The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - With Joe Sommer - Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
What's up everybody, Welcome back to The Neighborhood
and thank you for spending partof your day with us today.
If you're a returning listener,thank you and welcome back, and
if this happens to be yourfirst episode, thank you and
welcome to the show.
On this episode, we're talkingabout the Legend of Zelda,
Breath of the Wild.
Welcome to the podcast wheretwo longtime friends, and

(00:53):
sometimes a guest, talk abouttheir favorite games from the
perspective of an average player.
My name is Andrew Kimball andI'm Dylan Ren and we are your
friendly neighborhood gamers.

(01:23):
The Legend of Zelda.
Breath of the Wild is anaction-adventure game developed
by Nintendo EPD for the NintendoSwitch and the Wii U.
Set at the end of the Zeldatimeline, the player controls an
amnesiac link as he sets out tosave Princess Zelda and prevent
Calamity Ganon from furtherdestroying Hyrule.
Players explore the open worldof Hyrule while they collect
items and complete objectivessuch as puzzles or side quests.

(01:46):
Breath of the Wild's world isunstructured and encourages
exploration and experimentation.
The story can be completed in anonlinear fashion.
Critics praised its open-endedgameplay, open world design and
attention to detail, though somecriticized its technical
performance.
It is the best-selling Zeldagame and one of the best-selling
video games of all time, with30.69 million copies sold by

(02:11):
2022.
We'll see how tears of thekingdom stacks up.
Breath of the Wild isconsidered one of the greatest
video games of all time.
Journalists described it as alandmark in open world design
for its emphasis onexperimentation, physics-based
sandbox and emergent gameplay.
Numerous developers citedBreath of the Wild as
inspiration and it is a popularpoint of comparison among open

(02:32):
world games.
Do you agree with that, joe?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, every single word of that.
Uh, you, i'm back.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, welcome back to the show and figure we'll get
your voice on here as we getinto this episode.
as the people are aware, thereare three people talking about
the game this week.
but yeah, you agree with that.
Yeah, you agree with every wordPretty much.
yeah, i'm excited to get intoit then because we'll see how
Dylan feels, if he agrees withevery word or not.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
You know, we'll see.
Gonna play the contrarian onthis one.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'll say this is why I'm on this one Back up.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, andrew couldn't take me by himself.
This is a classic.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Joe needs to tell Dylan he's wrong.
I'm sure it will come out.
Get back to the original bit.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
For this episode.
as we move through thisconversation, we're just going
to speak openly and freely aboutthis game.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
The story is Contrary to what we normally do Yeah,
typically we Typically Andrew'sholding me back.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Typically, we break it up and we try to save
spoilers for the back half ofthe game.
The story of this game ispretty basic.
There are a few little twistswhen compared to how Zelda games
are traditionally structuredand what happens in the story.
The story of this one is alittle bit darker in tone and

(03:56):
more melancholy.
But yeah, we're just going totalk about everything at once.
We're not going to segment thisconversation.
So consider this your spoilerwarning if you have not played
the game and don't want to havethe 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.

(04:16):
Joe, let's start with you.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Oh geez, I wasn't prepped for this.
It's been a real long timesince I played it, Yeah exactly.
I want to say I played itpretty immediately after it came
out, but that was like four orfive years ago at this point.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
Wait, did it come out ?
It came out in 2017.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
Okay, so it would have taken me maybe a year then
to get to it.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I was going to say I think you had played it
relatively recently when werecorded our level playing field
episode about it, which wouldhave been Yeah in 2017, i was
still in college and I didn'tplay it until after college.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, but I also wasn't super heavily spoiled on
it, so it was a relatively blindexperience, which I think
largely.
It's easy to go that way intoBreath of the Wild because it is
such an open game that youmight see little bits of
gameplay here and there or evenget some specific spoilers.

(05:17):
That's really not going to tellyou how the game is going to be
for you, because it's veryspecific to how you approach
things.
Yeah, but I played it all theway through pretty normal
completion, didn't go anythingcrazy completionist and try to
skip anything.
I did the DLC where you get thebike, which is a little

(05:42):
unfortunate that that came later, because the bike is pretty
cool.
It's just, by the time you getit, you kind of don't need it.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, i don't think I ever played with the bike
because I never went back to theDLCs.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, the DLC.
There's just like one more kindof dungeon that you do and then
you do like a little combatgauntlet.
I think the lore tie-in is thatit'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 totallyweird to have a dirt bike as

(06:15):
your reward from these likeancient sages, but like it was
fun to like just hop on and zoomaround.
It's kind of like the mastersword And then like it.
I think it had like a certainamount of time it could be out
and then it went away.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Not quite as tonally weird now that we have Tears of
the Kingdom.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
No, not yet, Now that they've, like, really
established that apparently theancient sages had like flame
thowers and rocket launchersit's like okay, it makes more
sense why that was that way.
And I also did try the likemaster ascend through all 50
levels and I kept getting stuckon like level 40.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
And that was like a was that a combat thing?

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, you spawned in withnothing and you could like pick
stuff up on each level And youhad to beat every monster and
you would go like up and up andup and it would get
progressively harder And then Ithink if you beat it, you would
get like a master sword thatdidn't have to recharge or
something like that.
Nice, i never tried to playlike the main game on their like

(07:18):
ultra hard mode where theyplace a Lionel in the starting
zone.
Yeah, the master mode.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Yeah Yeah.
So listening to you talk I cankind of see like talking about
that combat gauntlet They kindof do.
They kind of incorporated thatinto the sequel a little bit
with some of the shrines.
Which leads me into myexperience with this game, which
was I played it like a yearafter it came out and had a

(07:46):
great time with it, also justkind of did the basic play
through, beat it.
I didn't really like lookingany guides, i didn't try to
collect everything and collectall the gear, the outfits,
whatever.
I just played it until I began.
But I'm currently I meant tolook at my time, but it's got to
be quite a bit of hours intoTears of the Kingdom.
So I'm going to do my best totry to look at Breath of the

(08:08):
Wild isolated from that.
But it's going to be a littlebit challenging because I'm like
my most fresh Zelda experienceis Tears of the Kingdom.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, It's hard to ensure that the memories you're
having of Breath of the Wildaren't things you did in Tears
of the Kingdom.
Yeah, because they're very easyto trick yourself into thinking
you're remembering one but it'sthe other.
Yeah, because it's just like astep.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
It's definitely a sequel.
It's like they took anotherstep in that world.
It's the mechanically verydifferent, but vibes and what
you're doing pretty similar.
So, dylan, you played Breath ofthe Wild most recently.
Yeah, and also I meant to askyou this, joe, but probably have
the least attachment to theseries.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, before this, the only Zelda game I had ever
beaten was Twilight Princess,and I had really only ever
played Twilight Princess and theboat.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Wind Waker.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Wind Waker And I didn't really care for Wind
Waker much And I've very brieflydabbled in like Ocarina of Time
but like I wasn't playing them.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
I think Twilight.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
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 kindof like went back to it after
the fact, like Wind Waker, ithink I tried to play after
Twilight Princess, but I wasjust not vibing with it at all.
Very different vibe.
And so for me, i think I got Iknow I got Zelda when I got my

(09:51):
Switch, which I think was like2018, 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 anew console, new bunch of new
games.
I found one that like I stuckwith and played and it wasn't

(10:12):
Zelda.
And then I've tried to likekind of go back to it a couple
of times over the years And I'vejust kind of like bounced off,
whether it's some other game hascome out or something else that
I've been playing around thesame time has just grabbed me
more than Zelda has or just likehitting points where I'm
frustrated at Breath of the WildAnd so I'm just like I'm going

(10:32):
to go play something elseinstead.
But in the lead up to Tears ofthe Kingdom, i was watching you
know some of the trailers or youknow people talking about it
preview events and kind of likegetting 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, havingnever beaten Breath of the Wild
, because it is like Tears ofthe Kingdom is an iterative

(10:54):
sequel, so like if I can't forcemyself to get through Breath of
the Wild, then like paying $70for more of the same is not a
good good thing, like not a goodsound, like in person.
I could just put that $70towards something else.
But then also, you know it, toan extent it feels a little bit

(11:17):
like gaming homework.
This is a game that pretty mucheverybody universally is like,
yeah, you should play it, likeyou should try it, you should,
like it's really good.
And so I was like, you know, ijust 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 youknow it's been what?

(11:40):
six years or so since the gamehas come out, so there have been
things that have progressed.
I also am playing it in like apost Elden Ring World for me,
which I much preferred overBreath of the Wild personally.
But yeah, i mean like it's.
I didn't really do any of theDLC, i didn't do a completionist
run of the game.

(12:01):
I kind of like hit a pointwhere I had done sort of the
four big objectives and gottenthe sword, and so it was just
kind of like, well, let me justlike mess around in like the
Hyrule Castle area, and I justkind of went through to the end
of the game at that point.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
So didn't you do the same thing, Joe, Where you just
like ended up there I feel likeI remember you talking about
this where you were like I justended up in the castle and just
kept going And before I knew itI had beat Ganon.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
So I guess, Yeah, i started poking around the castle
to like figure out that Youknow.
It's like okay, i'm not goingto be able to just walk in and
fight Ganon, like that.
You could see the castle wasbig and like let's figure out
the past again And it is likehow long it'll take to get to
him.
And then, as I was goingthrough, i just walked into a

(12:50):
room and like there was Ganonand like Think I one shot that
fight.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, cuz you have the divine beasts, it's pretty
yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
I.
I was getting close to the endof the game, anyways, and then
once I had beat Ganon, it waslike well, i guess I don't
actually want to go and do allthat side stuff.
No, yeah that's it.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
I rolled credits.
I have that issue with gamestoo.
I mean, we were talking aboutthis last night where once I
roll credits and they dump meback in the world, i'm kind of
like, well, what's my motivation?
Yeah, like I did the thing.
So, yeah, this Zelda game theythey took they took the vibes
and they took The charm andeverything from the past games,

(13:32):
but then they just completelyshook up the gameplay.
So this was the first one thatwas open world The.
The way that you just can, assoon as you leave the tutorial
area, the great plateau, you cantheoretically just go fight
Ganon if you want to, and allyou're doing is Is getting
stronger before you do that.
That was all verynon-traditional.

(13:53):
The way that you could approachany of the divine beasts and
any of the kind of sidecharacters and side regions in
any order, that was all very Newand fresh for the series and
kind of for gaming at the time.
This there wasn't much elseLike this in the open world
video game genre.

(14:14):
I don't know if any other gamewas doing anything like this at
that time.
So I think that's probably agood 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 (14:29):
It was.
It was definitely what theseries needed, because Zelda was
really kind of like Tanking inquality.
You watch your mouth.
In the like like Wind Waker wasa good peak for um.
Twilight Princess was Decent,like it was a pretty good Zelda
game, but it also I think therewas very like Like I think the

(14:53):
darker tone didn't vibe with alot of people.
Yeah and then what was the oneskyward sword like a pair and
Lee was just really not Great,but we did not help that.
Yeah, i never got a chance toplay it, but from all reports it
really kind of doubled down onwhat Twilight Princess did,

(15:14):
which is present this verylinear Run from Dungeons,
dungeon and then begin, and thenyou're done.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Game well skyward sword was.
It suffered from a lot ofrepetition.
You went back to the same kindof three areas But they would
change as you progress throughthe game and it was too long,
too bloated and then it sufferedfrom motion controls.
The actual core world and Zeldastory of it was back really
good And it has some of the bestmusic in the series in my

(15:42):
opinion.
But yeah, the we justTechnically and then the motion
controls and everything.
But it had a lot of the Prec.
Like you could see some of theBreath of the Wild ideas in
there, because you could jumpout of the sky, fly and like
land anywhere in the world thatyou wanted to, and then you had
a stamina meter That would allowyou to do different things, but

(16:03):
you couldn't upgrade it or doanything with it.
So there were some ideas therethat they took and then
completely fleshed out and madelike core elements of Breath of
the Wild.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Yeah, i was Not.
I'm thinking about it.
It's the the formula thatthey've been using for their
handheld titles, but that wasn'treally translating super well
into the console, like three,you know, 3d full featured title
market.
And granted, i've playedTwilight Princess several times
now, but Going back to my mostrecent playthrough, i was

(16:36):
definitely points where I wasjust kind of bored.
Especially it was like anythingthat wasn't dungeon content
tended to feel like filler.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
It wasn't.
It wasn't terribly good content, like running from place to
place And so for I think Breathof the Wild almost said here's
the kingdom.
For Breath of the Wild tocompletely like turn on its head
, i think was kind of What theseries needed, because I really
returned you to the, the senseof like actually Exploring a

(17:09):
world.
And I think back to like thatthe first Zelda I played, which
was Oracle of Ages, it was aGameboy Color exclusive.
It was like okay, here you wakeup, your link, here's Something
bad happens.
Okay, now go do eight dungeonsto collect the eight random
spheres and then You can, youknow, go and fight the the big

(17:32):
boss.
But what made it cool as a kidand what was interesting was you
could just kind of wanderaround the map and you could
find NPCs and talk to them andlike See what's up.
And then you know you wouldfind parts of the map you
couldn't quite get to yet.
I mean you get nine in adungeon and you're like, oh, now
I can go there, now I can goand explore this thing and
that's cool.
And so it Established thatformula that feels comfy.

(17:55):
And then Twilight Princess and,i'm assuming, skyward, sort of
something similar Where it'slike, okay, here's the eight
dungeon model, excepts, we'rereally gonna cut back on the
overworld Exploration, likeTwilight Princess has an
overworld But you're really notsupposed to do much in it except
go to the next dungeon.

(18:15):
There's not really anencouragement to go and wander
around the map And that act.
In Twilight Princess They evenwill just remove parts of the
map until you get to the storybeat that unlocks that part of
the map Which made the game feelvery like linear and
constrained, even though it'ssort of the same formula.
And then breath of the wildkind of Reopen that back up.

(18:38):
And they did.
They dropped the like eightdungeon model and we can Discuss
if that was a good or a badidea there, because I think the
weakest part of breath of thewild 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 doanything Which feels the truest

(18:59):
to the game's spirit, which isjust, and which is just that
you're just a, an adventurer,like Exploring yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Well, i think the I've not played a lot of the
earlier games But like myunderstanding of them was it's
kind of a lot about Exploration,but obviously limited by the
hardware that it was on at thetime.
You know like you couldn'tnecessarily easily do a massive
like open world explorationthing on the n64 or the Like NES

(19:30):
, snes, that sort of thing, andso when they start hitting like
Gamecube era and stuff and it'sNot really letting you explore
that much, i do think the returnto form Almost of breath of the
wild, is like no, we are kindof making this way more about
the exploration piece again.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, and the original games were all about
you couldn't, you couldn't docertain things or go to certain
places till you had a certainitem, whereas with breath of the
wild they kind of just kit youout in the beginning and, yeah,
you use that through the wholegame to just solve a variety of
different kind of puzzles,either in the dungeons or in the
world, or the shrines, whateverthe mini even, like finding the

(20:08):
Koroks and stuff Everything iskind of a little bit of a puzzle
.
But when you look back andespecially, i think, for you,
dylan, you went back to thisgame after, like you said,
playing Elden Ring, yeah, butalso after playing like
Assassin's Creed Origins, which,yeah, assassin's Creed Origins
came out and said, hey, you cango to that mountain that you can
see in the distance, and thatwas all well, up here mid.

(20:31):
That was all inspired.
By breath of the wild.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, yeah, like I have played a lot of games that
were Inspired by breath of thewild, and so it's always kind of
you know, it's, i think, kindof a crapshoot in those
situations when you go back andyou play a game that's been
inspired, like that inspiredother games, it's kind of like
you're you're going back andplaying almost the prototype of

(20:54):
a lot of those ideas that havesince been iterated on and Sort
of evolved or or we're just putinto like environments and
worlds, that in game systemsthat you prefer.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Like, yeah, if the whimsy and silliness and
whatever of Zelda isn't yournecessary vibe at this point,
you have like, yeah, yourAssassin's Creed version, your
yeah, from software version.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah and like it.
There's definitely, you know,some games that just pull things
from Breath of the Wild justbecause it was popular and some
exec told them like you need toput this in your game because
people like this and they Didn'treally like take the lessons of
breath of the wild and do ityeah and then there have been
other games since then that youknow have Understood the

(21:40):
assignment basically and arelike, hey, people liked breath
of the wild because of thesethings.
How can we capture that samefeeling, you know?
and it's not.
I definitely think breath ofthe wild holds up, you know,
like it's Going back and playingit, even if it's like a what?
six, seven year old game atthis point was not.
It didn't feel like I wasplaying something from ancient

(22:01):
history or that like didn't holdup, that didn't scale, you know
, like it number one.
I was impressed that some ofthe stuff that they were doing
was stuff they could do on aswitch.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Six years ago.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
You know like we tell you get to the sequel, yeah,
but also just like the, a lot ofthose ideas are things that,
like, you still see in gamestoday, you know, and so it.
I don't think it was.
It's not, i guess, a case whereit's like Oh, i can understand
how this inspired a lot of games, but I much prefer those games.

(22:37):
It is, i think, much more downto like the personal preference
versus like.
Old game is old and the newstuff just does it better
because it's newer.
You know, it's still one that Iwell, i don't know that I'd say
, pick this one up anymore whenyou're getting a switch.
You may just pick up tears ofthe kingdom, i don't know.
You guys can maybe say moreabout that later, but I mean,

(22:59):
neither is ever gonna go on sale, so they're gonna be like 60
and 70 dollars for the rest oftime you might get like five
dollars off every now and then,maybe, yeah, maybe all ten.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Whoa so we talked about like the nonlinear
structure that kind of feedsinto the storytelling as well.
What did you guys think of thethe Zelda story and the Way it's
presented?

Speaker 2 (23:25):
so you guys have clearly played more.
Zelda than I have was it notjust like Basically the the same
core story of almost everyZelda game, with obviously like
slightly, very slight variations?
like in Twilight Princessyou're a wolf and then you know,
wind Waker, you have a boatthat talks and the world is fly,

(23:45):
but like, at its core It wasbasically like to me, ganon's
back, you got to go help Zelda.
To do that, you got to go makefriends with like these four
different like groups, likeother races in Hyrule.
You know, in older games youdid their dungeons.
Now you're doing like thedivine, the divine beasts part

(24:06):
of it, but like and then onceyou do that, you go fight Ganon
and then you're done.
I mean like I know thattechnically they Shook up the
formula because you can ignoreall of the divine beasts part
and just go fight Ganon and bedone in like 30 minutes Or
whatever.
But I don't know like the story.
Personally, for me the storywas a very big like.
I don't think it was bad, butit didn't strike me as like, oh,

(24:29):
this is so different, it'ssound.
It kind of just was like thisis the same story But you've
like put a different coat ofpaint on it.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, i think it was more interesting in how it was
remixed, yeah, and presented inthe fact that you Finally have
some voice acting in this game.
And then a lot of Zelda gamesdeal with time and either time
travel or time in manipulationor whatever.
This one dealt with time andthe fact that link had just been

(24:56):
Sleeping for a hundred years,yeah, and so you were dealing
with him seeing how the worldhad changed because he failed,
and then Going back and seeingwhat happened to the people that
you left behind and then kindof helping them find closure.
Ultimately, yeah, the grandstory It's still yeah save

(25:17):
princess, defeat Ganon.
But it was just remixed likeeverything else, like in
traditional Zelda.
A lot of times It's there'sthis evil, and you don't know
that you're a swordsman or ahero, and then it kind of gets
bestowed upon you And then itturns out oh, the evil is
Ganondorf, who saw that coming,and then Ganondorf snatches your

(25:37):
friend, who happens to be thePrincess.
This game I feel like just kindof laid it all out Immediately
is like hey, yeah, it's Ganon,you're the hero, zelda is the
princess, she's using her powerto contain him.
Like it was like everythingthat normally happens in a Zelda
game had already happened andThen you failed and then in a
last ditch, as effort, zeldalocked you away And now you're

(25:59):
coming back after all that hadhappened, i guess yeah and and
like don't get me wrong, I meanit was an interesting like just
the environmental storytellingand just like post-apocalyptic
fantasy stuff was kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
But yeah, I guess I was looking at it and I was like
I mean, this is not.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Something else.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
I well, some of the people that I've heard talk
about this just on, like otherpodcasts and stuff, are talking
about how Emotionally chargedthe 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 aprincess and fighting off evil,
like I mean, i'm not saying thatthat can't do that for you, but
and to be fair, i didn'tcollect all of the memories

(26:41):
because that was tedious.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, just look that up.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yeah, they do a lot better job with that in the in
the sequel and like I mean likethere was definitely like
moments of like, oh man, likethat little fish lady.
That's the stuff that I loveZelda, or whatever, or loves
Link Yeah, that's the stuff.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
I think that's more like emotional is the fact that
you did fail and now everybodythat you knew is dead, or Or
really?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
old because it's been a hundred years.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
I think that when I say I describe the story as
melancholy and I think that'swhy it's just because of the
like big time jump where link islike out of place with the
people that he knew and soyou're going back and Everything
that happened is pretty sadbecause you failed in Ganon one,
essentially.
But I don't think that the corelike link, ganon, yeah, zelda

(27:29):
story is much different or verylike emotionally charged or sad.
Link and Zelda's Relationshipis a little bit different in
this but it's different and likeall then they put a little spin
on it.
But I think it's more about thelike, the setting, the time and
the like, the apocalypticnature of it that makes it more
melancholy.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, we need a real fans answer cuz Dylan no, i
wouldn't even claim to be aZelda fan.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
Define nuance.
Dylan hasn't even played alllike 30 something Zelda games.
What do you do on this?

Speaker 2 (28:04):
podcast.
Well, i only have to play likethrough one of the three
timelines.
Right, that's how it works, ordo they all converge again?
I?

Speaker 3 (28:11):
forget.
I don't keep as much track of Imean, i know that it exists, but
breath of the wild also kind ofthrows a weird Rengen to it all
early.
All that that timeline reallydoes is it just lays out how the
games are connected.
Yeah, because the gamesotherwise have no, no connection

(28:31):
between them, other than peoplelearn.
It's like, oh, ganon keepscoming back, and then finally
they laid out this timeline oflike here's the setup for each
of these Universes and and allthat stuff that this is it that
the main difference, like Andrewsaid, is that like there's
actual voice acting in, like cutscenes, yeah, which some of the
games have had, cut scenes, butnot really voice acting,

(28:54):
certainly not to the level thatBreath of the Wild had, and that
also this stuff.
Like it starts out and youfailed Normally and every Zelda
game link is just some randomguy.
He mean, he's still like chosenby the triforce, but you just
start out as some random guy andyou like stumble into the
adventure, yeah, but breath ofthe wild, you, the adventure

(29:15):
already happened and you'recoming into the aftermath of
that and you like already knewpeople and now You're
discovering, like how you knewthem and then all the memories
with the Zelda and link actuallylike Giving the two of them
character development, whichagain doesn't really happen,
even though it's it's the legendof Zelda.
Zelda herself is only in likewell, i think technically she's

(29:38):
in every game, at least a littlebit.
But there are some games wherethe point of the game is not
Rescuing Zelda and stoppingGanon.
There's like in the handheldones.
Often the villain is just likesome, some one-off villain And
you're like just I mean, it'sthe 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

(30:02):
her a Whole lot, she's justthere exception of Skyward Sword
and and Wind Waker, probablybecause in those games Zelda's
like Link's best friend.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Well, she's the pirate.
Yeah, it's a little differentthan Wind Waker.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
She's a character throughout, but yeah.
Um, the rest of the bottle isvery different, and that they
actually established the dynamicup front that like, oh yeah,
link and Zelda are like, theyknow each other and the
champions, like the whole group,yeah.
Link.
Yeah, link's like beenrecruited to like Watch Zelda
and so they actually have like adynamic, which is weird,

(30:37):
because Link doesn't talk, yeah,but they, they still do, and so
there was some actual storythere to Explore, although it's
still kind of a, i would say, asecondary, yeah, concern, just
because so much of the gameplayis like not Story driven and
even in the previous Zelda's,even like Twilight Princess is a

(30:59):
very heavily story driven game,but it is still kind of like
secondary to the gameplay.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, well, it's one of those things too where it's
like I know this is a Nintendogame which is clearly designed
for, like, children as well Notnot to the same level that maybe
like a Pokemon is.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
No, but it's.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
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 (31:27):
So E 10 for the new one.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Okay, so Breath of the Wild is probably similar, so
yeah, they're expecting youknow, like preteens and up, to
be able to follow the story.
Yeah, yeah, and it is.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I will say that's part of the appeal of these
games, yeah Is that most of usplayed it when we were a kid And
so the like you know, classic,like grab your sword and go
rescue the princess story, likeappeals.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
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 gameLike, oh, now you can play that.
Yeah, isn't that cool.
Which, i wonder if that'ssomething that'll I don't want
to like completely sidebar, but,like kids today, if that's
something that will still likeresonate with them.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
There's always something cool about finding a
sword and swinging it.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
I feel like Yeah, i was just.
I was thinking like likewatching like your kid and like
her options for, and like she'sgoing up in a world of
entertainment where, like she,gets a lot more choice.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
What's what's out there, whereas when we were kids
, you know, it was very muchlike you.
Whatever like VHS you had, yeah, was like your thing and you
would just watch that over andover.
And granted, i think kids todaywill still pick their favorite
thing and like watch it over andover.
But because of the way they canmake more niche stuff, even if

(32:50):
it's targeted at kids, if, ifthat concept of like the you
know, a game based on thatclassic story, will appeal as
much.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, i think it probably still will, because
like in a sense, it's still kindof like almost that sort of
heroes journey, archetype,situation Classic for a reason.
Yeah, and so you know, like Ido agree, i think today's kids
definitely have way more optionseasily accessible to them.
You know whether it's they.

(33:21):
Pick up their sword and go savethe world.
They pick up their lightsaberand 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'sstill 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 twobiggest ones I can really think

(33:43):
of were like side of the ringsor Star Wars, were kind of like
the two big ones.
And, like you know, because wewere growing up in a time before
superhero movies were reallylike a thing Spider-Man was kind
of it that we had.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Yeah definitely before they were good.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Yeah, i guess I could see.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Well, Spider-Man 2 is a masterpiece.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, i'm like those.
That was kind of the turningpoint.
Yeah, i saw a commercial pop up.
I was looking at some streamingservice to completely sidetrack
us for Howard the Duck, likethey made a Howard the Duck
movie.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Like back in the day.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, terrible looking I'm shocked.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
George Lucas made it, Or Peter Jackson one of the two
of them.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
Really.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, it was like someone big.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
So is there anything else you guys want to say about
kind of the story or storystructure?
Because I think we'll afterthat we'll open it up to just a
big old gameplay conversationwhere we talk about puzzles,
dungeons, combat everything andkind of wrap it up with that.
So is there anything else storywise that you feel like we need
to mention?
I?

Speaker 3 (34:45):
don't think so.
I mean, it is a prettystraightforward story, all
things considered.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
It's just delivered in a straightforward manner.
From what we've gotten used to.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, so gameplay This is probably where it
definitely is where the moststicking points and any sort of
kind of criticism at the gamecomes from.
You mentioned dungeons earlier,joe.
That's something people bringup.
The lack of dungeons, thebreakable weapons, are divisive.

(35:18):
There's definitely loud peoplethat whine about them.
Whether or not there's a lot ofthem as hard to determine.
And then I know, dylan, you inparticular, we're not a huge fan
of just combat in general.
Yeah, no.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
No at all.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
But yeah.
So basically, the gist of thegameplay is you're exploring in
whichever way you want.
You're going to come acrosslike four main areas with
different races that have adifferent stick, and they're
going to have a problem with thedivine beast.
The divine beast were designedto fight Ganon, but they
malfunctioned.
The giant elephant is floodingthis place and the camel is

(35:56):
causing a dust storm, so yourjob is to go in and help them,
and so, as you're exploring,you're fighting enemies.
You're finding shrines, whichwere another way that they
incorporated more dungeon-esquepuzzles into the game, and your
reward for those were heartcontainers.
If you've got four of those,you could either get a boost to

(36:16):
your stamina or a boost to yourhearts, and so, yeah, you would
just kind of travel around and,as you came across these things,
do them in whatever order youfelt like doing, or the game
kind of pulled you.
There is a kind of golden paththat the game sort of subtly
kind of nudges you along which Ithink is the way I did it which

(36:38):
is where you end up going tolike the water first, and then
the Gorons, and then the birdpeople, and then Gerudo.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, you kind of make it counterclockwise.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
Right.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Circle of the map.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Which I've completely .
Just I'm playing Tears of theKingdom in some of like the most
non-traditional way.
I think I'm so curious to hearhow other people have played
that game.
But this one I followed whatwas kind of the guided path.
I feel like, especially when Iplayed this game I was less
comfortable with just going offand seeing what I could do, as
opposed to now where I'm like Iwonder if I could just go this

(37:12):
way and if I'll be able to do it.
And then I did it, whereas backthen it was like I kind of want
to follow, i want to see whatthe game was designed to play
like, and so I just kind offollowed where it guided me.
But they don't guide you withlike a waypoint or things like
that.
It's just more like subtle nodsor characters mentioning, hey,
this thing over here.
And so I'm like, oh, go thatway then.
Yeah, so we'll just kind ofdive in and as we get to things

(37:37):
we'll discuss them.
So what did you guys think justoverall about that gameplay
structure?

Speaker 2 (37:44):
I mean overall, I would say I liked it, but not as
much as I expected to Like onon paper, like the things that I
like about video games arethings that this video game does
some of the best in thebusiness at.
I love getting to explore invideo games.

(38:04):
This is a ton of exploring.
You know, I love sort of thefantasy vibes and the sort of
environmental storytelling andthis game does that very well.
I love the sort of puzzlesolving aspects and you know
there were a lot of those inthis game And then actually
playing the game.

(38:25):
I did not enjoy it as much as Ithought that I would And I think
a lot of that comes down to thecombat.
I was not, as Andrew mentionedearlier, I was not the biggest
fan of the combat system.
I don't think that it like atits core the combat system is
like OK, you have a sword and ashield, but also like half the

(38:46):
weapons you're going to be ableto find since everything breaks
are weapons that don't allow youto 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 butdoesn't for some reason.
But yeah, like, so you'reeither trying to like kind of
jump side to side, which usuallydoesn't work, or do like the

(39:12):
backflip at the right time toopen a window where you can jump
in and like get a flurry attackin, or something like that.
Or Perry, but the Perry alsowasn't super consistent.
I was never able to feel like Igot the timing down perfectly,
And that's coming from someonewho has played a bunch of like

(39:33):
from software games where the Ifeel like the Perry window is
probably much tighter and issomething that I have been able
to do.
So for me to be missing itconstantly in Breath of the Wild
, I'm like either I'm notunderstanding how this is
working or I need to get good,or just like it's not as

(39:53):
perfected as I would.
Essentially, I felt like thecombat was very basic but also
very frustrating.
Like you can lock on to enemies, but they throw groups of
enemies at you constantly And soit suffers from the same thing
I think some from software gamesdo.
When they throw just a group ofenemies at you is just it feels

(40:13):
unfair because there's not agreat way to target things
without locking on to them butalso locking on handicaps you so
brutally when there's like fiveenemies on screen because they
just surround you and beat thecrap out of you.
But then also, like I neverfelt like my weapons were doing

(40:33):
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 theworld and every enemy that I
came at like I loved theexploring part of it, but the
exploring part so often led toenemies that I then had to deal
with in a combat system that Idid not enjoy.

(40:56):
I got the backflip timing downbut then Link would do like a
flurry where he hit the thing 14times and it had like two
thirds of its health left Andit's like you know.
Ok, maybe I'm using the wrongweapons or whatever, but it's
like I'm using the weapons thatthese things are dropping.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
You know, i'm using the sticks and the clubs No.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
I mean, like you know , the three-forked boomerang
thing, like you know, goodweapons, weapons that were in
like the 40s or 50s, right upthere with the Master Sword.
It just never felt like theywere actually like doing good
damage to me personally And,like I said, so often, you just
find yourself in a group fightsituation which I never felt

(41:40):
like I would like it was good,like I always felt frustrated by
that The times.
I guess my experience withprevious Zelda games, though
limited, was always that combatwas 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 eyeor I've got to like wait until

(42:04):
the plant is like straight up sothat I can cut the neck off of
it or whatever, like cut thestem, and this always much, or
even just like some of the otherones, where it's like they make
an attack and then you circlearound back and you cut the like
armor off of them or somethinglike that's that, to me, was
always the Zelda combat.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
And this was much more just like hack and slash
dodge at the right time, do aflurry attack.
Dodge at the right time, do aflurry attack, dodge at the
right time, do a flurry attackAnd hopefully it's dead after
three flurry attacks.
But usually it's not And thatreally hampered the game play
for me, because so much of itthat I enjoyed just took me to a

(42:47):
boss fight.
That was a chore, or not even aboss fight, but just an enemy
fight.
That was a chore to me.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
How'd you feel about the guardians?

Speaker 2 (42:55):
The guardians sucked.
Like I said, i never felt goodabout the parry timing and like
I could get it maybe 50% of thetime, but the 50% of the time
you miss, even with like 14hearts or whatever it was, it's
still pretty much one shot you.
And you know, maybe I didn'tinvest the like 10,000 rupees.

(43:17):
I needed to upgrade my armor tolike tier four or whatever And
I didn't engage with like thecooking system super hardcore,
like I cooked a bunch of themeals that would give you like
six extra hearts or whatever youknow, because that seemed like
the most obvious And thenwhenever I needed to go
somewhere that was cold or hot,i would cook.

(43:38):
Whatever the thing is that givesyou like the heat resistance or
the cold resistance, but likethe guardians, always just like
there was a whole, like thewhole middle of the map to me
was pretty much just like whywould I bother exploring this?
Because not only is itfrustrating with the combat and

(43:58):
the guardians, but it's alsolike they will one shot you and
set me back to you know, thelast time it bothered saving.
You can manual save, thank God,but it's still kind of just one
of those things where it wasjust like really, come on.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I don't remember the saves being.
I don't remember how they werein Breath of the Wild And tears
of the kingdom.
I feel like it saves constantly, which is nice.
It's the same thing wherethere's big enemies wandering
out, no guardians though, whichis nice.
I never parried once in Breathof the Wild, Like I forgot you
could do it.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Yeah, for me it was.
what did you do for theguardians that I'd break their
legs?

Speaker 1 (44:32):
No, I waited till like closer to the end of the
game And then I would just Iwould shoot them in the eye,
because if you shoot them in theeye with an arrow it stuns them
, And then when they're downstunned I would break their legs
.
But it would.
You would have to like youcouldn't do that early on.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Yeah, because did you have to have, like the special
arrow or whatever?

Speaker 1 (44:52):
No, but but if you used their like ancient arrows
and ancient weapons and stuff,you did way more damage.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, because I was going to say I didn't mind the
guardians in the Ganon's Castlebecause it was constantly drip,
feeding you like the, theguardian arrows or whatever.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
And.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
I was like, oh, this is probably how yours, because I
found the guy who will sellthem to you, but that by that
point, like I would have farmedup and bought a bunch of those
arrows and actually exploredmore.
But I just kind of hopped in tosee if I could go through the
castle.
And then I did and I began andI was like, ok, fine, i guess
I'm done.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Yeah, i think the combat is is fine.
I agree with some of yourpoints.
I don't think it it bothered menearly as much as it did you,
but I do.
I like the kind of comparisonyou made to like older games
being more of a puzzle And thisone they tried to make it just
kind of more action combat,which I mean it being an open
world that you can approach infrom any direction.

(45:46):
they couldn't really like haveenemies that gate you or
anything like that, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
I don't know.
It seemed like they would scalewith me because eventually I
started seeing like the silverbokoblins or whatever that just
take a ton of damage.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
Yeah, the world had had some sort of scaling
property so that, as you poweredup, the monsters would somewhat
keep pace with you.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, like you could kill the red ones pretty easily
still, but it stopped spawningthe red ones and started
spawning like the blue and thegreen and the silver ones
instead, or the black ones, andit was just kind of like oh, so
you just made it like it waslike that Assassin's Creed game
that did it Odyssey, where, yeah, where it never felt like it
always was kind of equal withyou, which some people really

(46:31):
love But it also meant that youcould never go back to an early
area and just feel like you wereactually getting like kind of
like Dark Souls, where you runthrough Undead Burg for like the
first time and it's just kindof like really tough because
you're lower level and you havekind of crummy weapons that you
haven't upgraded and you'reunfamiliar with like the game.

(46:53):
And then you come back at alater time and like those things
can still mess you up, butyou've upgraded, you've leveled
up and also you're just betterat the game.
And I never hit that point inBreath of the Wild where combat
didn't feel like a slog anddidn't like it never felt like I
progressed any in the combat.
It always kind of felt like itwas right there with me, like
getting a really cool, likegetting the Master Sword or

(47:16):
whatever was cool, but then itdidn't feel like it did any more
than you know, like killing aLionel with that felt the exact
same as killing a Lionel withlike a Traveler's Sword earlier
on And like the first one youhave to kill up in the Zora
place.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
I don't know what I did differently than you, but I
do remember feeling stronger atthe end and I was upgrading my
armor and I was doing stuff likethat, but the weapons, i mean,
they just rotate in and out.
So yeah, i don't know if maybeI just vibed with it better, but
I still think that the combatis not.
It's not like S?
tier combat and it's notsomething I don't think it's

(47:53):
like the strongest point of thegame, but it definitely didn't
bother me as much as you.
What about you, joe?

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yeah, it's not the greatest combat ever, but it
didn't like super super botherme And it's a little repetitive,
Like you kind of tend to do thesame thing over again.
Which other Zeldas shook it upmore by having enemies countered
by specific gadgets, But thatworked because they could at any

(48:20):
point in the game know whatgadgets you had.
But this they obviously theycan't do that.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
There was another thing that Brother of the Wild
got criticized for is like lackof enemy.
variety is kind of the same.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
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 youcome across.
You can definitely just goaround 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 andit really feels this way in

(48:54):
terms of the game, it feels thisway in terms of the kingdom,
that they don't want you to dothe, the breath of the wild
equivalent of right bumper spamjust to to get through things.
They want you to consider whatyou have and to use your powers
to, you know, weaponize theenvironment against them to find

(49:17):
a way to pull them off, one ata time.
Do do anything else than justlike wander into them, mash your
quick attack and told her deadand yeah, and move on to the
next pack.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
And I think you are right.
I think that that was the ideain Breath of the Wild and I
don't think it was necessarilyexecuted, yeah, that well.
But in tears of the kingdom Ithink they found a really nice
balance.
You can tell that that was thegoal, but then they've.
I feel like they've gotten alot closer to that goal now.
And in Breath of the Wild, ithink, using your skills and

(49:47):
like your tools and like, oh, ihave electric arrows, i have
bomb or you know Fires, i havethese specific weapons or these
items that I could bring out inthis 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 upintentionally.
Most of the time it felt like,whereas in cheers of the kingdom

(50:08):
, i think it's a lot easier torealize you're in a fight and
then organically be like okay, ihave all this stuff around me,
what can I do with it here?

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Yeah, cuz it's like you know they there were
definitely camps that I would gothrough and it's like, okay,
here's some like explosivebarrels that are kind of set up
And maybe I can shoot an arrowat the ground to like get them
all to come over to it and seewhat's going on, and then I can
shoot the explosive barrel.
Or you know, like they're in abunch of tall grass, so maybe I
can set the grass on fire andjust have it like spread that

(50:38):
way or.
You know, here's a boulder or abeehive that I can like Like
utilize to my advantage orsomething.
But, like you said a lot oftimes, it didn't feel like It.
It almost felt like it was likeoh, you should just kind of
like sneak around this orwhatever for a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Their favorite part of Breath of the Wild was the,
the island out in the southeastcorner of the map, where, when
you swim out there, it took allof your stuff from you.
Yeah, and then you had to justgrab stuff off the island to
gather up whatever the item wasso you could Then like click,
get the reward.

(51:17):
Yeah, and people really likedthat because it did it forced
you to like get away from usingyour, your stash of OP weapons
or you use your old tricks.
It's like you have to actuallyinteract with the world and come
up with.
It's like it You can just tryto whittle these enemies down
one by one, but wouldn't it beeasier if you could just figure
out how to use the environmentto do that for you?

(51:39):
and people generally reallylike that.
Yeah, because it made them getoutside of that shell, whereas
in the main world, you're kindof used to the way video games
have conditioned you to play,which is just, oh, just run in
there and just whack them allBecause, yeah, they've, you've
been conditioned that like, ohand every video game, they want

(51:59):
you to feel OP and like you'rethe main character, so like,
we'll just let you kind ofmindlessly wait in there and
this Challenge that it was likeno, you're just, you are just a
guy, there's nothing like toocrazy about you.
And as time goes on you do getthe divine beast powers And I
think that's where you start tofeel like noticeably powerful.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
With, with the divine beast powers, you start to get
those like, oh, i can cheatdeath, 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 (52:34):
Yeah, and I do think that to an extent it almost
cheapened the final boss fightfor me a little bit, because
it's like Even at the end of thegame I don't know that I could
have taken a Lionel or two orlike a pack of six becovelins,
but I beat the crap out of Ganonin one try.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Yeah, cuz that, cuz it was more of a buzz.
Yeah, that got back to theclassic Zelda format, which is
just survive until you see Whatweek zone you have to target and
then hit it and then go yeah onhim and then just rinse and
repeat Yeah, whereas a Lioneldoesn't have a weak spot, you
have to actually just fight itin a one-on-one.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Yeah it kind of felt like well again, I should have
just like got a couple ofbodyguards or something and had
them in there with Them and thengonna go to the don anything
like so.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
What did you guys think about the breakable
weapons in general before wetransition into, like the puzzle
side of the gameplay?

Speaker 3 (53:34):
I think that it's the pin that holds the game
together Because, again, likevideo games have conditioned you
to kind of hoard stuff LikeI've.
Like I gravitate towardswanting to play RPGs on a harder
difficulty because then youactually have to Use the stuff
in Iraq with the systems.
If you play like fallout oneasy, you can, you'll just have

(53:57):
like 800 stim packs by the endof 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 thedrugs to like heal back up a
limb and deal with the downsides, actually interact with it And
breath the wild just kind ofdictates to everyone like you're
gonna interact with the weaponsystem.

(54:18):
You can't find your one thingand use that all the way up
until the end of the game.
You know you've got a scroungeand explore and I really like
that because it made me Actuallylike, 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 aswell use this weapon, because
I'm not, i can't just keepcarrying it forever And I'll

(54:40):
find better ones.
And it encouraged a lot moreExploration and experimentation.
And some people would say, ohwell, if the game had to Provide
this like false incentive toget you to go and play that way,
is it really that good?
and then, like I took to that Iwould say the game, games often
need to give you that push.

(55:01):
I think it is a little bit likeDismissive just to say like, oh
well, the games content shouldbe able to like just be fun
enough by itself And it's likewell, that that's fairly
subjective and for me The fun isin like the power level and in
like getting upgrades.
So the game does need toprovide that carrot.
For me, like I'm, i don't.

(55:23):
Breath of the Wild is kind ofone of those rare exceptions
where I will just play contentfor the sake of it.
Otherwise I'm very much like aExternal reward kind of of
person.
I'm not.
I'm not one of those people whojust can make their own fun in
a game and, like you know,really Sync into the intrinsic

(55:44):
rewards, are like, oh well, thecontent is its own reward.
It's like I want that thing andso having the weapon durability
is the key that enabled it andwhere I normally get very bored
with open-world games, like Inormally am, like I'm not the
biggest fan of them.
I tend to ignore a lot of thelike side stuff, but making you

(56:04):
get out and find new weapons waslike, oh, i actually am like
into this now and want to justgo and explore stuff for The
sake of it, now that I've beenforced to give the game a chance
and to To show me, like, whatit can do.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Yeah, yeah, like I didn't mind the breakable
weapons at all, like Joe wassaying, i think it's a big part
of the game and I mean sure theycould have put a mode in where,
like you'd, they just let youhave them.
I could see them putting in, iguess, a an easy mode or
whatever quote-unquote, whereyou just have the Master Sword
and the Highly in shield andlike where it just doesn't break

(56:42):
.
But I don't think that would beas fun and like to me it was
never, i guess, an issue likeyou never ran out of weapons.
Yeah, there was never a timewhere I was like oh no, like the
.
The only thing that ever reallyhappened like that was like
shields Were a little bit morescarce in general than the
weapons were and could break alittle bit easier, especially if

(57:04):
you were trying to like deflect, like I ran out of shields in
the Ganon fight because I onlybrought like three in and There
was like a point in the Ganonfight where he's immune unless
you like are able to counter histhing or whatever, and one of
the things you could counter washim shooting at you and so I
broke like two or three shieldsdoing that and But yeah, like

(57:29):
weapons wise, i never felt likeI was.
I didn't feel like it was a I, iguess I just went in thinking
of the weapons as a consumableAnd so I was never like that
annoyed when I used one, youknow, and and I was always able
to find some that were roughlythe same power level, like you

(57:50):
know, sometimes I'd hoard alittle bit of like, oh, this
one's got like 40 power andeverything else I'm kind of
easily finding is 30 or whatever, but it never felt scarce to To
find a weapon, like it may havebeen scarce to find a weapon
that, like had as much damage asyou wanted it to have.
But I guess I think of like theResident Evil games where it's

(58:12):
like ammo is can be scarce attimes, whereas This it always
kind of felt like you had Stuffto shoot.
It was just kind of like stuffto shoot or stuff to hit things
with, but it's like well, whichone do I want to use?
my only complaints about theweapon breaking system is it
didn't automatically switch youto the next Weapon right here

(58:33):
bar And yeah, i would go in andI I wouldn't remember it did
that, and I would run back up tothe like the monster and be
like I gotta like, yeah, pausethe game and go equip this other
weapon, because it didn'tautomatically just pop me to the
next one.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Yeah, there's sometimes maybe a little too
much in menuing.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
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 itearlier Non-traditional what?

Speaker 2 (59:01):
did you think of the weapon breaking for me?

Speaker 1 (59:04):
the weapon breaking.
Yeah, i, i agree with both ofyou guys.
I think it was, it was fine.
It.
It kind of is what makes thegame.
It makes, i guess, that thatcombat more interesting than it.
like, if you just were swinging, like you said, if there was a
mode Where you were justswinging the master sword and it
never broke, it wouldn't bevery exciting.
Yeah, like when you're halfwaythrough a fight and your good

(59:26):
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 wasan interesting Very, and
especially at the time playingit when it came out and coming
from like traditional Zelda, thefact that you had anything else
besides a sword.
I think, like you'll, sometimesyou'll start out with like a
sword and a shield, like aLittle sword and a wooden shield

(59:49):
, and then you upgrade to themaster sword.
In the Highland shield or Ithink in Skyward sword, there
were like a little bit of Maybesome slightly different weapons
and shields you could use andthen some slightly different
Gear you to you could equip, butit's very limited And so this
being kind of like the firstZelda game where you could use a

(01:00:10):
spear or a heavy weapon or Orthings like that, i I really
enjoyed it, just as somethingfresh and new.
But the puzzles, the dungeons.
You You are not going to thefire temple and the water temple
and the temple of time and allof that.
In this game You have the fourdivine beasts that all

(01:00:32):
aesthetically and functionallyare kind of similar.
They all have a similar boss atthe end and then you have all
the shrines everywhere that youcan come across.
That's essentially like onepuzzle that you have to figure
out and then you're done.
There's no sprawling two-hourdungeon that you're going to do
in this game, which I've alwaysstood by, like my opinion has

(01:00:56):
been.
That's fine for Breath of theWild and I think Tears of the
Kingdom has taken a step towardstraditional, but it's still.
It's more Breath of the Wildthan like older Zelda's.
I don't want this to be theonly thing they ever do in the
series, but for the like Breathof the Wild brand of Zelda, i

(01:01:16):
think it's fine.
If they like never went back tolike the massive dungeons, that
would probably bum me out.
But because these games arenon-traditional, i'm fine with
it here.
But what did you guys think?

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
It was the one part of the game that I was
disappointed in overall Thedungeons that are, i think, the
most iconic part of Zelda.
Like when you think Zelda, youthink like, oh, i'm going to go
do a dungeon.
It's this big indoor puzzlewith a boss at the end And like
that's what you play Zelda foris doing those dungeons.

(01:01:52):
And then Breath of the Wild iskind of like, yeah, they're not
here this time And the divinebeasts are sort of a dungeon,
but all your, you're just doingthe one puzzle, which is how do
I get the divine beast from thisone position.
And it was a neat puzzle Andthey had all the shrines.
That's like, hey, here's allthe content that would have been
a dungeon And we'll just spreadit out into all these shrines.

(01:02:14):
But the shrines are one offsAnd so you don't get that
satisfaction of like keeping themental map of the dungeon And
you're like, oh, if I do this inthis room, i can run back over
here And then like that'll, letme get this key, that'll keep
going.
It really lacked that And thatwas a bit of a letdown.

(01:02:35):
Like the rest of the game wasfun enough to make up for it,
but it would be really nice ifthey would keep up with the
handhelds and those hand andlike the handheld Well, now, the
switches, handheld, so it'sjust one console, but that you
know that handheld style andthey redid Link's awakening.
If they keep redoing some ofthe older ones, that'd be a

(01:02:57):
decent substitution.
But like, do those kinds ofgames and have those be the
eight dungeon puzzle ones.
I think that the top downperspective lends itself to the
puzzles a little bit nicer thanthe 3D ones and keep that
experience going.
because that is kind of thedownside is like oh, this game

(01:03:17):
is great And it does all thesenew and unique things, but it
also is definitely like this isnot the series that I know.
I'm like that, i'm expectingthis is different And it would
be nice to have some of like,some more of that standard stuff
you're expecting.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Yeah, because I, having really only heavily
played one, my experience withTwilight Princess was kind of
like you go into the dungeon,you get some new item in the
dungeon.
you know it's like you getbombs or you get the hookshot or
you get the boots or whatever,and then you kind of use that
specific thing to solve the restof that dungeon.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
And Twilight Princess had some really cool dungeons
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
And so I definitely enjoyed that and I thought that
was really cool.
I wasn't like super let down ordisappointed by Breath of the
Wild because I didn't reallyhave a ton to compare it to.
Obviously, i think itdefinitely would have been
cooler if it did more of kind ofwhat Joe was saying of like
have more of a puzzly thing Likethe shrines, the puzzles didn't

(01:04:23):
bother me a ton And the theDivine Beasts, like it wasn't.
Oh man, there's no water temple, you know like.
But it was kind of like I enjoythe puzzle aspects of the Zelda
games that I had playedpreviously, like that was
probably my favorite part ofthem, and so for it to kind of
be less of a thing that thisgame had was kind of, i guess, a

(01:04:49):
little bit of a bummer.
But also there was so much, iguess, that I looked at in the
open world that was kind of likethe almost a puzzle of like how
do I get there, how do I dothis, 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 (01:05:04):
You know, like you said, there's not one sort of
cohesive dungeon that sort ofruns through for like a two hour
runtime or whatever, but therewas so much puzzle solving just
in general that I guess I didn'tfeel the hit as much as
somebody who didn't who hasn'tplayed a ton of Zelda games you
know, yeah, and I think that wasthe idea behind it was that

(01:05:25):
we're going to take all of thepuzzling that we, you know, kind
of relegate to these specificareas and then we're just going
to like trickle it out ineverything Because, yeah, like
navigating the world, doingthings like that It's the whole
game is kind of a puzzle, yeah.
But yeah, you are missing thatvery specific.
Like I'm walking into a volcano, i'm going to probably be

(01:05:48):
throwing water on the lava to beable to get across And I'm
going to get an item halfwaythrough when I beat a mini boss
that's going to allow me to getthrough the back half of the
dungeon And then that's going tounlock more stuff in the rest
of the game.
So that's kind of where I comedown, because I really enjoy
that in older games LikeTwilight, princess and Wind

(01:06:08):
Waker both have some reallymemorable dungeons that I can
like immediately think back to.
But for, like, i'm only goingto be upset if they like never
do anything like that again,which they could potentially do
because, like, these games areselling like crazy.
I mean they they.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
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 somewhereon the spectrum of like breath
of the wild to like a verytraditional Zelda dungeon thing
where it's like it finds thathappy medium of like here's a

(01:06:49):
cohesive, narrative dungeon sortof thing that you actually have
to like go through and puzzlesolve, but also it's not like
maybe as in depth as some of theolder ones, but it's not as
just non existent as it was inbreath of the wild.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
You know they came out and said, leading up to
tears of the kingdom, that theywere going more in the
traditional dungeon directionfor tears of the kingdom And
that is true, but it's still Ithink that's true in the fact
that the dungeons I've done sofar seem more themed and are
more interesting and have a moreinteresting boss at the end.
But there's still like smallerexperiences than what you got

(01:07:27):
and like old Zelda games.
But also like old Zelda games,weren't?
they weren't open world in thesame way that these are Like you
had some open world.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
Yeah, the main content was the dungeon.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
Like breath of the wild, has enough content.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Well, and at least for me personally, i'll happily
sacrifice, like the you go tothis dungeon to unlock this
piece of gear thing, if it meansthat they constantly are just
giving you everything at thestart and saying go, go,
experience the world however youfeel like I personally prefer
that, and so I know some.

(01:08:01):
To some extent it's got to be alittle bit tough because it's
like you can't lock pieces oflike the ultra hand or the you
know whatever behind dungeons.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
If you also want people to be able to go any
direction you know And I dothink, 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'vegiven you and stuff.
But there still is no like atleast not that I've experienced

(01:08:34):
no like three hour or two hourdungeon that you're going to go
through, you know, with like oneor two specific gimmicks that
you're going to be manipulating.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
I also want to ask you guys, as people who played,
i assume, a lot of your previousZelda experience, where we're
talking about two to three hourdungeons, comes from, like
childhood.
Do you think that potentiallyit was just because we were
dumber as kids?

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Like would a would a dungeon that took you two or
three hours previously stilltake you two or three hours now,
as like people in their late20s, early 30s or a little bit
of both, because I replayedSkyward Sword on the switch a
year or two ago And, yeah, someof the I could see the solutions
a lot easier now, but they'restill like big kind of involved,

(01:09:19):
like, like Joe was saying, likebig interior set pieces that
you're going through.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Yeah, i guess a little bit faster, yeah, but not
, i get stuck less.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Okay, yeah, i guess I was trying to suss out like how
much of this is like anostalgic, like rose colored
glasses Like this is what Ithink Zelda used to look like,
based on my experiences with it,but those experiences were
childhood And so now would it bethe same versus?
you know?

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
yeah, there were there when I was a kid.
I would just get hard stuck onstuff.
But as an adult I could figureout now.
But even just the time it takesto run through the dungeon and
do all the actions to solve thepuzzles, it would still take you
over an hour per dungeon.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
Yeah, because I with the divine beasts there were
several, the, i want to say theelephant, might have been the
most difficult for me personally, just like figuring out a
couple of those parts, because Ithink all of the other ones it
was pretty much just like I kindof just ran through it and
didn't really get stuck onanything.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Which one has the rings that you real line in the
middle is at the camel.
That one's the always thetrickiest for me, because then
if I get them out of whack andyeah, that one's always the
because I replayed most ofBreath of the Wild, like last
year.
I think I didn't beat it, ithink I did like two or some of
the divine beasts, but the camelis one of the ones I did And I

(01:10:49):
was like, oh my gosh, i don'tknow.

Speaker 3 (01:10:50):
Yeah, I just got up on the elephant.
I couldn't visualize how histrunk had to move to like align
you up the right way.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Yeah, yeah, they all basically have something like
that where the whole thing canmove and that shifts the
interior.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
Yeah, which is cool, it's just it's a lot shallower
than what you're used to.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Is there anything else you guys want to say in the
kind of the generalconversation before we give our
verdicts on the game?

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
You mentioned the music and the art style in the
document.
They seem fine.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
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 dothat for every game, and they
did.
Tears of the Kingdom has a lotmore like music, just as you're
doing stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
I was going to say there were definitely times
where I was riding my horse likethrough Hyrule Fields or
something that I was like man, ikind of wish there would be
like kind of the Hyrule Fieldsmusic here or, like you know,
the Gerudo Valley music whereit's just kind of like man I
wish, like especially whenyou're like fighting the divine
beast, i was like man, i kind ofwish like that was going on

(01:12:02):
while we were here.
Yeah, they do.
I did think it was cool inHyrule Castle, like towards the
end, like you could definitelyhear like a sort of remixed
version of the traditional Zeldalike theme, which was cool.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
But also no musical like instrument item, which is
something that some people havementioned, like a lot of past
games.
Link manipulates like uses somesort of musical instrument to
like manipulate the environmentor do something And you just
switch in this one.
Yeah, motion controls I turnedthis off immediately.

(01:12:37):
Yeah, And any of the shrinesthat required them were bad.
I haven't encountered that atall in the new one yet, thank
God.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
It did make me realize that apparently the Pro
Controller has the motion partbuilt in.
I was like what is I wasexpecting to like use the thumb
sticks, And I was like, oh no, Ican.
Just I have to tilt my ProController to do this, Which you
paid for man, yeah, the premiumprice is for.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
And then, as far as the art style, my only comment
really is that, like, i think ithelps the game age well, and I
think it helps it like be ableto run on the switch, it's like,
and it fits the vibe of thegame, because even though Breath
of the Wild is a bit more likemelancholy Zelda story, it's
still a relatively like sillyworld.
There's a lot of goofy stuffthat happens in these games And

(01:13:23):
I think that's probably part ofthe reason why some people
didn't really like the morerealistic Twilight Princess
approach is because, yeah,typically these games are so
whimsical that having like amore cartoonish art style lends
itself well.
But I think cartoonish artstyles always age very well in
general, something with a styleas opposed to chasing photo

(01:13:47):
realism.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
Yeah, because like photo realism really only works
if you play it within, like thefirst six months generally, and
then something else looks betterthan it Like when you're when
you're chasing, when you'reconstantly chasing realism, it
ends up not aging as well, in myopinion generally, as like

(01:14:10):
having a consistent style thatis clearly like video gamey,
like wow, looks great still, andI know that they've made some
like yeah they've updates totheir graphics over time, but
like the general style isversion of wow helps it hold up
since like 2004,.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
Like like wind waker still looks Pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
Yeah, i hate the Chibi style Twilight.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
Princess is.
I think it would still lookgood if you can play on a CRT.
Yeah, yeah on a on a modernflat screen it It's pretty
jagged and you didn't doesn'tlook Fantastic, but I I do.
I will give give credit thatgames were meant to be played on
CRTs, because a CRT helpssmooth out some of that.

(01:15:02):
That jagged edge is just basedon the literal pixel density.
Yeah that display.
It was not meant to be shown onsomething so dense and like
when Reloaded up on my oldGamecube.
We're just using a VGA to HDMIadapter, not properly rendering
it, yeah, but then, like youlook at Super Mario World, which

(01:15:24):
is like an ancient game at thispoint, it still looks great,
even on like a flat screen, justbecause they had a very like I
don't say blocky is in like lowresolution, 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 littlerough.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Yeah, yeah, cuz you can like look up pictures or
screenshots or whatever ofpeople who are like This is what
it looks like on a flat screenor whatever, and here's what it
looked like on a CRT and you'relike, oh, i understand why,
people's Perception of like howgames looked when they were kids
is skewed, because it does looka lot smoother and better.
Yeah, no, that was definitelyCRT.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
I can't remember which game did it for me, but I
remember it was the Age ofEmpires games, because we had
like a flat screen, like a newer, like LCD monitor upstairs.
we had the old desktop with theCRT in the basement and maybe
that was it or something elsewhere you had that aha moment of
Looking at a game I had seen ona modern display, then on a CRT

(01:16:31):
, and going like, oh, it's notjust me, because I think
everyone had that moment whenyou like plugged in an Old
console into a new TV, yeah, andyou're like this looks awful.
Yeah, i think how did we everthink this looks good?
I mean yeah oh, we weren't thatdumb back then.
It really actually looks worse.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Yeah, like I think the one that I saw was maybe
like a final fantasy with likethe pixel art and they like it
Re-released and now everyone'sgot like flat screens or like
high-def displays and Likesomebody like ran it through and
was like if you played it on aCRT Because of the like way that
these like pixels are, becauseit was all like pixel art, it's

(01:17:10):
like this is what it would looklike pixel art, wise, like, and
it was.
It was a much clearer pictureof like cloud or you know,
Whoever it was I know cloud wasnot he was?

Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
he was the little blocky.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Yeah, but like it was a much smoother and clearer
picture Then, like a lot ofpixel art is today, like if you
do a lot of the pixel art todayThrough like a CRT filter or
something, it actually looks alot different, so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
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

(01:18:38):
through F, but we use the videogame 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 ifyou've happened to watch that,
you already know what I'm gonnagive it anyways.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Yeah, if you want to see a much shorter version of
what this just was, even thoughyou're at the end of this
episode, go watch that.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
This is an S tier game for me as a fan of Zelda,
and then for everything it didat 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 likethis game, just it.
It does everything right for meas a Zelda fan.
Would you know, with the thingswe've mentioned, that I

(01:19:22):
wouldn't want necessarily it tobe this way forever.
But for this game, for thisexperience, and then especially
for what it did for the Zeldafranchise, but then also shaking
up the open-world game genre,one that tends to get stale
pretty frequently, yeah, i thinkthat this game is is incredible
.
Who wants to go next?

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
I'll just give it a plus.
I just did fight it the thelack of Dungeons, i think, is
the where it misses points.
Yeah that's it from being thetruly the perfect game.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
I will give it an a.
My scores are not at all basedon like how good of a game It is
.
Necessarily they're allpersonal 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 outof it for me.

(01:20:18):
Like I liked in the past the,the puzzling Nature of most of
the Zelda games and how it wasway more about exploration and
puzzle solving, and I think Mostof this game is that, which is
why I give it the a.
But the part of it that is notDrags it down from what could

(01:20:38):
have been an S for me.
I think if, if the combat wasimproved, maybe even if they
just given it like a dodge rollor something, i feel like it
would have been a much easier.
Like a for me and just likeSome of their controls are
annoying to me.
Yeah, i forgot to bring that up.
I don't like.
I don't like having to holdleft trigger to lock on.

(01:21:00):
I don't like having run and orjump on.
Why, instead of like a orwhatever, it is like I it's X.
I swapped those Because it wasstupid.
I just.
We live in 2023, when this iscoming out.
Like Remapping control schemesis a thing that games can do,

(01:21:23):
like it Shouldn't fundamentallybreak anything, in my opinion,
for you to be like when youpress this button, like here are
all the things when I pressthis button, i want it to do
this instead.
Like everything that's on X.
I want to do with a, i want torun with a, i want to jump, but
they, or whatever it is cool,well, i plugged.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
We plug the YouTube.
Joe, is there anything that youwant to say?
Closing thoughts, housekeepingwise, anything you've got going
on that you want to point peopleto?

Speaker 3 (01:21:52):
nope, it's a good thing.
I don't have anything I need toself promote because I'm
terrible at it, so I just don'thave things that need promotion.
Perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
Dylan, anything else you want to say before we close
this thing out?

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
I do have a question.
Okay so you guys have bothplayed.
You have not finished here'sthe 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 thedefault answer of like what?
you should probably pick upMario Kart, breath of the Wild
and like maybe one other, youknow, nintendo first-party game.

(01:22:27):
Do you think tears of thekingdom has unseated breath of
the wild in that regard?
Like, should someone justgetting a switch today pick up
breath of the wild, or shouldthey pick up tears of the
kingdom?

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
I would have to ask them if they're a fan of the
series, because then I wouldprobably say play Breath of the
Wild first.

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
Yeah, i mean tears of the kingdom is a pretty Direct
sequel, even in terms of likestory.

Speaker 1 (01:22:53):
But if you don't care about, the series at all and
you just want to like screwaround with the toolset and the
world and stuff, then yeah, ithink that I could say go go,
tears of the kingdom.
But I think that if you careabout like the world and stuff
at all, like Joe is saying, it'sa direct sequel.
And if you had just bought yourswitch, that means you haven't
seen the changes that Breath ofthe Wild had like, you haven't

(01:23:15):
experienced that for yourself.
Yeah, from what the last gameyou potentially could have
played was Skyward Sword, iguess you could have played
Breath of the Wild on the Wii UThey had.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
They had a Wii U and they're just now upgrading to
the Nintendo switch.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
They're one of the five people but in general, yeah
, i would say if you're a fan ofthe of the series at large,
start with Breath of the Wild.
If you just want to play a coolvideo 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 agood recommendation, joe?

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
Yeah, i wouldn't just be like oh yeah, you can skip
Breath of the Wild and just playtears of the kingdom, unless
you're having like a case ofFOMO.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Yeah and and really just want to play that everyone
else is playing and I guess myother question to end this off
would be and this Spawns off ofa an article like there.
There's one person that Iremember there's probably been
more, but there's one person Inparticular that gave like tears
of the kingdom a six, and theywere also like, not huge fans of

(01:24:14):
Breath of the Wild and and notfor like.
Oh, we got to be different andnot for like.
In my opinion, nitpicky reasonsIt was, it was more of like a
personal preference situation.
So you know, it's notnecessarily like high critic
Review, it's, it's more of likea.
I personally did not like thisgame And so do you think if I

(01:24:35):
was kind of like meh, on Breathof the Wild, tears of the
kingdom changes enough stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):
No, again, it's a direct sequel.
So if you didn't like Breath ofthe Wild, you're probably not
going to like tears of thekingdom.
Yeah they didn't make tears ofthe kingdom to like win over the
people who Who were meh onBreath of the Wild.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
So it's better to get tears or Breath of the Wild
anyway, then too, i guessbecause it's the cheaper way to
find out.
if you like that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
I, yeah, i could see maybe the stuff that they it's
like.
If your favorite part of Breathof the Wild was the like, the
tool set and the Manipulatingthe environment, stuff like that
, there's way more of that here.
And if you, what you missedfrom Breath of the Wild was The
more puzzly like boss fights andstuff like that and the more

(01:25:26):
like themed dungeons I thinkthere's more of that in tears of
the kingdom.
So if there's like there's acouple little things that I
think if someone was really likeon the edge It could teeter
them over.
But if, in general, you justdidn't vibe with Breath of the
Wild, then there's a good chanceYou might not vibe with this
one because, yeah, it is, it isthe sequel, cool.

(01:25:46):
Well, that's all we got for youon this one, joe.
Thanks for joining us.
Pleasure as always, as always.
And Yeah, with that, we willcatch you all on the next
episode.
We hope you enjoyed listeningto this episode of the friendly

(01:26:07):
neighborhood gamers podcast.
If so, we would greatlyappreciate your help in growing
the show and the community bygiving us a five-star rating and
review on Apple Podcasts,spotify and any other podcasting
app that allows it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:19):
We also have some great videos on our YouTube
channel, including reviews,rankings and other topics.
We would really appreciate youchecking it out And, if you want
to keep up with everythinggoing on in the neighborhood,
follow us on Instagram andTwitter and feel free to jump in
our discord server.
We hope to see you there.

Speaker 1 (01:26:36):
Links for everything are in the podcast description.
Thanks again for listening andremember stay friendly gamers.

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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - With Joe Sommer

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - With Joe Sommer