Ep 8 (S) - BotW: AoC - Time Travel Ruins Things

In this episode, I take you through the plot of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, but mostly I explain why I think it's a calamity of a game.  *badum-tss*  Check out the episode to hear what exactly I think of this game and what good things from it I talk about!  ...If there are any!

Ending and Beginning links:
Beg: https://youtu.be/x_OwcYTNbHs - Jim Yosef - Firefly
End: https://youtu.be/1-0-4HqyvXE - Tobu & Itro - Sunburst

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGameTirade
Email: videogametirade@gmail.com 

Transcript

Hello, y'all, and welcome to Video Game Tirade, the show where I talk about the video games I've been playing and whatever they remind me of for roughly an hour.  My name is AJ, and let's dig into this rock roast today!

I took a break last week - had some personal stuff that cluttered my free time to the point I couldn't script-write or record.  In the meantime, I've picked Animal Crossing up now that they've released their "final" base-game update, making the base-game non-DLC version essentially the "finished" version.  Side note on that point, this is the 4th time that I've started/restarted an Animal Crossing game and had one of my starting villagers be Diva, a purple frog with almost harajuku-style makeup.  She is - I don't hate her, but I'm also not her biggest fan.  I do, however, love all the ungulates I'm collecting - Bam the blue deer was my other starter, followed by Agent S, a lovely squirrel who I love to bits, Erik a moose who is also adorably lazy, and Fauna, a sweet little doe who is moving in tomorrow as I write this script up.  I am also still playing Yakuza Kiwami 1 and will probably have the story episode of that up soon.  And I've also been playing today's episode's main topic, Hyrule Warriors: Breath of the Wild: Age of Calamity.

A little warning before I get into things, this episode is going to feature spoilers for both Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Age of Calamity, because Age of Calamity is supposed to be the prequel to Breath of the Wild and there are things that happen in Age of Calamity that I can't get into without explaining their counterparts from Breath of the Wild.  It's dangerous to go into this episode alone, without knowledge of at least Breath of the Wild - take any of the numerous playlists of videos of the story of both games and get caught up to speed if you don't already have that info in your noggin!

Now.  I would like to start off the discussion on Age of Calamity by addressing the title of this episode - this game features time travel and the consequences of it, pretty heavily.  The opening scene is Hyrule Castle being taken over in Breath of the Wild and, in the process, awakening a mini-Guardian who uses secret Sheikah magic to go back in time, and in doing so gets followed by phantasms of Ganon's Malice from one of the bad possessed Guardians.  The little Guardian goes back in time approximately several months beforehand, to just before Zelda set out to recruit the various races' Champions to pilot the Divine Beasts.  The most recent DLC, the story DLC, actually focuses on the little Guardian itself, with the first bonus mission being entirely its journey from the future to the Hyrule Field battlefield where Link discovers it, busted up and non-functional.  Link is currently at that point helping fight back a massive horde of monsters bearing down on Hyrule Castle, and runs into Impa, being chased by some monsters, who fumbles the Sheikah Slate.  When Link catches it, it reacts to his touch, the pulse of energy awakening both the little Guardian and also a Sheikah Tower.  With the Slate in hand, it becomes easy to turn the tide, and Link's valiance in this battle earns him a position on the princess' guard, especially as she ventures out to go find the racial Champions.

The rest of the first half of the game goes approximately how the memories from Breath of the Wild imply they go: Zelda gets attacked by some Yiga, giving Link further opportunity to provide his worth; they go and plea for help from the various leaders or heroes of the other 4 races, running into various issues caused either by the Yiga directly or the growing threat of monsters from Ganon's near resurrection, which they pass in order to get the Champions' help; Link gets chosen to be the wielder of the Master Sword; the Champions' get crowned as such; and then Zelda is forced to abandon her Sheikah relic research in order to focus more on her goddess gifts, the power needed to seal Ganon away alongside the Master Sword when the beast awakens.  These efforts do fail, as they did in Breath of the Wild, only for Ganon to resurrect a day early, attacking the castle and the Champions and forcing the heroes to flee into the wilds for safety.

However.  Despite the fact that the first half goes roughly the same way, there's a lot that's different.  Firstly, obviously, Ganon comes about earlier than expected.  This is because, when the little Guardian came back in time, the Malice ghosts followed it and possessed the then-version of it, going on to consume powerful monsters and recruit the leaders of the Yiga clan to help it become Calamity Ganon.  Just from the 1st little Guardian DLC mission, it's made quite clear this corrupted little Guardian, called "Harbinger Ganon," directly becomes the gross throbbing Malice-beast that is the first real phase of fighting Ganon at the end of Breath of the Wild.  The presence of the functioning Guardian, and Harbinger Ganon, wildly change how events actually play out - the Guardian enables the use of the Sheikah Slate and the various Sheikah Towers, enhancing these "former" characters beyond the basic abilities they had in Breath of the Wild's version of history; the Yiga clan is much more dangerous and actively threatens even the Rito; the Yiga clan gets used, their souls being harvested by a seer of destruction named Astor in order to fuel the growth of Harbinger Ganon, directly leading to the monster's ability to tackle the castle early, etc.  The little Guardian also has memories stored in its body, memories of the extent of the destruction, which can also be seen as contributing to the growth of Harbinger Ganon: the heroes know roughly where to go and when to prevent some of the worst, and its power leads the Yiga to infiltrate the Sheikah researchers in Hyrule Castle, which can be theorized to lead to the Yiga deaths that then feed Harbinger Ganon.  In essence, the little Guardian's presence makes everything WORSE for the heroes.

There's extra characters and events in this retelling of Breath of the Wild's preceding history that seriously affect the flow of that timeline, and the differences don't stop in the events that led to Breath of the Wild.  The aftermath of Ganon taking over is extremely different, too!

As Ganon is taking over the castle, we get shown Vah Medoh, the most visible Divine Beast from any point in Hyrule, with purple plumes of Malice trailing off of it - but the blue lights of Revali's control still pulsing, as well.  The Champions are still alive, despite Calamity Ganon's interference!  The heroes set off to go rescue them from the various Ganonblights that killed them in Breath of the Wild's timeline of things, and succeed in their efforts.  This is where the major departures begin to happen.  How do they succeed?  Well, the little Guardian summons the future Champions from Breath of the Wild - Sidon, Yunobo, Teba, and Riju - all to their counterparts' sides, and the combined power helps all 8 Champions survive long enough for Link to come to their sides.  No Blight can withstand the power of the Master Sword AND 2 Divine Beast Champions apiece.  With the Divine Beasts freed and their Champions all saved, the tides begin to rapidly turn, the heroes taking back Akkala Citadel, the last stand for Hyrule.  Then the heroes, bos- bolstered by the hard-fought victory, head to take back Fort Hateno, the staging ground in front of Kakariko Village.  In Breath of the Wild, this is the scene of the 13th memory, where Zelda finally unlocked her goddess powers after seeing Link take a mortal injury, and this is also where Link gets whisked off to the parabolic time chamber that is the Shrine of Resurrection where he spends the next 100 years healing from dying.  This timeline is slightly different - Astor resurrects all 4 Ganonblights while the heroes are trying to rescue the fort, prompting Link to take them all on at once while Impa tries to remove the princess from danger.  But she's through with being carted around and doesn't want to lose someone important again, since she lost her dad in the attack on the castle, and once again, protecting Link awakens her goddess powers, with which the battle turns quite easily in their favor.  It's at this point that Zelda takes control over the military forces of Hyrule, and also when Master Kohga, the Yiga leader, comes to join their side for revenge against Astor!  Before they can bring their united front against Ganon, they receive a message that some final fighters are trapped on the Great Plateau, and cue Purah explaining how she's fixed the Sheikah Towers, which all deactivated when Ganon took over the castle.  In this battle on the Plateau, Zelda finds out her dad is actually still alive and successfully rescues him.  Turns out a relic Zelda gave him turned out to be an ancient shield, letting him escape the castle unscathed, even though there was a solid cutscene that led us to believe he had been exploded by Guardian laser.  I have thoughts about that, but we will address that later.

Now with Hyrule completely and totally united, they bring the fight to Ganon once and for all!  Only, as soon as they have a chance to defeat him, the Blood Moon rises and resurrects its entire monster army in a flash.  We are also told this is when Ganon's magic is strongest.  Lovely.  It's no matter, just kill 'em all again, and then they move into and retake the castle.  Uh, Astor makes one final stand with Harbinger Ganon's super Guardian form, and the Ganonblights return quite a bit throughout the castle, but they all are no match for the combined effort of 10 Champions and the rest of Hyrule's denizens at their backs.  

It is at the climax of the game, Astor's absolute final attempt, that Ganon turns on him, subsuming his power into itself (and becoming Akuma from Street Fighter).  It's also at this point, from the overflow of power the transformation Harbinger Ganon undergoes, that the time traveling little Guardian is forced to turn on the heroes.  Once the little Guardian is defeated, Zelda sobs over its decimated form, her tears giving it just enough power to sing her lullaby and let her remember how she made it to bond with her mother's Sheikah's obsessions - she made Terrako and was comforted by it when her mother passed, and she remembers as well Terrako finally being taken by her father the king so she could focus only on her duties.

Zelda, with malice in her voice, swears Ganon's defeat after Terrako hums its last.

Ganon is a very difficult fight.  The first phase it uses its various powers to put up a shield, and it begins to get the better of the heroes.  Zelda is forced to defend everyone and just when it seems like her divine power is about to fail, Terrako waddles its last, flinging itself past her and self-destructing at the heart of the Ganon humanoid, leaving behind a shieldless Malice Incarnate and a single blue screw.  Zelda gets up, glares at the beast, and declares, "It is time... to end this!"  And then the second half is pretty long but otherwise not super difficult.

There's an admittedly cool cutscene of Link and Zelda performing their duties finally, and as all 10 Champions walk out into a new peaceful day, Terrako's screw begins to glow.  The future Champions get the chance to say goodbye, Zelda gets a chance to thank them... End credits.  There is no post-credits scene but the post-game, beyond the DLC to give more insight into Terrako and the other future Champions, is rebuilding the little guy as a freely playable character and completing what side missions were missed.  There's also a secret ending if you rebuild Terrako, which is it waking up and Zelda crying with happiness, followed by credits where Terrako goes through a stylized 2D Hyrule.

The recent story DLC, like I said earlier, gives more context to Terrako as well as all of the future Champions - for example, Sidon of Breath of the Wild interacting with Sidon of Age of Calamity - 400% more baby Sidon content, and my god, is it weird to see both of them - both of the Sidons side-by-side but MY GOD is it so cute!  Cuteness overload, especially when they flash their smiles, ugh!  Uh, but nothing particularly plot-wise is actually given out from Terrako's DLC beyond how Harbinger Ganon came about, addressed earlier; a bunch of character growth of 7 lovable characters and Revali; and also Astor being shown to be 1 of 7 evil sages, the remainder of which Harbinger Ganon killed as soon as they saw its future.  That's pretty much it of the DLC.

Uh, and that's pretty much all of the plot of the game - before we get into what I think of it, however, our finance team would like a few words on this project!  This moment is to remind y'all that I have a Patreon where I post my transcripts for free and to the public, if you need that accessibility option and-or feel like supporting me.  I also have a Twitter and business email for hitting me up - today's hashtag on Twitter will be #VGTAgeOfCal, with the A, O, and C all capitals.  Let me know in those spots what you think of this game, anything else y'all are playing or want me to play, and so on!  Update installed, let's unpause and get back into it!

So, I have definitely already made my feelings on this game known by how I titled this episode.  I have a lot of complicated feelings about this game altogether, but on the whole I think it's terrible as a prequel but fun as its own thing.  To get into it, I recall this game being billed as THE prequel to Breath of the Wild.  Re-watching all of the trailers for the game, there's no hint of time travel or events being at all different other than the bit of cutscene we get at the very beginning of the game, Terrako jumping back in time, which is in the first 5 minutes of the game.  The trailers all focus on the characters, the Champions and Robbie and Purah and Zelda growing into herself, but the very first one, the announcement 2 months before the game dropped, was all, "It's now time for you to know what happened 100 years ago."  Nothing about any of the promotional material suggests it could actually be a retelling, which I understand was done to preserve the twists, but as a counterpoint most people assumed the game was LITERALLY going to be the events of 100 years before Breath of the Wild exactly.  As in, the Champions die at the end and Link gets killed and Zelda is forced to go on her own for 100 years.  The fact that this game DIDN'T do that and changed things from the very first level leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Which is my own fault for my built-up expectations, but I feel I am allowed to be upset that the game didn't turn out the way I thought it was going to be like based on the promotional materials.

That's the main crux of my complaints, is that Age of Calamity is not a prequel but more of a sort of parallel story - more of a "what if they succeeded 100 years ago?" kind of game instead of "here's what happened 100 years ago" kind of game.  Taken as a "what if" game, I think it's actually very enjoyable, if annoyingly repetitive.  Honestly, I think for the best effects it might have been better to reverse the release order - Age of Calamity first and then Breath of the Wild second.  That may just be the sadist in me though.  I just feel like it would be more potent, to see all the characters interacting and understand each other, and who are these people from the future?  And see their success, and then have the main story and explorable world of Breath of the Wild be, "Here's what actually happened: they failed!"  Like, you get so much more interactivity with all the characters, you understand things more going into it, so the memories - the collection of memories, which are basically the only plot arches left - they don't just leave you going, "Wuh - wha-what happens in between?  What happened?  What happened 100 years ago?"  We know, kind of, sort of, what happened from Age of Calamity!  I feel like that would be a more satisfying way to do things, especially since it looks Breath of the Wild 2 is continuing off of Breath of the Wild rather than Age of Calamity.  I digress.

That's my big-picture feelings - now it's time for me to just rant about the particular things that I have FEELINGS about.  First of all, a Warriors-style game I feel fits perfectly with the rise of monsters we saw in the memories of Breath of the Wild.  Granted, the memories were completely optional, and again, they were, like, the only story you got in that game, but, still, it fits.  However, correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall Warriors games being more than just level after level of hack-and-slash with little bits of map interactivity in between.  This game needed something other than staring at menus to break up the monotony.  I got burnt out pretty freaking quickly, actually.  This playthrough prompting this episode is my 2nd time playing the game and the 1st completing it, and even that I technically didn't do.  I stopped the first time because I got bored of the same-y levels, and this time I got that special kind of fed up where I just wanted to play the story levels, to hell with all the side content, just to finish the game and be done with it.  But once I had finished up the Akkala rescue level and saw from research for this episode that I still had 4 more long levels to do... I looked up the remaining y- levels on YouTube frankly.  Same thing with the DLC.

Speaking of, I will give the DLC Tech Lab tech tree as being delightfully different even though it was still just staring at a menu.  The interconnectedness plus the Vicious Monster thing and SEEING that I had to fight Guardians or Hinoxes or Lynels, etc., but not knowing where, past a certain point, I would find them was a lot more inviting than just the pop-up stamps around the map that upgrade your characters.  It just felt more engrossing anticipating certain needs rather than seeing I need 5 Luminous Stones and grinding the same 1 level over and over for the chance of 1 Luminous Stone.

I'm complaining again, there's little good stuff I can say I about this game.  The feel of the OST and vibe of the everything is so at odds with Breath of the Wild, it further rankles that "prequel" tag for me.  Like, Breath of the Wild was very morose and very sad and, like, very - open-ended, almost, in pretty much everything that happened for it.  Like, it's an open-world game, you can do pretty much whatever you want!  Whereas this game is very… even if it's OST, even if it's level-design, even if it's map design for the level select is very guided and very dead-end.  Like, it's almost the complete opposite of Breath of the Wild.  And, in a way, the fact that it's billed as a prequel and is more of a "what if" thing rather than a true prequel, I feel like that goes along with it and that just feeds into the fact that I don't particularly like this game as a prequel.

And, again, I feel like it's just so much of the same hack-and-slash, as well.  Don't - again, correct me if I'm wrong because I haven't played many other Warriors game - don't other Warriors games at least have long cutscenes to separate the action?  The cutscenes in this game are rarely longer than 2 or 3 minutes, and their placement seems almost random, particularly late-game.  As an example, in the Blood Moon level, there is 1 nice cutscene at the beginning of Zelda leading the combined army, a couple interspersed to show the shield around the castle coming down and then the Blood Moon undoing their progress, and at the end - nothing?  It feels like there should be something there, but you just go right back to the map?  And then the final level opens on Astor threatening you, and then cuts to a loading screen cutscene where Zelda narrates the Blood Moon level's events, and then you get dropped straight into the final level after the loading finishes......  Was this game a victim of crunch?  It feels very crunchy.  There's- there's- there's things that are just WEIRD about how the actual story components are organized, and it's just - wha-what happened there???

Some things - so, some things that I find that are EXTREMELY specific: I like the transition from the first half of the game, with the king narrating loading scenes and the Champions being gathered and, like, a peaceful situation, although you can feel the mounting tension - to the second half, with Zelda narrating, the sky in the map orange, and Ganon visibly controlling the castle on both the zoom-in to the map as well as the lo- on the loading scenes!  On the loading scenes, there's Hyrule Castle directly in the middle of, like, a tapestry kind of thing, and in the first half, it's just the castle, but in the second half, it's wrapped around with Ganon!  And the - *gibberish* - that's just cool to me!  You can see the effect his influence is having on the world!  And you can also hear it, because the transition music goes from, oh, you know, kind of, you can feel the tension, of just like, this is kind of a serious thing you're doing, to "Oh No, things are bad, oh god, we need to DO something about it" levels of seriousness, and I - I really appreciate that.  

That's nice.  Seeing and hearing Riju, Teba, and Sidon again is also very nice.  Having them coexist with their predecessors however is infuriating.  I hate time travel shenanigans, it's so weird!  Also infuriating, I hate how they pronounce "Akkala" - it's ah-CAHL-ah, not AH-cuh-luh.  The "a" sounds are more pronounced and the emPHAsis is on the middle sylLAble, not the first, like they say in this game!  The official voice acting is INCORRECT, and I will s- I will die on that hill!

OH, and speaking of incorrect, I have another very large complaint.  The way this game handles the relationship between Rhoam and Zelda in more depth than what we got in Breath of the Wild?  Completely wrong.  Rhoam being redeemed was the wrong way to go.  When an absent parent is shown to be sympathetic because they have "reasons" WHILE STILL being an absent parent, this is telling people that not being there for your children is ok as long as you mean well.  This can be extremely damaging to growing kids who have parental figures like this.  People having loving involved parental figures in their lives is what leads to healthy growth, stable brains, and loving relationships - Zelda is much more open with Urbosa and willing to both confide her problems and take Urbosa's advice than she is with her father, and that's because Urbosa has done what she can to actually be involved with Zelda's life, particularly since her friend, Zelda's mom, passed away.  Zelda is reluctant and almost afraid to face her father.  Not only is he absent, he also does not condone her interests; he is essentially trying to mold her into what he believes she SHOULD be rather than accepting her as she is, which is even worse than being absent.  And his portrayal in this game being shown as one of redemption is nasty to me - that Nintendo is sending this message, that it's ok for parents to not be involved in their kids' lives, it's ok for parents to control their kids and ignore their dreams and feelings, as long as those parents MEAN WELL - that's NOT ok.

I honestly really hate that the king actually came back AFTER Zelda had her leadership awakening, that he didn't actually die.  Like, yeah, okay, what a relief she hasn't been orphaned since she's still a minor, but she had literally just come into her power the previous cutscene and made this whole awesome unifying speech.  She was accepting in that scene all of the following: her powers, her destiny, her position as the only living person of the royal, AND ALSO all of her success so far coming from HER doing what SHE thought was best - NOT what her dad approved of.  Kohga went to HER for permission to work together despite the fact we know from the DLC quite a large chunk of the army in addition to Urbosa knew the king was alive by then!  Kohga arguably saw her as the more important person to swear fealty to, as someone who would directly face Ganon.

And then her dad the king swoops in to take all that responsibility and confidence away as the reigning monarch when she earned and DESERVED it, ESPECIALLY since their successes and rescuing of him were, once again, directly because of her knowledge and interest in Sheikah relics, something he ACTIVELY discouraged.  The only reason Rhoam is even ALIVE is because a relic Zelda gave him to try to convince him not to force her to focus on her goddess powers turned out to be an ancient shield, deflecting Guardian lasers and letting him escape with his life.  His daughter's special interest, that he explicitly discouraged and explicitly yelled at her about having, is what literally saved his life.  It's poetic justice, and he was SO LUCKY his daughter even bothered that many times to bond with him, gave him THAT MANY emotional bids.  

Also, Zelda FORGIVING HIM when he apologizes for his garbage when they have their reunion, and explicitly stating that she forgives him because she knows he was busy and he always loved her - disgusting.  It disgusts me.  She's making excuses for his behavior FOR him.  That's victim behavior.  Zelda is a victim in this situation, and I really relate to her and her relationship with her dad.  Rhoam isn't AS bad as some other video game dads but in my opinion his behavior also doesn't deserve or warrant forgiveness.  He can fully apologize to his daughter by being part of her life and participating with her interests instead of punishing her for them.  Showing her he actually regrets his behavior instead of just saying it and expecting her forgiveness.  Am very big mad about Rhoam being portrayed in ANY way positively, he doesn't deserve it.  Like - no, he doesn't.

Uh, to get away from the negativity a little bit, the rest of my notes on the game are just various little things that stuck out to me as funny or interesting.  An example, I actually really like that Zelda meeting Rhoam in the first place we meet him in Breath of the Wild, the Temple in everything he does and, with this whole serious thing going on of family reunion, oh, boohoo - he's literally in the back just, like, full-on sobbing, it's super funny!  Also, speaking of Kohga, how old is he?  He doesn't appear to age between the games - despite Breath of the Wild being 100 years in the future.  Does he have secret anti-aging jutsu?  Does he steal Impa's youth, is that why she's old in Breath of the Wild?   Is it just a title that gets passed down, like the Gerudo Chief?  Is there just a thousand Kohgas?  What's going on there, why - wha - who - where - where did he come from?  Is he just a primordial being?

Another example is, I like the romanticism of seeing Link dying unlocking Zelda's powers, which is what happens in Breath of the Wild - this whole Link reminds her of her dad and she isn't going to lose someone again being the thing that unlocks her powers leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  3 guesses as to why.  Although, alternate reading: Zelda's decision to actively put her life in danger to protect someone else could be seen as what unlocks her powers, as it happens in both games (because of Link).

Um, oh!  Speaking of Zelda unlocking her powers, Thunderblight is super tiny!  And I never realized that before until I saw it with the other 3 next to it?  Like, it's so tiny, it's comedic!  It's, like, the size of a Bokoblin, and the other 3 Ganonblights are, like, the size of Hinoxes.  So tiny!  So small!!!  It has to be, because it's super fast, but, like, it's so tiny!

And finally, why - why is Terrako's mouth like that?  Why does it just - just open.  What - who decided that was acceptable in a kid's game?  That's nightmare fuel.  That's, like, Coraline levels of nightmares fuel for me.  I don't like it.  I don't like it.  It scares me, I don't…  Ugh, hate it.

Um, let's see, I'm looking at my notes and seeing if there's anything else I wanted to add, but ummm… Anything different from what my script says, but no, I don't, mm.  That was pretty much every- I covered pretty much everything.

All in all, I have very conflicted feelings about this game...  It is, in my opinion, it is terrible as a prequel, pretty fine as a standalone parallel, but whichever one it actually is, regardless it has some pacing and technical issues to it that make it a hard slog to go through.  I think, conceptually, past all the errors and all the Rhoam being a jerk and all the other things that I particularly don't like - I think, conceptually, this game is kinda like Zelda's time to shine, no pun intended, whereas Breath of the Wild was supposed to be Link's.  This game also calls into question which version of events is "correct," so to speak, with Breath of the Wild 2 coming out soon, since Age of Calamity is absolutely NOT the strict prequel it billed itself to be.  Will there be a multiverse or will Breath of the Wild 2 definitively pick 1 version of events over the other?  Will it blend them together, like how in OOT, Link being young and old and succeeding and failing in both ages are all canon outcomes, and the whole reason we ha- why we have this whole multi-timeline stupid - history of Zelda, stupid!  It's wrong!  Will it do that again, will it split off and recombine, will it pull from both of them and blend them together, will it just pick one, will it do something completely different?  And also, this is gonna be the 3rd game in this universe, is this just how Nintendo is gonna do things going forward, endless recreations of the same story in a more "exact same story" way?  (Since, you know, the whole franchise is just the same story a little different each time already.)  Are we - is it just - is it always going to be this version of Hyrule now, like, is this what the Legend of Zelda is going to be going forward?  This game brings up a whole bunch of questions that we aren't going to get answers to until Breath of the Wild 2 comes out.  Another one, another question that I - just, it's really been on my game- my mind since Breath of the Wild came out is, will we ever figure out why the Rito have "hairstyles" or if the Goron have genders or if Sidon will ever be as - grow as large as his father?  Honestly, the answer to all these questions and probably more are only going to be answered when Breath of the Wild 2 comes out!  And that's not, at least, for another - mmm - year?  At the time I'm recording this?  Probably around holiday season 2022, if it's not delayed, which it probably should be considering, you know.  Everything going on with Covid.  

Whenever that game comes out, that's when we'll probably be getting answers, and probably a lot more questions, and I, for one, am WAY more excited about that game than I am about doing ever anything again with Age of Calamity.  Even this episode, I kind of really dreaded writing up.  As much as I am just down to just bash on and tirade against games that I don't like, there's definitely one that I'm - this one's just - ooh, it's stuck in my teeth, ooh it's just - it's in there, and I just don't wanna deal with it.  But, thankfully, this is the end of it, I don't have anything else I want to say!  I've got it all out, it's all on the internet now, and it's - it's the end of it.  

This is gonna be the end of my rant today.  Uh.  Thank so much for joining me, folks, if you enjoyed this episode, go ahead and like the episode wherever you're getting your podcast content, it lets both me and the system know when I'm doing something right!  Uh, today's hashtag for Twitter is once again #VGTAgeOfCal, and the links to all of my socials will be in the description, as well as the links to today's opening and ending themes.  Those songs are, respectively, Firefly by Jim Yosef, and Sunburst by Tobu & Itro - "Eyetro?"  "Eetro."  I-T-R-O.  Thanks for taming the tirade today, and I hope you have a great weekend!  Bye!  Also Mipha's Lullaby is so gooood!