i have all this stuff around me, what can I do with it here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, cuz it's like you know they there were definitely camps that I would go through and it's like, okay, here's some like explosive barrels that are kind of set up And maybe I can shoot an arrow at the ground to like get them all to come over to it and see what's going on, and then I can shoot the explosive barrel. Or you know, like they're in a bunch of tall grass, so maybe I can set the grass on fire and just have it like spread that way or. You know, here's a boulder or a beehive that I can like Like utilize to my advantage or something. But, like you said a lot of times, it didn't feel like It. It almost felt like it was like oh, you should just kind of like sneak around this or whatever for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:Their favorite part of Breath of the Wild was the, the island out in the southeast corner of the map, where, when you swim out there, it took all of your stuff from you. Yeah, and then you had to just grab stuff off the island to gather up whatever the item was so you could Then like click, get the reward. Yeah, and people really liked that because it did it forced you to like get away from using your, your stash of OP weapons or you use your old tricks. It's like you have to actually interact with the world and come up with. It's like it You can just try to whittle these enemies down one by one, but wouldn't it be easier if you could just figure out how to use the environment to do that for you? and people generally really like that. Yeah, because it made them get outside of that shell, whereas in the main world, you're kind of used to the way video games have conditioned you to play, which is just, oh, just run in there and just whack them all Because, yeah, they've, you've been conditioned that like, oh and every video game, they want you to feel OP and like you're the main character, so like, we'll just let you kind of mindlessly wait in there and this Challenge that it was like no, you're just, you are just a guy, there's nothing like too crazy about you. And as time goes on you do get the divine beast powers And I think that's where you start to feel like noticeably powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:With, with the divine beast powers, you start to get those like, oh, i can cheat death, oh, i can drop lightning, or do these, or I can, you know, get a gust of wind and just leave the combat encounter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I do think that to an extent it almost cheapened the final boss fight for me a little bit, because it's like Even at the end of the game I don't know that I could have taken a Lionel or two or like a pack of six becovelins, but I beat the crap out of Ganon in one try.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cuz that, cuz it was more of a buzz. Yeah, that got back to the classic Zelda format, which is just survive until you see What week zone you have to target and then hit it and then go yeah on him and then just rinse and repeat Yeah, whereas a Lionel doesn't have a weak spot, you have to actually just fight it in a one-on-one.
Speaker 2:Yeah it kind of felt like well again, I should have just like got a couple of bodyguards or something and had them in there with Them and then gonna go to the don anything like so.
Speaker 1:What did you guys think about the breakable weapons in general before we transition into, like the puzzle side of the gameplay?
Speaker 3:I think that it's the pin that holds the game together Because, again, like video games have conditioned you to kind of hoard stuff Like I've. Like I gravitate towards wanting to play RPGs on a harder difficulty because then you actually have to Use the stuff in Iraq with the systems. If you play like fallout on easy, you can, you'll just have like 800 stim packs by the end of the game and you're never in any danger. But if you play on hard, oh, you've got a rationed stim packs. Maybe you take some of the drugs to like heal back up a limb and deal with the downsides, actually interact with it And breath the wild just kind of dictates to everyone like you're gonna interact with the weapon system. You can't find your one thing and use that all the way up until the end of the game. You know you've got a scrounge and explore and I really like that because it made me Actually like, oh, what's over here? Maybe I'll find a good weapon, and you can only carry so many weapons. I was like, well, i might as well use this weapon, because I'm not, i can't just keep carrying it forever And I'll find better ones. And it encouraged a lot more Exploration and experimentation. And some people would say, oh well, if the game had to Provide this like false incentive to get you to go and play that way, is it really that good? and then, like I took to that I would say the game, games often need to give you that push. I think it is a little bit like Dismissive just to say like, oh well, the games content should be able to like just be fun enough by itself And it's like well, that that's fairly subjective and for me The fun is in like the power level and in like getting upgrades. So the game does need to provide that carrot. For me, like I'm, i don't. Breath of the Wild is kind of one of those rare exceptions where I will just play content for the sake of it. Otherwise I'm very much like a External reward kind of of person. I'm not. I'm not one of those people who just can make their own fun in a game and, like you know, really Sync into the intrinsic rewards, are like, oh well, the content is its own reward. It's like I want that thing and so having the weapon durability is the key that enabled it and where I normally get very bored with open-world games, like I normally am, like I'm not the biggest fan of them. I tend to ignore a lot of the like side stuff, but making you get out and find new weapons was like, oh, i actually am like into this now and want to just go and explore stuff for The sake of it, now that I've been forced to give the game a chance and to To show me, like, what it can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like I didn't mind the breakable weapons at all, like Joe was saying, i think it's a big part of the game and I mean sure they could have put a mode in where, like you'd, they just let you have them. I could see them putting in, i guess, a an easy mode or whatever quote-unquote, where you just have the Master Sword and the Highly in shield and like where it just doesn't break. But I don't think that would be as fun and like to me it was never, i guess, an issue like you never ran out of weapons. Yeah, there was never a time where I was like oh no, like the. The only thing that ever really happened like that was like shields Were a little bit more scarce in general than the weapons were and could break a little bit easier, especially if you were trying to like deflect, like I ran out of shields in the Ganon fight because I only brought like three in and There was like a point in the Ganon fight where he's immune unless you like are able to counter his thing or whatever, and one of the things you could counter was him shooting at you and so I broke like two or three shields doing that and But yeah, like weapons wise, i never felt like I was. I didn't feel like it was a I, i guess I just went in thinking of the weapons as a consumable And so I was never like that annoyed when I used one, you know, and and I was always able to find some that were roughly the same power level, like you know, sometimes I'd hoard a little bit of like, oh, this one's got like 40 power and everything else I'm kind of easily finding is 30 or whatever, but it never felt scarce to To find a weapon, like it may have been scarce to find a weapon that, like had as much damage as you wanted it to have. But I guess I think of like the Resident Evil games where it's like ammo is can be scarce at times, whereas This it always kind of felt like you had Stuff to shoot. It was just kind of like stuff to shoot or stuff to hit things with, but it's like well, which one do I want to use? my only complaints about the weapon breaking system is it didn't automatically switch you to the next Weapon right here bar And yeah, i would go in and I I wouldn't remember it did that, and I would run back up to the like the monster and be like I gotta like, yeah, pause the game and go equip this other weapon, because it didn't automatically just pop me to the next one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's sometimes maybe a little too much in menuing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, breath of the wild, and Both games are very menu heavy games. There's a lot going on. So, joe, you alluded to it earlier Non-traditional what?
Speaker 2:did you think of the weapon breaking for me?
Speaker 1:the weapon breaking. Yeah, i, i agree with both of you guys. I think it was, it was fine. It. It kind of is what makes the game. It makes, i guess, that that combat more interesting than it. like, if you just were swinging, like you said, if there was a mode Where you were just swinging the master sword and it never broke, it wouldn't be very exciting. Yeah, like when you're halfway through a fight and your good weapon breaks, it's like, oh no, now I have to figure out what I'm gonna use next. Yeah, i think I thought it was an interesting Very, and especially at the time playing it when it came out and coming from like traditional Zelda, the fact that you had anything else besides a sword. I think, like you'll, sometimes you'll start out with like a sword and a shield, like a Little sword and a wooden shield, and then you upgrade to the master sword. In the Highland shield or I think in Skyward sword, there were like a little bit of Maybe some slightly different weapons and shields you could use and then some slightly different Gear you to you could equip, but it's very limited And so this being kind of like the first Zelda game where you could use a spear or a heavy weapon or Or things like that, i I really enjoyed it, just as something fresh and new. But the puzzles, the dungeons. You You are not going to the fire temple and the water temple and the temple of time and all of that. In this game You have the four divine beasts that all aesthetically and functionally are kind of similar. They all have a similar boss at the end and then you have all the shrines everywhere that you can come across. That's essentially like one puzzle that you have to figure out and then you're done. There's no sprawling two-hour dungeon that you're going to do in this game, which I've always stood by, like my opinion has been. That's fine for Breath of the Wild and I think Tears of the Kingdom has taken a step towards traditional, but it's still. It's more Breath of the Wild than like older Zelda's. I don't want this to be the only thing they ever do in the series, but for the like Breath of the Wild brand of Zelda, i think it's fine. If they like never went back to like the massive dungeons, that would probably bum me out. But because these games are non-traditional, i'm fine with it here. But what did you guys think?
Speaker 3:It was the one part of the game that I was disappointed in overall The dungeons that are, i think, the most iconic part of Zelda. Like when you think Zelda, you think like, oh, i'm going to go do a dungeon. It's this big indoor puzzle with a boss at the end And like that's what you play Zelda for is doing those dungeons. And then Breath of the Wild is kind of like, yeah, they're not here this time And the divine beasts are sort of a dungeon, but all your, you're just doing the one puzzle, which is how do I get the divine beast from this one position. And it was a neat puzzle And they had all the shrines. That's like, hey, here's all the content that would have been a dungeon And we'll just spread it out into all these shrines. But the shrines are one offs And so you don't get that satisfaction of like keeping the mental map of the dungeon And you're like, oh, if I do this in this room, i can run back over here And then like that'll, let me get this key, that'll keep going. It really lacked that And that was a bit of a letdown. Like the rest of the game was fun enough to make up for it, but it would be really nice if they would keep up with the handhelds and those hand and like the handheld Well, now, the switches, handheld, so it's just one console, but that you know that handheld style and they redid Link's awakening. If they keep redoing some of the older ones, that'd be a decent substitution. But like, do those kinds of games and have those be the eight dungeon puzzle ones. I think that the top down perspective lends itself to the puzzles a little bit nicer than the 3D ones and keep that experience going. because that is kind of the downside is like oh, this game is great And it does all these new and unique things, but it also is definitely like this is not the series that I know. I'm like that, i'm expecting this is different And it would be nice to have some of like, some more of that standard stuff you're expecting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I, having really only heavily played one, my experience with Twilight Princess was kind of like you go into the dungeon, you get some new item in the dungeon. you know it's like you get bombs or you get the hookshot or you get the boots or whatever, and then you kind of use that specific thing to solve the rest of that dungeon.
Speaker 1:And Twilight Princess had some really cool dungeons Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I definitely enjoyed that and I thought that was really cool. I wasn't like super let down or disappointed by Breath of the Wild because I didn't really have a ton to compare it to. Obviously, i think it definitely would have been cooler if it did more of kind of what Joe was saying of like have more of a puzzly thing Like the shrines, the puzzles didn't bother me a ton And the the Divine Beasts, like it wasn't. Oh man, there's no water temple, you know like. But it was kind of like I enjoy the puzzle aspects of the Zelda games that I had played previously, like that was probably my favorite part of them, and so for it to kind of be less of a thing that this game had was kind of, i guess, a little bit of a bummer. But also there was so much, i guess, that I looked at in the open world that was kind of like the almost a puzzle of like how do I get there, how do I do this, how do I do that? That I guess I didn't. To me it didn't. I didn't notice it as much.
Speaker 1:You know, like you said, there's not one sort of cohesive dungeon that sort of runs through for like a two hour runtime or whatever, but there was so much puzzle solving just in general that I guess I didn't feel the hit as much as somebody who didn't who hasn't played a ton of Zelda games you know, yeah, and I think that was the idea behind it was that we're going to take all of the puzzling that we, you know, kind of relegate to these specific areas and then we're just going to like trickle it out in everything Because, yeah, like navigating the world, doing things like that It's the whole game is kind of a puzzle, yeah. But yeah, you are missing that very specific. Like I'm walking into a volcano, i'm going to probably be throwing water on the lava to be able to get across And I'm going to get an item halfway through when I beat a mini boss that's going to allow me to get through the back half of the dungeon And then that's going to unlock more stuff in the rest of the game. So that's kind of where I come down, because I really enjoy that in older games Like Twilight, princess and Wind Waker both have some really memorable dungeons that I can like immediately think back to. But for, like, i'm only going to be upset if they like never do anything like that again, which they could potentially do because, like, these games are selling like crazy. I mean they they.
Speaker 2:I read something that they've come out and said that like for the foreseeable future, this, like the breath of the wild tears of the kingdom style, is what they're going for. That doesn't, like you said, doesn't mean that they can't find a middle ground somewhere on the spectrum of like breath of the wild to like a very traditional Zelda dungeon thing where it's like it finds that happy medium of like here's a cohesive, narrative dungeon sort of thing that you actually have to like go through and puzzle solve, but also it's not like maybe as in depth as some of the older ones, but it's not as just non existent as it was in breath of the wild.
Speaker 1:You know they came out and said, leading up to tears of the kingdom, that they were going more in the traditional dungeon direction for tears of the kingdom And that is true, but it's still I think that's true in the fact that the dungeons I've done so far seem more themed and are more interesting and have a more interesting boss at the end. But there's still like smaller experiences than what you got and like old Zelda games. But also like old Zelda games, weren't? they weren't open world in the same way that these are Like you had some open world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the main content was the dungeon.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like breath of the wild, has enough content.
Speaker 2:Well, and at least for me personally, i'll happily sacrifice, like the you go to this dungeon to unlock this piece of gear thing, if it means that they constantly are just giving you everything at the start and saying go, go, experience the world however you feel like I personally prefer that, and so I know some. To some extent it's got to be a little bit tough because it's like you can't lock pieces of like the ultra hand or the you know whatever behind dungeons.
Speaker 1:If you also want people to be able to go any direction you know And I do think, based on what I've played at tears of the kingdom so far, like they're going if you like puzzles and solving puzzles, that's even more so in this game with the tool set that they've given you and stuff. But there still is no like at least not that I've experienced no like three hour or two hour dungeon that you're going to go through, you know, with like one or two specific gimmicks that you're going to be manipulating.
Speaker 2:I also want to ask you guys, as people who played, i assume, a lot of your previous Zelda experience, where we're talking about two to three hour dungeons, comes from, like childhood. Do you think that potentially it was just because we were dumber as kids?
Speaker 1:Like would a would a dungeon that took you two or three hours previously still take you two or three hours now, as like people in their late 20s, early 30s or a little bit of both, because I replayed Skyward Sword on the switch a year or two ago And, yeah, some of the I could see the solutions a lot easier now, but they're still like big kind of involved, like, like Joe was saying, like big interior set pieces that you're going through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i guess a little bit faster, yeah, but not, i get stuck less.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, i guess I was trying to suss out like how much of this is like a nostalgic, like rose colored glasses Like this is what I think Zelda used to look like, based on my experiences with it, but those experiences were childhood And so now would it be the same versus? you know?
Speaker 3:yeah, there were there when I was a kid. I would just get hard stuck on stuff. But as an adult I could figure out now. But even just the time it takes to run through the dungeon and do all the actions to solve the puzzles, it would still take you over an hour per dungeon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I with the divine beasts there were several, the, i want to say the elephant, might have been the most difficult for me personally, just like figuring out a couple of those parts, because I think all of the other ones it was pretty much just like I kind of just ran through it and didn't really get stuck on anything.
Speaker 1:Which one has the rings that you real line in the middle is at the camel. That one's the always the trickiest for me, because then if I get them out of whack and yeah, that one's always the because I replayed most of Breath of the Wild, like last year. I think I didn't beat it, i think I did like two or some of the divine beasts, but the camel is one of the ones I did And I was like, oh my gosh, i don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just got up on the elephant. I couldn't visualize how his trunk had to move to like align you up the right way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they all basically have something like that where the whole thing can move and that shifts the interior.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is cool, it's just it's a lot shallower than what you're used to. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else you guys want to say in the kind of the general conversation before we give our verdicts on the game?
Speaker 2:You mentioned the music and the art style in the document. They seem fine.
Speaker 1:The music is something that's very stripped back, which works for this game, but it's another one of those things where, like the Zelda, music is so iconic at this point that I wouldn't want them to do that for every game, and they did. Tears of the Kingdom has a lot more like music, just as you're doing stuff.
Speaker 2:I was going to say there were definitely times where I was riding my horse like through Hyrule Fields or something that I was like man, i kind of wish there would be like kind of the Hyrule Fields music here or, like you know, the Gerudo Valley music where it's just kind of like man I wish, like especially when you're like fighting the divine beast, i was like man, i kind of wish like that was going on while we were here. Yeah, they do. I did think it was cool in Hyrule Castle, like towards the end, like you could definitely hear like a sort of remixed version of the traditional Zelda like theme, which was cool.
Speaker 1:But also no musical like instrument item, which is something that some people have mentioned, like a lot of past games. Link manipulates like uses some sort of musical instrument to like manipulate the environment or do something And you just switch in this one. Yeah, motion controls I turned this off immediately. Yeah, And any of the shrines that required them were bad. I haven't encountered that at all in the new one yet, thank God.
Speaker 2:It did make me realize that apparently the Pro Controller has the motion part built in. I was like what is I was expecting to like use the thumb sticks, And I was like, oh no, I can. Just I have to tilt my Pro Controller to do this, Which you paid for man, yeah, the premium price is for.
Speaker 1:And then, as far as the art style, my only comment really is that, like, i think it helps the game age well, and I think it helps it like be able to run on the switch, it's like, and it fits the vibe of the game, because even though Breath of the Wild is a bit more like melancholy Zelda story, it's still a relatively like silly world. There's a lot of goofy stuff that happens in these games And I think that's probably part of the reason why some people didn't really like the more realistic Twilight Princess approach is because, yeah, typically these games are so whimsical that having like a more cartoonish art style lends itself well. But I think cartoonish art styles always age very well in general, something with a style as opposed to chasing photo realism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because like photo realism really only works if you play it within, like the first six months generally, and then something else looks better than it Like when you're when you're chasing, when you're constantly chasing realism, it ends up not aging as well, in my opinion generally, as like having a consistent style that is clearly like video gamey, like wow, looks great still, and I know that they've made some like yeah they've updates to their graphics over time, but like the general style is version of wow helps it hold up since like 2004,.
Speaker 3:Like like wind waker still looks Pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i hate the Chibi style Twilight.
Speaker 3:Princess is. I think it would still look good if you can play on a CRT. Yeah, yeah on a on a modern flat screen it It's pretty jagged and you didn't doesn't look Fantastic, but I I do. I will give give credit that games were meant to be played on CRTs, because a CRT helps smooth out some of that. That jagged edge is just based on the literal pixel density. Yeah that display. It was not meant to be shown on something so dense and like when Reloaded up on my old Gamecube. We're just using a VGA to HDMI adapter, not properly rendering it, yeah, but then, like you look at Super Mario World, which is like an ancient game at this point, it still looks great, even on like a flat screen, just because they had a very like I don't say blocky is in like low resolution, but like very like clearly defined, clear outlines, all that stuff. So it still looks good today, whereas I'm like Ocarina of time and Majora's mask look a little rough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, cuz you can like look up pictures or screenshots or whatever of people who are like This is what it looks like on a flat screen or whatever, and here's what it looked like on a CRT and you're like, oh, i understand why, people's Perception of like how games looked when they were kids is skewed, because it does look a lot smoother and better. Yeah, no, that was definitely CRT.
Speaker 3:I can't remember which game did it for me, but I remember it was the Age of Empires games, because we had like a flat screen, like a newer, like LCD monitor upstairs. we had the old desktop with the CRT in the basement and maybe that was it or something else where you had that aha moment of Looking at a game I had seen on a modern display, then on a CRT, and going like, oh, it's not just me, because I think everyone had that moment when you like plugged in an Old console into a new TV, yeah, and you're like this looks awful. Yeah, i think how did we ever think this looks good? I mean yeah oh, we weren't that dumb back then. It really actually looks worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I think the one that I saw was maybe like a final fantasy with like the pixel art and they like it Re-released and now everyone's got like flat screens or like high-def displays and Like somebody like ran it through and was like if you played it on a CRT Because of the like way that these like pixels are, because it was all like pixel art, it's like this is what it would look like pixel art, wise, like, and it was. It was a much clearer picture of like cloud or you know, Whoever it was I know cloud was not he was?
Speaker 1:he was the little blocky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but like it was a much smoother and clearer picture Then, like a lot of pixel art is today, like if you do a lot of the pixel art today Through like a CRT filter or something, it actually looks a lot different, so cool.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go ahead and move into our verdicts for this one. So The way that we rank games, our scale is the classic A through F, but we use the video game version that has s as the top tier that a game can get. I'll go ahead and start, because I reviewed this game on our YouTube channel, so if you've happened to watch that, you already know what I'm gonna give it anyways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you want to see a much shorter version of what this just was, even though you're at the end of this episode, go watch that. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:This is an S tier game for me as a fan of Zelda, and then for everything it did at the time And then the way it held up when I did do my replay, and Going back to that world now in tears of the kingdom like this game, just it. It does everything right for me as a Zelda fan. Would you know, with the things we've mentioned, that I wouldn't want necessarily it to be this way forever. But for this game, for this experience, and then especially for what it did for the Zelda franchise, but then also shaking up the open-world game genre, one that tends to get stale pretty frequently, yeah, i think that this game is is incredible. Who wants to go next?
Speaker 3:I'll just give it a plus. I just did fight it the the lack of Dungeons, i think, is the where it misses points. Yeah that's it from being the truly the perfect game.
Speaker 2:I will give it an a. My scores are not at all based on like how good of a game It is. Necessarily they're all personal preference. I can see how it is a good game. I can see how plenty of people, including Andrew, can put it at a nest here. I also. For me personally, just the. The combat really took it out of it for me. Like I liked in the past the, the puzzling Nature of most of the Zelda games and how it was way more about exploration and puzzle solving, and I think Most of this game is that, which is why I give it the a. But the part of it that is not Drags it down from what could have been an S for me. I think if, if the combat was improved, maybe even if they just given it like a dodge roll or something, i feel like it would have been a much easier. Like a for me and just like Some of their controls are annoying to me. Yeah, i forgot to bring that up. I don't like. I don't like having to hold left trigger to lock on. I don't like having run and or jump on. Why, instead of like a or whatever, it is like I it's X. I swapped those Because it was stupid. I just. We live in 2023, when this is coming out. Like Remapping control schemes is a thing that games can do, like it Shouldn't fundamentally break anything, in my opinion, for you to be like when you press this button, like here are all the things when I press this button, i want it to do this instead. Like everything that's on X. I want to do with a, i want to run with a, i want to jump, but they, or whatever it is cool, well, i plugged.
Speaker 1:We plug the YouTube. Joe, is there anything that you want to say? Closing thoughts, housekeeping wise, anything you've got going on that you want to point people to?
Speaker 3:nope, it's a good thing. I don't have anything I need to self promote because I'm terrible at it, so I just don't have things that need promotion. Perfect.
Speaker 1:Dylan, anything else you want to say before we close this thing out?
Speaker 2:I do have a question. Okay so you guys have both played. You have not finished here's the kingdom but you have both played. I played Breath of the Wild. If somebody gets a switch today, Hmm. It used to be kind of like the default answer of like what? you should probably pick up Mario Kart, breath of the Wild and like maybe one other, you know, nintendo first-party game. Do you think tears of the kingdom has unseated breath of the wild in that regard? Like, should someone just getting a switch today pick up breath of the wild, or should they pick up tears of the kingdom?
Speaker 1:I would have to ask them if they're a fan of the series, because then I would probably say play Breath of the Wild first.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i mean tears of the kingdom is a pretty Direct sequel, even in terms of like story.
Speaker 1:But if you don't care about, the series at all and you just want to like screw around with the toolset and the world and stuff, then yeah, i think that I could say go go, tears of the kingdom. But I think that if you care about like the world and stuff at all, like Joe is saying, it's a direct sequel. And if you had just bought your switch, that means you haven't seen the changes that Breath of the Wild had like, you haven't experienced that for yourself. Yeah, from what the last game you potentially could have played was Skyward Sword, i guess you could have played Breath of the Wild on the Wii U They had.
Speaker 2:They had a Wii U and they're just now upgrading to the Nintendo switch.
Speaker 1:They're one of the five people but in general, yeah, i would say if you're a fan of the of the series at large, start with Breath of the Wild. If you just want to play a cool video game, then you could probably do tears of the kingdom. Yeah, that would. I guess that would be my answer. You think that that would be a good recommendation, joe?
Speaker 3:Yeah, i wouldn't just be like oh yeah, you can skip Breath of the Wild and just play tears of the kingdom, unless you're having like a case of FOMO.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and really just want to play that everyone else is playing and I guess my other question to end this off would be and this Spawns off of a an article like there. There's one person that I remember there's probably been more, but there's one person In particular that gave like tears of the kingdom a six, and they were also like, not huge fans of Breath of the Wild and and not for like. Oh, we got to be different and not for like. In my opinion, nitpicky reasons It was, it was more of like a personal preference situation. So you know, it's not necessarily like high critic Review, it's, it's more of like a. I personally did not like this game And so do you think if I was kind of like meh, on Breath of the Wild, tears of the kingdom changes enough stuff.
Speaker 3:No, again, it's a direct sequel. So if you didn't like Breath of the Wild, you're probably not going to like tears of the kingdom. Yeah they didn't make tears of the kingdom to like win over the people who Who were meh on Breath of the Wild.
Speaker 2:So it's better to get tears or Breath of the Wild anyway, then too, i guess because it's the cheaper way to find out. if you like that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I, yeah, i could see maybe the stuff that they it's like. If your favorite part of Breath of the Wild was the like, the tool set and the Manipulating the environment, stuff like that, there's way more of that here. And if you, what you missed from Breath of the Wild was The more puzzly like boss fights and stuff like that and the more like themed dungeons I think there's more of that in tears of the kingdom. So if there's like there's a couple little things that I think if someone was really like on the edge It could teeter them over. But if, in general, you just didn't vibe with Breath of the Wild, then there's a good chance You might not vibe with this one because, yeah, it is, it is the sequel, cool. Well, that's all we got for you on this one, joe. Thanks for joining us. Pleasure as always, as always. And Yeah, with that, we will catch you all on the next episode. We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of the friendly neighborhood gamers podcast. If so, we would greatly appreciate your help in growing the show and the community by giving us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, spotify and any other podcasting app that allows it.
Speaker 2:We also have some great videos on our YouTube channel, including reviews, rankings and other topics. We would really appreciate you checking it out And, if you want to keep up with everything going on in the neighborhood, follow us on Instagram and Twitter and feel free to jump in our discord server. We hope to see you there.
Speaker 1:Links for everything are in the podcast description. Thanks again for listening and remember stay friendly gamers.
