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1:02

Hello and welcome to Nintendo Voice Chat Presents

1:04

Talk of the Kingdom. That's the title. We're

1:06

going with it. Week 2. If you missed the big news last

1:08

week, we're doing a six-episode all-Zelda

1:11

takeover of Nintendo Voice Chat to celebrate the Legend

1:13

of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom out May 12th,

1:15

and we couldn't be more excited. I'm your host, Brian Altano,

1:18

along with my wonderful crew of Zelda obsessives,

1:20

Cat Bailey, Rebecca Valentine, Seth Macy,

1:22

and Jeffrey Vega. Hi, everybody.

1:25

Howdy. Let's make a Zelda show. Yeah, let's

1:27

do it. Hooray for Zelda.

1:30

Let's make a Zelda show. So last week, we talked

1:32

about what it was like to actually play Tears of the Kingdom.

1:34

My co-hosts and you, our amazing listeners, had

1:37

tons of questions for me to answer. Go check that episode

1:39

out if you missed it. This week, though, it is

1:41

the calm before the storm, before Tears of the Kingdom is

1:43

officially released. So we got a jam-packed

1:46

show ahead. We're diving into the craziest,

1:48

funniest, and best fan theories around

1:50

the game's story, characters, and gameplay. Don't

1:52

worry. No spoilers there. It's all speculation

1:54

and nonsense. Can't wait to hear those.

1:56

After that, we'll be looking at all the Tears of the Kingdom

1:58

merchandise and swag that you can...

1:59

With those rupees burning a hole in your

2:02

pocket assuming you didn't spend them all on that

2:04

Zelda OLED. I did not I resisted

2:06

I'm still tempted. I still see it out there. I see you guys unboxing

2:09

them. I want it Stop

2:11

doing that. You're you're gonna you're gonna destroy $350

2:13

for my wallet. I'm a father I have

2:15

to be responsible and then we're taking

2:18

all of your favorites and first Zelda games into

2:20

account where we go through our Last-minute

2:22

Zelda's to cram through before Tears of the Kingdom launches.

2:25

We're gonna talk about our first our favorites Just

2:27

let's celebrate Zelda. But first I

2:30

have some very sad news a quick public service

2:32

announcements announcement Tears of the Kingdom

2:34

has leaked the full game. It's out there in

2:37

the wild mute keywords avoid

2:39

social media Hide in a cave with an old

2:41

man and a sword don't watch shows like this

2:44

one No, just kidding. We're we're gonna cover those leaks

2:46

and spoil them when the game is out weeks

2:48

and weeks from now But not now because you know what

2:51

we're not garbage people. Yeah, we

2:53

care about you So be

2:55

careful out there and until then let's celebrate

2:57

Zelda Let's get into it hype for Tears of the Kingdom

3:00

is at a fever pitch right now and fans have some

3:02

crazy and awesome theories So

3:04

let's break them down.

3:06

Take it away Jeffrey All right So I have some

3:08

pretty crazy Theories that I've looked

3:10

on the internet some of them from our

3:12

own and from the outside world I

3:15

have three big theories one of them.

3:17

I'll start off with saying that This

3:21

is gonna rely on some Ocarina of Time Fan

3:24

dumb

3:24

so time travel

3:26

In the trailer Zelda says

3:28

that link you must come find me which

3:30

is like every Zelda game, right? You're kind of like

3:33

trying to save Zelda. I guess not every game but

3:35

for the most part But here's

3:37

the kingdom I think this theory is

3:39

that it's actually Zelda's in a different

3:41

time And that maybe link has to go back

3:43

in time to get the master sword before

3:45

it is broken as we see in

3:48

the logo For Tears of the Kingdom and

3:50

you have to remember also in the trailer Zelda is holding

3:53

the master sword And you know the

3:55

trailer is cropped however

3:59

There is I have a feeling that this

4:01

sword is intact, and that's why it's cropped

4:03

like this. I don't think Zelda would be holding a

4:05

calamity sword, a broken piece

4:08

of legendary weaponry.

4:13

Obviously we had time travel stuff in the past, a

4:15

link to the past, if you will. And

4:18

that's the only thing I wrote down. And

4:23

everything else I'm making up. No, but so,

4:25

and we're even gonna have time travel as like a

4:27

rune power, with recall. So

4:29

I don't know, what do you guys think? Do you think we're gonna

4:32

Ocarina of Time style kind of go back

4:34

and forth? Zelda's in a completely different timeline.

4:37

What do you guys think?

4:38

I like it. I like

4:41

it a lot, actually. I

4:43

think it's like half, probably half true. I

4:46

too have heard this time traveling theory. I

4:50

don't think we, I don't think there's gonna be two entire

4:53

maps, like a Hyrule that's in

4:55

the future, and a Hyrule that's in the past. I feel like

4:57

that, I know it's Tears of

5:00

the Kingdom, but that's gotta be way too much, right? Like that's

5:02

so much. But I could certainly

5:04

imagine Zelda being in the past and having to like,

5:06

I think we maybe talked about this a

5:08

couple of weeks ago or something, but the idea of like having

5:10

to sort of track down like

5:12

clues that she leaves for us in the past as

5:15

Link in the present. And then maybe like there

5:17

being a scene or two where he goes

5:19

back and gets her or she brings,

5:22

something, something. I think it's really plausible,

5:24

especially with, as Jeffrey mentioned, the

5:26

recall ability and then this,

5:28

all

5:30

the music that's being like played like backwards

5:33

at all those moments, like it sounds, you

5:35

know, timey-wimey, whatever those timey-wimey

5:37

will say. A little

5:38

doctor who in here. One of my

5:40

favorite musical genres, timey-wimey. Pat,

5:43

how do you feel about this? Well, it certainly wouldn't

5:45

be unprecedented based on Ocarina

5:47

of Time and also a little game you may have heard

5:49

of, Oracle of Ages. The

5:51

Legend of Zelda has been known to play around

5:54

with time stuff. I wonder if Zelda

5:56

fell into a different timeline when she fell

5:58

down into that big pit.

5:59

in the trailer. So it

6:03

would be a creative way to do it. And also we talked

6:05

about the meaning of Tears of the Kingdom and

6:07

I said well maybe it's

6:08

underground, normal ground,

6:10

and then above ground. What if there's another

6:13

tier which is the past and the present?

6:16

Yeah. Multiple layers. So many layers.

6:18

I think that's the secret theme of the

6:20

Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom layers. Mm-hmm.

6:23

I think it also could potentially take away

6:25

a little of this thing that some people are feeling about like

6:28

the the overworld so far from

6:30

what we've seen being kind of similar to

6:32

Breath of the Wild. Like if there

6:34

was a button you could push in the same way you could

6:36

in Link to the Past and you know travel between realms

6:38

and visit a version

6:40

of Hyrule that was either pre-destroyed

6:43

or more destroyed would be really

6:46

really interesting. I think like that the Master

6:48

Sword theory is

6:50

is a really strong one because that that right there

6:52

is is the iconic look of this once

6:55

beautiful sword that's now been destroyed

6:57

and I Jeffrey you're totally right about the

6:59

selective cropping on Zelda

7:01

holding that right there. She would look more

7:04

worried if she was holding the broken sword. I'd be

7:06

like oh no the

7:08

sword

7:08

broke what did I do? Assuming

7:11

it was her fault. I think there's a lot of

7:13

evidence for it in the trailer just by the

7:15

fact that you see the Hyrule Castle

7:18

being restored. Mm-hmm. Which suggests

7:20

that maybe there is actual time travel

7:23

with Link

7:24

yeah into the the past realm and

7:26

I think it's interesting just

7:28

because obviously Breath of the Wild

7:31

established that this is long after the

7:33

kingdom was ruined and I think there's a lot

7:35

of interest and kind of fascination with

7:38

what Hyrule was like before the fall

7:40

so to speak. We got a big look

7:42

at that with the

7:45

Konami sorry not the Konami game. You know

7:47

what I'm talking about the Musou game. Age of Calamity

7:49

yeah yeah

7:52

so it's a it's a great area

7:54

to fill in and explore

7:56

with the Legend of Zelda.

7:57

Tears of the Kingdom. Further evidence.

7:59

There's people I I've

8:02

been I've been diving down a Zelda

8:04

lore YouTube lately. Good place. It's

8:07

great. It's phenomenal right now. But

8:09

they they've been pointing out that one woman in the trailer

8:11

who is kind of like mysterious looking

8:14

wearing very similar clothing to Zelda.

8:17

And they pointed out that she seems to have around

8:20

her neck the same little tear guy that Zelda

8:22

has. And so there's been theories that this is like a

8:25

past version of Zelda. Like maybe she

8:27

gets to meet a previous

8:29

incarnation

8:29

of herself or something. So there's

8:32

kind of all that folded in there. And there's there's other little details

8:34

in that scene that people are kind of leading people

8:36

to this theory. But yeah, there's

8:38

something.

8:39

Yeah, I mean, the the entire

8:41

recall power having this visually

8:44

striking and distinct style that is

8:47

very different than the rest of the game. Like it all utterly

8:49

desaturates the world except

8:51

for like specific elements that you're

8:54

manipulating. That

8:56

says something like to me that says that there's something

8:58

there. Also I want to point out that this is one

9:00

of my favorite times, no pun intended,

9:03

of like discussing a video game because so

9:05

much of this will and could

9:08

be wrong. We

9:10

a week from now. But look

9:11

back on this a lot. Yeah. And

9:13

it's but it's great because it's like to me there's playing video

9:15

games is really fun. Speculating about them

9:17

is just as fun, especially with something like Zelda, which, you

9:20

know, we're a week away from launch and we have only seen

9:22

so much of this game. And we've only seen

9:25

selective trailers and you know, I got to play a bit

9:28

of it, but it was only in specific areas. So

9:30

and I learned nothing about the story or the lore

9:32

or anything when I was up there in the clouds messing around.

9:35

So like this is really fun to

9:37

me. I just I just love the part where we get to be like, who

9:39

knows? Let's guess. Oh, we're

9:42

wrong.

9:42

Whoops. Like it's just it's very fun. Wildly.

9:45

One thing I want to point out is that Breath

9:47

of the Wild in so many ways was a celebration

9:50

of all things Zelda. There were so many little

9:53

references

9:53

to every game that has come

9:56

out to date. And when I think of

9:58

the Hyrule Castle being restored. I think

10:00

of Wind Waker when you get the big

10:02

reveal. Yeah. And in

10:05

many ways, that was very similar to Breath of the Wild in

10:07

that it was a post-apocalyptic thing, the

10:09

big ocean and everything. So that's

10:12

where my mind is kind of going, a little Wind Waker

10:14

direction.

10:14

And it goes from black and white to in color.

10:16

Yeah. Mm-hmm. For that castle.

10:18

Yeah, I just replayed that scene recently, and it's

10:21

phenomenal. I was tweeting pictures of it because it's just

10:23

so cool. There's also like Eventide

10:26

Island, or Eventide Island, which is a total

10:28

nod to Link's Awakening. And I wonder if

10:30

Tears of the Kingdom is going to have like

10:33

Oracle of Ages or Oracle of Seasons area

10:35

or anything like that. Like, you know, there weren't

10:38

there parts of Breath of the Wild that people

10:41

said like sort of architecturally were strikingly

10:43

similar to Ocarina of Time, just you

10:46

know,

10:46

post-Gannon running

10:48

through town, wreck and shop. So yeah, I

10:51

wonder if Tears of the Kingdom is going to have like deep cut

10:53

or even just overt nods to classic

10:55

Zelda games like that. Do we? That's the timeline

10:58

unification. We've all been waiting for. That's

11:00

what I was going to say. The timeline.

11:02

The timeline is such a disaster. It was such

11:04

a clutch. They just put it together to like

11:07

make a book. And then I think that

11:09

this will be the time travel adventure

11:11

that ties it all together. Ganondorf

11:13

has the sports almanac, and everybody

11:16

has that stuff.

11:16

To me, there are two Zelda timelines.

11:19

There was the time where we didn't think about the Zelda

11:21

timeline, and then the time when they confirmed the Zelda

11:23

timeline. And it's been chaos since then. I've always described

11:25

it as just a plate of spaghetti. It is just. That

11:28

was our calamity. You

11:30

put yourself by. And I was thinking about the Zelda timeline

11:32

before Ocarina of Time came out. Because I was just

11:35

that much of a nerd. Shigeru

11:38

Miyamoto was like, no, Link

11:40

to the Past is a sequel. No, actually, it's a prequel.

11:42

And everybody's like, which one is it? I have

11:44

to know, or else I can't enjoy Legend of Zelda.

11:46

I mean,

11:49

wasn't it that like Link leaves

11:51

Link to the Past? He was like, that was bad. I'm going to go on my

11:53

boat. And then he ends up in Link's Awakening. That's a sequel,

11:55

yes. Yes. And then he goes to the Past. He's like,

11:58

what a fun adventure. Anyway, I'm going to go sailing.

11:59

this island. Oh no. Oh no. What's

12:02

made it go away? Anyway. Can I actually propose

12:04

a bet before we move on? Yeah, like money bet?

12:07

I was thinking more do something silly on an episode

12:09

of NVC kind of bet. Okay, I'll do that for free but sure,

12:11

let's hear it. I mean, I can discuss

12:14

the terms but you know, Zelda's Zelda's

12:16

been tossed into the past. Who

12:19

thinks we get to play as Zelda?

12:21

I, oh, I want it to happen. I really,

12:23

really want it to happen. The wanting is do you think it

12:25

will? No. I

12:28

don't think it will. That's a no. That's a

12:30

no. Brian? I say

12:32

yes, but for

12:35

like a specific part. Yeah, I'm

12:37

with you. I think it'll be like Ashley and Rose

12:39

and you'll for. Yeah, I think it'll be like a section.

12:41

Yeah, Seth and Jeffrey. Yeah,

12:44

I think this is going to be a Metal Gear Solid 2. Sons

12:46

of Liberty. Oh, what? Oh, that'd

12:49

be so good. I would love that. Oh

12:53

my god. Rollerblading. Could

12:55

it be like GTA five? Where

12:57

your

12:58

one moment you're like in the regular world

13:00

link and then it like the camera picks

13:02

up and goes, who are in the box with Zelda?

13:04

Huh? You hit a button and like Zelda's

13:07

just hung over in an empty pool and she wakes up

13:09

and is like, Oh, what the heck happened

13:12

last night? It's crazy. It's crazy to think that Brian

13:14

went to Nintendo to play a

13:17

game. I mean, they did it when he left. They did the Men in

13:19

Black like a racist memory. You

13:22

can't tell anybody. They actually just used a large hammer and

13:24

bludgeoned me in the back of the house. And

13:26

then it broke.

13:28

I also

13:30

think that Zelda will be playable and I'll even go a step

13:32

further, Reb, and say that she's playable at

13:34

the beginning and that's going to be the biggest. That's

13:37

going to be the biggest thing that people will talk about

13:39

when the game launches is my guess. I obviously

13:41

haven't played it. That's my guess. I'm such

13:43

a cool.

13:49

I

13:49

would love I want you to be wrong very

13:51

badly, but I'm worried you might be right.

13:54

Okay. What's the bet then? How about everybody who

13:57

okay. If I'm

14:00

trying to get all of us to work Zelda's

14:03

crown. That's my bitch. Is

14:06

there a Zelda crown? What does that even look like if I win?

14:08

I get to be a queen? I don't know. Okay.

14:11

Yeah. Do we dress up

14:13

if we lose? I hadn't gotten that

14:15

far. I was just pitching.

14:18

I want us to look silly somehow. Answer in the comments.

14:20

Tell us what we should do. We all have to dress like Tingle. Tell

14:23

us what we should do. Oh, God. Let's not

14:25

do that. No, no, no. We all have Tingle's full

14:27

outfit. I

14:30

was playing Wind Waker recently, and you meet that

14:32

fish all the time on every square of the whole game

14:35

who jumps out and marks your map. He's like, yeah.

14:37

He does that thing. Yeah. He

14:40

does that thing. Yeah. He gives you a little

14:42

clue. He was like, there's an island over there with this guy named Tingle.

14:44

An adult should not dress like that. He

14:47

throw shade at him. He's super helpful,

14:49

and he seems to be having a good time, so I'm not going to judge him. It's

14:52

very sweet. Yeah. Jeffrey,

14:54

what else do we got in terms of

14:56

wild conspiracies here we

14:58

should be unpacking? Yeah.

15:01

I have two more. I did want to give a shout out, though,

15:03

for the first theory. It was from

15:06

Logan Plant, who is a writer for IGN. Yeah.

15:09

He kind of wrote it out. Yeah. Yeah.

15:12

Logan's great. He also kind of sort

15:15

of help cobbled together this next theory. And

15:17

stay with me on this. Is Hot

15:20

Ganondorf good?

15:21

The Hot was just added by me. Hot Ganondorf

15:23

specifically? So, like, not Hot

15:25

Ganondorf is still evil? Yeah.

15:28

Well, there is no not Hot Ganondorf, Reb. Let's

15:31

see. Well, I mean, I guess, well, we'll

15:33

talk about the pig one later. Anyway.

15:39

Is Ganondorf playable? Good.

15:42

Now, I've seen the inter... Yeah, is Ganondorf

15:44

playable? So is Ganondorf good? I

15:47

think with this theory, a lot

15:49

of people are talking about this image,

15:51

if you're watching the podcast. We've

15:54

seen this kind of tapestry in

15:56

Breath of the Wild where you can't

15:58

deny that the character fighting...

15:59

and the Calamity is

16:02

Ganondorf.

16:02

I mean, it's got the red hair, it's got

16:05

the kind of the green sort of body. Chills,

16:08

packs. Yeah, and I feel like we all

16:10

saw this in 2017 and we were just like, yeah,

16:12

that'll never come back. Like this won't

16:14

be important later. But

16:17

maybe this was Ganondorf at the Calamity

16:19

event and not Link. I mean, Link lost his memories,

16:21

but maybe he never even had it 100 years

16:24

ago. That's even more

16:27

time travel, because that was 10,000 years

16:29

ago. That's right, yes, that's correct, yeah.

16:31

So Link doesn't remember anything. That's

16:34

right, 10,000 years ago. And so Logan

16:38

kind of explained in the theory that

16:40

this kind of theory stems from Skyward Sword, because

16:43

in that game for the Nintendo Wii in 2011, it

16:46

takes famously, the timeline

16:48

is very kind of messy as we talked about, but

16:50

Skyward Sword is famously the first Zelda

16:53

game in the timeline. That is like the beginning of

16:55

the Zelda kind of universe and

16:57

explains that the origins of the endless

16:59

cycle of rebirth where Ganondorf

17:01

is constantly fighting Link and Zelda, that they're always

17:04

kind of, they're always being kind

17:06

of reincarnated, that this is where

17:08

it begins, but it was actually, Skyward

17:11

Sword is actually explaining that it was Demise,

17:13

which is the final boss of that game, was setting

17:15

the events in motion, not Ganondorf. So they have

17:18

already kind of done a kind of twist

17:20

reveal of like who is who in these kind of

17:22

big events. And with,

17:24

especially with the fact, again, can't trust enough

17:26

how hot Ganondorf is, maybe that plays into it, because

17:29

you know,

17:30

it's sad to think that

17:32

a bad guy could be so good

17:34

looking. Mm-hmm.

17:36

Wow. So

17:40

this theory caused a bit

17:43

of a calamity on the

17:45

various Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom subreddits

17:47

there for a while, because like several people

17:49

were surfacing it, and then a bunch of other people

17:51

were getting very upset that they kept surfacing

17:54

it, because they thought it was a silly idea. And

17:56

I don't wanna go, I'm not, I haven't...

17:59

I've played Skyward Sword and I'm not a lore expert, so

18:02

I can't really go through every single bullet point as

18:04

to why people thought this was not true. But

18:06

they did have quite a bit of evidence for

18:09

Ganondorf still being very evil.

18:12

But you look at that tapestry though. I

18:15

know. And it really, what

18:17

an unusual way to portray Lake. Well.

18:21

It's so strange. I think, okay,

18:23

I'll put it this way. If there

18:26

is a greater evil than Ganon

18:28

in this game. That Ganon is

18:30

not a fan of. Yeah. A

18:33

fanon or whatever. Then that

18:36

doesn't necessarily inherently make Ganon

18:38

good. Right. It's, he's

18:41

bad too, right? I think

18:42

it's possible that that is Ganondorf,

18:44

Ganon, Ganon, one of the Ganon somethings

18:47

in that tapestry. I also think it's possible

18:49

that tapestry does not mean what the people

18:51

of Hyrule and we, as a result, think

18:53

it means. Right. I think it could be

18:55

portraying that event, but the events of that, like

18:58

maybe he's not fighting it in that instance. Maybe he's

19:00

absorbing it. Did he steal the master sword? Who

19:02

can say what's happening here? I mean, like we've been

19:04

given, and we were given an explanation of this

19:07

tapestry in Breath of the Wild by somebody who

19:09

knew a legend, but legends can be like

19:11

wrong to historical events. And

19:13

if this ends up being some sort of time traveling game,

19:16

maybe it's possible we get a different perspective on what

19:18

happened here. So

19:19

the retconning, the big form. You can't trust a giant bird

19:21

with an accordion. Who can you trust? It

19:24

is funny to look at that tapestry. I

19:26

will not tell her at Cass Lander here.

19:29

The tapestry that we're looking at is really

19:31

funny to now imagine him, Gandalf's just giving

19:33

him the sword. Here you go. Here you go,

19:35

man. Yeah, or he's got the sword out and he's like kind of absorbing

19:37

it. Or this is like an internal conflict that's happening

19:39

within him, you know? He's like inside me, either with

19:42

two pigs or whatever. It's pretty funny that

19:44

Zelda lore. There are two gandans inside of you. Yeah. Zelda

19:46

lore is actually very thin

19:48

and very confusing, but Zelda

19:50

lore people really take that stuff seriously.

19:53

So if they do heavy retconning with this one,

19:55

watch out.

19:56

There'll be trouble on the internet,

19:58

the old internets. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Do you think

20:01

Reb I want to ask you do you think it's more likely

20:03

that we play as Ganondorf than Zelda

20:05

if we are to play as someone else

20:07

No,

20:10

we're gonna play Zelda no anybody no one

20:12

wants to play Ganondorf actually whoa

20:14

Hold on Seth

20:16

is a Ganondorf smash main Mm-hmm.

20:19

That's true Take

20:22

that Reb. Yeah, I've taken it No,

20:27

I don't I set the side I

20:29

think popular consensus as people would if

20:32

we get one we would rather play as Zelda Yeah,

20:35

yeah So at

20:37

last the Triforce is combined.

20:40

Yeah courage power and

20:42

wisdom Yeah, that would be really interesting I

20:44

mean, it's it's weird because this is like a this is

20:47

an open-world game with overlapping Systems

20:49

and a million things to do so it would be odd to have

20:52

like a singular Story

20:54

mission where you play as other you play as Ganon

20:56

although like, you know That's something I was asking for before but

20:59

I think it would be really cool But it would be a little

21:01

weird if it was like

21:02

hey here's Zelda. Here's Ganon wrecking Hyrule

21:05

and you control him Yeah, you know like

21:07

it's it it would it would turn the perspectives

21:09

a lot, but I don't know if it's necessarily something that

21:12

Fans want to do specifically

21:14

I can hear like I can just hear in my head like AJ

21:16

And you mug like getting up in front of people and saying, you

21:18

know at like a GDC talk for a while We considered

21:21

having you play as Ganondorf But we realized that

21:23

that would actually be antithetical to the the

21:26

principal tenants of the Zelda franchise or something

21:28

like that Yeah, that's what that feels like to me

21:30

seems unlikely that you will actually end

21:33

up playing as Ganon that

21:35

said I could I don't know imagine a

21:37

scenario similar to say Wind Waker and

21:39

which or Ocarina of time and which at

21:41

the end of the game Link is fighting

21:43

the big bad. Maybe it's chaos. I don't

21:45

know chaos is here and Zelda's

21:48

there and oh wait now also Ganon's

21:50

there. So you're controlling link But

21:53

Ganon and Zelda are also part of

21:55

your group I like that a lot Ganon

21:58

shooting like malice arrows Zelda

22:00

shooting light arrows. I mean think about

22:02

like the way Super Mario RPG

22:04

handled things right where it was like alright There's a bigger

22:07

bad guy than Bowser and Bowser's sort of begrudgingly

22:09

like alright. I'll help you guys fight

22:11

I think it works in the Mario game

22:13

is because Bowser's kind of like a joke

22:15

Yeah, and they're funny they have that whole

22:18

canonical thing where they're basically like stage

22:20

play actors who just like Yeah, get together.

22:23

Ganondorf

22:23

doesn't play tennis with Link and Zelda on the

22:25

weekends. He would love to though. We know her Yeah,

22:29

that outfit that Ganondorf is wearing is his tennis

22:31

outfit Kind

22:33

of half half tunic.

22:35

That's what that tapestry was depicting. It's

22:37

just a tennis match

22:39

Also

22:42

want to point out that you know I'm

22:44

a big Sonic fan and in Sonic Heroes

22:47

and Sonic Adventure 2 Sonic

22:49

and Eggman usually have to team up

22:52

to destroy whatever thing Eggman made

22:54

so it is like yeah Eggman Dr.

22:56

Robotnik is still bad, but it's

22:58

like alright Well we got a team up because Metal

23:00

Sonic is now this huge monster in space and we

23:03

have to stop them together And then we

23:05

kind of do like a knowing not at the end where it's

23:07

like thank you, but we're still

23:09

Enemies like Team Rocket or King

23:11

Dedede and meanwhile all the rabbits that

23:13

Robotnik puts in the garbage can at the end of every level Are

23:15

like why are you doing this? Don't be

23:17

friends with this guy Let's

23:19

let's hear the the third crazy theory here

23:23

third and final theory here

23:25

This one this one feels personal Nintendo

23:28

heard all of our complaints about

23:30

the Korok forests and all the frame

23:33

rate dips Hey the last six

23:35

years. They've been stewing and you know what Nintendo

23:37

said they said I'm gonna burn

23:39

down this forest So you will not be

23:41

able to complain. That's right the Korok

23:44

forest is gone the Deku Tree is gone

23:47

Shout out to RM FH gaming

23:49

for tweeting this from the trailer. It looks

23:51

like the Korok forest is Burned

23:53

down Nintendo said you know what?

23:56

No, no tech issues here and honestly

24:00

a devastating kind of side

24:02

story where we already know that the

24:04

Korok seeds are gonna come back in this game but

24:07

we have another tweet screenshot from

24:10

credit to Zeltik where they

24:12

sort of they took a screenshot

24:14

of one of the Korok characters kind of saying

24:17

like I need I need help I need to find

24:19

my friend and you know with the

24:22

oh yeah I need to reach my friend and the

24:24

kind of crazy thing with the Korok seeds is that yeah

24:26

there's there's 900 of those little guys scattered

24:28

in Breath of the Wild and they're all just like Tiki

24:31

having a fun time they're fine being

24:33

separated but the fact that they're

24:35

all assuming they're still separated in Tears of the Kingdom

24:37

and they're all looking for each other makes me

24:40

believe strongly that this

24:42

that their home is gone that the Master Sword

24:44

head of

24:45

stool is gone and this might

24:48

maybe it's a side quest maybe it's part

24:50

of the bigger thing but uh I don't know it's

24:52

a kind of devastating realization of this

24:54

theory maybe this is why Link can't fix

24:56

that darn broken Master Sword he's carrying around

24:59

cuz there's no like Deku Tree Master

25:01

Sword for us to go get

25:03

it in the ground or whatever that

25:05

poor Deku Tree yeah just like dies

25:08

and get dries out and

25:10

you know like the five minutes in Ocarina time it just

25:12

turns in a stone or whatever like

25:14

it's sad it's a bummer

25:17

so I actually like this theory a lot because

25:19

the the Korok we saw in that trailer and the one that

25:21

I saw my preview had a backpack which

25:24

means maybe he or it was

25:26

displaced and context

25:30

for that line in your

25:33

preview at all so the the one that I

25:35

the thing I did was reuniting a Korok with another

25:38

Korok and when you met that other korok you had like a

25:40

little camp setup and so I wonder if

25:42

this is like all the Koroks

25:44

had a leave they grabbed everything they could in

25:46

the fire which is so sad and dark

25:49

you know a couple of family portraits

25:51

and like their childhood drawings and stuff like that

25:53

shoved it in the back some snacks paperwork

25:55

important stuff tax legal documents

25:58

and such and then hit the road

25:59

And then they got out there and they're like, I need,

26:02

this is lonely, I need to reunite me with my friends. I

26:05

should have prefaced, this is utterly depressing and

26:07

thematically super dark stuff.

26:10

But that's what the Hero of

26:12

Time is there for, right? The swordsman as the

26:14

Korok call him in Wind Waker. So Link

26:16

can roll through, reunite

26:18

all these people. And at the end, it'll

26:20

be like, you know, Return of the Jedi, they'll

26:22

all just be hanging out. And Ganon

26:25

will be burning.

26:26

It seems like, I mean, it would be a good

26:28

strategy on Ganondorf's part to like

26:31

break the sword, take the

26:33

sword of his enemy, the sword that

26:35

can kill him, like the one thing that can destroy

26:37

him, break it in half, and then also

26:39

go destroy the guy who gave it to

26:41

him and any hope of ever

26:44

repairing it. I mean, if I were a

26:46

villainous person in any way and somebody had

26:48

a sword that could kill me, that's what I would

26:49

do.

26:50

So it's like Power Rangers in which Rita Repulsa

26:53

caused an eclipse because

26:55

the Megazord was solar powered.

26:57

And I was like, ha ha, I got you this time.

27:00

And had the evil ring. That was

27:02

a good game. That was a good game. It's a great

27:04

range. Nice work there. So what I'm saying is Ganon

27:06

read the script and said, all right, screw

27:08

this. It's time

27:10

for me to actually

27:13

go and beat the hero rather than just trying the same

27:15

thing over and over and over again. Fans

27:17

watching at home might've noticed the arc that

27:19

my head went through during that where I went from confused

27:21

to, oh yeah, that's amazing.

27:24

It also fits in, again, been watching

27:26

a lot of Zelda lore videos. Been

27:28

watching some discussion of the fact that in

27:30

Breath of the Wild, your enemy was Calamity

27:33

Ganon, who was just sort of this amorphous

27:35

blob of evil. It could really

27:37

plot. It couldn't really do, it

27:41

couldn't chase down Link or anything. It

27:43

was confined to the castle and the little constructs

27:45

that it was possessing. It was just sort of bad,

27:49

vaguely. But we've seen in the trailers

27:52

a figure, Ganondorf appears to be

27:54

in this game, who is a person

27:56

with reason

27:58

and the ability to strategize.

27:59

and play at and who has historically in other games

28:02

been very good at those things. So,

28:04

you know, this would make sense coming from

28:06

this enemy that is able to sort of calculate

28:09

and imagine what his enemy might do next

28:11

and then try to counter that.

28:12

Yeah. And if you, you

28:14

know, want to take over all of Hyrule, it's

28:16

probably more practical to be a human

28:19

adult shaped person than like a 600 foot

28:22

tall pig. Yeah. You know, like

28:24

you can't even go to sleep in your own bed at

28:26

the end of the night. Seriously, because

28:29

you're just a big cloud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're

28:31

a cloud flying around or like you're the big pig at

28:33

the end and Link just kind of beats on his feet and then

28:35

he dies. Spoilers. You think I do love I.

28:39

Oh, sorry. The pig cannon when you when you

28:41

find him at the end of Breath of the Wild, when you're just like out on

28:43

Hyrule Field, I was nervous that he was just going to go

28:45

straight for Tarrytown. I'm like, I need you to stay right

28:47

here

28:48

and just let

28:50

me beat you. Yeah, it's

28:52

a narrow bridge to Tarrytown, though.

28:54

You know, I think it

28:56

he would have fallen. It would have been sad. You

29:00

know, what's interesting, though, about this theory

29:02

that if it is true, I'm worried

29:04

that

29:05

my my my biggest bummer from Breath

29:07

of the Wild was I

29:09

say biggest as I have a lot. I don't I love

29:11

Breath of the Wild. But when you beat Breath

29:14

of the Wild and you destroy Klamity Ganon

29:16

and you finish the game, you roll credits, when

29:19

you start over, the game

29:21

puts you back in front of Hyrule Castle as

29:23

if you had never beat him. And I

29:26

wish that we could see this like post

29:28

calamity Zelda world. And

29:31

they give you a little star on your save files as

29:33

they beat a good job. But I wish

29:35

I hope that if the Korok Force is burned

29:38

down, that we actually do get to see it

29:40

back up and running by the end. Yeah, yeah.

29:42

I don't OK. I mean, I don't want

29:44

anyone to die, but I don't want anyone

29:46

to die off screen. I don't I don't

29:48

want to like come back to this world

29:50

and be like, oh, so and so like

29:53

died before the game started like,

29:55

oh, the force has been burned down or something. I

29:57

don't want anything like that. Like if it happens in front

29:59

of.

29:59

I'm gonna ball

30:02

I'm gonna just die inside, but it's

30:04

different from sort of like oh, they're gone now What

30:07

so you're saying you you you actively

30:09

want a cutscene at the beginning of tears the king Oh

30:11

the Coroc force burns day all the

30:13

corks grab their tax Paperwork

30:15

and they grab their backpacks and they run out

30:18

into the night

30:19

But I think that would be more emotionally

30:21

impactful of course it would yeah, we would cry Yeah,

30:24

it'd be horrible. All

30:26

right. I I kind of want it now

30:28

Cuz that would that would that would get me to

30:31

go kill Ganon harder

30:39

I mean tears of the kingdom has got to have some big

30:41

intro because like we all still talk about

30:43

when link wakes up from the You know shrine of resurrection.

30:46

He walks out. He's we all see Hyrule for the first time.

30:48

What is tears of the kingdom's first?

30:51

What's the moment on the cliff? How do

30:53

you talk that you don't you don't? Yeah,

30:55

it was such an iconic moment

30:57

And I don't I just don't think you can ever be

31:00

as impactful and that's gonna be a

31:02

a lot of what tears of the kingdom Is facing

31:04

is that it's not running it back so to speak

31:07

But it will really struggle to

31:09

hit as hard as breath of the wild did hmm.

31:12

Yeah, it's challenges

31:14

it doesn't

31:16

No one is going into this looking for

31:19

something that is this Revolutionary and brand new

31:21

as breath of the wild was right it has a different

31:23

challenge and that different challenges How do you be a good

31:25

sequel that? Which

31:28

you know involves different things and I don't think it needs

31:30

a moment on the cliff, but it does need

31:32

something different

31:34

Yeah, and that's okay at the very least a good a

31:36

good bed Cuz the link wakes up in a in

31:38

a nice bed in most of all the games and just that's

31:40

how it starts right He's just like oh

31:43

man. What's going on today? And they're like everything is

31:45

horrible get out there

31:49

So anyway Those

31:52

are some of the internet's

31:54

most wonderful and weirdest and craziest fan

31:56

theories around tears of the kingdom Like I said, we'll

31:59

know the answers

31:59

this in a week, but then there will be a whole bunch of new

32:02

theories based on the information that we have that

32:05

will sustain us for decades.

32:07

So that's always fun. Six, seven years, however long

32:09

it takes. Yeah, at the very least. Yeah.

32:12

Anyway, if you're anything like us, you get really excited when

32:14

a new Zelda game launches and you get

32:17

irresponsible with your money. So here

32:19

to tell us all about the best and rarest

32:21

and maybe most delicious

32:24

Tears of the Kingdom merchandise out there is

32:26

Seth Macy. Take it away, Seth.

32:29

Oh, hello. Thank you, Brian,

32:31

everyone. Yeah. The good news is

32:33

a lot of these items aren't going

32:35

to affect your wallet unless you happen to live in

32:37

Japan because the

32:39

best stuff is coming to Japan

32:41

in cooperation with Lawson's, which

32:44

I don't know what that is. It's a convenience

32:46

store. Yeah, it's a convenience store.

32:48

OK, 7-Eleven. OK,

32:51

well, Lawson's convenience store in

32:53

Japan is the place to be to

32:55

get tendies of the kingdom.

32:58

These are chicken nuggets. I'm sorry.

33:01

One more time. Tendi's. Tendi,

33:03

it's not really what they're called, but I don't speak Japanese.

33:06

It should be called that. Yeah. That's

33:08

what I'm calling it. Look at that. Wow.

33:11

A slight level of spiciness.

33:14

Now, I am actually going to say the name here. And

33:17

Kat, you can make fun of my pronunciation.

33:20

It's had a kun poka

33:23

poka grassroots taste. That's what that

33:25

is called. All right.

33:27

If you're going to go on a mountain,

33:29

if you're going to like, look, if you're going to summit

33:31

Everest, eat a couple of these beforehand,

33:34

you won't suffer from cold. Seth,

33:36

you know, you know what really bums me out about these? We can't

33:38

import them.

33:40

Like by the time they get here,

33:42

they just won't be good. And that's such a no,

33:44

you know, you can throw them in the air fryer, but you'll probably

33:46

get botulism. It's just not. Here's

33:49

my thing. I would import

33:52

the packaging

33:54

and then I would make my own vegetarian

33:57

chicken nuggies and put it in there and

33:59

then imagine. a world

34:01

in which I got vegetarian Zelda chicken nuggies. I

34:04

love the packaging on these. Also,

34:06

I want to point out, it's

34:08

a good point, Kat, because how did they

34:10

make these? Because when you attack a

34:12

chicken in Zelda, you die. Yeah.

34:15

They're invulnerable. Yeah. Yeah.

34:18

Well, Jeffrey, unfortunately, if you eat these hundreds of chickens,

34:20

we'll attack you as we do. So

34:23

it's... Just watch out. It's dangerous

34:25

out there. Approach

34:28

them at your own risk. Kat, I do have something

34:29

that you could try, and that is a Goron

34:33

spice powder flavored dry curry

34:35

rice ball. Powder flavored.

34:38

There's also the... Yeah, it's lit. I'm

34:40

in. I'm in. I love that powder. All

34:43

of these, by the way, I had to do this on Google Translate. So a lot

34:45

of these are literal translations to say, and

34:47

I don't understand. Like the Suruugi

34:50

banana ole, ole,

34:51

max truffle

34:54

fragrant mushroom focasia. Yum.

34:56

Wow. Except for gluten.

34:59

And then a kimono meat curry

35:01

bread. Oh, this is my favorite. And it just

35:03

sounds appetizing when put through

35:06

Google Translate. Max salmon

35:08

and fresh milk clam chowder. Yum.

35:12

Oh, wow. Okay. Give me

35:14

that milky salmon

35:14

that I crave. But all of these things will improve your stats. Sometimes

35:17

they'll fill your hearts and give you

35:20

plus four. Yeah. So you

35:22

will. So yeah, these are available at Lawson's

35:24

if you're... And Lawson's. Lawson's is

35:26

the place to be if you're in Japan right

35:28

now. That is. If you go to

35:30

Japan, I think that you should go to a convenience

35:32

store and you should get some boss coffee

35:35

and you should maybe pick up an onigiri rice ball.

35:37

Yeah. And then you should go and you should

35:40

get these Legend of Zelda and Chicken Nuggies. Yeah.

35:43

And you're going to have a great time. Yeah. In

35:45

fact, Japan has perfected the convenience

35:47

store form and they're

35:50

all good. I like Lawson's better

35:52

than a lot of the others. Maybe

35:54

if I were to rank the... Sorry,

35:56

I'm totally taking over this show. Yeah.

35:59

I need a...

35:59

I need to point out that this this episode

36:02

is not sponsored by Japanese convenience stores.

36:04

We're just excited I think I would probably go

36:07

Lawson family Mart 7-eleven in

36:09

that order But maybe

36:10

people living in Japan can totally push

36:12

back against me. My memory is a little bit hazy Yeah,

36:14

check out IGN's top five Japanese

36:17

convenience stores, but they have everything

36:19

you need including Zelda merch Yeah, well,

36:21

there's also Eyes that you

36:24

can win at Lawson's that are like

36:26

and this is the only place you can get them and in order

36:28

of awesomeness to like Well,

36:30

no, they're all pretty awesome. Mm-hmm. There's

36:32

the light up decayed master

36:35

sword So it's like a master sword

36:37

side on its side and a nice little stand

36:39

click it on lights up your life That's

36:42

like the grand prize. We need that we need that

36:44

in stores here. Yeah, that looks awesome I

36:46

want that I want to be able to just buy that here

36:49

Well, I'm gonna make one with an Arduino

36:51

and some LED lights and

36:54

the power of imagination

36:55

What are they doing? Did they not want our

36:57

money? No, well, no They

36:59

don't because again Lawson's

37:02

and it's and well 7-eleven

37:05

is actually doing a contest here in America. Okay,

37:07

if you if you bring a sword there they will arrest

37:10

you Meet

37:14

a policeman today. I want I want

37:16

that master sword

37:18

Yeah, I want that's like that's the coolest thing. That's

37:20

cool of all the prizes the next one's

37:22

not so great I mean, it's cool. It's like it's a canvas

37:25

print of the key art from Tears of the Kingdom

37:27

Like, you know, you could actually

37:29

you could print that out yourself at Walmart. Yeah, that's

37:31

fine

37:32

In 18 to 24 hours.

37:34

I think the collector's edition has something similar

37:37

to that right like us there is I

37:40

think yeah, I think there's an art print if you pre-order

37:42

from Best Buy right there's an art

37:45

print Oh, but there's not a there's not a print inside

37:47

the collector's edition. I think I just saw

37:49

oh, oh, yeah the collector's edition I'm sorry.

37:52

I was thinking of like the pre-order bonuses that they used

37:54

to try to entice you. Oh Which

37:56

is the one where you get a spoon and a fork that's

37:58

also Japan, right? Of course. Ah,

38:01

to eat the chicken nugget to attendees in the kingdom.

38:04

Yes, exactly. There's some

38:06

oh, there's a toga like

38:08

blanket inspired by one of Link's

38:11

in-game outfits. Hi, Luzza. Spoiler, sorry. There's

38:15

a stationary set. What's up, Miranda?

38:18

There's oh, I'm sorry. Oh, no. I'm

38:20

sorry. I just hit a button on my mouse.

38:25

Oh, he just bought it. Did you? I just

38:27

did you accidentally import it? I just booked

38:29

a trip.

38:30

Unless on very

38:33

short notice, and it's going to cost me a lot. There, there's

38:35

some great stationary. Look at that stationary. I'm not

38:37

like a stationary person. But it's yeah,

38:40

it's I really like that one. It's another thing

38:42

I would buy. There are oh, this one's cool. Small

38:45

ceramic plates in the shape of rupees and

38:47

other items from the Legend of Zelda

38:50

game that you could fill with.

38:51

Like yeah, look at that. Your grandma

38:53

could put hard candies in there. Yeah. When

38:56

you go to visit, you can have one ribbon candy. If

38:59

you go get her a beer

39:01

out of the fridge, there's a metal

39:04

charm collection, which I really like. These are

39:06

all prizes by the way. You can't buy these.

39:09

So they're going to be extremely valuable. Look at

39:11

that,

39:11

though. Do they not want my money?

39:13

Yeah, what is going on? No, they don't.

39:16

They don't want our money. There's a six pack of Korok

39:18

rubber charms, a Tears of

39:20

the Kingdom wall clock, which I think is

39:23

the lamest of all these prizes. No, no, it's

39:25

not. It's feeding

39:27

into that time travel theory. We have. Oh,

39:29

yeah. Oh, yeah. Can we see the

39:31

wall clock? Can we see what it looks like? It runs backwards.

39:35

Does the clock go as fast as the game

39:37

time? Because

39:41

five minutes is like two seconds. When

39:44

I played, I was doing a puzzle where it turned from day

39:46

to night like six times and I felt so stupid.

39:52

These are things you can actually buy. And these

39:54

are things I would probably suggest, like looking

39:56

on sites that specialize in like,

39:59

you know.

39:59

importing or rather exporting Japanese

40:02

candies and stuff like Sakura

40:04

gummies, the great long, long man, Marshall's.

40:07

There are gummies with a sword shaped

40:10

pick. These I saw I love

40:12

these so much. Yeah,

40:14

they are shaped like different elemental

40:16

types of chicken jelly. So they're little little

40:18

sword that you stab it in there.

40:21

And you eat them up. But it's

40:23

not just the master sword. There's all kinds of masters

40:26

or different swords and weapons

40:28

that come in there's for

40:29

some lucky few. There's a golden

40:32

master sword in that. Whoa. Yeah, that's amazing.

40:34

Whoa. I know. So these you

40:36

can import these right?

40:38

Yes into this. Yeah, I'm into

40:40

like, Japanese candy kind of rules.

40:43

Way better than European candy. No, no offense

40:45

to pair who's not here anyway, but I'm

40:48

sure him and his ancient salted licorice will be

40:51

fine. There's

40:54

Hey, this is cool. There's some trading cards.

40:56

They come with two pieces of

40:59

apple flavored candy per pack. Oh my god.

41:01

And you get candy and look at

41:03

that

41:03

cards and candy together

41:06

at last. I love the card

41:08

and candy is the same font as the game as

41:10

if that's the title of the game. The

41:13

card and candy. On that note,

41:15

I

41:15

wish there are I wish Nintendo

41:18

would make more of their are

41:20

they called Hanafuda cards? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

41:22

I wish they would do more themed Hanafuda cards

41:24

because sorry if I mispronounce that because

41:27

they had some Pokemon

41:29

ones at one point and they were so good.

41:31

Give me Zelda. Yeah, I'm

41:34

always a little surprised that Nintendo maybe

41:36

maybe it's a tradition thing. Maybe they don't want to

41:38

mess with it too much. But well, I know

41:40

that

41:41

there was a my Nintendo reward in like the

41:43

Wii U era. There was Mario

41:45

Hanafuda cards. I don't remember if there

41:47

were were Zelda ones. But yeah, that would be that

41:49

would be super rad. Yeah. And like,

41:52

I hope Nintendo is listening. All

41:54

right, there's also a pair of stainless

41:56

steel trays that to me look very

41:58

much like

41:59

McDonald's ashtrays in the 1980s. And

42:02

that's probably maybe the only one

42:04

who's old enough to remember going to McDonald's with

42:06

your mom. And she'd be like, hold on, boys. You

42:09

have a cigarette. I got to get a beer for your grandma.

42:12

Yeah. Actually,

42:14

those are cool. But they do kind

42:17

of look like ashtrays.

42:18

Are these all extremely breakable

42:21

stuff in the game? Yes, you can only

42:23

use them so many times. Look at you. You blew them

42:25

off to it, Brian. You'll

42:27

increase

42:27

the durability. You pick it up

42:30

and you smash it on the ground, and a rupee comes out. Oh,

42:32

yeah, that's good. There

42:34

it is. In the US, actually, when I

42:36

wrote this note, if you

42:39

have 550 platinum Nintendo points, you

42:41

can get a triple pack of Tears of the Kingdom, Splatoon 3

42:45

Splatfest emblem key chains. I

42:47

was 30 points shy of being able to get it. But

42:49

it doesn't matter, because actually,

42:51

check this morning, they're gone. So sorry to

42:54

put that in your head, folks. But

42:56

yeah. And then there's obviously the Zelda

42:58

OLED, which you can still

43:00

get right now.

43:02

It's kind of everywhere.

43:04

Yeah, it's everywhere. But you can't

43:06

get the Pro Controller. That's gone.

43:08

You can't get the collector's edition. That

43:10

went in a minute. Even

43:12

the case, the

43:15

Switch carrying case, that's gone

43:17

at Amazon. The Amiibo is only

43:19

available at Best Buy and

43:21

GameStop now. Yeah,

43:23

if you haven't gotten that Amiibo yet,

43:25

you're running out of time. The

43:28

collector's edition is quite simple,

43:30

all things considered. Yeah. I'm

43:32

a sucker for a stainless steel case, so I

43:35

did preorder it. I did too?

43:37

Yeah. I got the Amiibo. I haven't

43:39

bought one of those in years, but it just looked too cool.

43:41

I digitally preordered the game so that it will be

43:44

available to me at 9 PM Pacific

43:46

Time on Thursday. And that is what I did.

43:47

I may actually do that as well. It's

43:49

a good idea. I am seriously

43:52

considering, even though I have the collector's edition,

43:54

they said it's not going to arrive until Tuesday.

43:57

So I might just double dip on this. But I

43:59

also.

43:59

So real quick, I wanted to mention that

44:02

IGN store has a bunch of new

44:04

Tears of the Kingdom stuff. And because

44:06

I love you all, I had Kelvin

44:09

who runs a store make a special code. You

44:11

can save 10%. You guys want to know what the code

44:14

is? Yes. They do. Nin-frendo.

44:17

If you put it in, you

44:19

save 10% on all that tears in the game. That's very cute. So yeah,

44:22

keep an eye out because

44:23

certain cast members might be wearing those shirts

44:26

in future episodes. That's true. Yeah.

44:28

How can you tell us about the code earlier before we got

44:30

the shirts? Be

44:35

it by land, air, sea,

44:38

or an ever changing digital landscape. Our

44:40

nation is threatened by the unexpected and

44:43

unrelenting. But as our enemies shift

44:45

and evolve with every passing moment,

44:48

Marines will adapt to defeat any

44:51

threat because in the battles for

44:53

America's future, there is only

44:55

one constant. Marines

44:58

who are winning the few, the

45:01

proud, the Marines.

45:07

He's trying to maximize profits

45:10

before the end of the quarter or whatever. That's

45:12

fair. No, no. Yeah. The collector's issue is not cheap. We're

45:14

having four people pay the normal

45:17

price. Yeah. Actually go check out some of those

45:19

Tears of the Kingdom shirts. They're, they're really cool. There's

45:21

like a couple that just have the logo, but there's also ones

45:23

that have like, uh, just really bold

45:25

iconography from the game and the kind

45:27

of the silhouette of the master sword, like awesome

45:29

stuff. Um, thank you, Seth.

45:32

That was wonderful. Yeah. So get out there, get

45:35

some, get some gummies. If you win that master sword contest,

45:39

I'm, I'm so jealous of you. That,

45:41

that is just amazing. Also, like, yeah, we need that

45:43

stuff here in the States and the rest of the world.

45:46

Um,

45:47

let's see. So, uh, the run up to

45:50

Tears of the Kingdom has many of

45:52

us thinking back on our favorite

45:54

Zelda games. Uh, a bunch

45:56

of us are replaying Zelda games or playing them for the first time.

45:58

Uh, Reb, you're playing Majora's math. recently. It's

46:01

a franchise that's just near and dear to all

46:03

of us. It's been with us for like almost

46:06

our entire lives. So we

46:09

figured we'd take this time to sort of victory

46:11

lap a little bit on Zelda itself, talk about our

46:14

first Zelda games and our

46:16

favorite Zelda games. And just like I want

46:18

us to just kind of hang out in each game

46:20

and just talk about why we love them and why they're important

46:23

to us. So Kat, let's start with you. What was your

46:25

first Zelda game?

46:27

My first ever Legend of Zelda game was

46:29

The Legend of Zelda, Link's Awakening.

46:32

I played the original Legend

46:33

of Zelda back on the NES and could

46:35

not figure it out at all. It was very confusing.

46:37

I was not a very smart child, I

46:40

have to say. But Link's Awakening- I'm shocked

46:42

at that, honestly. You're a brilliant adult. Oh,

46:44

thank you. I borrowed Link's

46:47

Awakening from a classmate and I started

46:49

playing it and I was immediately

46:51

taken by it. It made a lot more sense to

46:53

me. It's one of the most beautiful Game

46:55

Boy games and I've seen a lot of people say that

46:58

Donkey Kong 94 is maybe better and maybe

47:00

they're right. But I think that Link's Awakening DX

47:03

is personally the best Game

47:05

Boy game ever. The

47:07

amount of work that they did to

47:10

put this game into there, onto

47:12

the Game Boy, the detail of the

47:14

sprites, it's an utterly gorgeous

47:17

Game Boy game. So beautiful. It does

47:19

not feel like a small thing. It feels like a fully

47:21

fledged Zelda

47:23

adventure. And it's one of the most

47:25

interesting and different and unique ones.

47:28

It was the one that really brought music fully

47:31

into the series. We got a little flute

47:34

in A Link to the Past, but on Link's Awakening they

47:36

had all of the instruments and the

47:39

song

47:39

at the end is quite

47:41

moving, I have to say. Oh my god, yeah.

47:44

I have a full set of the-

47:46

a couple years ago they did like a packs for the Link's

47:48

Awakening remake for Switch. They did this like

47:51

scavenger hunt and I wasn't there because I

47:53

think I'd just become a father. And a friend

47:55

of mine, Andrew Goldfarb, former IGN

47:58

editor, sent me the- the full

48:00

set of the Link's Awakening pins that

48:03

they were hiding all over Seattle, and they're

48:05

all shaped like the music instruments you get at the end of each level.

48:08

Wow. And like in that full circle, and

48:10

it's like one of my favorite things. Cat, this

48:12

game is so, so good,

48:15

and it's so special to me. Like you were

48:17

talking about like the technical aspects of it. Like it began

48:19

as a port to Link

48:22

to the Past. Yes, I think so. And then during

48:24

development, they pivoted and just made an original

48:26

game that has one of like the saddest

48:29

but best stories in any Zelda

48:31

game.

48:31

I definitely cry at the end every

48:34

time I finish it. And I

48:36

have to say that with

48:39

Link's Awakening, there's a silliness, but

48:41

there's also a darkness to it.

48:43

And the silly aspects of course are like Oryo

48:46

with the phone call, or

48:48

the random like pictures of

48:50

Zelda, but then you get to... You're talking about when the

48:53

goat catfishes will

48:55

write from Creator of the Sims. I

48:58

was, as I mentioned, I was not a smart child,

49:01

so I had to, I wasn't sure how to do... I

49:03

didn't, I hadn't internalized a lot of the Zelda conceits

49:06

at the time. So I was like, you got to push the block

49:08

to open the door. Right, right.

49:10

You have to kill all the enemies in a room to get

49:12

the thing. You have to light

49:14

all four torches. And I'm like, what

49:16

am I doing? How do I do this thing?

49:18

So I called the 1900 Nintendo

49:20

counselor number and spent like 30 minutes

49:22

sitting on there listening

49:24

to Nintendo ads. And then a Nintendo

49:26

game counselor would answer

49:28

be like, just push the block. And I'd be like, oh. Oh

49:30

my God. That probably cost

49:32

you more than the game did. Oh, my parents

49:35

were like, what the heck with the home bill?

49:37

It was not great. I have to say Nintendo had a real

49:39

racket going on there for quite a while. Yeah.

49:42

Well, because the first minute was free, but the first minute

49:44

was just ads. And then somebody would start talking to you

49:46

and it was like a dollar, dollar and I know in a minute. But hey,

49:49

I love those ads as a kid because I was just

49:51

completely nuts for all things Nintendo.

49:53

So good on Nintendo there. Now,

49:57

this is the toughest question

49:58

I'm going to ask all of you today.

49:59

What is your favorite Zelda game of

50:02

all time? Gosh, that's a hard one.

50:04

And I had to think about that one quite

50:06

a bit.

50:06

But if I had to, if

50:09

I had to say, I would say, can

50:11

I get a 1A and a 1B here? Yeah. Legend

50:14

of Zelda Link to the Past and its sequel, Legend

50:16

of Zelda A Link Between Worlds. I just

50:18

replayed A Link to the Past for my podcast

50:21

and we did a deep dive exploration of it. Wow,

50:24

oh wow, does that game really hold up?

50:26

It's one of the most beautiful games on

50:29

the Super Nintendo. It's very playable

50:31

all over the place. The thing that's interesting

50:33

about A Link to the Past is

50:36

that, I think that's A Link Between Worlds, which

50:38

is also wonderful, by the way.

50:40

I'm seeing that's wonderful about A Link to the Past is

50:43

Ocarina

50:44

of Time kind of brought it

50:46

more into the modern era, like the environmental

50:48

puzzles that we were thinking about. A

50:51

Link to the Past

50:52

in some ways connects back to the

50:54

8-bit roots of the series. It's more

50:57

arcade-like, more action-focused.

50:59

A lot of the puzzles fall into that

51:01

area.

51:02

And I dig it,

51:04

it's

51:04

a different flavor, but at the same time,

51:07

you can thank A Link to the Past for

51:10

basically every Zelda trope ever. So

51:13

much was introduced in this

51:16

game, the form and the function.

51:18

And if you think about, think about

51:20

this, the

51:21

Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past came out

51:23

five years after the original

51:26

Legend of Zelda. It was so crazy. Wow, on

51:28

the NES. What a leap. Especially about that.

51:30

You think about that game starting up, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.

51:33

And the polygonal, or

51:35

what we thought were 3D Triforce pieces rotating

51:40

on your screen and appearing was

51:42

one of the most mind-blowing things that I've ever seen

51:45

at the time. I didn't think video games could even

51:47

do that. It's just, yeah, it's stunning.

51:50

And it's just such a simple, beautiful effect,

51:52

but it's so iconic. And just

51:55

immediately it was just like, oh,

51:56

we're here. We're playing a brand new Zelda game.

51:58

It's 16 years old. Stunning opening.

51:59

You want like set piece openings that establish

52:02

the mood, going through the driving rain

52:04

to the castle, stepping into the

52:06

castle and hearing that crash of music.

52:09

How much better that sounded compared from the

52:11

NES to the Super NES? It felt

52:14

epic. Just hearing like the water

52:16

droplets in all the indoor

52:18

cavern areas, da-na-na-na-na-na-na, bloop, bloop.

52:21

It was like so cool. It was

52:23

a technical showcase for the Super

52:25

Nintendo that came out really quite early

52:27

in his lifespan. It was released in 1992 in North

52:29

America, 1991

52:29

in Japan. So

52:34

it's the keystone

52:37

of all Zelda. A lot of people would say maybe

52:39

Breath of the Wild is better, but

52:42

for a long time I've said Link to the

52:44

Past is the best one, it's the defining one, and

52:46

I stand by that one, gosh darn. Link to

52:48

the Past, you were talking about how Link's Awakening had a lot

52:51

of sort of like undertones of sadness

52:53

to it. And I think Link to the Past

52:55

had a lot of that too, like the entire Flute Kid

52:58

section where his father's looking for him.

53:00

It's like really dark. The

53:02

off key and almost off putting

53:05

colors and musical tones of

53:07

the dark world are

53:09

just super weird to have this like anti-hyrule

53:12

where everyone is tortured. And

53:14

you just meet people who are just like, the

53:17

characters you first meet when you go into the dark world in

53:19

that game are just like. It's a little ball getting kicked

53:21

around, it's like I'm a ball. Yeah,

53:23

I mean, you did forever. Yeah, it's like

53:25

really haunted and strange. More things,

53:27

a Link to the Past established a sense of humor

53:30

of the Legend of Zelda. And also,

53:33

I think we think of a Link to the Past as being

53:35

way more linear than say Breath of the Wild,

53:37

but if you play it, there's far more exploration

53:40

than you would initially guess. You're encouraged

53:42

to run around, kind of look at things.

53:45

Who's that guy sitting next to the sign? What's

53:47

that with the Blacksmith? Who's that kid

53:49

who's running away from me? And you're encouraged to find

53:52

out what the heck is going

53:53

on. In that respect, it is

53:55

very much connected to Breath of the Wild.

53:57

And there are nonlinear aspects to it too.

54:00

especially once you get into the dark world. Another thing

54:02

that's really cool about the Link to the Past, a

54:04

climax is like three times. The

54:06

first climax is when you go into the castle and

54:08

you rescue the princess, which is very early Final

54:10

Fantasy. And that is like, oh wow, okay, I rescued

54:12

the princess, cool. But then that gets you

54:14

onto the next leg of the adventure and you get all three

54:17

pendants. And then you confront the wizard,

54:19

which by the way is awesome. Yes.

54:21

And that's another climax. That whole mechanic that

54:24

returning some of these other games too, of you know, playing

54:27

tennis with him. And then the Macarena time just

54:29

straight up lifted from A Link to the Past. So

54:32

A Link to the Past, defining Zelda game. Yeah,

54:34

yeah. I'll never forget the going

54:37

into the main, the big town for the first time.

54:39

And everyone's like, that boy is here, get him.

54:42

And like, the women and children are shutting their doors

54:44

and the soldiers are chasing you. And you're like, wait, I'm the

54:46

bad guy, what did I do wrong? God,

54:48

it's such a, I could talk about that game forever. Reb,

54:52

what was your first

54:54

Legend of Zelda game?

54:55

I, like Kat, played the original

54:57

Legend of Zelda. But my situation was

55:00

I played it as a latch key kid where a

55:02

little timer went off after five minutes and I

55:04

had to pass the controller to the next person. Five minutes?

55:07

Yeah. It's not enough time. To do anything.

55:09

So I never really played Legend of

55:11

Zelda in any meaningful sense. My actual

55:13

Reb became a speed runner. I

55:16

was at kindergarten too. So you know I was accomplishing

55:18

nothing. So my actual first Zelda

55:20

game was Wind Waker actually. I saved

55:23

up money to purchase a GameCube for myself.

55:26

I had a little piggy bank and I was like saving dollars

55:28

and quarters and I bought a GameCube and I bought Super

55:30

Smash Brothers and when Wind Waker came

55:32

out, I bought that. And it was the first Zelda game

55:34

I played start to finish. And so it's

55:36

been like my baseline for what

55:38

the whole rest of the series is, which

55:40

is sort of funny because Wind Waker is not,

55:43

in many respects, not really like most

55:45

other Zelda games. Right. It has

55:48

many elements obviously, but it is

55:50

functionally,

55:52

it's probably closer to

55:54

Breath of the Wild maybe. Which may

55:56

be one of the reasons I like Breath of the Wild so much. But it

55:58

is,

55:59

having the giant ocean to explore. And

56:02

that was what captivated me so much. Yeah.

56:04

That you very early on get this boat and

56:06

you get this sail and then you just go.

56:09

And it plays that gorgeous sweeping sailing

56:12

music and you can just go anywhere.

56:14

It's wild to me that that is the third

56:17

3D Zelda game. Yeah. And they were like,

56:20

let's get rid of the grass. Yeah. Like, let's

56:22

just make a sea. Yeah. You

56:24

know, and it was still able to retain

56:27

that sort of exploration

56:29

and that surprise of just like, I don't know

56:32

what's going to happen. And turning

56:34

a corner in your boat and just seeing like

56:36

a big shadowy figure

56:39

presence, Tower Island and the horizon

56:41

and then going there. Yes, that's it. Like,

56:44

it's such

56:46

a great experience and they

56:49

retain that feeling

56:50

so frequently throughout that game.

56:52

And then this sense, it

56:54

was really cool to me too, having

56:56

not really played Zelda before then, because there's

56:58

that sense of something very ancient

57:01

that has been destroyed because it's a post-apocalyptic

57:03

game. At some point, you go beneath the waves

57:05

and you find the ancient kingdom of Hyrule. And

57:07

I didn't have a whole lot of context for that because I hadn't

57:09

played these other games, but it

57:12

still manages to be so powerful

57:14

because Link in these games

57:16

is, you know, he's not the

57:18

same Link. He's like a new incarnation

57:21

of this hero. So he doesn't really have

57:23

any more context than you do, but

57:25

he is also just

57:27

like

57:28

fascinated and bewildered by this world

57:30

that he has stepped into. And I think they did a wonderful

57:32

job of capturing the awe of

57:35

this ancient kingdom and then what has risen

57:37

up from it, like having the Rito instead

57:39

of the Zora be these characters

57:42

and the Rito are wonderful. I also, I honestly

57:44

think it has one of the best soundtracks of

57:46

the game. It kind of spoiled me

57:49

because I frankly, I have different

57:52

arguments for different games, but I actually think that most of the Zelda

57:54

games don't have that great a soundtrack.

57:56

Oh my gosh. I'm sorry.

57:59

Like on an individual level we can argue about

58:02

different games, but like Broadly,

58:04

it's not I'm not enamored by the music of Legend of

58:06

Zelda, but Wind Waker is great

58:07

You're like I don't have like a button that just drops

58:10

your chair and I

58:14

Know the Wind Waker soundtrack is amazing and there's a lot

58:17

of stuff about it that I really like replaying it recently

58:19

because there's there's Really simple

58:21

parts of that game like when you first go into

58:24

the cave once that big bird attacks the island Which

58:27

by the way, that's the first time you ever See

58:30

that like, you know or in that game link has a sister.

58:32

Yeah and a grandmother We're

58:35

in a blue shirt like he's on vacation on this island,

58:37

you know

58:37

and like he's in Cabo and you're like blue shirt Brought

58:42

that back and made that his new uniform Yeah,

58:44

you can unlock it as a thing like blue shirt

58:46

link shows that you're really good at this Yeah, if you beat it once

58:49

you get to kill.

58:49

Yeah, it's called the lobster shirt. Oh, yeah

58:52

the lobster shirt I like to imagine

58:54

that they

58:55

They tried to make breath of the wild and they put

58:57

him in the green outfit with the hat and

58:59

at some point someone looked At that and point out it and

59:01

said guys it's been like 30

59:04

years Yeah, looks really silly

59:06

like we know he looked he doesn't look serious,

59:08

right? Like he doesn't look like a serious hero. Can we can

59:11

we do something here?

59:14

And like you can still get that

59:16

outfit in breath of the wild obviously but like like

59:19

sorry, we disparaging

59:20

the classic link Look Serious

59:24

if you okay, tell me right now Tano

59:27

put on a pointy green hat and a green

59:29

tunic and little kites a hero Right

59:32

Brian seriously. How dare

59:33

you? I don't think I don't think people take me seriously There's

59:39

been a lot of Zelda cosplay

59:42

since time immemorial and Ocarina

59:44

of time Had that look

59:46

yeah He had Lincoln

59:48

tights for God's sake and you know

59:50

what people wore that and looked awesome

59:52

What about classic link with no pants at all?

59:55

Classic link just had it's

59:57

powerful not for Lee not to wear pants

59:59

I think it looks perfect in

1:00:02

the Game Boy top-down style format where

1:00:04

he's like a little chibi figure. I think it looks perfect for that. It's

1:00:07

cute. It looks good in Wind Waker. I think

1:00:09

once we hit Twilight Princess, though, there's

1:00:11

something about a

1:00:14

cartoon-styled, but still somewhat

1:00:16

realistic-looking grown man in

1:00:18

a pointy hat, green tunic,

1:00:21

and leggings that does not look serious.

1:00:23

How dare you, Reb? I'm sorry. How

1:00:24

dare. Wait, Reb, do you not, when you go to sleep

1:00:27

at night, Reb, do you not wear a sleeping cap?

1:00:30

With a little candle holder?

1:00:32

Not me, no. I

1:00:34

wear a kerchief, Jeff. Best way to scare away

1:00:37

ghosts from the 1800s, easily. I

1:00:39

will say that I like the Breath of the Wild

1:00:41

look. That's my favorite Link look, for

1:00:43

sure. I've always identified with

1:00:45

Blue Link more than Green Link. I've always gone

1:00:48

with Blue Link, for example. I love Blue Link

1:00:50

in A Link to the Past. I always put it as Blue Link in Smash

1:00:52

Brothers. Having said that, I also

1:00:54

love the look of Link in Ocarina of Time.

1:00:57

And it's the classic look. And I will not disparage

1:00:59

it. Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:00

Now, Reb, what is your favorite

1:01:03

Zelda game of all time?

1:01:04

Again, with the big asterisk next to

1:01:06

it, the actual answer is Breath of the Wild. I suspect

1:01:08

someone else might talk about Breath of the Wild here or something.

1:01:12

So I just finished Majora's

1:01:14

Mask for the first time. I'd never played it before.

1:01:17

I think it might be my second favorite Zelda game.

1:01:19

Ooh. Like, I really,

1:01:21

really, really loved it. Oh,

1:01:23

it was so good. I'm tearing up thinking

1:01:26

about it, because I'm thinking about a certain

1:01:28

set. Such a Reb Valentine game. Holy cow.

1:01:30

Can I spoil this for people? It's really old. What?

1:01:32

Oh my gosh. Does anybody care about the ending

1:01:34

of Majora's Mask? We're getting into Majora's Mask spoilers

1:01:36

right now. Yes. 40-year-old game. So cover your ears

1:01:38

for a few seconds. How old is this game? Turn

1:01:40

down the volume. Did you say 40 years old? No, it's

1:01:43

not. I quite thought that. Jeez.

1:01:45

Oh

1:01:45

my gosh. So I got all the masks.

1:01:49

And I didn't do every

1:01:51

side quest. I skipped some heart piece stuff. But

1:01:53

I did a lot. And

1:01:56

I finished like, coffee and Anju. And

1:01:58

I was just like, bowling.

1:01:59

because they're sitting in that room together and they're like,

1:02:02

get evacuate, get out, we're gonna greet the dawn

1:02:04

together. And like after everything you've done,

1:02:07

like this whole painstaking quest, they're

1:02:10

like an hour from their certain doom and

1:02:12

they're just there and you know you're gonna,

1:02:16

they're like happy in that moment because they're together

1:02:18

and you're gonna rewind time and ruin

1:02:20

it.

1:02:21

That is horrible. Which

1:02:23

I didn't, I did the quest before I beat the game, but then that whole

1:02:25

surreal thing at the end with like the tree and

1:02:27

the children running around, what

1:02:29

was that about? And then the aliens at Romani,

1:02:31

really? The aliens, that's odd. What's up with that?

1:02:34

The whole thing is basically a giant metaphor

1:02:36

for grief and like

1:02:38

death and stuff like that. It's nuts,

1:02:41

this game is nuts, it's so weird. It

1:02:43

is, I know other games have played with like a Groundhog

1:02:46

Day structure, I don't know that

1:02:48

anyone that I've done, that I've played through has

1:02:50

done it quite as effectively. Having

1:02:52

these like detailed schedules and having characters

1:02:55

comment on things you're wearing and like things that

1:02:57

come through other people and events happening in town and

1:02:59

based on what day it is and what time it is and what

1:03:01

other quests you've completed.

1:03:04

Right off the bat with this game, when

1:03:06

you meet like the mass salesman and you see the

1:03:08

Skull Kid and stuff like that and you're just like, this is

1:03:10

bleak. And just having this like

1:03:13

threat

1:03:14

looming in the sky, this terrifying

1:03:16

moon with the ugliest, scariest face

1:03:19

of any character in the video game. You're accidentally looking

1:03:21

at it, like you know it's there the whole time, but you'll be

1:03:23

like trying to point an arrow at something and you'll be like,

1:03:25

whoa, whoa, that's nice. Yeah, everyone's

1:03:27

gonna die. I should speed this up

1:03:30

a little bit. Yeah, it's

1:03:32

an incredible, incredible game. On

1:03:35

the is tears of the kingdom time

1:03:37

travel,

1:03:38

Majora's Mask more evidence. I wonder if

1:03:40

tears of the kingdom will

1:03:42

secretly be

1:03:44

what everybody first speculated

1:03:46

on, the Majora's Mask to Breath

1:03:48

of the Wild, the Ocarina of Time.

1:03:49

It's funny because Majora's

1:03:52

Mask to me feels like, it's

1:03:55

really cemented with me that the

1:03:58

thing that the Zelda developers are very good at is making. making

1:04:00

a bunch of puzzle boxes. They love to make

1:04:02

puzzle boxes inside puzzle boxes inside puzzle

1:04:04

boxes. And Majora's Mask, like

1:04:06

before the Zelda games before that, had

1:04:09

had worlds and dungeons that were puzzle

1:04:11

boxes. Majora's Mask made a

1:04:14

world and a dungeon and dungeons

1:04:16

that were puzzle boxes. But then they also like implemented

1:04:20

people into that, if that makes sense. They implemented

1:04:22

their characters as a as a specific moving

1:04:24

piece in that puzzle box. And

1:04:27

then Breath of the Wild, I feel like, did

1:04:30

all of that, but then also implemented its own

1:04:32

environment. Things like

1:04:34

fire and wind and grass and things like

1:04:36

that. And so they're all just like adding more

1:04:39

things in this game to the interwork,

1:04:41

like clockwork workings of these

1:04:43

things. And

1:04:46

I don't know that there's any way that Tiers is going to like

1:04:48

step up Breath of the Wild

1:04:49

in that way because Majora's Mask like

1:04:52

very specifically pulled back

1:04:54

from Ocarina of Time, like what it was doing

1:04:57

and contained it, but in this like genius

1:04:59

way. And I feel like Tiers of the

1:05:01

Kingdom is actively trying to be bigger. Yeah.

1:05:03

So it's like doing the opposite thing. But then like, what

1:05:06

if it could also do the same thing? But at the same

1:05:08

time, developers

1:05:08

have said that the world of Tiers

1:05:10

of the Kingdom is a puzzle. Yeah.

1:05:13

It's its own puzzle to solve. And it makes me think of Majora's

1:05:16

Mask in that room.

1:05:17

Yeah, I don't know. I'm just I'm obsessed with it. I

1:05:20

can't stop thinking about it. The imagery, the characters,

1:05:23

the structure. Very striking. Like it's it's

1:05:25

it's really memorable and really weird

1:05:27

and really depressing. But then also like beautiful

1:05:30

at the end.

1:05:30

And you just played this for the first time recently.

1:05:32

Yeah. And I had no idea. It's

1:05:35

so cool. I had no idea what was going to happen. I've never had

1:05:37

it spoiled for me. I like my partner told me that the coffee

1:05:39

and Andrew thing was like one considered

1:05:41

one of the best Zelda quests out there. But

1:05:43

I had no other context for it. I didn't know that

1:05:46

game was going to end. I didn't know who the final boss was. I

1:05:48

got the Fierce Deity mask. Didn't know what that was going

1:05:51

to do. Found out pretty quick.

1:05:52

Yeah. Yeah. I

1:05:54

don't know. Not sure. No, I'm

1:05:56

I'm I wish I had like a Zelda. I

1:05:59

just forgot to play it.

1:05:59

that I could play for the first time right now. Like I need that

1:06:02

hammer Nintendo used on me to make me lose

1:06:04

my memory. It was good.

1:06:06

Jeffrey, I want to hear from you. What

1:06:09

was your first Zelda game?

1:06:11

My first Zelda game was the Legend

1:06:13

of Zelda Ocarina of Time, which is the prequel

1:06:15

to Majora's Mask, right? Which

1:06:18

is how everyone describes that game. Okay,

1:06:22

Ocarina of Time, that was

1:06:24

like, the N64 was my first console,

1:06:27

and I

1:06:29

was just blown away. I mean, I don't need to spend time

1:06:31

talking about how, you know, incredible

1:06:33

Ocarina of Time is, you know, one of the greatest video games of all

1:06:35

time. But it's funny because

1:06:38

when

1:06:40

Kat was talking about, you know, kind of childhood

1:06:42

memories, I remember when I

1:06:45

first played it, I actually rented it from Blockbuster

1:06:47

Video, rest in peace. Right.

1:06:50

Except there's one left. But I

1:06:52

rented that a bunch of times, and the

1:06:54

thing about N64 games

1:06:57

is that this, so when I played it, I

1:07:00

had only ever played when Link is

1:07:02

a child. So, you know, in Ocarina

1:07:04

of Time, you take the Master Sword, you go

1:07:07

forward seven years. And I'd only

1:07:10

played the kind of when you're young, and

1:07:13

the game was very hard, because again, I was a

1:07:15

little, dummy little kid.

1:07:18

To the point where I could never beat the

1:07:20

Jabu Jabu dungeon, which I think is the last

1:07:24

dungeon before you go to the Temple

1:07:26

of Time. That one's such a

1:07:28

pain. It's a hard one. It is. It's

1:07:30

one of my least favorite Zelda dungeons. Yeah.

1:07:32

Yeah, you gotta carry a little princess the whole way

1:07:34

through. You're getting electrocuted constantly. Like,

1:07:36

you put her down for a second and she

1:07:38

disappears. It's a whole thing, yeah. Yeah, it's

1:07:40

like, whoa, whoa, one second.

1:07:43

The funny thing is that, so

1:07:46

when I rented it from Blockbuster, you know, you have it

1:07:48

for seven days and you're playing it. But

1:07:50

then what I would do is, I

1:07:52

would go to different Blockbusters

1:07:55

and rent the game and hope to

1:07:57

God that the save file had...

1:07:59

someone who had progressed far

1:08:02

enough to be able to play as

1:08:04

an adult. And I,

1:08:07

after many times I finally

1:08:09

found one where you were just like in the forest

1:08:11

temple, which there's nothing funnier than just

1:08:14

starting in a dungeon halfway through, like zero

1:08:17

clue where to go. But I was so

1:08:19

excited because I was so excited to

1:08:22

wield the Hylian Shield, which when you're

1:08:24

a kid, you cannot use because yeah,

1:08:26

as you can see the footage, it's his whole body. You

1:08:29

can crouch, but that's about it. And so

1:08:31

I was so excited to have that shield, have the

1:08:34

sword, but the game was very scary

1:08:36

because when you're an adult

1:08:37

in our creative time, everything is

1:08:39

destroyed. Sounds very familiar.

1:08:42

And I was very scared of the

1:08:45

red deads, the zombies, all this just darkness.

1:08:47

And I was like,

1:08:48

what is happening? Take me back to when I was

1:08:50

a kid, which, I mean, that's evergreen,

1:08:53

right? But yeah,

1:08:56

I was very excited. And then eventually

1:08:58

I realized that I rented the game so many times

1:09:00

that probably should have asked my parents to just buy

1:09:02

it for how much we spent

1:09:05

on renting it. But finally

1:09:07

bought it. Ironically enough, I

1:09:09

never ended up actually finishing

1:09:11

it on N64. The first time I finished

1:09:14

Ocarina of Time from start to finish was on the

1:09:16

3DS remake. Oh wow, that's a good version.

1:09:18

Which was very good. Yeah, that's a very

1:09:20

good version. I actually used the 3D function

1:09:22

on it. And it was awesome. I

1:09:25

remember playing that when I first moved to Los Angeles

1:09:27

when I had nothing, my mattress on the floor.

1:09:30

All I had was this 3DS. And

1:09:32

I was like, wow, I

1:09:34

need to go back and play this. And I was

1:09:37

replaying it on the Switch Online, kind

1:09:39

of the original. But yeah, the 3DS version is very

1:09:41

good. And maybe one day we'll see

1:09:43

an Ocarina of Time kind of remade

1:09:45

and whatever future kind

1:09:47

of graphics. Unreal Engine 5. That

1:09:51

game is,

1:09:52

yeah, it's, no, it's, God,

1:09:55

I love that game so much. And I'm so happy to be

1:09:57

good enough to actually

1:09:59

become an adult. Now and

1:10:02

Jeffrey I played the Majora's Mask 3ds

1:10:05

version is what is what I was playing as opposed

1:10:07

to the N64 version and

1:10:09

I I've been told by everybody that the remake

1:10:12

is considerably better in many many ways

1:10:14

Because a lot of like little lot of quality

1:10:17

of life issues. Yeah that I

1:10:19

The swimming is Azora is worse Somehow

1:10:23

I don't know why or how they made that worse, but

1:10:25

it's worse if possible I think Ocarina

1:10:27

of Time is weirdly underrated because a lot of

1:10:29

people say this one doesn't hold up But

1:10:32

if you actually play it it has some of the best dungeons

1:10:34

and well design in all of Zelda period You're

1:10:37

just mentioning the forest temple that I was calling

1:10:39

Jabu Jabu one of my least favorite Zelda dungeons

1:10:42

forest temple is absolutely one Of my favorites. It's

1:10:44

such a great introduction to that world and you

1:10:46

feel so cool And

1:10:47

it gives you one of the best tools

1:10:50

in Zelda's arsenal, which is the hook shot. Yeah,

1:10:52

look shot I also I

1:10:54

want to say also this might I might

1:10:57

out myself as a crazy person here But the

1:10:59

music in the forest temple I listen

1:11:01

to like 10 hour loops of that while I work

1:11:03

I'm not joking. I listen to that

1:11:05

because it's so

1:11:07

it's so good. It's very eerie. It's

1:11:09

just very atmospheric Honestly the

1:11:11

original lo-fi Yeah,

1:11:13

yeah now Jeffrey let's get into

1:11:16

your favorite Zelda game of all time

1:11:19

Which again, I a really difficult question, right?

1:11:21

Yeah It was it was very hard because I think for a while

1:11:23

it was Ocarina of Time and I've gone back and

1:11:26

forth on it And you know, I won't spend too

1:11:28

much time because you know, we kind of already

1:11:30

talked about it But I would say the Legend of Zelda the

1:11:32

Wind Waker Is it Wind Waker?

1:11:35

Oh my god. I don't even know the name of my

1:11:37

favorite game Yeah, that

1:11:39

one it's crazy. I remember it's so

1:11:41

funny like growing up like reading IGN

1:11:44

and like reading everyone freaking out about the graphics

1:11:47

and I was just like no this is like

1:11:49

this is cool Like this is just like I

1:11:52

was like wow Nintendo can just do whatever they

1:11:54

want Like we're just gonna make this a chibi

1:11:56

fun cartoonish cell shaded graphics

1:11:59

and Yeah, like the GameCube,

1:12:01

you know, kind of was just this game is

1:12:03

just so incredible. And

1:12:05

I've never played the HD version

1:12:08

on the Wii U and I need to. It's

1:12:10

excellent.

1:12:14

Yeah, I've been I've been holding out for, you know,

1:12:16

every Nintendo Direct. I'm like, they're going to put it on Switch,

1:12:18

right? They have to. And they they now that

1:12:20

tears the kingdom, I think there's just no way it's going

1:12:22

to come out anytime soon. But yeah,

1:12:25

the Wind Waker is just it has the best music.

1:12:28

Speaking of music, the what's the

1:12:30

oh, the Rideau Island just. Oh, it's

1:12:33

so

1:12:33

good. Dragon's Island. Yeah. Yeah.

1:12:35

Oh, Dragon's Island. When when you hear that

1:12:38

theme in Breath of the Wild, I like

1:12:40

teared up. I was like, oh, my God,

1:12:42

this is it. Yeah. Wind Waker is. Yeah.

1:12:45

I was going to point out real quick the the

1:12:48

backlash to this art

1:12:50

direction on the Internet back then

1:12:52

could have used your positivity and optimism

1:12:54

because it was it was a dark time. But

1:12:57

specifically tracing back why Nintendo

1:13:00

used to do this event called Space World,

1:13:03

and they showed off a demo

1:13:04

of a Zelda game for GameCube that

1:13:07

was sort of gritty, darker

1:13:09

ocarina of time. It was a sword fight between Link

1:13:12

and Ganon, and it set the expectations for quite

1:13:14

a while that that's what the next Zelda game

1:13:16

would look like. And then we got to

1:13:19

link or Zelda, you know,

1:13:21

for cel shaded. And the

1:13:24

people were livid. And I remember being

1:13:26

like this is in line with

1:13:28

the kind of cartoon promotional

1:13:31

and conceptual artwork we got for

1:13:33

all of the originals of the games. Like Link has always

1:13:35

been this like, you know, plucky kid that just

1:13:37

goes out and fights and stuff like that. And

1:13:40

I felt like this this is an art

1:13:42

style that met it. You know, the franchise

1:13:45

perfectly and people were just really mad about it.

1:13:47

And then the game came out and people loved it. And then that

1:13:49

art style weirdly that went from being

1:13:52

the the most divisive to the

1:13:54

the art style that we've seen the most Zelda games.

1:13:56

Yeah. Like it was Spirit Tracks,

1:13:58

Phantom Hourglass.

1:13:59

for swords Toon

1:14:02

Link has been in and all the Smash Brothers and

1:14:04

stuff like that iconic and also the mid 2000s

1:14:07

was a really bad time for anybody who liked color Oh,

1:14:09

yeah, very gray and brown time.

1:14:11

It was not fun to be a video game fan in the mid

1:14:14

2000s. Yeah, check out 2006 is

1:14:16

Twilight Princess for to see how

1:14:18

Nintendo's sort of over corrected on that front

1:14:21

Twilight Princess has fixed

1:14:23

all the problems with Wind Waker. That was the take in 2000.

1:14:26

Oh, yeah Yeah, and now it's flipped Yeah

1:14:28

And it's really funny as someone who started with Wind Waker

1:14:30

and loved Wind Waker when they announced Twilight

1:14:33

Princess I remember looking at that going what

1:14:35

the heck is this who's this guy? This is

1:14:38

it? Zelda which I didn't play Twilight Princess

1:14:40

for years because it just looked like mean

1:14:43

it

1:14:43

it's very Saturated

1:14:45

it has a lot of like sepia filters and stuff

1:14:47

like that The weirdly

1:14:49

the character models and Twilight Princess, especially for

1:14:52

Link and Midna are still pretty Cartoony

1:14:55

right like they've got the cartoon eyes But then the cuckoos

1:14:57

in that game are some of the head scariest.

1:14:59

Oh, yes, the chickens in that game are

1:15:02

terrifying Yeah, there's

1:15:04

a lot of cool stuff in Twilight Princess, but I yeah, I

1:15:06

personally prefer the Wind Waker art style

1:15:08

But yeah, I'm I got I love talking about that game

1:15:11

Jeffrey any any last words on Wind Waker

1:15:13

I I had never heard the this

1:15:16

I had never heard Zelda before Like

1:15:19

self-saturated Zelda and I hate that I

1:15:21

immediately thought of the legend of Zelda cards

1:15:23

and candy As

1:15:27

equal Yeah,

1:15:32

no, but yeah Wind Waker I

1:15:34

want to get to you before we go First

1:15:37

sell the game first

1:15:38

sell the game the legend of Zelda.

1:15:40

Yeah to the adventure of

1:15:42

link. Yep Oh, man, they

1:15:45

kicked your butt on the first day I don't

1:15:47

know why but that was the first one I played on

1:15:49

Jeffrey I rented it over and over and over again

1:15:51

and would play it the entire course

1:15:53

of a weekend when I was a young lad and

1:15:56

I never beat it.

1:15:57

I did not beat it until about literally

1:15:59

five years ago when it came to

1:16:01

the Nintendo

1:16:02

Switch online. And

1:16:04

you know, you can save and rewind because

1:16:07

that game is brutal. Oh, God. Yeah.

1:16:09

It's brutal. It's hard. I still I love

1:16:11

it for some reason, even though

1:16:13

it's kind of like this weird sort of black sheep.

1:16:15

It has even the music's like and. And

1:16:17

it didn't do down down down. It's

1:16:20

like it's a little key. Yeah. Yeah, it's

1:16:22

off key. A little dissonant. And I

1:16:24

still I love it. I love that you can go into these.

1:16:26

Oh, yeah, you go into the little bitches like. And

1:16:29

it's a little jauntier. But yeah, that

1:16:31

was my first Zelda. I don't know why.

1:16:33

And the thing was,

1:16:35

well, I do think that the original Zelda

1:16:38

1986 for the NES is like

1:16:40

absolutely the better and more fun game to play.

1:16:42

Very hard to go back to it

1:16:44

after having played this one, because like this looks

1:16:46

like really like that looks pretty good for

1:16:48

the NES, especially compared to the original.

1:16:51

This one also introduced a lot of the sword

1:16:53

mechanics that are still in, you

1:16:55

know, in every Zelda game, his

1:16:57

entire moveset from Smash Brothers is effectively

1:17:00

built around the downward

1:17:02

stabbing and the upward striking and stuff like that. The

1:17:04

RPG elements in this game, having those

1:17:06

introduced for the first time, I always tell people who don't like

1:17:09

this game or like are bad at this game that

1:17:11

you have to play it like an RPG early on. You

1:17:13

have to grind. You

1:17:14

have to level up a bunch. And then

1:17:16

it becomes a little more manageable. It's still really

1:17:19

hard and very obtuse, but

1:17:21

it becomes more manageable once you you level up a bunch

1:17:24

early on. Yeah.

1:17:25

Yeah. Even even with the save states and

1:17:28

like being able to like rewind, I still had to

1:17:30

grind. Yeah, it's it's

1:17:32

a brutal, brutal game. Well, we we

1:17:34

only have a few minutes left, so I do want to get to

1:17:36

your favorite. So the game of all

1:17:38

time.

1:17:39

Well, that's easy. It's the breath

1:17:41

of the wild game. That new one that just

1:17:44

came out like six years ago. That's that's

1:17:46

the best one. Like that's my favorite one. I'm

1:17:48

replaying it now ahead of Tears of the Kingdom.

1:17:51

And I'm still I'm still feeling

1:17:53

that sense of wonder. I'm discovering new

1:17:55

things that I didn't discover the first time I

1:17:57

played it, even though I was obsessed with.

1:18:00

that game and I'm just like it's my favorite

1:18:02

kind of game because it doesn't bother me. It doesn't

1:18:04

make me do stuff. It's just me wandering around

1:18:07

and

1:18:07

explore and then have fun

1:18:09

and cook things and I still get

1:18:12

so bummed out when I make a recipe

1:18:14

and the music doesn't like swell. I'm like,

1:18:17

oh, it's just a boring recipe this time.

1:18:19

So

1:18:20

yeah,

1:18:21

the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is my favorite

1:18:23

by far. It's my favorite

1:18:25

game. Yeah, same. Like period.

1:18:27

Yeah. So yeah. I

1:18:30

forgot how horny the ladies were who

1:18:35

make your clothes nicer. Like the fairies. Yeah.

1:18:38

Yeah. The fairies. I

1:18:40

couldn't think of what they were called because they're gigantic. They

1:18:42

blow

1:18:43

kisses at you and then all of a sudden your clothes are

1:18:45

better. So shout out to the

1:18:47

fairy ladies. Yeah. Oh my God.

1:18:50

I didn't know where any of that was going, but yeah, that's great. I'm glad you

1:18:52

like that. I mean, I'm just a little bit of fashion. The game is really

1:18:54

good.

1:18:55

Yeah. Yeah. It's excellent.

1:18:58

I just replayed it recently. I was done with it having played

1:19:00

it a bunch when it first came out

1:19:03

and having played it with Zach Ryan where

1:19:05

we did link together almost maybe

1:19:07

never want to play it again because like playing that

1:19:09

game split joy cons with two players.

1:19:12

Thunderblight Ganon. I hate you. Oh

1:19:14

my God. No. Yeah. That

1:19:17

was rough. But yeah,

1:19:19

it's an absolutely excellent game. And

1:19:21

like you said, Seth, it's just like walking

1:19:24

out into that world and going anywhere

1:19:25

and it's not really pinging you and yelling at

1:19:27

you. And I mean, the flower lady yells at you and you

1:19:29

step into flowers. But other than that, everyone kind of leaves

1:19:31

you alone and you go do your thing. And

1:19:34

it's just like a really just that

1:19:36

that that spirit that embodies

1:19:38

the concept art we saw are the promotional art of the originals

1:19:41

of the game of like link looking at a mountain far

1:19:43

away and thinking I can go there and just having

1:19:45

that here as as as

1:19:48

a sort of like entire aesthetic for this

1:19:50

game is just magical.

1:19:52

Yeah.

1:19:52

I mean, I feel like it really is

1:19:54

when we were kids and we would like imagine

1:19:57

use art. You had to kind of fill in the gaps. Yeah. And

1:20:00

now you don't they

1:20:02

they went inside my head

1:20:03

they cracked it open with that same hammer They

1:20:06

scooped out all the fun kitty bits So,

1:20:10

thank you Nintendo

1:20:11

for that that was both dark

1:20:13

and weird yeah, thank you Seth hey, that's

1:20:16

that's me Speed

1:20:18

run real quick my first other game was the original fledging

1:20:20

Zelda game Fantastic

1:20:22

blew my mind that there was a second

1:20:25

quest in that game if you changed your name

1:20:27

to Zelda and all of the dungeons Were

1:20:30

redone and put in different places in

1:20:32

the overall absolutely blew my mind It's

1:20:34

like it's really hard to understand that at the time

1:20:36

most of the games were that we played were the

1:20:39

simple Arcadia games side-scrolling

1:20:41

platformers and stuff like that puzzle games and

1:20:43

to play something that was like an open-world

1:20:45

game where you could go You could go into the third

1:20:48

dungeon first if you wanted to what

1:20:51

like that's that was insane back then I'm

1:20:53

learning that information about changing your name to

1:20:55

Zelda for the first time today really

1:20:57

yeah No, there's an entire second quest

1:20:59

in that game. No one ever told me. It's it's

1:21:01

unreal Wild yeah, and

1:21:03

like the all of the dungeons are they

1:21:06

have completely different maps, and they're hidden in different places

1:21:08

you have to bomb Extremely obtuse

1:21:11

thing like it was one of those you would come into school and somebody would

1:21:13

be like oh Burn that bush five

1:21:15

screens down from this thing and you'd be like what

1:21:18

all burn every bush. Yeah exactly Sam

1:21:21

Claiborne and I were laughing the other day. He was playing

1:21:24

the game a couple years ago on I

1:21:26

want to say he was playing like the the

1:21:29

GBA NES classic

1:21:31

version of it Yeah,

1:21:34

yeah, I'm trying to remember which version it was but

1:21:36

I stood over his shoulder And I was like burn that bush

1:21:38

bomb that thing go over there There's a heart piece go over

1:21:41

there there's a heart piece before he walked into the first dungeon

1:21:43

and he had like the level 2 sword like

1:21:45

the blue tunic and Like to

1:21:47

you know 250 rupees and like five hearts,

1:21:50

and it was like you're ready you're ready now You

1:21:52

have to or else the darkness will just kick

1:21:54

the heck out of you. Yeah. Yeah, it's

1:21:57

a it's a very very tough game

1:21:59

Especially like the second half where

1:22:02

you walk into areas They're pitch black if that light in

1:22:04

with a fire and then there's like five Stalfos nights trying

1:22:06

to kill you like it's tough It is

1:22:08

a tough tough game, but it is this it's

1:22:11

magical. There's like and you can

1:22:13

gamble which is odd Yes, you can go gambling

1:22:15

on that game and my favorite Zella game of all

1:22:17

time Unsurprisingly for anyone who's listened

1:22:19

to me talk before Legend of Zelda links awakening

1:22:22

having Zelda

1:22:24

in portable form Blew

1:22:27

my mind having a giant

1:22:29

video game like that that you could bring

1:22:31

anywhere and sneak underneath

1:22:33

a book in class And you know play

1:22:35

on the school bus and stuff like that

1:22:37

completely blew my mind and the the sort

1:22:40

of sad melancholy story in all

1:22:42

of it was just like it's just beautiful

1:22:44

and haunting to Me and it's a Zelda

1:22:46

game without Zelda, you know, like it's It's

1:22:49

it's one of the first times I thought like you

1:22:52

can do anything with this series and this can this

1:22:54

can go anywhere and You can

1:22:56

jump now, you know Like there's a lot of really cool

1:22:59

cool things you can do in that game and I loved the

1:23:01

remake And and so yeah, shout

1:23:03

out the links awakening But yeah, that's

1:23:06

that's our first and favorite Zeldas. It

1:23:08

is so much fun talking with you all about

1:23:10

this franchise I am so excited

1:23:13

to say that next week. We'll be talking with

1:23:15

Tom marks who is reviewing The

1:23:19

Legend of Zelda tears the kingdom I think I can say that

1:23:21

and we're gonna have them on the show We're gonna do a breakdown about everything.

1:23:24

We will not spoil stuff, but we are gonna celebrate Here's

1:23:26

the kingdom for many many many weeks

1:23:29

to come. So yeah, that's it. Thank

1:23:31

you all. Thank you that's

1:23:33

about all the time we have left for this week's very

1:23:36

special episode of Talk

1:23:38

of the kingdom Nintendo voice chat Be sure to come back every

1:23:40

Thursday as we skydive in a gameplay tips tricks

1:23:42

secrets and adventure stories as we explore

1:23:45

the vast world Of Hyrule and VC

1:23:47

talk of the kingdom is available on I

1:23:59

We'll see you next week and remember, we're doing

1:24:02

this again. NBC is the only

1:24:04

place where you can get the tingle.

1:24:06

Get the tingle. Get the tingle. Get

1:24:08

the tingle. It doesn't work,

1:24:11

but we're going to keep doing it. Keep pushing.

1:24:13

It's not going to get better a week after. No, it'll

1:24:15

only get worse.