Daruni-O's: They Rock! (feat. Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, and Cairn)

Hello and welcome into the eighth. It's a low key video game podcast. My name is Brendan Bigley. I'm Stephen Holger. We're back for another beautiful spring day, at least here in New York. I don't know about Chicago. Let me check. I haven't been outside yet. It's early enough that it looks nice. It's 44 degrees in cloudy. So I mean, it's April. It's doing its best. We've kind of been oscillating weather. We've kind of oscillated between like very intense thunderstorms and tornado warnings because it would go from like 30 to 60 and then we will get a tornado warning. But it seems to be like genuinely entering spring. Like people are out. You know, I can always kind of gauge the public sentiment by park attendance when I go for a run or a walk in the park near me, even if like all the trees are dead and the sky is gray. If there's like a lot of people out, it's like, okay, spring is slowly doing its magic. Do you get tornadoes in Chicago, like in the city proper? So whenever there's a tornado warning, some Chicago official says we don't have any plans to deal with tornadoes. They say it every time. Like why is this, why is this the spin you've chosen? The spin? There you go. We technically shouldn't, but they've become like the warnings and the tornadoes have become more common due to climate change. So I don't think there's ever been, at least off the top of my head, I don't think there's any, there's been like a major tornado event, but when the temperatures change very dramatically in his thunderstorms, there's usually a tornado warning with them as well. But it's not like a region known for that. That's probably further south and west. Yeah, just think I can't, I can't remember a time I've heard of a tornado like hitting a city like that. Like that's, that's something that I almost feel like the, I don't know what I'm talking about, really talking out of my ass folks, but I feel like the, the like barometric pressure of a city is different than even like the outer areas. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Chicago is weird in that, like, I think it's technically built on a swamp. So that's like what we're dealing with, just like base stats wise. They call it the meadowlands of the Midwest folks. Yes. And then, and then outside the city is like, once you get past the suburbs, like it's just farms. So it's like a very flat state. So far, no tornadoes. I hope we never have to deal with that. Yeah, me too. But it's nice out. It's nice out folks. I keep saying folks. I don't know what's going on today. Here's the thing. Yeah, what's up? You, I just wanted to shout this out at the top. You and I are recording the PlayStation Vita bonus for patrons this week. This weekend. Yeah, it's finally happening. I can't wait. Last night, I was playing Final Fantasy 10 on the Vita and I got to say, just real quick, that is the best way to play Final Fantasy 10 still. I completely agree with you. I completely agree with you. It's perfect. It feels perfect on that console. I don't fully know why, but everything about the like, this is my story. I was out of the fire and into the freezer. It just like works when you're holding it to your face. Yeah. I love the size of the Vita. Like I think that's I'm totally with you that like modern hen as much as I love playing Steam Deck and switch to like, they're so big. And once you once you enter your thirties, youth hasn't fully abandoned you yet, but you need to sleep at the right angle or you'll like lose all stamina the next day. So like it is actually like an endurance test to like holds this like relatively heavy object in the right position. So you don't like wake up with a hunch the next day. Yeah. Yeah. Even even on the Nintendo Switch, Final Fantasy 10 feels like different to me than it does on the Vita. Like I think you're right. Like just shrinking it down to literally that size screen. Yeah. It's amazing. It feels it feels like made for it, which is amazing. And also just like as proof of what the Vita was capable of, you know, having like a remastered version of a PS2 game, I think says a lot, you know, that also simultaneously launched on the PS4 said a lot about the leap between the PSP and the Vita in terms of like what the hardware is capable of. It kind of feels like the PSP equivalent would probably be like, like Final Fantasy Tactics. This is a perfect segue into the next topic of conversation. I can't wait. Oh my God, I can't believe it. Sorry. Final Fantasy Tactics. Tell me about it. The listener needs to know we go into this with very little planning as evidenced by the weather chat being like what lurks in the opening segment of every episode. Yeah, some shows have cold opens. Some shows have tornado warnings. Yeah, we have talk about the cold opens. Yeah. But whenever we find it's actually working, it's like, oh shit, slam dunk. But anyway, see what's the perfect segue? Okay, so Final Fantasy 10 proves what the Vita is capable of, right? We're not, you know, because a lot of people I think with the PSP, and we talked about this a lot on our PSP episode, a lot of people looked at the PSP and they were like, this is a portable PS1.5, almost the PS2, right? Yeah. There were some games that we talked about, Birth by Sleep in particular, like that's a PS2 game. It's a miracle that that game runs on the PSP. Yeah, it almost has no caveat. Yeah, it's unreal that that game works. But the Vita, you know, raises some more questions about like, what is, what is possible on this thing? Like, are we getting to PS2, PS3 level? And they were like, buddy, we, this is a PS4. Like in some cases, we're running like the PS4 version of a video game on this thing. The Uncharted game kind of proves, like the only, the only real trade off to that Uncharted game is like, the background is like the in-game equivalent of a matte painting. But even then, like, it still looks good. It looks awesome. Yeah. That game is weird, but it looks good. All that leads me to the thing that you and I wanted to talk about at the top of the episode, which is there is an incoming Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake that has been rumored to launch at the end of this year. This rumor is coming from a lot of places. It was just one guy at first to, to be clear, one guy who has like a pretty solid track record specifically with Nintendo stuff. But it's now also coming from like hardware leakers as well, saying that there's like an Ocarina of Time version of the Switch 2 that's going to launch towards the end of the year as well alongside this. All of this also circling around the fact that they're making a Legend of Zelda movie. There's a lot kind of going into the idea that they would probably try to remake Ocarina of Time, which I made a video about for Wavelengths this week and you said you wanted to talk about a little bit, which is great because I also wanted to talk about it because it's led me down a path of replaying like almost every Zelda game for like an hour or two over the past week, which has been a weird experience. Yeah, I started that video and then I was like, wait, I have direct direct access to this man. I can just talk to him about this because I was like, this is something that I want. I kind of got a sense of your perspective on it, but I wanted to talk to you about it. So I didn't watch the full thing. Sorry. So it's okay. That one view will hurt me long term. Yeah, the YouTube analytics were like, there's one Ares that fucking hates your content. The crux of that video, you know, at the top is kind of like, why would Nintendo do this in the first place outside of the fact that the movie exists, which I didn't mention in the video, but a lot of people in the comments called out. But I think of it really in the exact same way that I think about the Ocarina of Time remake on the 3DS, like that game coming out, especially early on in the 3DS's life cycle, was kind of the perfect game to launch at that time because the 3DS wasn't selling very well when it first launched. It was too expensive. People were on the fence about it. They didn't think the library was strong enough. So people weren't picking it up. The Ocarina of Time, obviously worth mentioning, like Ocarina of Time 3D was not in development between the release of the 3DS and the three months later when this game came out, like they didn't develop the whole thing in three months. So, you know, what is it about Ocarina of Time that makes it the right game to release at that time? You know, whether or not the console is doing well. And I think the answer is a lot of people saw the Nintendo DS as like a portable N64, right? They proved that out with Super Mario 64 launching on that thing immediately. The 3DS, you would ask questions about like, okay, what is this thing capable of? And I think there's like no better way of proving what the 3DS can do than saying, not only are we taking this like beloved N64 game that we could have probably ported to the DS if we wanted to, but like give it this huge graphical overhaul on top of adding a bunch of quality of life features and all this other stuff that, you know, launches and becomes kind of like a legitimizing force for the 3DS, which is where this is where the Vita connection comes in, you know, because I think Final Fantasy X is actually maybe the perfect analog to Ocarina of Time 3D in some ways. It's also like a beloved classic. Yes. But, you know, that remake, I think all things considered is like very safe. You know, it's a very like by the numbers remake that exists to kind of just like please fans. And even still, it didn't please a lot of fans. Like there are a lot of people who like really don't like some of the changes in that thing. Yeah, there's stronger backlash with the Majora's Mass Munk. Because they do make way more changes than that. I think over time, the reception to that has been pretty positive. But I agree. It's like it's more akin to what like Blue Point does with or Blue Point did. Yeah, recipes with their remix. Totally. Where like it feels like an act of game preservation more so than like we're going to have a definitive like take on this. Yeah. Which I think is important. I think it's cool to have like as much as I, you know, remix are a contentious topic. And I think that like, as you and I always say, it's very case by case when it feels like like a soulless cash grab or when it feels like the game got a second life of some kind or like a definitively new like an adaptation of the original work in some cases. Yeah. And yeah, I think sometimes it is like even in 2011, like dusting off your N64 was like not something a lot of people were doing. Right. And that's a game that I think kind of deserves to be, you know, brought forward. Yeah. In the conversation. Yeah. I mean, I would honestly say to most people to play that version over the N64 one, to be honest. Yeah. I think you're probably right. I'm with you on that. I think some of the changes that they make are transformative enough in terms of like your actual enjoyment of playing the game that it'll probably allow more people to finish it and see the entire thing. And one of the things I talked about a lot in the video is like that game also, I think manages to capture so much of what makes the original work in terms of like the mythos of it. Like you don't really lose a lot of the tone of that game in the remaster or remake or whatever you want to call that version of it, which I think, you know, that's a hard needle to thread in particular, like the tone of Ocarina of Time as we've talked about and we talk about on our bonus about it is like so much of that is due to the hardware limitations of the N64 kind of creating this like weird like liminality to the entire experience, which, you know, they actually like even though the textures are higher and, you know, the camera pans around like a normal camera and stuff, like it does feel almost the same way in the 3ds remake. You know, you're losing some of it the same way you do in like the recent Resident Evil remakes, you know, but it's still like faithful quote unquote in a way that I think would please fans. And that leads to this switch to remake, which I think is also coming out at like the exact time, you know, if it's real, I should keep doing that. Oh, it's Justin Amiibo. Got it. Cool. Honestly, that'd be very funny. Yeah. If it's real, it would be coming out at almost the exact same time in terms of like overall sentiment of the console that the 3ds is Ocarina of Time came out. Yeah, that's a good point. I think the switch to and talking to people who like don't have video game podcasts, you know, a lot of people are like buying it for Pokopia or aren't buying it until like something really kind of pulls them in like a mainline Zelda or a new Pokemon game or something like that or Animal Crossing. And I think because of that, the switch to kind of needs that like legitimizing force of a video game again. I don't think you remake Zelda Ocarina of Time again on the switch to from scratch, hypothetically, if you're just trying to accomplish the exact same goals of the 3ds version, like I think if that was your goal to just like have Ocarina of Time again on the switch to the two answers to that are it's already on Nintendo Switch online. So you could just go play that, right? Like you can go play the N64 version or do what like Square Enix is doing with Bravely Default and some of their other 3ds stuff and port the Grezzo remake for the 3ds over to the switch to and like, you know, find ways to make the dual screen stuff work, I guess on the switch to like, I think Square did a good job with Bravely Default with that. Oh, yeah. I feel like those are the two obvious and also like if you're considering literally the business of it, cheaper answers is like it's already there or we do the one we already have. Remaking the whole thing from scratch, I think does raise a bunch of questions that like why what this could possibly be, you know, outside of the questions of like, should this exist? Yes or no? Like the reality of it is it's going to exist whether we want it or not. So like, at least do something cool with it. That's basically the thesis statement of my of my entire video is like, at least don't like, don't just make it a 4k version of the same game I've already played twice. Like I will play through that if that's all it is, don't don't get me wrong. But I would be interested, I think in like a rethink of what the Zelda formula can be. And I actually think Ocarina of Time is a great proving ground for that formula shift in some ways. Yeah, that's a good point. I think there's actually a great Game Maker toolkit video that just came out about this very topic, not necessarily the Ocarina remake, but it has a lot of interviews with the Zelda team. And hauntingly, Ayunuma says like, why would anyone want to play the older style of game? Like, why would you want to go back to that? And basically the thesis of the video is like, what was accomplished by the shifts to the open world's all the style and what is missing if that becomes the norm? Yeah. And I think, I mean, I see a lot now, especially amongst people that talk about games a lot and amongst podcasters, let's say, that people like kind of in our age group or older, there's a common refrain I see of like, go back to the old style, go back to like having- We love Skyward Sword. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yes. The revision of We Love Skyward Sword. And it's like the reality in which they didn't pivot from that style. I remember when Skyward Sword came out, there were so many YouTube videos about how the formula was drying up and that it was like everyone was getting sick of the like, find an item, go fight a boss with a visible weak point. Like, I think Skyward Sword is kind of a misaligned game. I think it is like pretty solid. My take on Skyward Sword has always been like, if that wasn't as old a game, it would be like a cult classic everyone loves. But like just being as old, like there's certainly things wrong with Skyward Sword. Like I think the pacing of it and the sort of in between like dousing missions and stuff is like really tedious, but there's a lot of great temples in there and there's a lot of great characters and story as well. Anyway, like I think it made sense to pivot at that time. And I think they've done a great job, obviously, with Breath of the Wild to choose the kingdom and Echoes of Wisdom too by extension. But I also think as much as I dare not question Ianuma and I respect him greatly, you have to see the irony of saying, let's stop here when the philosophy has always been how can we change this? You know, it's like settling for this style of game. I mean, I think and I think what people are saying of like we want the older style is maybe not necessarily that exact request, but realizing, you know, alongside Zelda pivoting to this style of open worlds, so many other games have to even just in the Nintendo lineup. And I think generally speaking, people are kind of feeling an open world fatigue, you know, yeah, like outside of Zelda, I think it's worth considering like that that's a that's a take that is not completely confined to just this one franchise, right? Like every single studio releasing not every single studio is obviously a little hyperbolic, but there are a lot of studios releasing open world games all the time. And I can tell you from the many, many comments this video has gotten, there are a lot of people who are like, I don't just want like I don't want another open world Zelda game, because I'm tired of open world games in general, which I think to Ianuma's credit and to Nintendo's credit, like they have said that, you know, Tears of the Kingdom will be the end of that storyline. Yeah. And the next game will be some kind of big shift. But I imagine it will retain that central thesis that those two games and Echoes of Wisdom all have, which is like player freedom at all costs and like whatever we need to do, like we can shed a bunch of things that people consider to be Zelda conventions in the pursuit of this like unlimited player freedom and exploration, which does mean that you lose things like, you know, dedicated, directed dungeon design and, you know, some other things that people consider to be like staples of what this franchise is and has been. And in that GMTK video, his whole point is like, they are able to coexist. You don't necessarily have to like rule out one over the other. I think honestly, you could do a lot with this exact formula by just changing what are the powers we start with. Like I think the overall like game is so informed by that. Like even this, the decision in Tears of the Kingdom to be like, okay, like your starting powers are, you know, ultra hand and like fusing things together and building, but they purposely chose to not give you bombs this time. Like bombs were a material you had to find. And even just those changes like warps the whole identity of the game into a new direction. Completely. Yeah. And that's one of the things I've been thinking about a lot is like that in their shift in Breath of the Wild specifically, and then eventually in Tears of the Kingdom, like the answer to how do you allow somebody to traverse the entire Zelda game from go and go anywhere they want and do anything they want and eventually make their way to Ganondorf is to give everybody all the tools they need for the entire game right at the beginning. I make the same point in the video, but like it is as easy, I think as just changing that into a more like Metroidvania style gated progress thing where in imagining a Ocarina of Time remake in particular, like a moment that leads up to getting the bombs, allowing you to double the explorable space of Hyrule feels like a natural progression of what we have in Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild. Like I think because of the liminality of Ocarina of Time in general, there is a lot of like headcanon and space between spaces that the player is filling in the gaps with in their own in their own like play and a lot of that stuff. And I'm not saying this is better, but I do think it would be interesting at least to like literalize some of that space and like fill in those gaps for people in a fully explorable space. The comparison I make is Shadow of the Colossus. Like when I think about that game in particular, I don't really even think about the Colossi fights like as grandiose and incredible as they are. I really do think about like riding aggro between the Colossi and I think about like picking up a lizard and a weird fruit and all the stuff that happens like in between all of those fights. And that's where I think you can really seamlessly blend these two like formats of 3D Zelda game is you have something that is more directed and more linear and story like Ocarina of Time, but your gap between dungeons becomes like a fully explorable Breath of the Wild space where there's like a lot of extra stuff to do in between. Like that doesn't feel so out of left field. That feels like a natural progression instead of like instead of going backwards quote unquote or giving giving into the fans or whatever. I mean, Tears of the Kingdom kind of felt like a half measure in that sense where like there were temples that were more authored than the Divine Beast, but like they still felt a little bit formless in that like, yeah, like I honestly don't really enjoy. I enjoy them even less than the Divine Beast because I mean getting to them is so cool because they're like like getting to the Wind Temple for the first time. Yeah, the Wind one is fucking sick like that. That one's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. But a lot of it is like, oh, I could just sort of use like the Gravity Rush power to like get wherever I want. So like, yeah, I remember the Lava one, the Magma one in particular, I think I skipped the whole dungeon. I didn't do the dungeon at all. I just went right to the end of it if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, because like you could just like they want you to use the mine carts and I almost feel bad not because I can just feel like an airplane or something instead. Right. So like that's and I kind of felt personally, I felt that that looseness reached ahead with Echoes of Wisdom where I felt like I always felt like the sort of diner menu anxiety of like, do I throw the devs a bone and solve the puzzle the way they want me to or do I stack eight beds on top of each other and just like walk over the dungeon? Yeah. And now obviously the design philosophy of that game is like they do want you to like have that thought of like, what should I do? I have all these cool options and it is fun. But I do think on a subjective level, I agree that like you can have I I'm on board with whatever this team decides to do to be clear. I trust them kind of implicitly. But I also think that like hearing Ionuma say, what is the benefit of the older style does give me some pause because I think that like, I mean, I think about Elden Ring where Elden Ring is an open world game. But when you go to any of the legacy dungeons, you're suddenly in like a Dark Souls or Bloodborne like yes, fully authored environment. I don't see a reason why you couldn't do the same thing in Zelda. And again, I think a lot of that just is tied to what are the starting powers? They did say in that GMTK video, he said at the end that the only hint we have about where the next Zelda is going is that it will be taking some inspiration from Age of Imprisonment, which makes me think I'm going to call this now because I love accidentally predicting things on the show. I think there's going to be this is independent from the conversation. But if I had to guess like what is the new crazy new thing in the new Zelda game, I think it's going to have a party system. Oh, interesting. I think it will lean a little bit further into like switching who you're playing as because you kind of have the like ghost companions in Tears of the Kingdom. Yes. And if they're saying that like it's taking inspiration from Age of Imprisonment, I mean, it'd be great to play as Zelda again, if that's what they mean. But like that whole game is about like high fiving and summoning mechs for each other and stuff. And like, I think kind of digging deeper into the companion system. I think that could be really fun, especially considering the supporting cast they've developed in the recent entries, you know, like, I don't know if I wanted to go full Xenoblade, even though that's like part of that team is working on Zelda apparently. But I think that that could be just like a distinct new direction. That's kind of what I'm most interested in is like, where else could it go? You know, I don't necessarily need to be beholden to either past in terms of in terms of what I expect from this potential Ocarina of Time remake. My hunch, I agree with you that it's like, okay, you could play the N64 one in that collection. So like, why not, you know, take a big swing? My counterpoint, I agree with that, but I have a hunch that it's not going to be that wildly different because I would I would argue that the original Ocarina of Time is surprisingly unavailable, given its legendary status. And I do think that there are a couple generations below us that may have like no knowledge or sentimental attachment to that game at all. The last version of it came on the 3DS and it's like, yes, you can play in that collection, but I'll be honest, that's like maybe the worst version of it to play. Like it's gotten a little better. It came out kind of botched and they improved the N64 collection, but it's still not like the best way to emulate it. And then the 3DS version is great, but that relies on you having a 3DS and then 3DS emulation hasn't really caught up yet. So like, unless you're really dedicated to playing Ocarina of Time or have a Nintendo subscription, there isn't like a straightforward way or have an N64 that you dust off. There isn't like a super easy way to play it considering how legendary it is. When you compare that to like games of an equal status of the same era, like FF7, which is available everywhere and on Steam, like obviously Nintendo is not going to put it on Steam, but I do think, you know, even on a business level, reintroducing the Legend of Ocarina of Time to a new generation is like a worthy pursuit of theirs. And I guess my other thing is that like, if it was a more ground up wild swing, I feel like we would have heard about it earlier, especially if it's coming out this year. Like I feel like we would have heard about that at least six months in advance, whereas I feel like this to me is giving Skyward Sword HD a little bit where it's like, okay, it's going to be a while before the next mainline Zelda. Why don't we bring back one of our classics in the interim? We can sell amiibos of Darunia and, you know, and I'll buy them. And that way, like we reintroduced this game to everybody. Maybe the next mainline Zelda is like more intimately connected to this style for whatever reason, but like it also might be a gauge of like, let's see how much this old style still resonates, right? This is one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot. Yeah. Also is like the, I think a link between worlds as Ionuma's kind of playground to figure out what Breath of the Wild could be, you know, how do you have like a totally open experience? You know, it's basically an experiment. It's like a public experiment that went very well and led to Breath of the Wild, which is great. But it does raise questions for me about like, you know, there is, there is a precedent for that team to use a Zelda game as an experiment to figure out what the audience is into for the next one. And a lot of this is assuming that this is, you know, Ionuma and the main team working on it, which it very well may not be like, as you mentioned, like Monolith could be working on it. Koitekmo and Omegaforce in some ways could be working on it. Grezzo, like I don't know what Grezzo is working on. They did the remakes for 3DS. Capcom might get it back for some reason. Capcom might get it back. It's going to be, it's actually going to be Minish Cap and all the rumors are wrong. What I would give. It is worth mentioning actually, literally today, which I found very interesting. Monolith on their website added a new page to their website that's like, it just is talking about all of the support they've done for Zelda games over the years, which I thought was very interesting because. Follow the money. Because I feel like, especially, you know, you and I were talking about a while ago, the Pokemon leaks for, what is it called? I always forget Wind and Waves. Is that the new ones? Yeah, I almost always say see in stars, but that's that's a different game. It's Wind and Waves. Yeah, that they're in the leaked documents. They talk about the inspiration they're taking from Xenoblade Chronicles. In the development of Pokemon going forward. And I feel like, you know, you have Monolith soft kind of in your stable as Nintendo first party developers. And, you know, I think if I'm remembering correctly, Monolith is split up into three distinct branches. One of them is working on like usually Xenoblade. And then one of them is like just a support studio. And the third one's kind of like in the wind, like I don't really know what they're up to. The interesting to see like a monolith directed Ocarina of Time remake. And that would be pretty amazing because they're really good at like the Xenoblade Chronicles secret sauce is the campfire heart to heart scenes. Yeah. And that's basically all Ocarina is like every cutscene in Ocarina is like this deeply sad kind of poignant moment of growing up. Yeah. And like that's that's that's all Xenoblade is. You know, a maximalist mech fight, but just sort of swap that with Ganondorf and you're good. Yeah, I think just to be clear, I do think you're right. Like I don't really have delusions about what this will probably be, which is, you know, just a way to get a younger crowd excited about the new movie by playing like a version of Ocarina of Time that like looks quote unquote looks better and has sanded a lot of the like 1998 edges off. I think that's like probably the most likely scenario here. But I also think if you're trying to appeal to younger players today, there probably should be a more kind of explorative level of freedom allowed to players, right? I mean, that's why things like Pokopia take off like fucking Roblox and the Fortnite's of the world and all this stuff. It's like those things are popular with that age group for a reason. And I think you're right that like it could be a test just to see how that age group handles this game, you know, with with all of its whatever. But I think there's another version of it that's like, can you inject a little bit of like a new life and new game design tendencies into Ocarina of Time and make it, you know, just different? Because if not, then again, why not just port the 3ds version? You know, because you could you could accomplish the same thing, gloss it up a little bit, you know, add some stuff here and there, you know, even like running that game, the 3ds version on an emulator, you can still like bump up the textures and the resolution a lot, and it looks fucking sick. Like it looks so good. Yeah, like Nintendo could do that on the Switch too. And that's kind of what I'm expecting because that feels like the time I'm kind of basing a lot of this off the time to announcement. Again, assuming this is real, we're not just all pranked. And it's Skyward Sword HD again. Yeah. Honestly, if they did Skyward Sword HD again, and finally fix the controls, I'd be so happy. My experience, I played that for two hours the other day. Oh my God. It's like it's it's sad. I like I like that game more than most people. Yeah, I need to keep reiterating that I do like a lot of Skyward Sword. I think it was such a whiff to have the right analog stick kind of like control where your sword is going. Yeah, it plays better with the motion controls, but then that defeats the point of porting it to a degree. Yeah. But yeah, like I kind of expect this to be like a glossed up version. I mean, it's kind of on a personal level. That's really all I want it to be. It's like I selfishly would love to have Ocarina, you know, the 3ds Ocarina time remake on the Switch. Like that to me is like kind of enough really, depending on the price, obviously. But like that's kind of what I want and expect. I agree though. I mean, you know, it's it's I think it's like a 5050 shot of like if they try to spice up the design at all to kind of see like what else they can do. But it's also worth remembering that like, you know, alongside Breath of the Wild, we got the like Link's Awakening remake that was sort of just a new visual style for the same game. So like Nintendo does seem to having multiple branches for their series where like one never changes and then one is the new direction. But it does get kind of muddy when you have something like Echoes of Wisdom, which I think is really cool because that is like the older style with a new direction. And so whether or not this Ocarina remake is more like Echoes of Wisdom or more like 3ds remake, we'll have to wait and see. Yeah. Yeah. I think like I can put a lot of hope into this being like a big interesting swing. I think it likely won't be that. And I think we'll probably just have to wait for whatever Ionuma's team releases next to really know. Like I see Echoes of Wisdom as the link between worlds. Definitely kind of transitionary experiment in some ways. So yeah, I'm with you on that. I don't I wouldn't mind playing just like we remade Ocarina of Time from scratch and it looks nicer and now like Navi will like be more helpful and you know, whatever, you know, like there'll be like a quest marker on a map or something. Like I'm sure that's kind of what it'll happen, what it'll end up being. But you know, I will hold out hope for like something more interesting because in a world where I can play the original right now on my Nintendo Switch 2, I would hope that a remake would be like a creative swing instead of just like a kind of cash grabby vibe. Yeah, I think I do get that like if it is just 3DS, it's sort of in the cash grab territory. But I would also say it's been so long. Well, just to be clear, I think of this as three different options. There's like, yeah, like porting the 3DS version, I think is separate from what the rumor is. Yeah, the rumor is that they're remaking the whole game from scratch again and not porting the 3DS version. Like what I'm saying is if you're going to remake the whole thing from scratch and it's just a faithful remake, then why wouldn't you port the 3DS version? Oh, I see you're saying. Yeah. And I guess when I say port the 3DS version, I also include in that remaking it in basically the same style, which is also what they could do. But you know, I think there will be, yeah, we'll see. I could go in circles on what this could be. I've seen some of the conversations about this. I mean, who knows it's Nintendo. So like anything goes, it could be anything could happen. It could be a top down remake of Ocarina of Time. Yeah, exactly. But I've seen some people be like, it's going to be three parts like the FF7 remake. I'm like, no, it's absolutely not going to be that. Let me tell you, Stephen, posting a video about a potential Ocarina of Time remake on YouTube.com, like I knew that the comments would be like deranged, but I didn't think it would be on the level that I've been reading. Like people are losing it about what this thing could be, how much they want it, how much they don't want it, how much they love or hate Breath of the Wild. Like that's it's really interesting to see how this fandom feels about this game and like people who I specifically identify as being like, I'm part of the Legend of Zelda fandom. Like there are people who are like, that's my identity. And seeing the way they talk about these games is like so fascinating because it does really feel like Breath of the Wild created a rift between those two halves. Like there really is like a like a cleaving of the fan base in half. And they're like constantly at fucking war with each other in YouTube comments. And it's so wild. And like what I'm proposing as like a kind of best of all worlds Ocarina of Time remake is a unification in some ways of both of those factions, which is funny. But it is also coming from the there's a weird irony about it where like that is coming from the perspective of trying to please everybody, which very famously is like the worst thing you could possibly do. Sure. Right. But also a version of Ocarina of Time that introduces Breath of the Wild mechanics between its dungeons would piss off so many fucking people also. Like I think that's one of the things that I think is miraculous about the 3DS remake in general is that it is it wasn't just like reviled immediately. Like the idea of remaking Ocarina of Time is such a risky thing in the first place. It blows my mind that they chose to do that in the first place and that they're thinking of doing it again is even wilder to me. And I think the fact that you and I can sit here on this podcast and say something like if you want to play this game and you have access to a 3DS, I would recommend the 3DS version over the N64 version says a lot about how successful that 3DS version was. Like the fact that even a conversation means the 3DS version was successful. I by default usually opts. Like I usually give the original work like a sort of inherent bonus point. Like, you know, what I'm thinking about like what to play. But I also try to gauge like, you know, what is what is easiest to pick up and play and like outside of like our specific like niche interests, like what is going to appeal to most people. And for a long time that was the 3DS version. I don't want to dwell too much on YouTube comments, but I did I did catch a stray one on your video that said remix only exists with video games. No other medium has this. I'm like, what fucking planet are you on? Like no other medium has remix. I have bad news for you about most films. Yeah, like most books even like preservations of Dante's text. But yeah, that made me laugh. It's YouTube comments are a trip. It's wild out there. Take a breath. It's wild out there. But yeah, I'm excited for this. I'm kind of like entering it with pretty neutral expectations. For me, I already have it. So like I'm with you in the sense that like, yeah, be cool to see if it's different. But if it's just like a nicer way to play it, I'll be happy with that too. I imagine there's no version of this that doesn't create 8 million reactionary angry videos though. Like, oh my god, yeah, it's going to be unbelievable. No matter what it is, it's going to be like a disaster. Yeah, it was really interesting reading a lot of reviews of the 3DS remake when it came out because so many people talked about it as like, this is the reason to get a Nintendo 3DS. Like finally we have a reason to buy the 3DS and I would bet anything that that is not the way the Nintendo remake gets talked about, even if it's great. Yeah, it's also like, I mean, I was thinking about this when we were talking about the PSP and the Vita, like we're in an era right now where like, it is assumed most handhelds can play everything, you know, to varying degrees. Like unless you're talking about like emulating certain eras, like getting a switch, you know, and get like the trade off you would expect from a handheld device is like getting smaller and smaller. Yeah, where like when the PSP came out, that was Sony's first handheld device, all the top of my head at least, the first major one. I'm sure there was a weird PS1 accessory at one point, but like the first like handheld console and like a lot of that was proving like, hey, look, we can run like PS1 and even some PS2 games. Vita, same thing, you know, it really wasn't until the switch were like that kind of evened out. So I think there is, like it's in trying to impress the audience in a different way, perhaps. Yeah. And yeah, I also wonder, I mean, there's the attempt at like, let's make, let's reintroduce this to a younger audience and also like maybe even change the games who appeal to a younger audience. There's also the, hey, we recognize the newer style is maybe losing the older audience. Here's a bone for the millennials with back pain, you know, like, so like that could also be it. It's possible. You know, I'm buying the Amigos. I'm almost more excited about getting like a Darunia and you know, Phantom Ganon than anything else. Yeah. Yeah. The last thing I'll say on this is, man, Breath of the Wild is so good. It's great. That's the thing is like so good. I got so lost in playing that game again when I was capturing footage for it. I like, I couldn't put it down. And even when I was like, even when the video was published and I was trying to decide what to play yesterday, I was like, I think I'm gonna play more Breath of the Wild. And I've still just been playing Breath of the Wild. It's so good. That's the thing. It's like Zelda specifically, even the games that have disappointed me, like I would say like a pretty safe collection of games to say, like, these are the weaker entries or like Skyward Sword and the DS games. Yeah. But even then, all three of those games were very like experimental and interesting and their ideas led to better games down the road. Right. So like even when Zelda kind of like trips a bit, like it ends up benefiting the series in some way. So I'm just sort of like excited to see what they do next. I think the only danger is stopping with what works, you know, much like how by Skyward Sword people felt like, okay, we get it enough of this like dungeon item, dungeon item loop. I think defaulting to just like, you know, you can play Legos in an open field forever is also going to have a similar result. So I think we're kind of, I mean, it's wild that it has now been almost 10 years since Breath of the Wild came out, which is like, you know, the time between Ocarina of Time and Skyward Sword was like, what, 13 years off the top of my head. So like it's been almost the same amount of time from that stretch. I think we're kind of approaching, I mean, by the time the next mainline Zelda comes out, which I don't think would be any earlier than 2029, you know, or 2028, like, you know, it will have been that amount of time since the open world style started. So I do think there's like a change is on the horizon and we'll have to see what it is. Link's going to fucking talk, dude. He's going to be like, hey, thanks for watching my movie. Didn't you love when Fox said, do a barrel roll? Anyway, I'm going here right now. In case you didn't know, I'm going here to find the item that I need. Why don't we take a break? Yeah, I think we should. Bye-bye. Hey, it's me, Darunia. Don't you want to buy my cereal? Darunia? What did you say? Darunia? It's Darunia. It's really good. I like Darunia. It's rock. It rocks, baby. That's the box. Okay, moving on. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Steven, I've been playing other games. Come on. Let's hear it. I'd like to talk about them. Oh, actually, you know what I just remembered? Isn't our persona bonus coming out soon also? Oh, yeah. The persona for golden bonus, I think we're aiming, so we're recording this on the sixth, and right now we're aiming for that to come out this Friday. That will also be on our YouTube into the cast. Yeah. We talked about this a while ago, but basically, our YouTube has taken many different shapes over the years. We've waffled between what level we want to be with it. At this point, the YouTube is where you can expect all of the backlog of all our streams. So most recently, my full Resident Evil 9 playthrough should be up by now, or at least most of it should be on there, which is fun. We're going to start putting our bonus episodes on the YouTube channel as well, and we're going to have some fun with the visual component of that. You'll see what that means once it comes out. There's also on the podcast tab, a lot of the show is also on YouTube. So if you want to listen to, I think it's up until the Dreamcast. All the regular episodes are there, but going forward, you can expect the bonuses to be on that channel as well with some kind of visual components. So it was like a nice middle ground. So I'm playing Advance Wars. I've always loved Andy's theme song. That's kind of how the energy I want to lead with when I enter a room. Here's the thing. Yeah, what's up? Advance Wars is a game that I'm just horrible at. I'm so bad at it. It's really hard. That was the biggest take. When we did our Game Boy Advance episode back in 2021, that was one of the biggest surprises because I grew up with Advance Wars. I loved it. I finished it many times and playing as an adult. You would look at Fire Emblem and Advance Wars side by side on the Game Boy Advance and you would assume that Fire Emblem was for an older, more hardcore audience and that Advance Wars was for kids and it's the total flip. Fire Emblem tells you how to play. Linz got your back for like 10 hours and then it kind of sets you up to succeed and Advance Wars is like play chess with just a knight against an expert level opponent. It's wild. It's so hard. It's pretty remarkable how difficult the game is. And I feel like that's a thing that's been haunting me forever. I've been so floored by every time I've gone to go play Advance Wars, how difficult it has been. So there's a subreddit that's specifically for handhelds. It's called SBC Gaming. And they do like a game of the month every month. And the game of the month for this month is Advance Wars. So I was like, okay, it's time to play Advance Wars again. So I decided to dip in and I was playing it a little bit as I was taking the subway around New York and stuff. Advance Wars is kind of in my go-to. And one of the things that really struck me immediately was the tutorial is really long. The tutorial is like 10 to 15 missions where they walk you through every single. There's a different mission for every single mechanic that the game has from literally just moving your units down to, you know, how to load a unit onto one of the like, I forget what they're called, like the little carriers that you can drive around. Yeah, it's an acronym. I think it's like APC or something. Yes, it is APC. And then there's, you know, like a helicopter mission and a boat mission and all this stuff as like the tutorial before the actual game begins. And I was just like, I don't know, sitting on a subway for like an hour or two at a time, just like trying to make my way through all these missions. I was like, oh my God, this game is like, it takes forever to just like start playing the video game, which all led me in a weird way back to reboot camp, the remake of Advanced Wars one and two that came out a couple of years ago, I think three years ago now. Yeah, 2023, yeah. Which was something that just kind of like came and went for me. Like I remember picking it up. I didn't really play it that much. I don't remember if we talked about it on the show or not. I think I brought it up because I was excited about it because I love Advanced Wars and I thought it was pretty good. Like it's a good remake. I just really didn't like the new, well, I like the new style, but I so strongly prefer the aesthetic of the original. Like I just love like the sound of the music and the portraits and the sort of like, like I just, that's such a big piece of the experience for me that I didn't love how it like looked and sounded in the remake, which is a very nitpicky thing. But like because that's so much of the experience, I found myself just going back to the original. Yeah, I think that yeah, there's kind of two mentalities I have about Reboot Camp, one of which is like the original game on the Game Boy Advance, I think to your point is in my eyes, like one of the defining aesthetic games on that console. 100%. Yeah. When I think about the entire library of the Game Boy Advance, there's like a couple of games that pop up into my head. It's like the third generation of Pokemon games. It's Sonic Advance. It's Advanced Wars, Minish Cap I would throw in there as well. Yeah, and probably Fire Emblem too, like the animations and then the pixel art for the backgrounds is like breathtaking. Yeah. But Advanced Wars is in the mix there. And it's because like it's because that franchise I think is so rooted in, like even though it got its life way earlier on the NES, like I do think of Advanced Wars as like that franchise coming to fruition on the Game Boy Advance. Yeah, definitely. When you get into Reboot Camp, you lose so much of that. Like they, you know, they obviously like re-orchestrated the soundtrack and needed to like, they didn't need to, but they did, you know, take all the units and make them 3D units that run around and stuff. And I do think you lose a lot of what makes it like visually striking on the Game Boy Advance. Yeah. When you move it into the Nintendo Switch, one of the one of the interesting aesthetic choices too is like they do have all of the maps as like little kind of sandboxes, like there's literally like an edge, like a sandbox or like a play mat kind of edge, which kind of does make it look like little toys running around, which I think is the idea, but it doesn't really translate as well as I think they think it does. Yeah. Which all leads to the one thing that I really have to praise about the aesthetic of Reboot Camp, which is I think the character models are amazing. Like what they tried to do. The characters look great. Yeah. They took all these characters and they created like kind of cel shaded, hyper animated, like really over the top versions of them for this game. And they look awesome. They really actually look a lot like, I think it was last week or two weeks ago, I was talking about the Mega Man Star Force collection. I was talking about how Mega Man's like on the home screen, just like chilling. You can like press a button to talk to them. They look just like that, which is great. It looks really good. The stuff that they've done in terms of like quality of life, quote unquote, or just in terms of like refining the game, I'm like kind of in coin flip mode about, I don't really know how much it's working or doesn't work for me. Like one thing that they did, which I'm happy about is they shrunk those 15 tutorial missions down into three. It's just three missions. You make your way through them very quickly. And then you're in the actual campaign of the video game. I think that's probably a good decision. But when you're in the actual game itself, I do find myself asking over and over again, like why am I not just playing the Game Boy Advance version? And why is the Game Boy Advance version not available on the Nintendo Switch Online thing for me to play also? Such a crime. It should be that. That's probably my favorite Switch Online collection, but I agree. It should be in there. Mine too. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not to say that like reboot camp is a bad way of playing Advance Wars. It's just like, I think pound for pound the original really is killer. Like it's just so good. Yeah. It's awesome. So I had my little like tactics experience. I'm still playing it. I'm still going to try to make my way through it. I'd like to finish it for the game of the month. There's payoff because the final mission. So like you'll notice that in a lot of the missions in the core game, you'll choose it. Usually it's Andy Max and Sammy. You can play as so like Andy. I usually went with Andy because Andy is the all arounder. Like his units are average across the board and his like CO power is really good too. His CO power repairs everyone for two health. Yeah. Max's whole thing is that like all the melee units are really strong, but his range attacks are really weak. And Sammy is that her infantry are really strong and they can capture bases faster. Yeah. And basically, depending on which of those three you play as the most in the final battle without spoiling the story, you actually control three different COs. So you have like three armies at once and the three characters you have are dependent on who you've chosen the most. Yeah. I think if you choose Sammy the most, which generally is the harder route to take because like you have to think very creatively about capturing bases versus just like fighting units head on. You can play as Eagle who's completely busted. His whole thing is his air units are really good and his CO power off the top of my head. If I'm remembering correctly, everyone gets to go a second time. So like there is actually payoff to I like Sammy. I often play as her regardless, but like if you commit to Sammy, you get Eagle and it's super worth it for that final battle. Yeah. That sounds very cool. Yeah. The interesting thing about reboot camp also is they don't let you start the second game until you've finished the first game, which I totally forgot about because I remember hearing like the second game is actually quite easier than the first one. But you can't you can't play it. You're not allowed to play it until you finish the first game. Well, it's it's weird because like the second game on Game Boy Advance, it's kind of a golden sun scenario where like right it's a sequel and that like it is literally like you just continue where you left off right away. I wouldn't be surprised if they were supposed to be one game. There are some changes, but like it's also two is great, but it's where the series starts to get much darker. That leads into until you get to the DS stuff. Yeah. The DS of dual strike is really fun and has more of the tone of the first game. Also dual strikes aesthetic is like killer. I love the look of dual strike, but it's trying a little too hard to be cool. Like the dialogue is like it's very like of the time. And then the following game, which I think was Days of Ruin is like full like but rock like Mad Max stuff. And like it's actually a pretty cool game. I just did not enjoy the aesthetic at all. Like it has the system where like the more you use a unit, the more it levels up kind of like fire emblem. So like there's another level of strategy of like using a certain tank or infantry to like get them to be stronger. But yeah, just like I think they were trying to make it more like fire emblem and kind of lost what made Advance Wars, Advance Wars. Yeah. Yeah. Point being, I don't know if I'm going to make it to the second game. I'm going to try my best to make it to the first one, but I did already get distracted because I was thinking about your video about permadeath and I was like, and also our conversation from last week about fire emblem. I was like, I really, I got to play Warriors again. So I jumped into three hopes again and I started a new save file on the Golden Deer because that was the only one that I hadn't finished. And I don't have anything compelling or interesting to say about it, except that game fucking rules, man. I can't believe how good three hopes still is. Why is it so good? It's so good. And also I just, I should say again, like it runs beautifully in the handheld boost mode on the Switch two. Like I'm playing it almost entirely in handheld. It's amazing. That was one of the first games I fired up on Switch two. I mean, it ran fine on the Switch one, but I was like, I want to see how good a Muso game looks on the Switch two. And it's great. The Golden Deer route is fun too, because that's Claude becomes the like problematic one of the three. And it's fun to see him like lean a little bit more into like moral ambiguity, because they set him up that way in three houses. And then he's like just good. Like he's just like a pretty chill guy the whole time. Yeah. He's doing a little espionage here and there, but he's generally pretty chill. Yeah. He doesn't fully break character, but it's, it's a fun like flip on what you would expect. Cause like, you know, I won't get too into it because we've talked enough about it, but that's very exciting. I feel like you're having a very Steven week between the advanced wars and three hopes and Ocarina of Time. Yeah. Yeah. I got a, just to reiterate, I played like the first hour of like most Zelda games the past week. It's been really interesting experience. Which ones like, which ones out of curiosity like made you want to replay him? Like I used to breath of the wild kind of pulled you back in pretty immediately. Yeah. Honestly, the original Ocarina of Time really sucked me in. In a way, I was kind of not expecting. I was playing it on, I have the Super Station one that like hardware emulator. And oh my God, it's so cool playing like the original version of that game on basically as close to original hardware as you can get without having it. Just had like an amazing time with that. Link Between Worlds also that opening is really great. And yeah, I just fucking love that game. That's one of your favorites. Yeah. It is one of my favorites. And then Twilight Princess. And I'm also, I mean, I'm just going to name every Zelda game. I like Zelda one, Zelda two, Zelda three. I bailed from a Wind Waker playthrough that I need to get that I need to get back to. Yes, please. Booting that game up again and starting it again. I was like, why have I never finished this game? Like it's the it's the harshest, the most negative self talk I've espoused in a long time was while I was playing Wind Waker for footage capture, which I don't even think I used in the video. But just the whole time being like, why am I not playing this game always? Yeah. When Waker is especially the early beats, it's one of the more like transportive openings. It's really amazing. That's probably still my favorite. I've been humming the music in my head for like a week because I started working on that video like as soon as I saw the rumor that there was going to be a remake. So I've just been like in Zelda mode for basically an entire week. And it wasn't until this weekend that I was like, I need to play something that's not in Zelda. I also think when Waker not to fully go back to our previous conversation about the Ocarina Time remake, but like Wind Waker actually does represent a nice halfway point between like the more open world style and like the more authored dungeon centric design. Because that game has so many elements of it that would become staples in the open world style. And like at a certain point you can sail anywhere. And like, admittedly, there's not like a ton to find. Like it's pretty sparse, but I always found that to be very meditative. Kind of like Shadow of the Colossus, like just being at sea is so cool. And like deciding where you want to go next. What a good game. It is a good game. And then also like Twilight Princess kind of represents a halfway remake of Ocarina of Time in some ways, which I think is very interesting. Yeah. Because that was interesting. Like I remember I've said this many times, but like growing up in that era and as a avid reader of the Nintendo Power Monthly magazine, I remember like they had a Q&A with listeners in every issue of Nintendo Power. Yeah. And reading as a kid. Like I remember basically after Ocarina came out and they at one point I think it was for the Gamecube. Like it might have been at A3 or something. There was like footage of Link and Ganondorf fighting. The Space World 2000 demo. I talk about that in my video also. Yeah. The Space World 2000 demo is unbelievable. I haven't watched it in such a long time, but it opens with a bunch of Pokemon running around and then it zooms in like on Meowth, like shredding on an electric guitar on a stage. And then it goes to I think Wave Race and then Samus running through a hallway from some aliens. And then it cuts to like Ocarina of Time versions of Link and Ganondorf fighting for like literally only 14 seconds. And those 14 seconds like ruined the brains of so many people. Yeah. The equivalent of when for the PS3 they remade Cloud, Cloud's opening of FF7 on the train. Like and then for, you know, between PS2, 3 and 4, I would often hear people say, well, I'm going to get it because I definitely want to play the FF7 remake. Not knowing like how far off that was and that it wouldn't be complete until like 2030. But yeah, basically that 14 second clip, everyone wanted like the, this is the 2000s and you know, all these, you know, younger people wanted like the Dark Gritty Ocarina sequel. And the sequels were Majora's Mask and Wind Waker, which were like two dramatically different takes. So yeah, in that sense, Twilight Princess is kind of weirdly the like Force Awakens. Then we made that comparison on the Twilight Princess episode. But like, even though that game is doing a lot of really interesting stuff and I love it, it is the most like, okay, fine, we heard you. Here's the Dark and Gritty Ocarina sequel. Yeah, there is a version of the script, which I'll probably, I think, like, I haven't posted it yet, but by the time this episode is out, it'll probably be online. But there's there's a version of the script that has like the central thesis that's just like Nintendo fans actually don't know what they want ever. Because like, they see the Space World demo, it becomes like a canon flashpoint event for the, the brains breaking of like a bunch of people who consider themselves Zelda fans. Because when Wind Waker comes out, they rejected whole cloth based on its vibe. Obviously years later, Wind Waker is considered like one of the best Zelda games and is, you know, held up as a majestic, beautiful, perfect item. And hasn't aged a day visually. Yeah. Exactly. And then the thing that people actually wanted, which is Twilight Princess comes out, everybody likes it. And then over time, they decide they don't like it as much because it's just Ocarina of Time a second time. And then we get Breath of the Wild. And now people are saying they want to go back to, oh, sorry, then we get Skyward Sword, which everybody's like, okay, we, I think generally speaking, you and I are kinder to that game than most people, but like generally speaking, people don't like that game very much. And then we get Breath of the Wild. But this whole like era of, I think, Zelda fans and Nintendo fans in general, like, espousing what they want Nintendo to do, a company that very famously you can't pin down with like a freight train. And then them creating something that people are like, I fucking hate this. And then 10 years later, like this is the best thing that's ever existed. It's unreal. I think so much of it. And we talked about this, not to keep referencing episodes that we've done in the past, but we've done a lot. It happens organically. Yeah. But we talked about this a lot in the Gamecube episode where like the Gamecube itself was a console that people like who were writing reviews and talking on the internet at the time didn't like like the Gamecube, especially compared to the PS2 and the original Xbox was considered like the weaker, less obvious pick for a console to pick up. It sold the worst too, which I didn't fully realize like how badly it did until we did that episode. Yeah. And of course, now again, perfect item. People love the Gamecube. People talk about it so highly. And I the point that we made on that Gamecube episode is like so much of that is obviously due to the fact that like the people who were talking about the Gamecube online when it came out were people who were like the age we are now and the people who are talking about how great the Gamecube is now are the age we were when the Gamecube came out. We were kids and like, there's great stuff on it, obviously. But yeah, I think you're right. And then this is, you know, we're speaking very broadly here about just like the shape discussion takes sometimes. But yeah, I do think sometimes it's like the general shared feeling of what's next is usually on the right track. And then it's the examples that are given that are always wrong, like, you know, including our own like when we can all kind of sense like, okay, maybe it's time for a change. None of us know what the right answer is. That's kind of what excites me is like, I just see what it ends up becoming. Yeah, like Steve Jobs was a menace. Don't get me wrong. But he did frequently say people don't know what you what they want until you show it to them. I love how every conversation with you is like a hot potato of like, eventually Steve Jobs or Coldplay are going to come up in like sort of a half joking way. I almost grabbed my Coldplay anthology on vinyl to hold up to the camera for this audio medium. What we're saying is we get it. We're right and everyone else is wrong. I actually truly, Stephen, I do think we're right and we get it in the sense that like you can never predict Nintendo's next move. Yes, that's correct. Yes. And you should just accept that they're going to make whatever the fuck a boardroom of freaks has decided is going to be the next game they release. Yeah, this remake could be a Pokemon Champions event. And that's it. You know, like there's a non zero chance that it's like Pikachu. We put Link in Pokemon Cafe Mix. That's the rumor. Yeah. My dad and I, I think I mentioned this before, my dad and I always end our phone calls with. So we get it. We're right. It helps kind of add like release some tension to heavy topics. I'm just like, who knows? Who knows? None of us know. And that's exciting. Who does know? All right. Well, that's our second Zelda segment for the day. Let's take another break when we come back. We'll talk about probably Zelda again, but also another game. Yeah, that sounds good to me. See you then. Brendan, hello. I feel like a lot of the big releases so far this year, you and I like subconsciously chose three to sort of fall into and see through to the end. Yeah. And haven't really scratched the others. So like for me, that was largely a paranormal site in Resident Evil nine, which I saw through and you fell very head over heels for Karen and Pocopia and Marathon, obviously. Yeah. All three games I really want to get to. And so I started my hike, my journey, my climb in Karen. And the rumors are all true. It's a great game. I'm having a great time. It's an amazing video game. Yeah. It's I'm still, I'm still relatively early on. I think I'm probably it, my birthday just happened for context. So that's where I am. So like, I almost don't want to say anything else because the game does a lot of great like environmental storytelling. The way it uses the opening credits is one of my favorites in a while. I feel like games are uniquely gifted to just sucker punch you with when the opening credits play. But just for context, the game is largely about you play as this character named Ava, who is this like famous, I guess, mountain climber rock climber. I'm not sure the exact term. Yeah. Mountaineer, maybe. Mountaineer. That sounds more legitimate. And she's climbing this mountain range that is like infamously dangerous and basically no one has ever successfully climbed before you. And I love how this game is very resourceful with its storytelling. Like, all you get to establish that is like a newspaper article. Like, you know, the beloved Ava is going to climb this mountain. Last year, 163 people died trying to do this. And that's like, all you get in addition to like, you know, in between climbs, you get like calls from friends and family who all seem to be like rooting for you, but also like deeply, deeply concerned. Yeah. And I really like the games, at least so far, the games light touch at narrative. Because I feel like I like when a game is this dedicated to like the mechanics are very obviously like inherently linked to what they're trying to explore emotionally. And I like how hands off the more direct storytelling is. Yeah. Because I feel like there's a version of this game where like climb bot is constantly playing you like, you know, dialogue and stuff. And I like climb bot speaks even. Exactly. I like how comfortable this game is with silence. And it's also just breathtaking. Like it's really, really beautiful. The look of it, it's by the game bakers who made Haven, I believe, which is also like a really visually stunning game. And it has that kind of like light future, I guess, like it's set in the future, but like in not a obvious way. Yeah. And you kind of kind of forget that. Oh, yeah, there is like robots and like future tech. Haven was a little bit more like science fantasy almost a kind of a Mobius feel to it. It kind of reminds me still of Mobius in that it has these sort of like thin lines on the artwork, but it also kind of has like a textured, cel-shaded style to it that reminds me of like, in terms of the character model, it almost looks like the Walking Dead game, like the Telltale games a little bit. Yeah. But the mountain is like very detailed, obviously. And the way it works is like you have a bunch of different meters to watch, like, you know, how, you know, your stamina, your health, your temperature, your hunger, and you control one limb at a time. So like the game will automatically select which limb you're controlling next after you've like dedicated where you're climbing. It takes a lot of getting used to because you're using your legs as well, which isn't immediately intuitive. So like, I would often think I'm controlling my arm and then like my leg goes up like over my head. Like what is happening to Anna? You can also manually select which limb you want to use. Although the game is like generally pretty good at automatically selecting the next one you would want to move. Yes. The only time I've noticed that it gets a little finicky is if I'm trying to like, sidle horizontally, if I want to just like change my positioning. Yes. Horizontally, it can be more difficult than I feel like it should be. And also ironically, when I'm like right by the end of a cliff, I tend to get like tangled up when I just want to like climb over the ledge. Yes. But overall, it works really well. It's definitely like one of the better examples of like this style of climbing, you know, making it a little bit more like I think just saw it as probably the closest example to this of like really kind of zeroing in on climbing being the game. The only thing so far, and I'm still pretty early, so I don't want to be too harsh on this. The only thing I'm not really fully clicking with is like, I'm not, I don't know if I feel the meters too directly right now. And I imagine that will change as the environment gets harsher and like the resource management of it becomes more stressful. But like, I love the cooking animations and stuff. But when I make like hot chocolate or something, I don't know if I feel the benefit of drinking it when I like climb afterwards, other than just like the UI design of like meters being low. I'm not sure I feel like, oh, I'm more energized now. I just sort of feels like I'm avoiding something I don't know yet. Yeah. I think, well, yeah, first of all, you will start to feel it more later. Definitely. Sure. Like that can happen. That's absolutely going to happen. It does get more hardcore as you get further and further towards the peak. I think one of the things that is interesting is the ways in which the meters affect you in like not so obvious places mechanically. So like, you know, you being hungry or thirsty, for example, will affect your like grip strength and your ability to like hold on to something for a long period of time. You know, like there's a button you can press. I think it's the Y button, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, where if you press that, you can kind of like shake your limbs out and like chill out for a second. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's triangle and PlayStation. Yeah. But even that won't save you if you, if you're, you know, thirst meter is all the way at the bottom. Like even, even sitting there for a second and kind of like shaking it out, like that won't really help that much. You'll start to intuit things, which is I think where the brilliance of this game lies. Like one of the things that really struck me was like about halfway in, I would say, to the climb. I started to realize that like I didn't even really need the meters visible anymore. Like I didn't really need to be looking at them or thinking about them. I just kind of started to like feel and know like, Oh yeah, Ava's definitely like, Ava should be able to hold on to this specific hold like perfectly. And because she can't, that means there's something wrong here, which is then time to like, okay, let me, you know, think about the next place I'm going to camp. I need to refill my meters, etc, etc, which is cool. It's cool to like feel it. So with like such a tactile feeling just in the playing of the game, because you get into this really like meditative zone while you're playing. I think it's, you know, of a lot of the questions that this game is centered around. One of the more central ones is like, why does Ava do this? Like, why is she here in the first place? And there is a character who I'm interested for you to meet. I don't know if you've met them yet, but there's a character who like kind of like forces that question a little bit more directly. Yeah, they plant something. I don't know how it plays out, but very early on, like when you reach sort of like landmarks, there's some, at least in the earlier areas, there are like billboards that will have like, you know, don't litter like, you know, Mount Nearing doesn't equal littering, and they'll have like maps of the area, really fun, like little things like that. And then there's a missing person photo where it's like, this hiker has been missing for a year. And I imagine she will make an appearance of some kind. I don't want to say anything. Yeah. But, you know, that question starts to get forced a little bit more. And like one of the answers is that meditative feeling, like one of the answers is like, if you are on this mountain, and the only thing you can do is climb this mountain or leave, it does kind of empty your mind in a way that, you know, any amount of living in a modern society would not allow you to do, you know, if you are surrounded at all by, especially like given this is, you know, some kind of sci-fi future, maybe not even Earth, who knows, you have to imagine that like their screen time is horrifying, you know, like, right. I imagine it's got to be a nightmare. So, you know, climbing a mountain like Kami is maybe the only place where you can get like some sense of peace and calm. And that I do feel like is portrayed directly through the mechanics of the video game. Like you do feel that as you play. Like my experience playing this game was pretty wild, you know, especially towards the end, as I just like really, you know, I would like sit down in this chair and just completely lock in to playing Karen without like, without any thought about anything else, except for where does my limb go next. And I think that's such a rare feeling to not only like nail exactly what it's like to do this kind of sport in real life, but also to actually create like a completely zen experience. One of the things that I got turned onto, maybe I'll try to find a link, I was sent a link of an actual mountaineer who has been streaming this game and like talking about how realistic it is, which has been very interesting. It's really interesting to watch. And now, I mean, now I'm watching like speed runs of this game and stuff, which is a completely different thing. I was playing this at the recommendation of our friend Jacob Giller. And he, when I was done with the game, he's like, okay, now you need to become a real freak for the speed runs of this game. And I, you know, obviously takes that like meditative experience and turns it completely on its head, especially because like the speed run experience is like, you know, you talking about like, okay, Ava's taking her left leg and like whipping it above her head in a way that looks completely unnatural. Like that's how you speed run the video game is like you break Ava's limbs in the process of like, you know, like an arachnid climbing to the top of the mountain. There's also the mode where it's, it's permadeath. Like you, if you fall, you die, or if like, if you're, you know, if you die from the fall, that's it. You have one life. Yeah. It's the free solo mode. Yeah. I would love to watch speed runs of that mode in particular. That'd be very fun. That's what people are doing. Yeah. It's faster to play the game in free solo mode. I forget why. There's a specific reason why, but in, in, in, oh, I think cause you can skip the tutorial in free solo mode. So you skip, you skip that whole bit where you have to like climb a bunch of like rocks in a rock climbing gym, which is a great intro. I mean, as you were saying, like even just like the environmental storytelling of like, you know, there's the newspaper that's like, everyone who's ever climbed this mountain has died, but there's also like a poster of a documentary that Ava was the star of who was like, I can't believe I had to fucking bring a documentary in around with me. Like it was so annoying to film that thing. Yeah. I love who he calls you later. And if you, if you go to photo mode, you get an achievement that says like a photo for Chris, cause he's like, we need photos of your client. Oh yeah. That's your manager. Yeah. Yeah. Your manager is like, I need a, yeah, I need photos. Then he's like, I hope I'm not annoying. I really, I really liked him cause he was like, you know, he's trying to do his job, but he's also like afraid of pissing her off. Yeah. I think a fun thing, I don't know if you noticed this, but you can take the camera and you can put it in, you can, you can put it in the like garbage disposal if you want. Yes. Yeah. You could just get rid of it entirely, which I thought was very funny. Yeah. I love the inventory management. It's like, you kind of have like a dare I say Pokemon cafe mix approach. Like things just sort of fall into the back. It's like, sweet a game. Yeah. Yeah. It's not quite like Resident Evil four where it's like everything is on a Tetris grid. It's sort of like jumbled together. Yeah. There are people playing it like that though, which I found very interesting. Like on, I was on the subreddit for this game and it was been interesting to see screenshots of people's backpacks where it's like everything is completely tightly packed because you can take anything and rotate it however you want. So there are people like turning it into Resident Evil four, which is kind of wild. Yeah. I guess in terms of the, the management, I just meant in terms of being on a grid. It's not like that. It's more, it's looser. But it's really cool. I mean, I definitely want to see this through before the end of the year. Definitely a go to candidate for sure. And it's just like the kind of game I like to see, you know, I like when games are really able to seamlessly intertwine the narrative with the mechanics and be this kind of zeroed in on both. Yeah. It's an unbelievable video game. And I just think like, well, I don't want to say too much about what's going on story wise, I think, but. We'll have to wait for me to finish and then we can maybe do a spoiler discussion of some kind. Yeah. There's just, there's so much to say about it. You know, for as far as the story is, like there's definitely, you will get more of it as the game goes on. Like it does kind of increase the rate at which they're hitting you with more like literal narrative stuff, but it is very sparse like overall, especially compared to like any other video game. And I think allowing for that gap between those bits really lets them sink in over, over like a long period of time, you know, especially when it's like big, important story beat happens and then you are faced with like a seemingly impossible climb and you're like, how the fuck am I ever going to do this? You just have a lot of time to sit there and think about the last thing that happened to Ava, which I think is very interesting. Yeah. I felt a similar way about, I mean, I think an obvious comparison here too is Celeste, which is literally a game about climbing a mountain, although it's like much more like climbing a mountain through the logic of like a Super Nintendo platformer. Yeah. Also funny that it's like a largely, despite being very difficult, it's like a very meditative reassuring experience that has now become like the most violent, high octane speedruns ever. Yes. Yes. Yes. But they're so fun to watch. I think at the risk of giving it up too much, because I don't know if this will ever come out, but I've been working on a script on and off like since I finished Karen for a review of this game. And a lot of it at the beginning centers on, I think the like core difference between Celeste and Karen in terms of what it's trying to accomplish narratively, where like, I won't say too, too much, but like when I think of Celeste and I think of like most stories about climbing a mountain, like the mountain is representative of the experience of like overcoming something or like working through something. And for Ava, it's more like the higher I can climb the further I get away from everything, which I think is, you know, it's like literally the opposite, which I don't see very often in stories like this. Yeah. I think there's a sense that Madeline is definitely running away from something, but I agree. I mean, I think the biggest difference off the top of my head is that like it is so obviously metaphorical in Celeste, where I think like it is metaphorical in Karen as well, but it's also so literal in the gameplay that it is like more actually about like the mountain itself, right? And sort of like the texture and the feel of climbing at work. I think in Celeste, like obviously that's a lot of the aesthetic and stuff, but it's more about the sort of rising action of the story. And you know, sort of like ebbs and flows of Madeline's story as well. But what came to mind in addition to just the mountain of it all is like you get those bursts of story and then you just have like a very hard platforming level in between. And I think it really helps like kind of underline in bold whatever little moment there is. Like I think the standout moment in Celeste for me and for I think a lot of people is like the Can Fire conversation between Theo and Madeline. And like that's the first time the game kind of like lets you like take a break. And it's the first time there's like an extended sequence of dialogue. And it really feels like it really feels at the eye of the duck of that game where just like, yeah, this is what the game is exploring and sort of saying the quiet part out loud. So I'm looking forward to having more of those kind of moments in Karen. Yeah, you definitely will. Yeah, there's some really beautiful stuff in that game. You'll want to mess around in photo mode, I think. Quick segue, but they just you'll love this and this might be incentive for you to go back. They just added photo mode and Resident Evil 9. Oh, really? And it is so funny because like you can literally like while a zombie is chasing you freeze and like glamorously pose with a zombie. I just did one where I have Leon like very like suggestively like laying on the floor. And then I have Grace doing like the gym from the office face with the demon behind her. That's really good. There's also there's this meme going around that like one of the poses Grace can do is literally the like limb biscuit like hands in the air. So everyone is making like new metal poses with Grace. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, I'm that's a game. I'm really excited to finish it. That's I put it off until we're done with our Vita recording. Like when we're past Vita, I can finally rip the bandaid off Resident Evil Requiem because I have not played since we last talked about it. It's all I think I think that game and Karen are similar similar lengths to where they're both like 10 hours ish. So like it's not too bad. Yeah, these are you know, it's like we don't have to finish every game we start. But these are like, you know, when you start something. Okay, I definitely want to see this through and like this definitely needs to be finished. The idea of me not finishing a Resident Evil game feels sacrilege. I don't know to what God but definitely one of them. I probably want to try out insanity mode to before the years over as well. Maybe maybe I'll stream that for Halloween. I'll go back and put everyone funny costumes and play insanity mode. Yeah, it'll be fun. Yeah, cool. That's the episode. Yeah, just a short little segment on Karen. I think we probably could go longer but then then we would venture into spoilers. So yeah, you should play Karen. You should play Karen. You should play Ocarina of Time. Ever heard of it? Ever heard of it? That was my least favorite. People did that all the time at Disney and meetings. Like they would always be like, you know, we'd be talking about movies, you know, that the company's made and then someone would always be like, and there's a little movie you might not have heard of called The Avengers. I always want to be like smashing my head against the boardroom table every time I heard that joke. Yeah, I feel like whenever I worked anywhere where someone unironically said fry yay in the Slack channel, I knew it was like I was in for one of the most toxic environments of my life. Yeah, man. Like, okay, our benefits are getting slashed in like two days. Look, after you're seeing fry extremely cynical movie, obviously, but like office space got so much right about kind of work. Yes, like sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays is just a stand in for fry. Yeah. And and everything else that we're describing. Yeah, exactly. But that's the episode. That's the episode. That's the episode. Thank you so much for listening. Yeah, like we said earlier, the Vita episode will be recorded this weekend and that will probably come out in the latter half of April. And then percent of our golden should be coming out either the end of this week, beginning of next week. I'm excited to listen to it. It's it's a real it was a fun conversation. I hope it feels that way listening to it because it was so long. I liked it. It was fun. I think it's good. I think I think people will enjoy it. And yeah, so those are the two big things on the horizon. I am excited to like start in earnest PS one prep. Like I'm happy that like it's far enough away that we have a lot of time to do it. So it's not going to be like like whenever it's like the episode is a week or two away, it starts to become like, OK, like I need to make sure I'm ready, you know, but like when it's this far away, it's OK, I can kind of pick and choose what I want to start. And like the benefit of that episode two is that I at least have a pretty intimate experience with a number of them. So like I don't need to beat FF seven for the 80th time, you know, like I can just sort of revisit it. So but I'm looking forward to that. I think I might stream Ape Escape. That could be fun. I've never played that. So it's going to be good. All right. Into the cast that online is our website has all the relevant links there. If you want to support the show, the best way to help a girl is to share with a friend. You can also rate and review us on your podcast app of choice. You can also support the show directly at patreon.com slash into the cast. We also have a merch store. Honestly, I have heard glowing things from friends and family about how comfortable our merch is, like the shirts and stuff. I just want to put that out there. Like sometimes you never know the quality of the materials, but my mom is visiting this week and she was like, I love my into the eighth year shirt, which of course, my mom endorsing it is maybe not a selling point. But anyway, if you want to support the show, but having a like recurring subscription is too much. We also have in our merch store personal messages for $30. Those are just, you know, you've heard them before, we call them tidings. Those are a way to say hi to your friend, wish them a happy birthday, anything like that. And then we also have commercial ads. If you want to plug anything you're working on, your show, your band, your game, we'd be happy to do that for you via commercial ads. So those are other options if you want to support us as well. Other than that, I'm just looking forward to spring continuing no more 10 tornado warnings and a brighter reality on the horizon. Yeah, I'm excited to keep playing advanced wars. Yes, pretty good video game. It's pretty fun. The PS1 pretty good as well. I'll probably keep playing Breath of the Wild actually. Yeah, you know, maybe I'll talk about it more if I get further into that play. I feel the finish tears the kingdom. That's like one of the things people give me shit for. I literally got to, so I have like 70 hours played and I finished two of the temples, water and wind. And I think I just really lost interest in that fire temple specifically. Like the like the mine cart stuff. I was like, I don't want to do this. But I do want to see it there because we're at the ending of the screen. I do love the game to be clear. It's awesome. I just like I kind of realized I preferred the quietness of Breath of the Wilds to the like sort of Lego fortnight of tears of the kingdom. Yeah, just subjectively. But I hear the ending is very interesting. So I got to see it for myself. I'll make it happen. You got to do that. And then you got to keep playing age of imprisonment. I know I'm dying. I feel like my treat for finishing tears the kingdom is to continue age of imprisonment. It's fucking awesome. Yeah, it's such a fun game. Yeah, it's really good. Well, more more of that on the horizon. The only other game I'll shout out is I am playing for I had a poll up on my Patreon about what game I was going to review next and almost not unanimously, but half of the votes went to Pokemon Lazarus. So I'm playing Pokemon Lazarus in earnest for a review, which let me tell you man, unbelievable how good that that's the like Greek inspired Ramhack, right? Yeah, it's so fucking good. Like I can't. Yeah, I can't overstate like how many little design decisions they made that are just like absolutely killer, but also even stuff like having the main antagonist team be like literally like old school cult, like a real like a cult and like their logo is like a Medusa head. Like it's so sick and so weird. Yeah, much better than team plasma. Oh, wait, no, what was the what was the team in Diamond and Pearl that all had like mushroom cuts? Team Diamond and Pearl that had mushroom. Oh, was that team plasma? Oh, yeah, it was Team Galactic. You're right. You're right. Yeah, they were the least impressive. Yeah. Anyway, that's that's that's it. That's it. That's all I have. See you next week. Bye everyone. The worst garbage.