1Upsmanship: Legend of Zelda - A Link To The Past (Feat. Danielle Radford)

We’re back, fresh from the barren, content-less Dark World, and we’re starting this season with a bang! This week we warp into the 2D Zelda that perfected the formula, and we’re joined by our favorite Zelda Enthusiast, Danielle Radford! Some would say this is one of the greatest games ever made. Some would say this game is still being imitated to this very day. Some might even say this game remains a blast to play. But none of those people are Michael Swaim! Yeah. He goes pretty hard this episode. So pick up your hookshot, zip over the gap and join us for the new season of 1Upsmanship!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, listen, welcome to season two, Shipheads. That's right. We're

(00:27):
not deciding whether video games are or good. We do
that and we're doing it again with me.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
We haven't decided. I was like, I would love if
we got to the end and we.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Were like, no, no, it's not it's no garbage, it's
not good. Don't send the heart time.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm smart.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
What a great show that would be. I'm one of
your hosts. Adam Ganzer with me is perhaps my more
forward thinking colleague.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's right. I'm Michael Swam. We are pretentious, but not
bad henches.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
To like a shoe.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
The whole medium that we built our thing around this
is one asmanship. You are shipheads. This is what we do.
And to just blow the doors off this motherfucker, you know,
start season off two? All right, who else could it
be but Danielle Ranford. Welcome Danielle, thank you for being here.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
How about all of us keep our expectations nice and
poor close to the floor where we can all see them.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
It's like a season two premiere of a scripted show.
We expect like, oh, this will be a banger, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
It has no No, it was part of the pitch deck.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
He's handing out my expectation guns and we're all firing everywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
The wright rake is going on. So yes, Daniel's not
legally allowed to say really funny shit like you have
to say.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Well, I am pre w g A, which means apparently
I was already not saying very funny shits.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I've made my whole living writing for fifteen years, and
I am also pre w g A interesting poddressed for writings. Yeah,
for the record, I agree. And the things they're striking for,
oh yeah, of course, mainly because it'll make my cool
shows not get canceled season two to screw the crew
out of residuals. Then I get to see the show.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
The reason why it's hard for us to get in
is for all of the reasons that they're like doing stuff,
So yes, we support that. Also, we're funny to pay
attention to us.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
It's going to be very funny if the strike ends
like a week end of the strike, which is about
when we're recording this, and this releases in early June
and people are like, bro, we're still talking about that.
I know what, right? I feel that way about this.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Let's let's get on tracks. Speaking of Green, that's a
loose seguay to character where's Green Link? And that's a
game of his as well. We're covering today a link
to the past. Specifically, we've covered what have we done, Okarina,
Breath of the Wild? Was Breath of the Wild are
very first? It was that it was and we charted

(03:13):
Ocarina and I think that might be it. No no, no,
Link's dream Lenk Awakenings from a Dream.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Breath Breath Now Wild was not our first episode of
Super Mario Odyssey, but Breath the Wild was the first
time a podcast together, way back, way back.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
When it was called Final Bosses and it h that's right,
all right? So yeah, take us take us past. So
you know, I want to get past.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
We're going to work right out of the past into
the present and do our very first segment tell me
like I made it, where we will explain to you,
probably a young gamer, exactly what the legend of Zelda
A Link to the Past is. And when I say we,
I mean Danielle uh is going to give us you
know us, Marie, you feel left to that, Danielle, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
I could do it. Summary. So essentially, a link to
the past was the Zelda game that Nintendo put out
with the not with a launch, but I think right
around the time the A S Nest came out the
Super Nintendo, so it was like one of their first
major Super Nintendo non Mario games. And legend of Zelda

(04:25):
has already always been this kind of top down, massive,
you know, go on a map, talk to the people,
smash the base, cut the you know, cut the bush,
don't harassed chickens kind of franchise. But so this is
where it, in my opinion, started to get deeper because

(04:47):
not only did you and this is like during the
days when I'm pushing up my glasses, if you wanted
to know how the game ended, you had to actually
play it or watch a friend play it. We didn't
have let's play, We didn't have any of that stuff,
even if you wanted to get spoiled it. But you
had to buy a magazine that was like postdated three
months in advance. And so you go through and you

(05:08):
play it, and it feels like when you're playing at
first that there is a very obvious stop point. I
think we'll probably get through the whole thing, and then
what happens is is. It twists your shit and it's like, no, baby,
you got a whole other world to do. And so
it's like super long, incredibly immersive. Of course, it's cute.
Of course, it's got all of the things that you
love about the Legend of Zelda. It looks great. There

(05:31):
are all kinds of hidden little surprises and easter eggs
all over the map. There's a ton of stuff to do.
You're going from dungeon to dungeon. You're getting weapons, baby,
you're tea's and monkeys. You're you know, you're fighting up
and in this Yes, the one thing that does set
this separate is that Gannon is not your main phone

(05:51):
in this one. Even though you're fighting all of us dudes,
it seems a little weird, but you're actually fighting a wizard,
just an agro wizard. And I believe that this is
the first and I could be wrong, so please at
me because you will anyway. But I believe that this
was the first Zelda where it really established that every

(06:12):
Zelda is a new link and a new story with
a new tale. Because I believe that the second Legend
of Zelda that was on the Nintendo was a continuation
of the first story. This is the first one where
they're like, no, every link is like different, It's like
a different generations link, and all these people are going
to like continue. Know it's like, well now we all

(06:33):
everyone knows what multiverses is, but now we have entered
the multiverse of links.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
Yeah. That's a great point and one that we will
be talking about. Well done, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
I try to keep it quick, but I'm very verbose.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Again, you're on the right podcast. Let's pass our very
next checkpoint and we're going to get right into the
rants where we give our hot takes about the game
and you know anything else we want to launch up
for discussion. Mike, you want to go first? You want
me to go first?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Think No, I'll be honest, dude. I don't want to
talk at all in this episode. Okay, all right, great?
Oh that's interesting first. Okay, so I should lay it out. Okay, great,
Because so I have to ease into it by saying
and just flex nuts. I recently completed SEAFO, which I
don't think i'll ever complete because it's my eternal teacher.

(07:26):
Now it's like my destiny for Adam. You're gonna hear
me bring it up ad nauseum for the rest of
this series. I love this because it's also a focal
point of a lot of things I learned about gaming
and myself, which then is so amazing that it's called teacher.
But anyway, my octopus teacher anyway. By beat Seafoo, I
mean I spared Yang age twenty two. Oh my god,

(07:49):
I could get down to twenty But like, I can
turn the game inside out now. And I've never actually,
as people have heard, I've loved video games my whole life.
And one thing that's interesting is at the really REFLEXI
skill based games, I never can get like impressively good,
which may be one of the reasons I'm your residence
story guy, and Adam routinely is able to find the

(08:11):
joy in things that are more toy like or by
toy like. I just mean, you know, it's a test
of reflexes and coordination in that way versus strategy or
brain shit. Seafu has a bear enough story that it
proved to me I can fall in love with something
that's just I gotta go faster. I gotta go faster.

(08:32):
I got to press the green light when it's time
to press the green Light, so I was playing that
interwoven with Links to the Past, which I've never played.
In fact, Link's Awakening was the first time i'd played
one of these top down two d's. We also covered
Tunic and we both like ripped into it. And I
don't relish at all bringing down the joy of people

(08:53):
listening to this or even taking the stance that it's
just nostalgia. But I hated this game, this game, and
I can stop there and not ever because I like
don't want to be the stinker of the episode. That's
not my agenda. I think I can e loci date
why it's so not my cup of tea. Yes, and

(09:13):
it might be interesting to you later in the episode,
but like, but I'm just wary of because I am
a sensy, like I can also say things that I'm like, wow,
it invented that.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Oh cool, it invented that.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
I just thought it was not fun at all, not
fun at at all.

Speaker 3 (09:32):
And hey, here's the thing, like even with and I
think that this is a problem that happens. It happens
when people go back and talk about comedians they used
to like great movies, and then you look at them
and you play them so many years later and it's
like okay, and like it doesn't hit for you, and

(09:52):
not to argue, because I think that your feelings are valid.
I've had these feelings before. And that's how I started
thinking about this, is that what it becomes is that
everything that you have played so far has robbed not robbed,
been inspired by so much of what happened in this
game that by the time you get to it, it's like,

(10:14):
who fucking cares, Like I've already it feels old hat
to you, like, and I don't think that that's necessarily
In fact, there are times when I have on purpose
avoided stuff. I'll avoid movies of hypus too high because
I want to be able to look at them with
my own eyes without like having to deal with all
of the discourse and all that other stuff. And so like,

(10:35):
I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that you
go back and you look at the mechanics and you're like,
I never played this before, so like I'm not getting
the thing that you got when you were like four
or whatever. I think that.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
That's fine, one hundred percent. Certainly part of it.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
I think there's more Okay, great, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
No, I want to hear it. I totally want to
hear it. I talk about wrestling all the time. You
think I'm not used to.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Like I don't like this? Yeah, yeah, So first of all,
now we're gonna have to talk about wrestling at some point,
but I'm going to set that aside for now. I mean, yeah,
because yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
That's usually what people have me for.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Okay, great, so Mike, you are going to have to
say more, not right now, but like I, I do
want to know because you're you're giving us a teaser again,
and I need to know exactly what the thing is
that you don't like about this game. But I think
you're already halfway into your your take, Danielle, So how
about you go next?

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Oh well, yeah, this is like my favorite game of
all time. This was and I absolutely this was like
my first real because it feels it's called like an
action adventure, but when you go back and you play
like the final fantasies that were happening around the time,
it's like, oh no, this is like an RPG. You know,
this is like Baby's first RPG. Obviously it has the

(11:55):
it doesn't necessarily have like a lot of the mechanics
of some of like it's on a turn based RP,
but that is what it is, and I just I
think for me, it was just the joy of discovery
of going through and being like who that fairy? Oh?
What these fins? Do?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (12:15):
Like going through? When I played it the first time,
I literally went through and I would go to every
dungeon and just get the weapon and then try to
unlock all the other stuff until it was like, oh,
I can't actually move on until I have defeated all
the monsters and then go back and just annihilate them

(12:36):
because I decided to side quest before I went into
the main quest. So that's how I played the game.
And that the ability to be able to change weapons
on the fly and say like, oh, this is the
weapon that works for this, and how much of that
is related to puzzle and problem solving, which hits me

(12:58):
in a real big part of my brain. That I
think was a huge part of it, Like being able
to combine that puzzle and problem solving with oh, I
also get a sword and I get to chop dudes up. Oh. Also,
there's like a really cute story and there's things like
happening here that you actually care about. There are moments
in that story where like you will get a little
choked up, and for me, that was the first time

(13:22):
playing a game that I'd ever felt that combination of things,
and so that's always going to be something where it's
like amazing, and unlike other things that I discovered in
childhood that I liked, I can go back to that
and continually appreciate it, Whereas there's some stuff where I'm like, Nope,
that stays in the past forever. Nope, don't need to
watch that unless I'm in a certain headspace, you know

(13:44):
what I mean. Like I love Gem in the Holograms.
I love it. I enjoy it like crazy. I can
only watch three episodes in a row now without being
like yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, Jem is off to do
something cool. Yeah yeah yeah. It was as in the
Misfits show up. Yeah yeah, right, and then she has

(14:07):
to call Gem yeah yeah, and they save the day
and there's like an orphan you know what I mean.
I know all of the tropes and all of the
beats of course, whereas with this, I still know every
part of the game, and it's still so much fun
for me to be like I'm about to go get
my flippers.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
You know that's great by the way, Joe C and
Outer Space man, but that's okay.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
To Gem and the Holograms. Incredible theme song, like the
theme song to JEM. Dude, it chokes me up every time.
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (14:35):
It's the rotoscoped animation.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Come on, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never been a
GEM guy. I mean, I've watched maybe three ever, but
that theme song put it on. I'll watch the whole
thing on a YouTube video. Unashamed that I'll watch it.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
They did one of the first things that blew my
mind when I was a kid. I don't even want
to spoil it, except it's like an old show. But yeah, anyway,
it's fun. We'll talk about this offline.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Clear another episode schedule schedule, the wrestling talk schedule, the
Gem talk, I mean, on all.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
This at this point, it might be a thirty year
old or something like.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Don't care?

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Still into it, bro, don't care?

Speaker 3 (15:11):
All right?

Speaker 1 (15:11):
So player three, Player three out of Gains are plugging
in after that Gem plug Okay, So I'm going to
acknowledge that it's impossible to judge this game through the
lens of not having played it. When it came out.
That is a key experience. And just like all perceptional
problems in our existential world, no one can walk through

(15:34):
the lens of another. I can't tell you how objective
either any of us are about this game, because it
was a revelation in nineteen ninety one. It was the
best game ever made in nineteen ninety one in some ways,
like you know, you can argue with.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
It was my first, it was my child, No, it was.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
It's amazing. It's an amazing game to me. It's still
very fun to play. I played it last week and
it was like, man, I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed it.
And I don't love every Zelda I go back and play.
I just played through the original legend of Zelda a
couple weeks before that, to like see if I cared.

(16:14):
It's fine and it's there's good things about it, and
you can appreciate how inventive it is. But it's very
clear that a link to the past is the crystallization
of this is what two D Zelda meant. This is it,
that's right, Zee, this is it, you know what I mean?
Like if you want to go back in time and
sort of see what video games were before they reached

(16:35):
the third dimension? What is the best version of this
whole idea? It's linked to the past, which is like
great because it's also a perfectly titled game. That's what
it does for us as a video game piece of history.
I think it was a great point. Of course.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Sorry, I had never realized the double meaning, which is good.
It's so it's so loud and dumb, but it's like
in this one link go to past right.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Well, also, baby does love a pun? I hate puns,
but I write puns for a living. I don't know.
My life is a dichotomy.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Titles should work on multiple levels. I think sorry, we're.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
Still Link was named because he is a character that
connects the player to a world. That's what his name means.
So like Nintenda's aware of this pun, like they have
been using it forever, So how to talk about it objectively?
The thing that this game does so well that makes
it matter is, first of all, it's kind of a

(17:30):
precursor and like a big moment in the fusion of
action games in RPG games, which is exactly what Danielle said.
It feels very much like a distilled final Fantasy. I
don't know if you guys are playing the Pixel remasters,
but the Pixel Remasters reminded me, oh yeah, A Link
to the Past is the first time that Link had

(17:50):
a real plot with characters whose stories you sort of
navigate through quests and stuff. That's very much an early
Final Fantasy RPG thing, and Linked to the Past is
doing that, and the other games didn't really do that
so much. Zelda two did it. But also Zelda two
feels a little bit like a like a one off

(18:10):
where they kind of fuse Zelda onto something else, kind
of like they do a Super Mario two.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
Isn't it famously overheard too?

Speaker 1 (18:17):
It's very hard Yeah, so like this game isn't the
first time this series had quests, but it does feel
like an intentional addition of RPG elements to the formula
of Zelda that they thought mattered, which is the top
down dungeon crawling thing, right. It's also an expansion of
what dungeons are, an expansion of the kinds of tools

(18:39):
and tricks and game loops that will exist in Zelda
forever it is. It's a great use of sort of
the idea of warping across different maps and using both
maps in a sort of comparative way. That's a new
idea that they're doing here. The hook shot, like the dash,
just so many things that are now staple in video games.

(19:02):
They became staples and game Boy games and all those
sort of like two D media that came after it.
We just played Links Awakening a few years ago, and
we're like, man, this game is really fun to play. Yeah, bro,
because it's stealing almost all the cool stuff.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Which is why I love it, which is why it's
one of my favorite games, which is why I will buy.
So Nintendo is very smart in the same way that
they were very smart about like, look, when we release
a Final Fantasy seven remake, y'all will know. We'll do
it when we need to do it, not a second beforehand.
Nintendo knows that any time they put a link to

(19:38):
the past on a new platform, everyone's gonna buy. I'm
gona buy it. Same for Link Links Awakening, and so
they'll do them to update them to make them look
like whatever they're current. And I love that they haven't
abandoned two D as like a viable way to dell story.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Linked to the past is too important for them to
like just shove it entirely to the side, or do
a complete remake, because in a lot of ways, this
game is also extremely polished a game Like a lot
of those early nes games. We don't cover them much
on the show because they're still like though they're inventing things,

(20:15):
they're not polished enough to say that they're fun. Like
they're objectively fun this game. Anyone who's never played it,
I think maybe Mike will prove me wrong, can go
back and appreciate why it's fun, Like it's just a
fun game to play. The idea of there being a
second map that's sort of interwoven with the first map
and all the secrets that are done that way is

(20:37):
a cool Zelda idea. It's one of the first big
cool Zelda ideas, and every game has one like that.
The upcoming game that hasn't released yet as the time
this podcast looks like Fusion is the cool Zelda idea
that they're going to stick with and linked to the
past sort of is a big marker in the idea
that Nintendo has of Zelda being where we try a

(20:58):
big mechanic and make it work, and like you know,
this is an experimental playground and link is important for that.
And yeah, it's one of the best games ever made
in my opinion. That's my rant.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
It's good ramp. Yeah, no, I'm very interested to see
because no, we'll get into it.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
I have, but I know you have some wonderful Mike
seems to be silenced with pure rage, and therefore I
am going to take us to the break that he
may recover his rage, drink a bottle of joy, and
we will come back to the battle after these messages

(21:43):
back from the ads. And Danielle was telling us something
interesting during the break. Danielle say that again if you would.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Well, So I was saying that, like, I understand where
Mike is coming from because I am a little sister.
My sister is five years older than me, so most
of my pop culture stuff is either too old for
me or too young. And so I was that kid
that was like, e T I mean, that's fine, but like,
have you ever seen Mac and me he dances in
a McDonald's, you know, Like that was the kid that

(22:11):
I was. Ghostbusters one is like, that's fine, but have
you heard on our own by Bobby Brown on Ghostbusters too,
which is clearly the better movies.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
So you're a Take fan, you're an alt Take fan,
you like you like the second edition better?

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Oh god, I mean, don't get me started on my
list of good and bad movies. I have a list
of movies that are good movies, that are good and
that are good movies.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Just to Daniels, is Jemma is Jemma gobots or is
jim Jim is also an off brand of something?

Speaker 3 (22:43):
I believe buy a gobots? Do you mean something that
was made to sell dolls?

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Because yes, and that is not like what you're talking
about with Mac and me, like not Transformers but gobots
not Oh yeah, but beta Ma first was the first
singer band thing.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Well, I mean gem was.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Jem or rip off of anything.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Jem was Purple Rain for young white kids. Like if
you go back to the first episode, it's like, yeah, no,
it's Purple Rain without all of the black people and
the horniness. That's what it did.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
And let's talk about video games since then.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
Sorry, because I'm not sad. It's still good anyway.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
So okay, fair enough, let's we passed another check for
Oh yeah, yeah, I got I got this.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Thank you, which means, uh.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
We traded a like a shovel for a flute for
a duck, and now we can fast travel, and that
brings us to Game On, which was a relief when
you could fast travel. So you know, it's just such
a quality of life improvement we're used to now one
of the many things that you're like. And I am
not blind to those things, or I still was like, wow,
fast travel this early, that's so cool. I still thought

(23:54):
that stuff. But this is Game On, where we just talked, Yeah,
it was good. I want to start by saying, yeah,
I don't want you you don't have to be objective.
You can be nostalgic or I don't want you to
feel guarded because you're in a room knowing that my
opinion is I didn't enjoy it. You know what I mean,
So be nostalgic if you want. Sure, But uh, I
guess I'll start. I'll kick it out. I and today

(24:16):
a bunch of good stuff that you guys probably agree with,
which is like I do. I slightly disagree with Daniel
on the genre. I thought it was more of a
top down metroid than an RPG, but action RPG, I
guess is true. I just but I guess the definition
to me of that is you level up stats, whereas
in this it's not stats. I guess this makes it

(24:38):
an action RPG regardless genre. Stupid, So let me move
on to what's.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Great about it.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
They're so good at pacing the experience and varying the
environments and the music that you're hearing and what you're doing,
and alternating combat puzzle combat puzzle. Like compared to Tunic,
it was just night and day like you know, it
has that Nintendo attention to detail. They understand the craft

(25:07):
to I'm a new level of detail after many decades
that I don't think, for example, the Tunic people do,
or many games to try to rip uff link. So
it's just a pacing thing that's better. I can't it
kind of invented or I'm sure there's an earlier example,
but it struck me as crazy early to have a
specific quest that you start with, but then when you
get to town, like Skyrim style or any modern RPG,

(25:29):
you have to go around and talk to people and
explore the area, and then new people hook you into
additional quest.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
It's cool being wanted in your own town. It's cool
when you realize the game is double as long because
there's now you just did eight dungeons and then you
unlock the Dark World and you're like, I got to
do eight more. Obviously, great. We're about to cover Chrono Trigger,
I assume this season at some point, and that pulled
the same trick, which blew my mind because I did
play Chrono Trigger at the right age. I think it's

(25:57):
a couple of years after it is this but it's good. Yeah, yeah,
and then ultimately I kind of want to save because
I want to hear good talk. But I will say
one of the reasons I think it didn't connect with me,
that's just illuminating about me. So it's not a knock
against the game that I realize is also and why

(26:19):
Eldinring kind of misses me and a lot of games
I realize an underlying mechanic that doesn't get me. That's
very particular taste that I wonder I'd be interested in
hearing from people out there on this. I don't like
any game where in the fundamental experience the combat is
based around locked in animations of a particular preset length.

(26:41):
The goal is to know when to press the buttons
so the animation reaches its Zenith at the proper point.
I much prefer where we're at now with games like
Seafoo Spider Man, it's becoming much more prevalent where the
buttons you press do a set of combos, but the animation,
which I know they couldn't do it in nineteen anyone
or whatever, but I just like it better and I'm

(27:02):
used to it. Like Danielle said, I can't go back now.
We do this animation because the computer's sophisticated enough to
procedurally generate it, if you know what I mean. So
like you press punch and your fist locks into their joint,
it feels fairer to me, it feels more dynamic, like
I just can't go back to I swing my sword
at a preset rate. Once I know how to kill

(27:23):
these guys. It's always the same. I hit them once
and then they'll come at me in a straight line.
I move slightly to the side so their sword doesn't
touch me, and I hit them again. And it was
the combat. You're just constantly doing combat. And I realized,
flash forward to modern day, it's the same reason I
can't get through Elden Ring. I don't care about just

(27:44):
I press a and it slashes. If I hit the guy,
he dies. If I don't, he doesn't. And it's like
a lot of the game is that is just like
hitting guys until they pop. I just can't care about that.
It's just boring to me.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
And a lot of video games in that category. There's
a lot of video games in that category. That's that's
a tough critique to level that.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Well, I'm struggling with it on Jedi Survivors.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, that is.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
It is that it feels disconnected to me.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Patterns for me, like that's part of why I play
video and I talked about like the puzzles and all
that stuff. I am very into. I recognize this paddle
girl hit buttons. Good thing happened, girl, Happy go smile
like that. I'm very much, very much you know Schrodinger's
Daniel Radford where it's just like yes, please, Like I

(28:35):
don't know if I press this if it's going to
do the thing that I want, but I'm gonna do it.
So yeah, that makes sense because that's I think why
I love puzzle games and puzzles so much, and I
think that that part of the brain is they're hitting
both of them at once and so if you don't
like any of that, yeah, this is not going to
be well for sure.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
I mean I think that in general, the combat in
this game is a kind of puzzle that's based on
timing and angles like and.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
It's striking that Breath of the Wild doesn't really make
you do it, not as much as I note it.
And I love Breath of the Wild. But I never
fight the guys, you know, I just bow and arrow them.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Oh that's interesting. Yeah, yeah, so you never get in
deep with a lionel, you never, you never take I.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Don't think Zelda combat's ever been the draw. And in
this game, I was like, oh, I constantly have to
do combat and the dudes respawn every time. I just
didn't care for that.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
That's interesting, so because I would say the combat and
Okreina of Time is momentous for video games. And and
I take it.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Back about Okarina. The combat of Acarina is on fucking point.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
And then that was one of their big innovations. Hey
is that the one with the that's what that's exactly.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
No, thank you, no, thank you no. Well, And I
also just I am not three D games make me nauseous. Okay,
So every time I try to play them, like I
play them and they're great. Obviously they're amazing games, but
it's also always like I just want to like look
and see what's up this tree. Please, like stop bothering me.
Orc dudes, I get it now, I have to make

(30:12):
a studio. I got a.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Camera around and around, right, it's a whole separate thing.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
You focusing on.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, and that is completely my adhd ass, Like I
do want something that I can play while I listen
to a podcast, right, because I need all twenty million
pieces of my brain to light up at once to
do one task.

Speaker 1 (30:30):
I would describe Link to the Past and Zelda's Two
Decombat as being relatively passive compared to shooting games, compared
to a lot of games that are like reaction based
and stuff like where they're testing your reflexes.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
I don't think that's summering's fun.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, I don't think that Zelda, even in this point,
is like, you know, super reflex challenging. I think it's
a little bit more about like again, angle and timing,
as you were saying, Mike, So I think people should
take from that. If you're going to go back and
revisit this game for the first time. It's not going
to be Dark Souls or even Ockerena of Time, which

(31:11):
is a little bit more of an encounter, your conflict
that like the combat, there is more of an encounter.
That's not true here. I don't think most people who
value this game are so much excited about the combat.
I think they're more like, no, No, it's the world
and the secrets and the puzzles that make this game.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
And the music like iconic of course on Touch of
the yea music.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
That's what people think of when they think why is
Linked to the past so celebrated? And did that not
stick out to you, Mike, Like, did that not feel?
Did those things not work for you when you're playing it?

Speaker 2 (31:49):
I thought it did have so compared to Links Awakening,
I appreciated that it felt more mature and epic, you know.
I mean it's still for fourteen fifteen year old imaginations
and not thirty year olds, but more grounded and epic
like Akarina, and like Link sometimes feels nowadays where you're like, oh,
he's not eleven, he's seventeen, you know in some games,

(32:13):
and then in Windwaker he'll be eleven again and that's fine,
that's like now one of the.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Things they do.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
I appreciate that it felt adult and like being trying
to be epic. It's bigger than you thought it was.
Blah blah blah. It did feel really epic. Yes, I
like that the Link world is a different fantasy world.
I like any fantasy world. I also like classic fantasy,
but I'm intrigued by any fantasy world that's not elves,
dwarfs orcs, like you know, where you try something new.

(32:41):
Link is like a different fantasy world. It's that's cool
about it. And I liked the story elements. I just
found them like unrelentingly clumsily dispensed.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Tell me what that means, Tell me what that means.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
Well, mostly it's just that a guy is psychically narrating
to you what's going on through dimensions, which is it's
amazing to me that esp works across multiple dimensions. Yeah,
and you got to touch those slams on the wall that.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
I speakers, those slam speakers.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
I'm actually kind of that, especially especially considering the age.
But even in modern day, a lot of games are
basically the narrator just tells you, and you know, we
appreciate games that are more sophisticated than that.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
But it's fine.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
But my big thing was like I often didn't know
exactly what was happening a lot of things. I found
that there were threads never resolved, like in the beginning,
a dead person who I assume is your dad, Uncle
says uncle, Uncle says, take my sword, find the princess.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Zelda is your dot dot dot.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
I don't unless it's like I don't think the game
ever said Zelda is your what lover sister Destiny. It's
next to fa I.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Think that's what.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
And that means the thing that I just had hilarious
was at the end of the game, all my questions
were answered. But under the credits of the game, when
the tri Force becomes sentient and retroactively does all the exposition,
which is so clumsy. Again, a little bit Gannon was
building up his power so that he could use agony
to enter the light world, and and like, did you

(34:26):
understand that?

Speaker 1 (34:27):
And you go like yes, and then the game ends.
That's very weird.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
You've got to remember back in the day we were
playing Street Fighter two and at the end they would
be like they all went home to their family, as
they're happy, he'd be like, yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Remember he didn't.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I thought I thought forever to win Wonder Boy Monster World,
and it literally just as a black screen that says,
congratulations you won.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
The game exactly like you go through like any Mario
the Doky Dokie Panic. Obviously, Steeler two, I would say,
is the one that came close to being like, oh,
what was a dream? And it's like, well, normally y'all
don't give us nothing, so at least we kind an
ending with a curtain. It really was like so uh
so much what it was back then, even I even

(35:18):
going through. I remember, you know I love fighting games.
I love Mortal Kombat as everyone knows, and yeah, everyone
afterwards would be like they fucked off to art World,
and it's like, okay, can I see can I can
I see them? Oh no, fuck me right? Okay, fuck
me right, no worries, no worries boone in Tobias, fuck me,
I don't get.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
To see it.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
So love at the end of this that they go
and then the Masters Sword Slept again forever and you're like, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Trust me, why would you even say that? Are you insane?
I'm looking up so I'm looking at the some plots
from g RPGs of the time, like, for instance, Final
Fantasy is a game that was really a couple of
years earlier, and one thing that Zelda kind of doesn't
do that. I feel like a lot of these jrpgees
at the time do is like expand the expand the lore.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
You know, I think that's they keep it tight and nice.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
Yeah, well does not. Zell does not that concerned with
saying why are there sages? Why is there a dark world?
What is sellas never wanted to do the deep dive
on that and this game. I also didn't want to
do it. Yeah, you know, I don't.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
I kind of don't want them to do it.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
I don't either.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Sometimes I just like an adventure where it's like, just
let me get in and I'll figure it out. Okay,
there are sages, there are fairies. We have hearts like
above our heads. We're just allowed to No one has locks.
I can just go into their house and ransack all
their ship and at the end they'll be like, oh wait,
did you say hi to my knees? Like no one,

(36:53):
nothing that I do to the townspeople has any repercussions
unless I.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Touch there's no moral choices that fuck, you don't want
Zelder scrolls we have.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
That.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah forfent O.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
God, could you imagine Fable with Zelda where it's like
every time there's lots.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Of talking quest, like thousands of quests on your task.
I think that's just not some I think that.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Tells you that that they don't think they, being Nintendo
and the designers of this game, think that understanding why
the world is what it is is the important ingredient
to telling this story.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
No, they don't think that matters.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
I'm inclined to agree with them that I don't think
it matters, but I don't that doesn't diminish a lot
of gamers' opinions that like are very passionate about what
about the lore? Why is this this stuff here? I
think the games where Nintendo's tried to flush out the
world more in the Zelda universe have been the worst ones,
like for instance, Skyward Sword, that's not that's one of

(37:54):
my least favorite of the Zelda games.

Speaker 2 (37:55):
And it's like different, Yeah, different exercises demand different levels
of world.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
It's right, and I think the world building detracts from
the fun of it. In that's.

Speaker 3 (38:07):
I played D and D a lot. I played video
games a lot. The only place I think lore actually
matters is professional.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
Wrestling, right about it mattering in professional wrestling and places too, But.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
That depends on what story, what story I start, No,
I think no, I mean I think that that lore matters.
But also, did you necessarily look we go back now?
I didn't watch the prequels, but I think a lot
of the things that people are like, yeah, no, we
needed to hear about this, we need to hear about that.

(38:47):
I never needed to hear about Anakin's like thing where
he murdered a bunch of Javas, like it's it. I
think it's a supplemental and it helps feed the story,
but I think it it's not.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Like but it's not the actual experience for him. But
it's not the actual experience that I have.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Correct, I don't need to know about like the freaking crystals,
and now I do because I didn't want to go
make never mind, I'm a liar, I'm a I didn't
want to know until I knew that I could buy one.
And that's how capitalism kills us all children.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
I do like stuff like that, I read the books
in Skyrim, but I'm that like everyone's different, right, And
that's when.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
It comes to when it comes to comic books, I
am a loaw NERD so I'm a liar, I'm a fraud.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's I don't generally invest in loare in any of
these activities unless it's like I guess sports. I care
about sports lore because it because I do think that
enhances the emotional connection to an actual game, which is maybe.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Why it's based on a true story.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
And so. But but I don't. That doesn't mean like,
which are three sucks? Because if it's because it's all
law and stuff, I mean what it means is that
the immediate experience in this game is more is a
much more concentrated and less inquisitive experience. And I think
they're trying to they're trying to give you the sense.

(40:16):
Every result in some sense is trying to give you
the sense that you're in a world where you're figuring
out what happened? What is it you are? And you're
always but it's always like you know.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
That because you can change your name in the thing,
whereas like a lot of places, you're not allowed to
change the name because of this is that Lord, this sot.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Story, right, you guys?

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Names does play through?

Speaker 1 (40:37):
If I went, I went. I went with renagance because
I was going to do something.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
I was pink pe exclamation point and shot rhymes.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
I usually go with either Dan rad or disness.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Crowd greb shut these nuts over the great? Uh there
is link Yeah, there is still there's minimal lore and
it's it's a good hints like I like it. I
like that there's an elder name Salhasrala aka Revolver.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
So dude, I got okay, I got my joke. I'm
so excited about that because it was like anytime we
can get some Kojima in here. No, so briefly, I
just want to say this about the story. Then I
think we can move on. It is still more story
than most games have at the time. At that time,
It's still a lot of story for a video game.
It's just not a lot of story for a contemporary

(41:35):
video game. Yes, so I think that matters, so.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Right, And that's why I barely mentioned stuff like my bones,
like wanted a Perry move and a dodge move. But
what you know, one step at a time. But right, yeah, right,
So is.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
There did they did they add that in? I'm sorry
I have to interrupt here because I'm not sure what
version everyone's playing, but they did add in extra moves
because after they did for Swords, the Four Swords game,
they started incorporating some of the four Swords moves into
their newer re issues.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
Yeah, so Link's Awakening had some four Swords ship and
I believe depending on which version of Linked to the
Past you're playing, it does have some four swords a
little bit more sword play. I don't think it's I
don't think it's doing what you needed to do, Mike,
but I think it is a little bit more after
they add that in.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
I did not play. I played the version that's owned
Nintendo Online that's stripped. Yeah, that was the original seem
pretty straightforward. So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Because I think it was the GBA reissue, but I'd
have to check. I think it's the Game Boy Advance
reissue where they started adding in the four Swords stuff.
Four Swords is also a really good game.

Speaker 1 (42:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Also, please stop almost saying, oh no, that's Forespoken. Sorry,
I was about to dig on for Spoken, but I
thought it was called for Sworn. That's Okay, Adam, cut
this Bill, I'm leaving it in. He's like, no, just
a bording bits. Yeah, they can be.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
So wait, Mike, I just want to I want to
make sure I've gotten all of your points out aside
from the clumsy narrative development. Did you have problems with
how the game played?

Speaker 2 (43:12):
I have one more point, but I didn't want that
episode to be focused on it.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
It needs to be. It needs to be because otherwise
we're going to say things everybody knows, which is the
best game ever?

Speaker 3 (43:23):
You know?

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Sure, so well yeah, so why it's not for me?

Speaker 2 (43:27):
The other big reason is the other half is exploration
and puzzles. And I guess you're right in saying that
quality of life improvements. You know, maybe it's too much
to expect, but there were things that I felt, no,
even at that time, I could have thought of that
and it would have been way better. So, like, there

(43:47):
are a couple dungeons where they do the thing which
I thought, ah, they knew even at this time, how smart,
where when you complete a dungeon, eventually you get the
thing you can blow that takes you or the mirror right,
it can take you to the front. But before that
there's a couple dungeons where they do the thing where
the last room loops back to the first room and they're.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Like, oh great.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
But then there's a lot of times where and I understand,
the physical game came with an actual map, so then
I allowed myself to look at the map and know
the locations where I was trying to go.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
That helped a lot.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
I imagine if I started with the map, I would
have been less frustrated. But I didn't use the strategy
guy because I did want to experience how I would
have when I was eleven or thirteen or whatever, and
I would not buy strategy guys at that age. And
I do under and I thought part of the fun,
because I know that Tunic is trying to appeal to
this was the obtuse and obscure mysteries and secrets. There's

(44:40):
secrets everywhere. I found that that was keyed to such
a degree that it seemed arbitrarily like cruelly punishing, Like
for example, I beat again and they revealed that Gannendorf
is the real threat. And then they deposited me at
the front of this hedge maze with his red Dino
sore bird pecking at me, and I proceeded to navigate

(45:04):
the hedge maze with the dino bird pecking at me
all the way, which is really hard because you got
to dodge it continuously well navigating a maze, and I
got to the front and realized after doing that, which
took me quite a while, that I can't get in
because I need the moon Pearl, which I had never
heard of and didn't know where it was. So I

(45:24):
had to bumble around the entire world map talking to
everyone until I found someone who mentioned the moon Pearl,
and then follow that thread, which involved going back up
Death Mountain, which I had just come down from switching
to the Dark World, standing on a random patch of
brown grass that there's no reason to know. It's special
warp back, and that's how you get to Harry's Tower,
where you can get the moon pearl. By there's these

(45:48):
there's these, you know, pieces of ground that fall away,
and the whole game you're avoiding falling because it kills you.
There's one that doesn't kill you. It drops you on
top of the moon pearl. Fuck all that, dude.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
That is not fun.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
It's like you literally it's to It feels like it's
to sell strategy guys, or like a walkthrough would be
the only way I could ever beat this game, and
I just don't like that as a like versus. Even
by the time of Ocarina, the dungeons aren't all just
random mazes. They're conceptual, like you climb to the top
of the tree and you drop through the spider will

(46:21):
and the puzzles are like varied and physics based, and
I just every dungeon was figure out the layout of
the dungeon, randomly, talk to someone way the hell over
on the other side of the map that no one
told you to talk to, and they tell you you
need a random item you never could have thought of,
and then you can go there. It just felt like
Metroid for example, Super Metroid, much more sensible. I understood intuitively,

(46:45):
oh that move will help me get here. In this
it was like, get the duck and now you can
do this. Get the flute and now you can do this.
Like none of this connects. And the only thing I'll
say that softens it is and I do recognize this
all my favorite point and click games from the same era.
We just discussed this on an episode. Totally true of
them too. Where the solution will be like use the

(47:06):
bagpipe on the hamster and you're like, fucking why.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yes, here's the thing. I think this is a really
important thing also to understand about this game and to
understand about the Zelda series. The Zelda series was the
first time that a cartridge game had a save function.
You could not save and go back and try things
and retry things, and so I don't remember if it

(47:30):
was the first Selda or if it was the second one,
but definitely by the time they got to the Super
Nintendo era, this was really when everyone had save available,
because you didn't have that. And so that's why I think,
knowing that we've already established now that we want to

(47:50):
make something so big that obviously you can't go back,
you can't warp whistle. You need to be able to
explore it and save it so you can go explore
us stuff, I think that opens up your brain to
be like, Okay, well we can have you kind of
have to go around and ask different people and figure
stuff out as different areas open up because we've finally

(48:12):
given you the ability to be able to save that shit,
not just have a password. That's like I guess that's
kind of vaguely put to you where you were. I'm
talking about you, Prince of Persia.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
The one thing I feel like I can project myself
back to being eleven and experience because I experienced with
other games that were in my lane. Right, it must
have felt so big when you turn I could play
this game for a huge game.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
So I think I have to disagree with your characterization
of the game's items not relating to the quest or
the dungeons not being having a thing atom We made
one example, and I congratulate you on that, sir. Nonetheless,
in most cases with these Zelda items, they are the

(48:56):
gateway to the next thing, like directly back to the
next thing. Are times the game gets up too. I
will not say that it doesn't. Why are you a
pink rabbit in the dark World because there's evil magic there, Mike,
That's the thing to explains you, you delightful person.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Everyone gets warped and mutated when you go into the
dark world. It's just dark world, dark world.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Chip.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
I'm sorry, Mike. I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Adam saying stuff doesn't have to be explained, but I
like stuff for stuff is explained.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
I'm saying like, sometimes it's just like Dark.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Spe because you six ft tall, easter bunny style, smiling,
plush bunny rabbit.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Because you got invited to the Dark World party, and
that was what I find.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Your lack of imagination disturbing this time, Mike, I just
put I guess I would say, and I'm not arguing
with your experience of it. I never would, but I
do think that for the sake of representing the experience
of the game to other people maybe haven't played it,
in most cases, the item you get leads to the
next thing, and also there is a map in the

(50:03):
game that you access all the time to tell you
where to go next, and like it literally tells you
what order the things are in. So I say that
because you know it's not it's not like Zelda one,
which is exactly what you just described. Zelda one. I
don't know how anybody ever beat that without a walk,
without a guide, that game's almost impossible. I still feel
that about this one.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Maybe I'm super down, but I found it in almost
every case that I would get to the front of
the temple, which takes some doing, and it would be locked,
and they'd go, no, dummy, you need this thing, and
I'd go, oh, I'd go back and do it again,
and then.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
The thing would be the thing would be something where
it was like a new and this is where it
really is about. To me, this feels like the first
time when GTA really opened up it's things and became
more free rome. This felt like it not only rewarded
but kind of required you to roam around and start like,

(51:00):
I can't get here yet.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
I can't here yet, but I remember that.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Oh I have this, so now I can break these
rocks and get into these areas. Oh now I have
the slingshot. Now I can get over this lake and
get into this other area. It rewarded you for exploring
the map as it was at the time, over and
over while also and then you could be like, oh,

(51:25):
this was a place I couldn't get before, but now
I have this this object I can get.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
The game expects you to remember stuff you encountered that
you couldn't do yet, and then to apply that knowledge
when you get an item, Like that's the fundamental thing
it expects you to do. It's a lot to ask
now of a video.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Okay, I just found a metro to ask, because they
literally show you the move. It's not that you got
a feather or a mirror, it's you do this now.
And it was so easy in my mind to go, oh,
doing that would let me get through that thing. I
found myself way more often than this going you need
magic powder to level up your sword, because your sword

(52:03):
can't kill Gannon without it. But the magic powder you
get by finding a mushroom randomly in the woods and
giving it to the witch and then waiting X amount
of time and she makes magic powder. I just don't know.
I wouldn't call that intuitive. It just doesn't seem intuitive
to me. And then other ones are like, you get
the flippers and then you can swim. But I'll point
out again, you get the flippers by going to a
random spot where there's a whirlpool identical to a bunch

(52:25):
of other whirlpools that kill you, but this one you're
supposed to throw something into it. And then a guy
comes out and goes, you made me grumpy and throws
flippers at you. I would call that not intuitive.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
I don't think. I think it rewards curiosity and being
able to try and try and fail.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
I'm talking to townspeople who generally give you hints and
then going to do what they say. That's almost every question, Almo, I.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Would have changed everything too. I never spoke to a townsperson,
and I didn't know that you never spoke to a townsperson,
so that would have been big.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Townspeople.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I assume they'd all just say, we hope you kill Gannon.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
You know what I know?

Speaker 3 (53:05):
They tell you literally everything to do on every party,
they're giving you hints.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
That wouldn't like it either, Just like that time you
didn't go on the road and Breath of the Wild
and didn't find the thing for a while because it
was on the road.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
It's like that, Oh, the guy that takes decus seeds
from you, I didn't find for like.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Free, and I was like, oh, that's miserable.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
I just feel bad because he upgrades all your pouch sizes.
I was like, does this game not have inventory upgrades?
That's so frustrating, and you're like, of course it does. Yeah,
Well that's the problem with blind exploration, right, like you
may or may not encounter the things.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
I still stand by my points. I feel like y'all
are looking for an easy excuse, like, oh, that's why
I didn't like it. No, I still don't like the combat.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Yeah, you can still hate.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Hate what you want.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
I mean for sure, I just but it I the
way I know it comes down to taste. And that's
why I brought up Seafu is uh talk backtracking. Seafoo
is only doing the same five levels over and over
and over and over. So that's what I think is
also magic about video games, Like why does that work
on me? And I'm and this doesn't. I don't actually.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Know, so I haven't seen yet.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
What is thattforms and just five hard beat him up
levels and you do them over and over until you're
good at them.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah, it's like a mix of a beat him up
and then like a little bit of dark. It's like
a little dark soulsy. It's great.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
I also found a very quite a connection or a
connection that moves my soul between the two games, in
the sense that there's one dungeon in linked to the past,
where you go in a room and you encounter a
guy who's completely hedged in. He's trying to walk, but
he can't attack you, and he's in like four pots
or he's just in one pixel square. He can't move,
And I'm like that dude, as far as Henchman goes,

(54:53):
is not set up for success. It really reminds me
of how confident the very first guy on the very
first level of C who's like, I'm gonna kick your ass,
and you have knocked him out before he gets a
word out, like because he's the first, very I also
find it hilarious. Yeah, I also find it hilarious in
this game that the soldiers must be like, well, he

(55:15):
made it to the other room.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
It's their problem now. I actually, that's right, they'll take
care of him.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
It is a lot of just like waiting for them
to like do their soldier stuff and sneak past, and
it's like, you have to see me. I have the
literal princess behind me, and she's not fast, but she glows.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
I think it's funny how many times Link survives falling
between stories. He's like a cat, like you just he
just falls from one story to the other, lands on
his feet every time. That's his real superpower.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
It's funny that he's actually silent. I wish instead of
being silent, he only ever said okay, because it would
be so funny if they're like, so this sword riffs
the dimensions and the Evil Wizard is actually a man
who is going to take over the dimensions. Okay, like
he accepts everything. So I'm so love that he's just
slot All these people are mind controlled and he's just

(56:09):
slotting them.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Just just like yeah, just kind of slicing him to pieces,
whipping his magic.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
He's doing them a favor. They wouldn't want to know
that they became the ponds. And look, it's like when
you it's like when you're a zombie and you're like,
just kill me, just kill me.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
I don't want to be Just very briefly, I do
think there is some critique worth bearing that the later
items in this game feel a little bit a little eh,
they're not the best, Like I think, like a lot
of the Elder games, they have some pristine items and
then there's a few wacky ones. Okary of Time has like,
in general, the best items across the board. This game

(56:48):
has like an item that just summons blocks and stuff,
and like a couple others you're.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Like, I didn't find there, but.

Speaker 1 (56:56):
They're trying stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
Yeah, but you know they were the first people that
were like, you know what you need if you want
to make a really bang in potion, which to me
Posian means smoothie. You gotta find you gotta find a
glass jar.

Speaker 1 (57:11):
They tastes good.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
You're putting stuff in jars, which I first encountered in Okarina,
and I was like, that's the coolest thing ever. You
can put like four different things in the job.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
But it's this, it's this game, and you're like yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
So now it's like it's like Pinterest where it's like, look,
I just I just really want to make a good
SMOOTHI and it's like, oh yeah, I just you need
to make sure you have a jelly jar and that's
what you put you're SMOOTHI into leave it overnight.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Every game that Zelda has where you have to find
the bottles, there's always one grumble fuck that has a bottle.
There's always just one persons, you know what. I hate
everybody and you take this bottle and get out of
my face. And this guy there's one in this game
that's under the bridge, and I loved him so much.
Just living grumbling under there incredible. I know.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
Well, and that is one of I mean. I can
also talk about Starry Valley all day, but it is
like it reminds me of very I could talk about
Star Dew Valley all day. I have romanced all of
every amazing I'm married. I'm married a robot girl. But yeah,
it's again, those are one of those ones where and yes,

(58:17):
a lot of these if you did not have, like,
if you didn't want to go through and fail and
fail and fail and fail and fail again, and I didn't,
that was why they were able to sell all of
those walkthroughs, for sure. And you know what, like there
was definitely I was a kid who was like I
read when I eat, so I'm just like chugging down

(58:39):
cereal and sometimes reading a walkthrough, just.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Like I've done that before.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
I would say to me, that's the equivalent of, well,
if you hear the director talk about the movie outside
the movie, then you'll understand the movie.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Well, and then yeah, I see. I feel differently now
in this time where uh guides walkthroughs are a given
part of the experience of video games. Lots of video games.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
It's gone too far now. Most games have like a
yellow line that's like walk on this line, I mean.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
Right, And I think that this game is a bit
of a gamble on that continuum that for the most part, works,
but it does get it does get a little challenging
at times. I think we're at a point though, where
whatever we have left to say, we should say it
on the other side of a break, don't you agree, Mike. Yeah, Okay,
let's take a quick diversion here and then we'll warp
back to the dark world for our final conversation about

(59:33):
keeping careful. It's dangerous to go alone. Zelda is your
and we're back.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
This is still one of the leadership ship heads Danielle, Michael
and Adam wrapping it up and wrapping it out, deciding
whether link to the past makes it onto our celestial
hard drive. Can I get a refresher Adam on what's
on the games we have on here.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
That has made it?

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Yeah, I know, Breath of the Wild, All Korea, Trina,
and that's All Awakening, did not know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
I think I'll go last for suspect you. I love,
I love what you're doing that because I think that's
more fun for our podcast. But let's pass our final checkpoint. Danielle,
you go first.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I think that not only in terms of obviously nostalgia,
which is completely there, and some of the facts that
I talked about about like gameplay and the reasons why
people love it. I think this is an important game
that goes up there, not just because of how much
fun people have while they play it, but because of

(01:00:50):
it it is there is a history there. Like we
we've been talking about how this game is one of
those ones where if you go back and you play it,
you're like if you've never played it before, but it
was so much of a cornerstone and changed the way
a lot of games were back during its time, Like

(01:01:13):
that makes it important, even if it's like I didn't
really dig it, like playing it, it wasn't really for me.
There's a lot of games that count like that for
me where I'm like, okay, but Contra wasn't really for me.
But I get why that would be up there, and
this is one of those ones where it's like I
and personal feelings included. It's just it's so much fun.

(01:01:35):
It's easily replayable. You can put that game in anyone's
hands as long as you trust them to hold things
in their hands, and they could get through that and
have a really fun time. And even if it's frustrating,
even if you've got to finish some stuff for them.
They'll really enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
The legend of Zelda series is a seminal series indo
gaming period, and this is the one where it really
became or started to become what it was going to be,
and it set the standard for what it was going
to be and then many things. You can see the
influences both before and after, and it really did change gaming.
And I think that that's important enough to put that

(01:02:17):
up on the shelf.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Great points. UH. For my part, I think I have
two criteria when I think about keeping an older game.
It's historical significance and is it still replayable? Those those
are the two things, Like is it still fun to play?

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Oh, that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
If it's not fun to play anymore, it better be
real significant, you know what I mean? Like it better
be like transcendently significant. I would say this on both
those criteria completely belongs on the hard drive. I think
linked to the past is the thing we should keep
about two D Zelda, and I think two D Zelda
inspired a mountain of games, uh, and the mechanic have

(01:03:00):
been adopted into three D. Zelda's into three D games
that you've seen a million times. Zelda's one of the
most important franchises in video games, and this is one
of their best entries. We should keep it. Let's say
you swim O.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
I have three criteria. I judge old games on and
I'm not trying to say Adam does it just because
he didn't mention it, but I don't think he does.
Actually take the third one into counter I don't know
to what degree, but I definitely do, just because we
all go around the world projecting our own personalities on
the people around us, and I'm very sensitive, so I'm

(01:03:38):
always worried about other people being sensitive. So my three
criteria are the first two he said, plus will it
hurt Adam Steel? And I will say the third one
is weighing heavily in my decision to keep the game.
Wow really yeah, Well because it would like I just
can't do that. You could. I don't know that just
seems like it would fuck you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:00):
Keep the you should delete this if you think it
doesn't deserve it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
I also I also grant no, because I don't think
I grant I think a two D Zelda is such
so historically significant and the flow of action and RPG
inventions that we have to keep a two d Zelda.
I don't think I'll encounter one I like better than this,

(01:04:24):
even though I don't like this much, So I think
this would be the emblematic one. Also my understanding from
people who do love Zelda games, and I do from
Okarina forward, I don't like the two season, it seems,
but people that love two d Zelda, this is the
one I think like this would be the one to
keep that's most emblefical. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, I
so it's not just the third factor.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
But it's sweet of you to say, and I love
you too, I would say, having just replayed the original
legend of Zelda, which maybe we'll cover some day, it's
a lot harder to play. This game is a lot
easier to play in a way that isn't is good
for video games and good for gamers, you know, Like
I don't think being hard to play is always bad,

(01:05:06):
but it's not good in that case compared to this game.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
So also, I don't want to listeners thinking I make
decisions frivolously or emotionally. So I said the thing about
historical significance, which is true. I wouldn't keep it if
I thought it was unimportant and.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
I think you would delete this game if you didn't
think it was important. I think you would one hundred
percent would do it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
It's it's for sure important, and I see that that's
a part of it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
Also note that brings us to fifty games on the
sub hard drives half or half empty, and three of
those are half lives, so we're gonna have to fix.
I mean, and three of them are Zelda's that's probably
correct though, And I believe three of them are Marios
at least two, yeah, I can. And one of them

(01:05:52):
is Stardu Valley, which is.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Psychots that's on there.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Oh, I'm trying to I'm looking at I'm just like,
what's the weirdest because for a long time, forget for
Ben's City, but I'm like, what's the outlier that I'm like,
that's weird that that's on there. I guess Deef zero
because you snuck that in.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
You can always just you can always take it off
in a hard drive episode. You can always do that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
Yeah, we will do We will do a hard drive
clean up episodes. I'll call my shot. Now I'm trying
to bring Sushima back.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
I don't know what's a good conversation. I could see that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Forelle, thank you so.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Much for joining us on this podcast. You were wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Thank you, thank you so much. I never get to
you know, I used to be the assistant manager of
selling video games a million years ago, and I never
get to really talk about video games anymore because everyone's like,
make fun of movies or make fun of wrestling, and
I'm like, I will, but I never get to talk
about games anymore. This is really fun. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Well, we'd love to have you back. Is there any
place that we can find your work to celebrate the
person that is you?

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
Oh? So, anything new that I have coming out you
can find. I'll plug it on Twitter at Daniel Radford.
But go check out the honest trailers I help write those.
We are still allowed to do that. We are not WJA,
so I am still allowed to do that, and they
haven't called for that to do shutdown. It's not a
strut company. Please please don't mean to me. I have

(01:07:19):
to figure it, but I'm allowed or I would promise.
And what else? If you like any of me doing
that tabletop stuff, I am still you can find that
everywhere I've done a star trek one I've been. I've
done some stuff with D twenty. You can find those.
If you like comic books, I wrote an issue of

(01:07:40):
in a Gretsco comic that you can go find. I
haven't written video games yet, but.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
It's coming. The day is coming coming. Love it. You
can find extra podcasts with Mike and I on the
Patreon that we actively update on the regular. It's patreon
dot com forward slash small Beans. There you will find
podcasts we make about every topic you can imagine, movies,
other takes on movies. You hat a third view on movies,

(01:08:08):
Multi curse shows too. We do stuff on the art
of directing, stuff on the experience of depression, friendship, and
we're even collecting money for a movie right now because
Mike and his a longtime collaborator and partner Abe are

(01:08:29):
making a fantastic indie feature film called Papa Bear. Michael,
let you say more about that if you want, Yeah,
if I may. We made one movie before.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
If you want to see how we do it, It's
called Kill Me Now. It starts Beck Bennett and Kyle
Mooney of SNL fame. You can look that up on
YouTube and just watch it for free if you want
just as a sample. If you know us from before
this podcast and you didn't just come in through the
gaming door, it's probably because of our work at Cracked.
We ran the video department there, so you can see
our work there. We did some sketches that I would

(01:08:59):
call movie quality for sure. And so now we're making
our second movie we have I'm just trying to say, like,
we're more serious than most people who say.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Hey, we're making a feature film.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
That's right, and we have done it before once and
we want to do it again. And we have a
bunch of money already in the bank, but there's a
crowdfunding portion that we need to bridge the gap. So yeah,
I hope make our dreams come true. But it's also
going to be a good movie. Like I can confidently
say that it's loosely based on the true story of
when my dad came out as a gay furry when
I was seventeen. It's poignant, hilarious, family coming of age,

(01:09:37):
sex comedy drama, and go check it out. You can
learn everything you need to know over at seed and
spark dot com, slash fund slash Papa hyphen Bear.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
It's a good script. I've read it several times and thanks.
It's worth it's worth making. Yeah, you can do. We're
totally transparent.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
You can look at our business plan, you can see
how much money is in play, you can read the
script whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
It's all over it. That's all the game that's fit
to criticize today. So uh, farewell, ship Head. See you
in the dark side. On our next episode of One.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Joshipion.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Just jus tell you, just stage Joe is my name.
No one else is the same.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
In jo

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Us spect you just stage Jones my name, no one
else is the same Jones