The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

In an era when 3D console games were still finding their footing, one game set a standard for an entire generation.  Often regarded as many player's all-time favorite game (Austin's included), join the Games Gone By  crew as they dive into The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. 

From Kokiri Forest to Ganon's Castle, they revisit the puzzles, dungeons, and music of one of gaming's most influential titles to see if it still holds up nearly three decades later.

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Music Credits:
Introduction — "Boy Without A Fairy" by Dr. Awkward
YouTube
Listen to more here: Spotify

Outro — "Zelda's Lullaby" (Slide Guitar Cover)
 Performed by Andy Kahrs
 YouTube
Listen to more here: Spotify

All other music from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
 © Nintendo. Music composed by Koji Kondo.
Music compiled from footage by YouTube channel “Pure”
 Compilation Video

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Transcript

Introduction

Speaker 1 0:00

Navi's not that bad. Navis's not that bad. I like that it's short for navigation. It's nice.

Speaker 3 0:05

How long did it take you to realize it was short for navigation? Apparently it's 30 years.

Speaker 1 0:11

I'd say I was a full-fledged adult for sure. Incredible.

Speaker 0:25

Welcome back to another episode of the Games Gone by the podcast. It is May 2nd, 2026, the time of this recording. I'm your host, Adam, and join with me, as always, the gaming expert and enthusiast, Austin, and back again today, the hero of time, the boy without a fairy, himself, Jeff. Boys, are you guys ready to talk about what many consider to be the greatest game of all time? Zelda, the Ocarina. I'm sorry, the legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time. Gotta give it its full title. It's worthy. That's right.

Speaker 3 0:53

Say her name right.

Speaker 1 0:55

I am I am one of those people who believes it is the greatest game of all time. A lot of that is nostalgia-based, but I I think even playing it here, it holds up in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1:07

It does. I don't, I will say, uh, it has been a long time since I've played this. I played it several times when it came out. Um, Austin, I don't remember. I guess we should look up when the Sega Dreamcast came out, because that's when I was forced to bequeath upon you my N64. So that would have been about the last time I played this game, somewhere between 2001 and 1998. Um but I was really surprised how much of it came back to me and so clearly. Like, and there's hard at some points I was trying to write down like, is this game really good at guiding you to the next thing? Or do I just have this like core memory from when I'm nine that's unlocked that I remembered that you know you had to do this and that?

Speaker 3 1:39

I do think it's a little bit of both, because um, like, yeah, uh picking this game back up, it does all immediately like come back to you. And there are plenty of occasions where I'm like, how did I figure this out the first time? I might have read the game guide. I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:54

I definitely so just for clarity's sake, me and Adam both played the 3DS like remake of this game for this for this run. It's like a remaster more than a remake, I guess. But that that version of the game, I think has a couple tweaks, but just immediately like walking out of the like tree house that you that you start in. I'm immediately like, okay, I gotta go this way, go here. I knew like exactly what to do, where to go right away. I was like, this just feels comfortable, you know.

Speaker 3 2:26

Do you ever like sort of lazily go through the beginning pretending like you don't know where to go because you just want to kind of experience the newness of it again? I do that most of the times I pick this game back up.

Speaker 1 2:39

It's just so hard for me because it's so natural. I'm like, well, I just gotta go here, then I gotta do this, and then I gotta jump over the side. Gotta get the swords at rupees, get the shield, and it's like perfect, you know.

Speaker 2:48

I was making it a point to try to talk to everyone, and eventually, like halfway through the game, I I kind of gave up on this quest. But in the beginning, I was talking like every NPC and reading every sign. That's when I was like, oh shit, the jump slash does double damage. Did did eight-year-old me know that? Because I don't think I ever used it. Whereas now, brother, that that just breaks this game, as it turns out, uh, especially once you get the master sword. Everything dies in two cycles of boss mechanics. So, um, but it it's just like it's amazing how much was there that I remembered and how much I'm like, did I ever even know?

Flashback to 1998

Speaker 3:28

So yeah, 1998 is when this game released. Um, I was trying to think, what what else came out in 1998 in all media? Because to me, like, I have such a foggy memory of like I can tell you everything that came out between the years of like 1992 and 2005, but when in that time span, it's like it's all a big blur, right? So 1998, other games at the time, Half-Life, Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft, Resident Evil 2, Baldur's Gate, all of that sounds right to me. Um, most of those kind of feel like they came out around that time. I remember trading like burned CDs of StarCraft and like middle school. So like that was still popular a few games later. Um, but then movies, Saving Private Ryan, Mulan, and Armageddon. I I I for some reason thought Mulan was much more recent than 1998, but I guess I'm wrong about that.

Speaker 3 4:14

So that is that is a childhood movie for sure.

Speaker 1 4:17

I I I feel like I honestly feel like Saving Private Ryan should be like early 2000s, too. Like I I didn't watch it as a kid, right? I mean, I wasn't watching Saving Private Ryan when I was literally three, but like it just feels like a later movie.

Speaker 3 4:33

That is the funny part of trying to set the cultural context for y'all here, is that that uh that movie is certainly not in the same category as The Legend of Zelda.

unknown 4:43

Right.

Speaker 3 4:43

And it's just it's funny to see sort of the adult cross-section when we were all definitely playing this as a kid, and it was certainly marketed to children. I don't know, did Nintendo have an adult fan base in 1998? They must have.

Speaker 4:55

I mean, in the sense that like for the longest time the Nintendo was the console, right? So I'm sure there were adults playing the games. Um, but I mean what was the mature rating even a thing by 1998? Like, I don't remember.

Speaker 1 5:08

Um that that would have come around with Mortal Kombat, right?

Speaker 5:12

Okay, yeah, you're right. Oh, look at this gaming expert enthusiast and historian right here.

Speaker 1 5:16

Yes, I mean, hey, like that the court case setting the ESRB into motion. It's I yeah, so it would have been out by this point. I I think Ocarina was E tin, so it was very like you know, I I still remember my golden cartridge for um Majora's Mask. Like all the I I didn't have the gold cartridge for Ocarina, I had the regular cartridge for well, I guess you did because you gave it to me, but I was forced to give it to you. I look, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 5:45

Was there a gold Ocarina of Time cartridge? Because I I've also only seen the Majora's Mask gold and like holographic, I think the the iacon is on there.

Speaker 1 5:54

I believe there was a gold for Ocarina. I know that was a red Spider-Man cartridge, because I I remember that one fondly too. I I love that like you don't see that in the modern day. I don't know how you would really do it, but like everything is very like sleek and just like this is we're going for a very uniform look. Whereas like in 64 era, it was just like we're throwing weird shit out there, all your controllers were different colors. I had like a blue controller, there was all the nasty.

Speaker 6:19

Is Donkey Kong 64 yellow, maybe something was yellow, I swear.

Speaker 3 6:23

It's uh yeah, at least that maybe a couple other games were yellow. Um I don't know if Goldeneye was a different color, but well, if it wasn't gold, yeah.

Speaker 6:31

I feel like they fucked that one up too.

Speaker 1 6:33

Right, like what a wasted opportunity. But yeah, there's just so much like cool aesthetic choices back in the day that don't happen anymore. We're just reminiscing about 1998.

Speaker 3 6:44

You can I mean, yeah, I mean you can't color a digital download, right?

Speaker 6:48

I haven't bought physical media in so long. But no, it's funny, Austin, you said um, oh this, you know, saving private Ryan, that feels like it could have been 2000s. The songs, though, the songs that are popular in 1998, squarely 90s. No confusion about when the hell Getting Jiggy with It by Will Smith came out. That is so obviously 1990 something. I no one would make that mistake. Or I don't want to miss a thing from Aerosmith, or My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion, because Titanic the year before, right?

The Legacy of Ocarina

Speaker 7:13

Well, enough about things that are not video games, after all, this is games gone by. So let's talk a little bit about sort of the history and development of Oak Rune of Time. Because to our younger listeners out there, you guys might not really understand that, like the N64 was the first era where 3D was starting to become a thing in consoles. You know, PC had been flirting with it for a while, but it had kind of its own way of doing it. And then even a game like, say, Resident Evil 1, which is like sort of 3D in a way, it those games all relied on these pre-rendered backgrounds, right? So you have these like, for the time, very well detailed and beautiful like backgrounds, but it was just static images, and then you had these polygonal figures like moving over the top of it. Which really sets Ocarina of Time apart, is like, just like Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie, that's not what's going on. These are fully 3D models that are being rendered as your camera spins them on the screen. All of that is like, I mean, there may be a couple, right? If you think about um maybe the Temple of Time, I don't know if that's maybe like a pre-rendered thing in the back. You know, there's probably like a few elements of it here and there. But for the most part, like when you're out in the world, I mean, these are models that are appearing on your screen.

Speaker 3 8:20

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the original game, like your tree house and some of the other huts, like in um the Kokoriko village?

Speaker 8:31

Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 8:32

Okay, I'm gonna say Kokariko the forest, right? Different village. Yes, yes, not the village, but the forest. Uh those were definitely like pre-rendered, and you're moving your character across them.

Speaker 1 8:42

I was I'm about to say a lot of the houses, I think, how like all the backgrounds and stuff feel pre-rendered.

Speaker 3 8:47

Yeah, the interiors there.

Speaker 1 8:49

Right. Really detailed, like cool interiors, but I think they at least like the designs on the walls and stuff appear to be all pre-rendered.

Speaker 3 8:56

It was aesthetically very different, um, in a very noticeable way. And I don't know. I can't decide if that was cool or not. To me, that's just like a very obvious and normal thing, because Ocarina of Time was a game I played so young, so I don't know.

Speaker 9:10

No, you guys are right. There is a little more of it that I remember, but it is kind of a mix, but it's like there were still objects in the foreground, though. I mean, there's like fences you can jump over in the middle of the field, right? Where you go play like Final Fantasy VII, like, no, the only polygonal things in that are the characters on the screen. There's I mean, literally it, nothing else. Correct.

Speaker 1 9:28

So I was about to say, like, if you compare it to the early PS1, like Final Fantasies, that was gonna be my comparison of like it's such a different dynamic that you're getting with Ocarina and the way that you can interact with so many things in the world. I mean, picking up all the rocks, throwing them around and stuff, like all of that existing in a 3D space is really cool.

Speaker 3 9:46

Yeah, it's definitely an artful blend of like different technologies, um, which is another reason I think this game is impactful, is like Nintendo is good at blending um sort of the evolution of games, I think. And I think the Zelda series is really nails that.

Speaker 10:01

It really does. And it's just it's a matter too of like not only do they have to figure it out artistically how is this gonna work, but just mechanically, I mean, uh Z-targeting, right? This is essentially still what we do today. I mean, every 3D action game, for the most part, unless it's like a um awesome, I don't know if there's like a particular genre of action game. I'm thinking of like DMC double my craft.

Speaker 1 10:22

Yeah, like kind of stylish action.

Speaker 10:24

Where it's like zoomed out and it's kind of a set view as you're doing it instead of like behind the character. Um, but other than that particular type of game, almost every action game now, like you have to have a lock on because that's that's what we learned in 1998 with Zelda. Every game that tried to do it without it kind of sucked. So, I mean, that's really influential, and that's really fascinating to me that that's still kind of the standard for how you approach a like 3D action game.

Speaker 1 10:48

Yeah, it's really insane how much Ocarina, I think, sets the the standard for all action games going forward, and like every game that follows is using something that it has set up foundationally, and we're still Zelda games are using the same foundation as Ocarina, but so are you know Darksiders and you know, even Dark Souls. Yeah, Dark Souls. Yeah, like all these games are just using a foundation that Ocarina set up that I think is so impressive that this game has that legacy still to this day.

Speaker 11:24

It it's funny you mentioned that. Uh, friend of the show, Andy, longtime fans might recognize him from the The Bachelor Party episode. But um, he was I was talking to him about this game, and he actually first played this in 2016, which was after Dark Souls came out. And he said it was very interesting because this game made him think like, oh, that's where those games learned how to do this combat from, which is not something that had ever really crossed my mind. But then as soon as I read that, I was like, oh yeah, you know, I guess they kind of did, especially this time around. As an adult with like 30 years of gaming experience, I'm not just hiding behind my Hylian shield the entire game. I'm actually doing like the sidesteps and and the jump slashes and stuff. I was like, no, actually, I really get where he's coming from with this. Like, it's it's just this really methodical, like, wait and bide your time and like don't, you know, it's it's a lot more forgiving than a game like Dark Souls for sure. But like the idea being that that's it, it's like the one-on-one duels, you know, and that's what the all these interviews with the old developers in this game were saying. It's like we were studying these old samurai movies and stuff. At some point, there was an iteration of this that was like first person because they were just trying to figure out how do we do combat in 3D space? Because no one had really done it quite like this on a console before. Zelda certainly had it, right? The Zelda before this was Linked to the Past. The one before that was Zelda 2, which was like a 2D jumping side-scroller kind of game. Right. So brand new territory for the franchise and you know console gaming. I'm sorry, did you just call Ocarina of Time a Souls like?

Speaker 3 12:45

Is that I don't know.

Speaker 12:46

I call it a Souls games an Ocarina Lake, is what uh okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 12:52

The true nature of Dark Souls revealed here on the Carrie Scout My Podcast, Ocarina likes.

Speaker 3 12:58

Look, I'm just saying, why play Elden Ring when you could play Ocarina of Time?

Speaker 1 13:01

Like, I don't You'll have a better time. Not arguments. Uh no, I I I think it's really impressive that yes, the combat at its core is pretty simple, but I think it's it's like a puzzle, right? It's like kind of a dynamic where you're you're trying to find the openings, you're waiting for an enemy to attack, you dodge, you attack, you you know, a lot of enemies only certain things will hurt them, like the little laser-eye bomb guys, they'll they'll shoot lasers at you, and the only way to stop that is to drop a bomb by it, or you know, whatever. So it's like you have to treat each encounter as sort of a puzzle or or an experiment of like, how am I going to address this foe? And that's what Dark Souls does now. It's way harder and I think way more annoying. But Ocarina at its core, right? It it sounds a found it sets the foundation for all future action games of the sort uh in that kind of puzzle dynamic way.

Speaker 3 13:54

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm just trying to come to terms with like uh some of my favorite parts of Ocarina are those one-on-one um like enemy duels. Like, I love the Forest Temple mostly for fighting the sword and shield skeletal monsters because you're just like, yeah, like fucking come at me. I'm a brand new adult. Um I'm gonna stab you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The the lizard monsters uh as a child. Now those were different, those that also annoy the hell out of me.

Speaker 14:25

Or the ones like in Dadango Caverns.

Speaker 3 14:28

Yes, the Lizalfo's Yeah, the Lizzalfoes. Of course you know what they're called, but that's fine. Uh and the last one that that is just permanently burning in my mind are the the Gerudo guards. Um uh the girls with the uh dual twin scythe blades, which you know happens at the end of the game, and I just fucking love that. It's just so good one-on-one samurai duels.

Speaker 14:54

It's it's interesting you mentioned the puzzle-like element of it, Austin, because not only is the combat puzzle-like, but this game really, you know, LinkedIn to the past definitely had puzzles in their dungeons, but I think this game kind of cranks that up all another notch. And it's something that, like, we're comparing this to more modern action games. Most modern action games do not care for that anymore. Like, there are no, I'm not gonna say there's none, because I'm sure some nerd will get on here and be like, Dark Souls actually has like a puzzle for the lore or whatever. But, you know, you're not solving puzzles in the sort of contained areas the same way in those games as you are in this. And I really enjoyed that aspect of this. And you know, it's again where like you're playing this as an adult, uh, you've you've played other games for 30 years. No, none of them are that difficult, of course. But like, as a child, that was really stimulating to me, figuring, especially like the Forest Temple, like recognizing for the first time, oh my god, I have to shoot this new bow that I just got at those paintings of those ghosts so that they'll come out and fight me. And then there's the one where there's like the blocks with the picture on it that you have to arrange to get that ghost to pop out, and then just keeping track of the the 3D space that is this dungeon, so I can get back to this keyhole that I found. And that that's like a whole level of stuff that isn't really quite going on in a lot of other games at this time. I mean, even something like Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie, there's like an element to that, but since you don't have the same kind of combat and you don't have the new items that you're unlocking every dungeon, it it's not quite the same thing to me. And I really I just really think that all comes together in this game like really, really well.

Speaker 3 16:15

Yeah, Ocarina of Time is on a different level compared to other things just at the time. I was gonna say in the same genre, but it's like not even a genre thing, right? It is a game with a level of like variety and complexity that feels unseen before, at least in my head.

Speaker 1 16:33

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I think, you know, you have stuff like Mario 64, or you know, I don't even know what else. I'm looking at this list of other games that you had typed out, and like maybe like Metal Gear Solid was introducing some of the same types of complexity, but I feel like Ocarina's so diverse. There's so much going on in it, so many different areas and like landscapes and different ways, different tools that you're using to interact with the world and the puzzles. And I found it really interesting this time going around that so many of the puzzles felt navigational in context. Like it's always like, here's this door that's over here. How do I get to that door? Like, where do I where do I have to go? What what item do I have to use? Whether it's like the hook shot or oh, I have to flip this switch over here that unlocks that door so I can get through there to go there, you know? Like, it's it felt so so it was very natural to to figure out all these puzzles in a lot of ways that I was surprised by. And part of that is just my memory of like I've done it a a dozen times, so it's all just in there, but so much of it felt like okay, it makes sense that I would hit this thing, and then that would open that because that's what it did earlier in the game. So it's like it every temple builds on the things that you had before.

Speaker 3 17:55

And I think like what really um helps bring together like the variety of puzzles and you know, just logic in general is the equipment in this game. Um like right from the very beginning, you're getting um sticks and nuts and a slingshot all to use in the first dungeon, and you've got you know the C buttons in the original game as like uh, you know, the hotkeys to use all these different items. Um in my head, the Zelda the franchise is like one of very few that so effectively uses all the different equipment in these puzzles. And it really starts from the very beginning, in the very first dungeon.

Dealing with the Deku Tree's Curse

Speaker 18:45

Hey, listen. Um I forgot about Navi.

Speaker 3 18:50

Alright, that's the one part of this game I've burned from my brain.

Speaker 18:53

No, I'm yeah, I'm gonna have to do a video essay just like it's like underappreciated underappreciated video game sidekicks. We've got Navi, we're gonna have Ashley Williams and Mass Effect. You guys will see, you guys will see the truth. Um'i's not that bad.

Speaker 1 19:04

Navi's not that bad. I like that it's short for navigation. It's nice.

Speaker 3 19:08

What how long did it take you to realize it was short for navigation? Apparently 30 years.

Speaker 1 19:16

I was a full-fledged adult for sure, but definitely.

Speaker 19:19

Apparently, from when Austin stuck his heel through my Super Nintendo or whatever it was in 64 till now is how long it took me to. Incredible. But no, that's that's that's actually really interesting because I was going to say that that was another part of the early design, is like, so we're talking about the beginning of the game, you know, they were play testing it, and I I do think they probably added a lot of those signs, and they added the training course, and they added Navi because people were like really losing track of themselves in 3D space, right? But it's really like you said, the second you boot it up and you come out of the house, you're just like, oh, I know to go here, I know to go there. I hadn't played this in almost three decades, and I was still remembering most of it. Like I was I was having a little trouble because I was wondering, like, why would there be a course explaining how to use the sword before I get the sword? I must be going the wrong way. That that was like momentarily confusing, but once I got that, it really was just like hitting all the beats over and over. It's it's like really intuitive how to get to the next little place you're supposed to go. You get inside of the Diku tree, and it's just like, it's so well designed, this first dungeon. I think it's probably one of the best in the game in that regard and many others, because like they introduce all these different enemy types, they introduce really basic things like burn the webs with the fire and hit uh the skull tula things with the slingshots when they're up on the webs and vines before you try to climb them, and just all these things that you are really forced to learn to proceed, and you can do so in a really intuitive way, or if you spin long enough, you can wait for hey listen to let you know that you should and you can always lock onto things and have her explain something interesting about them too, right? So I think the game is really this perfect balance of like let you figure it out for yourself, giving you just enough breadcrumbs to get you to the next area. And yeah, I mean, dude, the first dungeon, like uh the the the part where you jump off and fall through the web and splash. Like that that brought me back 30 years, like instantly. That was like a core sound of of my childhood.

Speaker 1 21:06

I think I credit that a lot, like that one interaction, the jumping through the web and like crashing through into the water. That is like where my my video game love started and stemmed from, I think. Like that that one moment alone is a big part of the reason that this game is one of my favorites of all time, right? Like it just it's something that's so cool and revolutionary for the time, and like it really showed you the the depth that the 3D had. Like, this was going to play a big part in this game now. You are going to have to utilize this 3D space in a big way, and like momentum, and like because you can jump off at earlier points. There's earlier points in the tree where you can jump off, and you jump and it won't it won't go all the way down because you don't have enough momentum, so you have to get higher. So, like that revelation of Oh, the more you know velocity I have going down, the more likely it is I'll break this web was like mind-blowing to me as a child. That was such a crazy thing. And and it really set the standard for me for the rest of this game.

Speaker 3 22:15

And just talk about being fucking terrifying, right? Like you're the first thing you do in this dungeon is start scaling the inside of the walls. And if you forget every single time, like I do, that you can't just climb right up the wall because there's a fucking spider there, and if you're not paying attention, he's going to hit you and knock you back down off the wall, right? You very early learn about or very early on, you learn about fall damage, and it hurts to fall down. And like pretty much the first, in my mind, significant puzzle in this game is learning to get to the top of the thing and take a literal leap of faith so you can fall through the web and not die. It's just a magical moment. Um, unless you fuck it up like I often do, and then you die. Hit the side, but that spider, that spider up at the top. I tried to get fancy and like jump slash kill him when he turned around instead of like stunning him with a nut or something. And and he has definitely gotten me before just knocked me off. It was a bad time. Don't don't get fancy, kids. Just just just keep it simple.

Speaker 23:19

It's what's really interesting about the web thing to me is that I feel like if this was a game that was made in the last 10 years, they would have said, Oh, you like that web jump, huh? You want to do it 378 more times before the end of the game? Is this the only time you do anything like that in this game?

Speaker 1 23:34

Yeah. I mean, there's definitely other moments where like you have to use kind of the the 3D space, but in important way. But yeah, this is the only time you ever like jump through a like jump down through a thing. I think this is the only time that really happens.

Speaker 23:48

They they're so good about that in this game of not beating any dead horses, not overusing anything to the point where it's no longer interesting or special. Like I have a feeling, Austin, that part of that being so iconic to you is that it only happens once. And it's not like oh yeah, every every single dungeon I have a version of jumping through the web and getting up to the top, right? Uh and yeah, so it just this dungeon's so good, dude. And then the boss is like, you walk in, and you know, most games at this time, if there's like a cinematic camera angle, it's immediately gonna trigger something as you enter a room, it's gonna show it, gonna. But this one it's like you just hear this creepy noise, and you have to look up. And then once you look up is when all that starts, and it's just it feels so connected to your actions. Oh man, it's so the presentation of this dungeon is just like legendary.

Speaker 1 24:34

Yeah, go Goma, I think, is a great like early boss fight for just kind of teaching you the concept of how most of these boss fights will work. Like the the big weak point, you you hit it with a sword, you find a way to stun it, to to just rapidly slash it at it with a sword. Like that that is a trend that will happen for pretty much every boss fight in a different way. But it's such a great introduction to that, and then like it's all phase because Gomo run up on top of the, you know, up on the ceiling and like drop eggs that you have to fight, and it's like it just introduces all these mechanics that'll last throughout the entire game and really just teaches you in a concise way that's not too hard, but gives you enough of a challenge, especially as you've never played the game before, that you're you're you're just very engaged in this early in this early fight, I think.

Speaker 25:26

Yeah, it's it's illustrative in a very broad way. So it allows you to understand what you're doing in other boss encounters without being like just a reskinned version of the exact same mechanic. Right. Yeah, it's that that's I'll just go back to that point. I think that's one thing this game does better than most any game I've ever played, is allow you to experience things in a way that like it will build off of later, but you will never feel like not this again. You know what I mean? Like it's it's so good at the variety of mechanics in gameplay.

Speaker 3 25:53

Especially in the climactic moments, right? Um, it is very good at like, hey, if you think about prior fights you have, you'll probably figure out the trick to this boss, mini boss puzzle, or whatever. But um, like you're saying, it never feels like you know, three different colored dragons and you're just fighting the same things over and over again.

Speaker 26:13

Or in the case of Okami fighting literally the same dragon three times with no variation and it's mechanics. Sorry. I was not.

Speaker 1 26:20

No, I was I was gonna do it if you didn't. I was literally on the verge of going, more like an okami, but you literally fight the same drink.

Speaker 26:27

I just quick aside about Okami. Do you remember in that episode awesome, we were talking about how one thing that the game should have done more of, because it's like an advantage it has over LinkedIn to the past is that it has a jump, right? It has potential platforming it could do. But other than in that Omni Island part at the end, it basically just doesn't do that. I swear to God, this game without the dedicated jump button has more interesting platforming than all of the non-Omni Island sections of Okami. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 26:56

That's so sad, but like I would agree. There's a lot of really interesting like jumping puzzles and mechanics that this game employs that without a dedicated jump button, which is really impressive.

Speaker 3 27:08

It's like you said super interesting that they chose not to have that jump button. Because I distinctly remember like as a kid running around being like, How do I jump? I don't understand. Like, there's a jump slash, like, what do I should Mario came with the console, right?

Speaker 27:23

So you're like, you're supposed to be able to jump on this console. That's how video games work.

Speaker 1 27:27

That's that's how this console works. Every game has a jump button. Uh but but I think I think the ledge jump works really well. Like it it feels so designed around that. Like adding a jump button in this game would probably be super weird, and it's like super hard to even imagine what a jump button would look like in this game because of how well designed it is around like if you see a ledge and there's a distance, like you will make that jump. Like almost every time you will have the distance, unless you're just taking a really weird angle, like you will have that distance, and that's important because I think it makes it a lot more focused on the puzzles and less about like execution of jumping.

Speaker 3 28:05

Yeah, and I think that's another reason why they put a literal leap of faith puzzle in the very beginning was that like if you were being resistant to it, no, do it. It is the path forward. But like you must jump. Yeah, yeah. And it just works so well. I distinctly remember as a kid being resistant to it and being like, this game is weird. Also, it's not Pokemon. Why am I playing it? But my friend said it was cool. Um and then like coming to love it as like just a fantastic and natural mechanic.

Speaker 28:33

Yeah, I do love that. If you do miss the jump, it is immediately a clue that, like, okay, there's something else I need to do. Besides it's it's not really a skill issue here. I'm not failing to time it. Um it's actually like this is not what you're supposed to do. So yeah, it communicates mechanically very well.

Speaker 3 28:48

Oh, and I have a I have a dumb question for y'all. Um is there is there a jump button in Tears of the Kingdom?

Speaker 1 28:57

Yes.

Speaker 3 28:58

We're not even sure. We're not even sure.

Speaker 1 29:00

No, I'm not sure, right?

Speaker 3 29:03

It ha right? Like, I don't I don't even know because that's just how seamless Zelda is with like there's not a jump button. You just like Link knows how to navigate the environment. Um yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 29:14

No, there definitely is though, because you can jump up to grab on a ledger. Like you can jump up to grab higher, because I know I use that a bunch. Like when it's raining, I'm like a jump to grab a little bit further.

Speaker 3 29:24

Well, yeah, but you're already in climbing mode. So there's a button to like sort of like you know, jump while you're climbing, but if you're just standing there, can can you jump?

Speaker 1 29:32

I think so. I think so. I love that though we're not uh yeah, but but I mean it's it's a testament to Zelda's history with jumping. Like navigationally, Link just knows how to navigate the world.

Speaker 3 29:43

Jump or no jump. A hundred percent. Um it's also just uh to bring us back to Ocarita of Time and the Dungeon, right? It's also just a bunch of like fairy emotional moments very early, because you're like a kid going on the great hero's journey. You're being charged with this quest to save Hyrule, and the only father figure, authority figure in the game so far, because everyone's a bunch of children and and fairy calls of light. Yeah, yeah, uh, is this giant tree who you quote save just to watch immediately die? And then you have to leave your home, and you're just like, whoa.

Speaker 30:24

It's a hard lesson. He's like, You succeeded, but also it didn't matter. It was I was doomed from the start. Sometimes, Link, this is just how life is.

Speaker 3 30:32

I'm sitting here being like, Is this a cancer allegory? What is happening?

Speaker 1 30:36

This this game deals with a lot of dark themes for for being such like a game targeted at a young audience. But and then even right then, I know you really like Adam. This scene like right after as you're leaving the village on the bridge, as you're leaving, is also like just a really incredibly emotionally charged scene with no dialogue really, no and no voice acting, and like these kind of arguably ugly 3D models, but like at the time, obviously, not as much.

Speaker 31:07

But they so you know, after you get out the dungeon, you do have to go into the Forbidden Forest for a bit to talk to Syria, who's like playing her forest song. And there's a really cool mechanic I love there, where it's like if you take the wrong path, you know, you reset back to the start, but if you turn up your volume, you can tell that like the louder the song is, that's the way you're supposed to go. Which they don't do when you have to get back for the forest temple, which really annoyed me, but whatever, we'll get to that later. Um but you find her and she like plays you her song, and you're like, okay, there's this clearly this one person in this village, despite the fact that everyone else was like, eh, loser, no fairy. Like, she was always your friend. So that it so even though it's not like the deepest, longest relationship for you as the player, you you know there's something there. And then so when you leave, of course, there's this little, you know, we'll call it a cinematic. All they're doing is changing the angle of the camera, but they do, I mean, through the whole game, they do such a great job with this. In lieu of having like the sort of cinematic that a lot of PC and PlayStation games had at the time, they're just being really creative with the angle of the camera, and it creates this really emotional scene. And, you know, Link doesn't talk, but he has these kind of like facial expressions, and then so does Suriya, and she says, like, like, I always knew you were meant for more than everyone else here. And he kind of takes this like step back and it pauses, and then he just sprints away, and the camera like fades to black, like lingering on her face, looking sad. And like, like you said Austin, you know, they're at the time they're not the most detailed models, but yet somehow everything that needs to be communicated through the facial expressions is done so.

Speaker 3 32:31

The sound work is so good here, right? It's like you've you've got uh the footsteps. When Link takes that step back, right? It's the same like footstep sound effect you've heard before, but it's never it's always played mechanically in the same way. And in this scene, it's deliberately different. So it's like one footstep, weird cadence, a second footstep, and then like the regular running pattern. If you played that sound just out of context, like to me, like over a loudspeaker somewhere, I'd be like, oh god, I'm leaving the forest again.

Speaker 32:59

What's going on? Well it's honestly amazing to me thinking about like and in games I love. I mean, like early bioware games, um, Elder Scrolls games, the just total lack of expression through the faces compared to something even like this is honestly just incredible. I mean, it's such great work by the the art and and the direction there.

Speaker 1 33:20

And the art is so timeless. Like, I know we're playing the 3DS version, so like things are a little up-resed, like a little upscaled and and tweaked a little bit, but the colors and the the design and the unique character designs, the the environment design, everything just pops in a way that like games, you know, we we had that phase of you know 2010's like everything was dull and gray and brown and gross, like gritty. You look at this and compare it to something like that. It's just this art style, despite being old and you know, uh dated for short, it just is so vibrant though. The world feels so alive going through it. And I I remember still to this day, and even playing again, like walking out into Hyrule Field and having this whole world open up and the music hit, it's just like whoa! Like it's it's nothing on the scale of modern open world games, but it still feels so big even to this day.

Speaker 3 34:21

I mean, yeah, the way that playing Breath of the Wild feels today when you see Hyrule, that was the experience playing Ocarina for the first time. Yeah. Um, like when I played Breath of the Wild, I was like, oh, an open world Zelda game. Isn't this just what Ocarina of Time wanted to be? It just wasn't technologically possible, right? Yeah. It feels so much like the same game to me.

Speaker 34:47

Doesn't Breath of the Wild not have dungeons, though? Wasn't that like the main complaint?

Speaker 3 34:51

That was it doesn't, which is like I would take the Tears of the Kingdom dungeons any day, of course. Um but no, I get what you're getting at.

Speaker 35:00

Yeah, it's that it's very much going for that same feel where it's like, and the music hits a little Hyrule Fields theme.

Speaker 1 35:09

High Roll Field High Rolled Fields theme is so yeah, and like it immediately when you walk out there, you can see the castle in the distance, and you know exactly where you need to go. It's like your attention draws immediately to this big castle in the distance. You're like, that's where I gotta go.

Speaker 35:23

Like but then there's a river leading off to the side and a mountain over here, and you're like, like, you know, I gotta get I gotta go talk to the princess because hey, listen, is really letting me know I gotta go talk to the princess. But like just in your head, you're thinking, like, I can't wait to figure out what those things are. Like, I can't wait to go there. Because I know I can. I see it. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to it at some point.

Speaker 1 35:42

Yeah, and and it's impressive that you do then go to all those places at some point. Like, all those things that you see in the distance are like, yes, you do end up there, and you do like interact with that in a really deep way. And it's it's really impressive for a game of this era that so often had so many like invisible walls and like background, like, oh, here's some background stuff that is in the distance, but you can't actually interact with in like a real way. This is like, no, everything you see you're going to go to and you're going to interact with in some way.

Speaker 36:11

It's it's almost like this incarnation of like Chekhov's gun. It's like they weren't gonna put anything on the horizon that wasn't going to be used. It was like we the things that we want your eyes drawn to, we want you to experience at some point. Because that's such such an important part of the satisfaction is the anticipation of like, oh, what's it gonna be like getting to the top of that mountain? What's it gonna be like going into that thing I've seen under the lake as a kid that I can't get to as a kid that later is a temple, you know, all the elements of that. It's just it's so well done in that regard.

Speaker 1 36:38

And despite Hyrule Field being pretty empty, like it's obviously there's not really a lot going on there. There are a couple little secret like holes and stuff that you can drop in or like find bugs or chests or whatever, but like despite the field being relatively empty, like it it never feels too big or too small. Like it's like it feels like just the right size for this game for what it's trying to accomplish. There's enough of a distance that it feels like you're on a journey, but it's never so long that you're like, I don't want to run through this field again.

Speaker 37:09

Like, yeah, it's remarkably compact, actually. Like uh a Pona in this game, in this playthrough for me was more like a tool to hop over fences than it really was a way to get anywhere. Because otherwise I was just like running or using the songs. Um, because it's I it's actually just really well designed, and I didn't, you know, maybe that's just me being an adult. I knew there wasn't anything there, but as a kid, it was much more like, oh, I just like I want to run to the far corner of the field because I don't know what's there, and maybe there's, you know, something to explore. So yeah, it's it's great.

Welcome to Castle Town

Speaker 37:44

So after this, what happens? You get to the castle, right? And all the guards are like, hey there, boy, like you can't be here. So you know that you have to do like a stealth segment, which you know, the history of video games is littered with stealth segments and non-stealth games that are of very mixed quality, to say the least. I think there is one later in this game that I would say is of very mixed quality, to say the least. However, this one I loved, and I think it's all about the angle that it puts your camera at. It's like very bird's eye view, and you kind of see the whole area of where the guards are going, and it's separated like in these discrete sections to get past. I actually really enjoyed this little part as Kid Link, like getting to Zelda.

Speaker 1 38:24

I I love the I love the little stealth section here. It's so cool. And like I love that there's that one section where there's like the beam with all the rupees on top, and you can go that way, or you can just stick on the ground and and wait till he turns the corner and go that way. But like if you want to challenge yourself, go up and get those rupees and try not to fall down. And it's like, okay, like I love that little it it's like daring you. Like, come on, you want these, you know you do, like these are pretty, you know you're gonna use them at some point.

Speaker 38:55

Like it's just that the nature of these games being like it's not just a a get to point A and to point B as fast as possible. A lot of times it's like, how can you get there? Are there any more interesting ways you can get there? Is there any reward for doing it a more challenging way, as you're saying?

Speaker 3 39:10

It's funny how much you look like a little kid, like trying to annoy the guards or something. Like, like, hey, I'm not I'm not touching you. You can't tell I'm here, I'm standing right behind you. It's it's very, it's very funny. It looks cheeky in the way that you'd expect from a game with a kid going off on an adventure, right?

Speaker 1 39:27

And we didn't even mention the market town. Like when you first get in through the gate.

Speaker 3 39:33

The icon of urbanism that is Castletown. Yes.

Speaker 39:36

We should talk about that for not even a horse-drawn carriage in sight, just pure walkability. Everybody walking.

Speaker 3 39:45

Community, there's like the couple fighting and the woman who has a problem.

Speaker 1 39:54

I love Market Town. It's still one of the like j it's one of the most lively hub areas. It's not even really a hub, but like it kind of is, because there's like a potion shop, and there's the little shooting gallery where you can go and shoot all the little rupees for your bigger um satchel of of Dekunuts. Like all of these, all these little areas. There's a little bomb, the bomb shoe mini game where you get the bomb bag, like, or you can get the the bomb bag upgrade. Like, there's all these little things to do, and there's all these doors that some of them are locked, some of them you can't do, some of them you can only do at night. Like, there's it's so alive in Market Town for a game from 98, you know.

Speaker 3 40:36

It it is really incredible. It's just so beautiful that you can do your you know, your shopping and your uh exploring and your gambling just like right across the street, you know, just like what a wonderful world.

Speaker 1 40:49

Yes, yes, we understand.

Speaker 40:51

Man, I didn't realize there were upgrades there because I did the bomb shoe one before you get the bomb bang, so you just get a purple rupee, I think. And of course, at that point, like to say that I had maxed rupees at all times, so that was nothing. And then if you I do you get a bigger quiver the same way with the archery thing?

Speaker 1 41:07

Yes, but it's in Kakariko Village.

Speaker 41:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1 41:11

Okay, yes. You could do the shooting gallery again and get the bigger quiver.

Speaker 41:14

Uh, I did that coming right out as Adult Link rather than waiting until I got the bow, which I mean again, I got a golden rupee instead of so I just missed all of these freaking upgrades.

Speaker 1 41:23

Oh, so you could do the you can do they let you borrow a bow. Oh, interesting. Really? I didn't realize you've never tried to do it before getting the bow.

Speaker 41:32

Yeah, I don't think I have either. So turn this I missed all of these. That's that's hilarious. Uh goddamn. That explains why I really felt like I was like, I feel like there's just not enough arrows in one quiver. No, it didn't matter because they're in every pot around every corner.

Speaker 1 41:46

Yeah, but uh well, and that's that's a thing the game does pretty well for the most part, is like you you cannot run out of resources because if you need them for this part, it will give it to you somehow. Right.

Speaker 3 41:58

Like you guys know the know the room, right? The room with the the pots.

Speaker 42:03

Like it's a good idea. Yes, oh of course.

Speaker 3 42:08

That is where I learned, I think, what grinding was.

Speaker 1 42:11

It's like on the everything you want in that that one room right there.

Speaker 3 42:18

Gotta walk out, come back in, smash all the pots again. It was such a weird basis for an economy.

Speaker 1 42:23

Sometimes I do that just for fun. I'm just like, I just want to go like smash all these pots. So I'll just walk in there and just break everything.

Speaker 3 42:31

Before you could scroll Twitter, we used to smash pots in the guard room. Yeah.

Speaker 42:37

So here's the thing though. I think I spent 50 rupees in this game on the DQ shield, and like that was it? Was it the last time I ever bought anything? Uh because it's like, you know, granted, like if you're playing this game as a kid or for the first time, you're probably going to take a lot more damage or want to try to get magic potions and all these other things. So it's like, I'm not saying they're totally useless, but it just happened to be in this playthrough. Like, I don't, I'm trying to think, did I ever buy anything besides that first DQ shield from a shop? And I don't think I did.

Speaker 1 43:02

I I definitely did a couple times, but it wasn't as much out of necessity as it was convenience. It was like, okay, I notice I have 10 arrows left. I could go break a couple things to get more arrows, or I could just buy them at a shop that's like right across the street, and I'll just go.

Speaker 43:17

Yeah, support your local economy, for sure. I agree.

Speaker 1 43:21

Right. I can I can either I can either go vandalize some like dude's like guard check or I can you know I could help out the local economy.

Speaker 3 43:31

First commit petty crime so that you can buy local, you know.

Speaker 43:34

This game didn't have an alignment system. It was just trying to make you feel bad about what you were doing.

Speaker 3 43:40

The number of times I had my Deko Shield burned away, though, and I wanted another one is very high on at least a few of my plays.

Speaker 1 43:51

I'm about to say I lost my Deku shield more times than I care to admit in this playthrough.

Speaker 3 43:56

That's where all my rupees went, Adam.

Speaker 43:58

I don't think I switched back to it after. Getting the high land shield though, like ever.

Speaker 1 44:02

Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 3 44:04

But then you can't do Z-targeting as a kid. You can, you just can't use the shield while you're zero. That's what I mean. That's what I mean.

Speaker 44:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But once I figured out that this game was just the precursor to Dark Souls, I wasn't blocking anything anyway. I was sidestepping and jump flashing.

Speaker 1 44:21

Only sidesteps over here. I think another thing that is really cool that happens here in the castle section of this game is you really get to see the first instance of the day-night cycle like really being important with the hatching of the cuckoo and then the like ah wake up Talon. Like one of the coolest things about this game is how like integral that day-night cycle is throughout all of it. And this first instance of it was really cool to me. It was like, what do I do with this egg? And it will take you a little while probably to navigate through to get to Talon, because you have to avoid all the guards and the outskirt area. And like it will probably turn nighttime and you're trying to talk to this guy and nothing's happening. You're like, what do I do? And then when the when day comes, it's like, oh my god, this egg hatch. Such a cool like revelation of how this is going to affect the rest of the game.

Speaker 3 45:18

It's just such a great way to make you feel like time is actually passing. And it was probably detrimental to my gaming experience to play a game that had this cool of like a like a time immersion mechanic. Because then every game that was anything like it that you know didn't make me feel like time was actually passing was was not as cool as The Legend of Zelda.

Speaker 45:39

This this castle section has another iconic moment that was just burned in my brain. Same way with running away from Saria across the bridge, when you're talking to Zelda and she's like, It's the bad man, look in there. And he's like kneeled down, and then he just like turns his head and looks at you. And you're both you both just kind of jump back from the window, and she's like, I think he saw it, but it's okay. He doesn't know what I'm planning. And you're just like, yo, Zelda's a uh like a boss bitch, right? And you don't quite know how much yet until the whole like chic reveal later. But um, yeah, I just I that whole section to me, like I was having so much fun reliving these particular moments uh in the kid link section.

Killing Time in Kakariko Village

Speaker 46:18

So after that, you you know, I think Zelda mentions something about the Goran City, or maybe Impa does on your way out. Is that when you get the the first Oka Arena? No, Surya gives you that. Right, right. But do you learn Zelda's lullaby there?

Speaker 1 46:34

You do learn. I believe so in the castle. Yeah, she teaches it to you. She she plays it for you, and you have to copy her. Yeah.

Speaker 46:41

Because she's like, there's gonna be someone at the mountain that thinks you're going to be the royal messenger if you play this or whatever, right? So that's when you get to go to the Kokerika? Kokariko village? Kakariko? Southern mind.

Speaker 3 46:54

Kokariko Village. It's got the same name in Breath of the Wild, Kakariko Village. Yeah.

Speaker 46:57

Wait, so what was it? Kokiri Forest? Kokuri Forest. Kokuri Forest. Can they have tried a little? It doesn't matter. Um that's my fault for Japan. Mixing them up. Um, but no, this village is cool. It's got the first, what I would consider like real puzzle in the game with a good reward, and that's the chickens. And you can get the first bottle there. Uh, that was one where I felt so dumb because I kept so it's like, you know, the one where you have to jump off the ledge and fly over to the little fence. If you don't jump properly, you'll kind of bump up against the fence and not get enough air. So I thought, oh man, I really thought this was it, but it must not be it. You must have to throw the chicken up onto the rail, climb on the rail, and jump from there, which by the way, you can. Um spend about 45 fucking minutes getting that to clean up.

Speaker 1 47:45

I was about to say, you can do that, but it's really tough.

Speaker 47:48

And then so after a while, I was like, no, dude, like I must have screwed something up because this is like I do not remember this being so goddamn hard. And it turns out, yeah, that's what I was doing is I was coming at the wrong angle, like brushing up against the fence and losing all my height on the jump. But um, no, I thought that was a great puzzle. Uh, you can go in and learn. I think you can learn the um can you learn the song of storms there or do you have to be an adult on the windmill? I can't remember.

Speaker 1 48:10

I think you you learn it as an adult.

Speaker 48:12

Okay.

Speaker 1 48:13

And then you go back in time to play it for him. At least I've never tried to learn it as a kid. I always learned it as an adult and then gone back.

Speaker 3 48:20

That's ex yeah, is that that's exactly it. Do you learn it? You learn it as an adult. And then you're only playing it when you're an adult? Yeah.

Speaker 1 48:27

I think so. Because he he says when you go, when you go as an adult, he's like, it all started when that kid played the song or whatever. Yeah. And he's all angry, and you're like, you pull out the ocarina, and you know, he's like, ah, you, you know, and then he teaches it to you, or you you learn it from him, and then you go back in time and play it, and it causes the windmill to freak out.

Speaker 3 48:49

Right. This is the time travel paradox in the game. You are the one who taught the suck at his head that you learned from him.

Speaker 48:56

Yeah, yeah. There's the skulltula house, which is a really interesting thing. Um, I love how creepy they look.

Speaker 1 49:03

So fucking weird.

Speaker 49:07

They didn't just use a talking version of the normal graphic, right? They were like, no, no, no, and this has to look like a human is caught in this thing. I thought that was really neat.

Speaker 1 49:16

Yeah, and it's so cool to like as you go back in, because you're getting all these things as you go throughout, you're killing all these things, and you're like, what is going on? And then as you go back, you see like, oh, one of them is now a person. You're like, what? Like, that's great. Like this, how many did you end up getting? What was your do you remember your final totals?

Speaker 49:36

I don't because I once I realized I wasn't spending money, I never went back to the house.

Speaker 3 49:41

So I I was uh the biggest things there are the wallets.

Speaker 49:45

But I still kept collecting them as uh you guys keep talking. I'm gonna look this up.

Speaker 1 49:48

I was at 48, was my uh was my final count for this play.

Speaker 3 49:53

Uh mine was low, probably only in the 30s. Um I have definitely gotten all of the Scultura tokens earlier in my life. Um and having done that once, I don't need to do it again. Like to me, it's Scultulas are like um they are the coruck seeds of Ocarina of Time. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 50:14

At least this gives you a big wallet. I know you don't technically need it, but it's not just golden poop, like in Breath of the Wild.

Speaker 3 50:22

Hey, it increases your inventory space.

Speaker 1 50:25

That is true. That is true.

Speaker 50:26

39 literally stopped right before the wallet, I think.

Speaker 1 50:31

Uh yeah, that would be the I think 40 is the the big wallet, like the but not the biggest wallet. The biggest wallet, I think, comes at 50 or 60.

Speaker 50:39

This version, this 3DS version, had this weird thing at 30 that was like made pinging noises when you found a secret. Was that in the original? Uh no.

Speaker 1 50:49

I'm about to say, I don't think that's in the original. The the 3DS version does a couple things. Like, if you ever saw like the big Chica stone, like in the Temple of Time that you could like go in there and like pay for hints. Like if you like you could use rubies to pay for hints in there.

Speaker 51:02

I did one just to see what it was, and I was like, that almost feels like cheating. It's literally a video clip of where to go and what to do next. Um but it is but it is neat, right?

Speaker 1 51:12

Like it's cool, it's a cool option. It's you never have to use it, but like it is a cool option of a thing they added to the 3DS version. I think there's a lot better improvements, like the fact that you can set boots to hotkeys, we'll get there. But but yeah, I the the way the the kind of bonuses that this game throws at you are cool throughout. Because like in Kakarigo Village is also where you can start the mask salesman quest where you can like you could get the little Pikachu mask, I think it's the the Keaton mask, and you bring it up to the guy and he's like, Oh, my kid wants one of these. Like, and that starts a whole quest chain if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 3 51:54

I totally forgot about it. What is at the end of that quest chain? I don't I I don't remember that.

Speaker 1 51:58

I didn't do it this time, so I I also don't remember. I did the first one, I did the Keaton mask, but I never figured out who the the skull mask would be.

Speaker 52:06

I didn't either. So I just stopped.

Speaker 1 52:08

I thought I so I I thought it was the kid in the graveyard. I thought it's the kid who's trying to be like dampy, but I I could never I could never get it in to take it.

Speaker 3 52:18

Yeah, it gets me every time that I'm like, I swear to god, I'm supposed to give this mask to this kid, but he won't fucking take it.

Speaker 1 52:23

So sorry, it must not be the kid, because we're all thinking the same thing.

Speaker 52:27

Maybe that's where you get the fourth bottle at the end of that, because I didn't get that either.

Speaker 1 52:30

That could be, yeah, because I never got the fourth bottle either. I also never got the third of the like fairy, like the den's fire.

Speaker 52:38

Is that is that just outside the castle, but you have to go back out with the golden gloves?

Speaker 1 52:43

I think it is. I think it is, and I just wasn't gonna bother to go back.

Speaker 52:47

Yeah, me either. Given that I use Ferrar's Wind twice and Den's fire three times, I wasn't gonna go get the next one used once.

Speaker 1 52:54

Yeah, I used I used Din's Fire a couple times. I I think the last one is like a shield that it puts around you, like it puts like a like a diamond shield around you that that heals that like prevents damage or something like that.

Speaker 3 53:09

Yeah, that sounds right.

Speaker 1 53:10

That sounds right.

Speaker 3 53:12

Yeah, okay, so you're supposed to give the skull mask to the dude in the lost woods. The kid in the lost woods.

Speaker 1 53:22

Yeah.

Speaker 3 53:22

Who is named the skull kid? Well, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 53:27

Which which then leads into Majora's mask and blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 53:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 53:32

Alright, that makes sense. I really thought it was. So what's at the end of the quest now that you have it pulled up?

Speaker 3 53:43

Hold on, let's see. Uh completing.

Speaker 1 53:46

Is that it like a hard piece or a bottle? Yes.

Speaker 3 53:48

One uh oh, sorry, no, no, I'm totally wrong. I misread that. Okay. Uh completing the mask quest provides the mask of truth.

Speaker 1 53:58

Okay. What does that do?

Speaker 53:59

Is that just like the eye but no magic?

Speaker 3 54:02

I I think so. It also opens up the Goron, Zora, and Gerudo masks, which all which offer unique interactions in the game.

unknown 54:10

Okay.

Speaker 3 54:10

This is sounding familiar now.

Speaker 54:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1 54:14

That's interesting.

Speaker 3 54:15

Mask of truth. Oh, there you go. The mask of truth allows Link to speak to gossip stones. Those stones with like the eyes that are all over the place. I do. And that provides hints and secrets about the game.

Speaker 54:27

Okay. Interesting. You have to do something that's way harder to figure out than just progressing through the game in order to correct. Correct.

Speaker 1 54:36

Right. It is so interesting to see how like this big mask quest, though, definitely is like the direct inspiration for Majora's Mask. Right.

Speaker 3 54:45

Someone at Nintendo was like, this is fucking incredible. What if we make a whole game about it?

Speaker 1 54:49

Right. Like, I love this little mask quest. What if our next game is just that? Like.

Speaker 54:54

Well, then why didn't we get the third one, which would be like Bigoran's delivery service or whatever we could choose to do? Did you ever get the Big Goron sword? I did end up going for it. So Austin, I was actually gonna ask you this. In this version, it like there wasn't a map in the original where it would have highlighted an area telling you where to go, right?

Speaker 1 55:13

I don't think so, no.

Speaker 55:14

There's definitely a minimap in the original game. There's a mini-like There's like a world map, and it has little icons for each of the major areas. And so with this Biggeron quest, it would just say go to where it's telling you next. But all it would say is like, you know, Zora of City, right? So it's not like it's really directing you more than that, but it was at least a little bit of a hint to do the Biggeron quest.

Speaker 1 55:35

Yeah, the the Big Ron quest was really annoying to me because I woke up Talon with the stupid cuckoo and was like, hey, wake up, and he he runs off. And then I was like, okay, what do I do with the stupid chicken now? I didn't think to go back and just bring it right to the person who gave it to me who's like, make my chicken happy. And I'm like, why did that make it happy? I don't understand.

Speaker 55:58

And now she's like, and here's a sad one for you. That's brutal.

Speaker 1 56:02

Okay. Somebody definitely wants this. Some some guy in this forest definitely wants this chicken. I was like, what?

Speaker 56:09

Yeah, that one. I was like, you were complaining about that to me, and that's the only reason I knew to go to her. And if it wasn't for that, I would have almost certainly not bothered with the bigger on quest.

Speaker 1 56:19

I I had to look it up. That's one of the only two times I used a guide in this run because I was like, I just don't know where to bring I don't know what to do to start this quest.

Speaker 56:27

So I was I was purposely trying to do literally start to end with no guide, and I more or less succeeded, but that's also why I just missed several things. You know, it's that's that was a consequence of that.

Speaker 1 56:36

But um like the only thing it's a natural organic playthrough.

Speaker 56:40

The only thing I looked up was like the scarecrow song. I I could tell there were ledges that she was highlighting that I was like, that's gotta be the scarecrow song. What else could she be doing up there? But I but I would play it and nothing would ever fucking happen, and I was getting so frustrated. Then it turns out that like you pretty much have to be also standing in a very specific place when you play the scarecrow song. And most of the time that meant negating anything that could have possibly been useful about putting the scarecrow there to begin with. So I it was a very weird mechanic, but that's why it's so optional, and it really is just like shortcuts for the most part. Like in the Gerudo training ground, you can put one that allows you to kind of just like then cross through them the other direction. So if you have to go back through rooms, you can take a little bit of a shortcut, but ultimately, like nothing super important. In the Shadow Temple, it literally lets you get to two hearts uh before the final boss. So you have to and you have to play the song of time to stand on a block to then play the scarecrow song to hook shot up and get two hearts. It's like it's why this was not worth the time to program, but it's okay. I I appreciate how many crazy weird things they were doing with the the this game.

Speaker 1 57:45

And that really is the thing. Like they they just do a lot of little subtle things, like little Easter eggs almost that you you don't have to engage with at all, but if you do, it's like, okay, that was neat.

Speaker 57:59

Like with the Goron City, to get back on track here. Uh so once you are kind of done with the village, you you play the Zelda Zalobi for the guard, he lets you through.

Speaker 1 58:08

No, you get a you get like a letter.

Speaker 58:11

That's what it is. So then you you go up the mountain and you go to the village and you meet the Gorons, and there's uh, you know, you instantly start seeing all these little bombs in flowers around the village as as you're going up there. So that's like a big thing. And you're like, what do I do with that? Not sure yet. But there's there's some other stuff you can do in this village, right? Like there's the you know, you go down and you play the um Zelda's lullabi for the leader, or at the leader's door, and that like opens the door, and then you go play Surya's song for the leader, and he's like dancing to it like real hard.

Speaker 1 58:43

He's so be. Like, I like that. Like, I I am I am Darunia in this moment.

Speaker 58:48

Like that's how everyone reacts to Surya's song, obviously. I mean, it's so good. It's so good. 100%. But that that that's another example of the way they do the camera work where they like zoom in on his face and they go around side, and it's it's just so great how much flavor that adds. But um, you can like take the fire out of his room and light all the torches, and I can't remember what that does, get you, I don't know, heartpiece. Uh, you can throw, once you get the bomb bracelet from him, I believe, you can like throw it to stop the guy that's rolling around, which I don't even know if it does anything as a kid, but you have to do it as an adult for something. Um there's like a shortcut back to the forest. There's a shortcut to the crater where you will just die as a kid. Um there's there's who I thought was fucking Biggeron because me for thinking the giant Big Gorin was Biggeron, and the amount of time I wasted trying to give him the sword hilt. Oh my god. Sick like that that killed me. I knew not to buy the giant's knife this time around, at least. I knew that was.

Speaker 1 59:47

I bought the giant's knife because I was like, so when I break the giant's knife, maybe I can give it to Biggeron and he'll he'll make a better one of it. Nope, nope. I just bought two giant knives for a fucking reason.

Speaker 1:00:00

You spent more money on giant knives than I spent on like anything else in the game.

Speaker 1 1:00:04

That's all my money went in this game, was just buying giant knives that would break after two swings.

Speaker 1:00:09

So I I loved this part of the game because I thought the way they handle the bomb flower before you get the bomb back was like a really cool building to it. Because you're like, man, these bombs are cool, but they take a while to blow up and they're only in set locations. And it's like, wouldn't it be cool if you had one that just triggered a little faster so you could use it more offensively and you could pull out wherever? And

Delving into Dodongo's Cavern

Speaker 1:00:30

that's exactly what the item is in Didongo's Caverns, which is the second dungeon. I really like the Dongo's Caverns. I thought it was like a lot more kind of combat-oriented puzzles and stuff with the with the lizards, and there's just a really cool underground environment. You know, it's a lot less um vertical than the tree. It's kind of more like broad and um just dropping dropping the bombs off the bridge into the eyes of the thing. And like it's just it's so thematically cool.

Speaker 1 1:00:56

I was going to mention that as well. It's super clever. I I think that's a really cool, like, like it's an iteration on what you jump into the web. Like, this is kind of an iteration on that, because now you're having to line up and drop a bomb down into something. So it's like kind of like you were talking about earlier, it it iterates on a concept that happens earlier without doing the exact same thing again.

Speaker 3 1:01:18

Yeah, and you know, to do this dungeon, you need a whole bunch of new stuff. You just came from the forest, everything you have learned to use well is wood that's going to catch on fire and burn in this place, or not be useful against the enemies. So this is just another great example of them giving you a whole new set of tools, and that's part of your reward for figuring out the puzzles and getting farther in the dungeons as you get new stuff that does new cool things and open up some more aspects of the game.

Speaker 1 1:01:46

Right, and then like you you scale to get Din's fire after you beat it, you know, you scale up the mountain and you have to use the Hylian shield to like cover yourself from the from the exploding volcano that like only explodes sporadically at this very specific time. I I don't know what's going on with that. But like, I I thought that was another really cool twist on like, okay, I got this new thing, now I can use it to just cover my head as bomb or as like giant falling rocks or or landing on my head.

Speaker 1:02:14

The way that the Highland shield is too big as a kid to use normally, so you use it like that to me, is just so funny and so clever as a mechanic. And I'm really surprised that more games don't take advantage of some sort of if it's not time travel, just something that really makes the same item have such different uses like that. I just that that I just really like that. I don't know, I don't know what to say it. It's like because it still functions as a block, too. Those big lizards and that dungeon are hitting you from over the head. So you're just like cover up with it like a turtle. Um, yeah, I thought that was so cool. Which I guess I guess the Hylian shield was the second thing I bought in the game. So maybe that was the last thing I bought. But um, there you go. But you know the only thing you have to buy. It has the red tunic, and I like how it kind of it's like you can't wear it because you're an adult, but it's kind of hinting, like you're not an adult, but it's like hinting, hey, this is you're gonna get some cool stuff as an adult. By the way, there's gonna be a whole section of this game that you're an adult. Right, right.

Speaker 1 1:03:04

Well, this will probably fit you at some point.

Speaker 1:03:06

It's the little the little hints it leaves, both where to go next and what you're going to experience next. It's just it's so enticing. It's like really good design.

Speaker 1 1:03:14

How do we feel about Didango as a uh as a boss fight?

Speaker 3 1:03:18

Oh, as a boss fight? Uh I found it kind of intimidating as as a child. I do remember being annoyed and afraid of the giant thing that kept hitting me over and over again. I I this might be the first boss in my life where like the trick is to get him to like eat an explosive. Um which happens all the time now, I feel like. Go ahead, Austin.

Speaker 1 1:03:40

It's it's a cool fight for scale for sure. Like, Goma had a lot of scale going on, but then this is an even bigger, like, this is this giant dinosaur-looking dude who's like rolling all over the place, and you know, the only thing you could really do is is avoid him for a little while until he opens up his mouth and you can throw a bomb in his face, and then like the thing is though, I actually like this one the most because you don't just have to wait.

Speaker 1:04:07

If you run at him with a bomb, he opens his mouth. And so you just throw it in. And then he blows up, he does his roll, but I just was like charging, just ah like throwing it like that. That's cool, that's cool, yeah. Yeah, because there's a lot of bosses in this game where you are just sort of biding your time. But this one, I you could be like really aggressive, which I liked. Um, but no, I like I like this one a lot.

Speaker 1 1:04:26

Yeah, I agree. I think Nadango's Cave is is another strong dungeon for sure.

Speaker 3 1:04:32

I uh I struggle with change, so the fact that it burned away all of my weapons and came out with a giant dragon like no lizard monster, there we go, that I didn't understand. Like, yeah, that might be a core memory for me.

Speaker 1:04:46

So So you get out of this one and you start to So God, I went to the lake first and was like, I swore they were here. Are they not here? It's a lake every time. I do it every time. Um but then it turns out no, there's like that river that I mentioned earlier coming out of the forest. You gotta go that way. And oh, you get the magic bean guy right there, which is like a whole thing. And that's when I was like, oh, that weird garden plot in the ground outside the Dongo's caverns that I stared at and could not figure out what the hell it was. It's the beans. And that's oh yes, they probably grow into something as an adult, and like you're just piecing it together.

Speaker 1 1:05:22

It's it's so cool that you can also drop the bugs in there. If uh like when you you capture the bugs, you lift a rock, like bugs will come out, you catch a bug in a bottle. If you drop the bug into there, usually a sculptola will pop out, one of the golden sculptolas will pop out, and you can kill it, and you know, here's another thing. And they they say when you're in the house, I don't know. I didn't try.

Speaker 1:05:44

I think you're just screwed. I don't think you can ever get all of them.

Speaker 1 1:05:47

That that would be that would suck. I never tried.

Speaker 3 1:05:52

That can't be right. I'm not smart enough to um uh stop myself from not accidentally playing a bean, and I've definitely I've definitely gotten all of the skull tools. You might be able to do it.

Speaker 1:06:03

There's just a little sprout that pops out at first. And I'm sure if you just drop the bug in, it probably just erases it. I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:06:08

Right, yeah.

Speaker 1:06:09

Who knows? But that's that's a fun section. Um, you play Zotasullabi to get the waterfall to go away, you go meet the Zora people. There is I I really like this part where you have so in order to get King Jabu Jabu. No, is that not is that his name? King No, Jabu Jabu. Jabu's the whale. King Zora. I think it's just I think it's just King Zora, yeah. To get him to do his 45-minute butt scoot out of your way, you have to get the letter in the bottle that his daughter has left. In order to do that, you have to dive to the bottom of the lake. And in order to do that, you have to go do the high dive mini game at the top of the little Zora tower, and then dive under and get the rupees in a certain amount of time to get the scale that lets you dive deep. And it's just this like really satisfying, obvious bread crumb if you're paying like any amount of attention to what anyone's talking about. And um, I just I really enjoyed that. Uh, it felt it just felt like cause and effect, cause and effect, and not just, you know, what the hell am I doing next? Uh, I really like the Zoras have a really cool design, especially in the 3DS version. They have that like alien head thing going back. Um they're like fish people who don't just look like mermaids, but don't look, I don't know, horrific, love craftian nightmare either. I just I thought it was a cool design.

Speaker 3 1:07:21

Um they're actually like aesthetically pleasing. You know, they're not uh there's plenty of other stuff that is made of nightmares in this game.

Speaker 1:07:27

So the princess wants to fuck you for like her. That shit is funny.

Speaker 1 1:07:34

That that is that is the most Japanese thing about this game, but that the design on adult princess reader is crazy.

Speaker 1:07:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:07:43

Like, yeah, we're just gonna make a sexy fish. Like, it's literally somebody to know is like, what if we made the fish sexy though?

Speaker 1:07:53

I was like, maybe don't. The way you then have to get a fish and put it in front of Jabu Jabu and he inhales it, that's cool. Another really cool cinematic little thing they do with the camera too, where Link's like, ugh, uh trying to run away and it gets sucked in. Um,

Journey Into Jabu Jabu's Belly

Speaker 1:08:09

this dungeon is one I remember hating a lot more as a kid. I think really there's so many things in this game I hated more as a kid, but it's because the first, you know, I was eight. And now, even though I didn't have the best memory of it, I've just played enough video games now to where it's like, okay, I think I probably know what to do to do the thing, right?

Speaker 1 1:08:25

I I think Jabu Jabu's real annoyance uh for me is like all the electrical enemies that will just stun you and you're like, yes, and like you're getting zapped for like five seconds and you can't do anything. Like that's until you get the boomerang and can like really deal with those in a way that is efficient, that is really annoying to me. But I do think a lot of the like people are like, oh, it's an escort quest and oh those suck. Like, I don't think the escort segments of it are all that bad, really.

Speaker 1:08:55

She's your best weapon before the boomerang is just you throw her at things. Like that's very true. I didn't I didn't find it too bad this time around, uh, especially because like ultimately there's not that like this is one of the um smaller dungeons. And there's the fewest rooms of really hardly any of the major dungeons, right? So it really wasn't hard to figure out exactly where to go because there's only so many options. And so I thought it was it was fairly intuitive. Um, like you said, the enemies can be annoying as hell at times, but then it's like, okay, you once you get the boomerang, you know, you can come back and kill those little tentacles that you couldn't before, and then those are also on top of the boss when you finally get there, so it's like really intuitive to throw your boomerang at them. Um, I liked this boss because other than the point where like it's spinning with the jellyfish shield, once it stops doing that for the first time, you can kill that Joe's jellyfish, and you can be hyper-aggressive on this boss. This is another boss where you did not have to spend a lot of time waiting. So um, I don't know. I I know a lot of people kind of give this dungeon shit, and I'm sure my eight-year-old self might have also, but I I rather enjoyed it this time around.

Speaker 3 1:09:56

I deeply disliked it as a kid for exactly what Austin is talking about, as like the sort of stun lock type thing. It's like, oh god, I can't touch any of the walls, and I was I was still mad about like all of my stuff burning and did Donkey's. Now I'm now I'm like dropping shit. And so it was a bit of a nightmare as a child, but coming back as an adult, Jabu Jabu's belly is like one experience of like, oh, this is actually incredibly easy. Um, here is my vengeance. I will now visit my wrath upon you and dominate this dungeon. It was probably the man, I think I got through it faster than any other um kid linked dungeon.

Speaker 1 1:10:37

I I think one of the only parts in this dungeon that tripped me up for a little bit was like right when you first meet Princess Rudo, she jumps down into like like you're in this room where there's like a bunch of openings and she goes down, and I just forgot that like you're supposed to immediately bring her back up. Like, like the next room that you have to go to is just go back the way you came. And I was like trying to find out where to bring her down, and I'm like, where does she go? And like, I should go back up. Like, yeah, and that was hard for me to remember at first, but once I got through that part, everything else was pretty smooth sailing.

Speaker 1:11:12

Well, it's like she will respond up top if you leave her, right? So the easiest thing to do is just to run a couple rooms away.

Speaker 1 1:11:20

That would make that would have made sense, but it's not it's not obvious.

Speaker 1:11:24

I mean, don't get me wrong. It just turns out it's the easiest way to do it.

Speaker 1 1:11:27

Right, right. Um, and yeah, in hindsight, that'd have been a lot easier than what I ended up doing because I was running around for like 20 minutes, like, where do I go? But but once I figured that out, it yeah, it's a pretty easy dungeon all around. It's just annoying and it's kind of ugly. Like, just like the inside of a whale is like kind of a gross aesthetic. Uh it's it's unique, I'll give it that, but it's just kind of gross.

Becoming Adult Link

Speaker 3 1:12:03

I definitely I definitely put down the game for a while after playing this dungeon for the first time as a kid. Um, and then I finally came back and finished it and got the third of the three pretty jewels that you're collecting this whole time, right? Yeah. Um which finally means that you can go and unlock the Temple of Time. Did I get that right?

Speaker 1 1:12:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1:12:27

Leads to a really cool cinematic that you you go back to Hyrule Castle because you're like, I gotta go talk to Zelda, I got the things. But Ganon Dorf has attacked it, and she's coming out of there on Impa's horseback, right? And that's when she tosses the Ocarina into the river, and Ganon like uh Kamehamehas you from his horse, like he just like he gives you like the most brutal stare down of all time, where he's just like stupid shit.

Speaker 3 1:12:53

This is literally the scenario from your dream at the beginning, like you kept envisioning like yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 1:12:59

That this isn't coming to fruition, and then you have to dive into the into the lake, get the ocarina, and it's like I have you know, like like this special ocarina now, and then you go to the temple.

Speaker 1:13:09

Yeah, and I can't I can't remember what bread crumbs you to the temple. I'm sure Navi's like, We have the jewels. Have you been to that temple in the marketplace?

Speaker 1 1:13:16

Right, right, something like that, yeah. If you did happen to go into the temple while you're as you're collecting the gems, if you go to the temple, you can see them being placed there as you're getting them. Like, so it's like, oh, I have them all. I should go to that temple now that I have them all. I bet, I bet I can do something there.

Speaker 1:13:34

Did anyone else think, you know, at the top of the Goran village, there's like the place where the red jewel, I guess, usually sits before Ganondorf stole it? It's like that little pedestal with the ropes leading to it.

Speaker 1 1:13:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:13:47

I I kept going back there to put it there after the second one, and I was like, I have this memory that you put it here, right? No, it's it's actually just really good um environmental storytelling. It's like, here's what I used to kept keep it, and that that guy stole it from us.

Speaker 1 1:13:59

Now it's gone. Now some dinosaur thing has it.

Speaker 1:14:04

So yeah, you go to the temple, you open it up, and it's like one of those situations where like, haha, you've been part of my plan the whole time. I've been waiting for you to collect these, and now I'm going to enter like the sacred kingdom to get the Triforce.

Speaker 1 1:14:19

The sacred realm. Yeah.

Speaker 1:14:20

Yeah. And Link is like King Arthur here. He's the kid who can pull the sword from the stone. But it turns out in this, in this version of King Arthur, you had to be a certain age to use the master sword. So he is stuck in time for seven years until he's old enough to actually be able to use it, which of course is really when you find out okay, you must not be one of these forest children, because I thought that was the whole deal. You kind of didn't grow up.

Speaker 3 1:14:45

Talk about a big reveal and twist, right? Like you go from uh being the boy without a fairy to realizing that you are the hero of time. Yeah. I don't know if we get that fancy with the title yet, but you are clearly different. Uh, there's again great storytelling with Link's expressions as you become an adult and the sound work again, which remember Link's like a silent character, but not really. He's like the most expressive person who only makes five sounds.

Speaker 1 1:15:15

It's really true.

Speaker 1:15:17

Yeah, it's a total change in like the um the pitch of his voice. Like now all of his little sounds are distinctly no longer a child yelling, they are an adult yelling. Um, yeah. This part, you can go back out into the market square and suddenly you see that like, well, this looks a little different than how I left it. It's that's the understatement of the game. Yeah, like dawn of the dead.

Speaker 1 1:15:40

This is probably like my second favorite part of this game, honestly. Is uh the the the webs never be topped that like core memory of jumping through the web. But coming out into market town after getting like after becoming an adult is still just like mind-blowing to me. Like just the walking onto this like desecrated village with all these like zombie like creatures and this like really ominous, like there's no music, it's just this like kind of wind rustling through the town, and it's just like what happened here, just like traumatizing as a child. And I think it still works really, really well story-wise and like emotionally, just coming out into this like really dark version of what used to be so lively and bustling and happy. It's the perfect juxtaposition.

Speaker 3 1:16:33

It's it's a great scene, right? And it and it differs greatly from, say, like Breath of the Wild, a modern game where like you start the game and Hyrule has already been destroyed. You're kind of figuring out what happened in the past, right? Ocarina of Time does it so well that you're like a kid going out on an adventure when the world is fine and you can save it, and then you fail to save it. In fact, maybe you were instrumental to it being destroyed.

Speaker 1 1:16:59

You might be the reason that it's down again.

Speaker 3 1:17:02

I don't maybe this is why I don't deal with change well, but yes, you walk out of the Temple of Time, and uh, the great lively market town is now a burned, ruined wasteland filled with zombies, and you're just like, oh my god, all I want to do is run away.

Speaker 1:17:28

After you come out of the temple, uh you're yeah, you're you're walking through the market square. There's really nowhere to go because everything is like a desecrated wasteland now, right? But as you're heading out, you'll notice that, okay, well, that that one little shack where we were smashing all the pots before, that's a door still. So you go in there, and now it's like a lady who's like, Do you want to collect the souls of the dead that are just running around the fields? And you're like, Wow, this is a different tone.

Speaker 1 1:17:54

Like, whoa.

Speaker 1:17:58

Which I only did that once, and I got the cheapest one, and it was like 10 rupees, and I was like, No, I'm not, I'm not going to waste my time.

Speaker 3 1:18:04

I think the Poes were pretty annoying too.

Speaker 1 1:18:07

There's like a special Poe or something that you can get that'll give you like a heartpiece or whatever, but Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1:18:12

Is it the one that just starts following you when you're on horseback sometimes?

Speaker 3 1:18:15

I yes, I think so. It's it's related to that. Like that's part of the ways and that you catch souls. I much prefer the Tears of the Kingdom version where you just pick them up off the ground as opposed to having to deal with them in high rules.

Speaker 1 1:18:27

Yeah, I I could never I could never line it up correctly to shoot at it while it's riding and like actually kill it. And I was like, never mind, I don't care enough to figure it out.

Speaker 1:18:38

Yeah. But the first thing I did was like, hey, don't you get Ipona from the ranch? Because I'd gone there and learned her song as a kid, um, and met Malin, I guess, Melon and Talon. And uh but of course you go in there and it's it's actually kind of interesting because when you first go out as an adult, the the it's not set up to happen yet. You have to go do like one thing. I think you have to go talk to someone in the forest or something, and then you can come right back. But I went in there and Igor would not let me race him. Uh, and Malin was not in the barn. I was like, interesting, okay. Um, but you I think you go to the village as an adult and you meet sorry, you meet Sheikh for the first time? I can't remember. You have to do something.

Speaker 1 1:19:19

You meet Sheik in the temple in the Temple of Time. Like Okay. I I as you become an adult when you come out, Sheik is there and is like, I'm Sheik, or whatever. Gotcha. And then I I always go straight to the village after that because I just I know to get the hook shot.

Speaker 1:19:36

But that's what it is. You have to get the hook shot first.

Speaker 1 1:19:39

Is that what triggers?

Speaker 1:19:41

I guess so. Because like I was saying, Malon wasn't in the barn and Igor would not let me race him. Uh Igor? Igor? Ingo, I think.

Speaker 1 1:19:48

I think it might be Ingo.

Speaker 1:19:49

Igor, okay. That's why I was saying it weird. It wasn't Igor. But um so then you go get the hook shot, which by the way, I don't know why. I had no memory of this whatsoever. This did not feel the slightest bit familiar to me. Um, luckily, the game bread crumbs into it really well. There's someone at this top, the start of the village is basically just like, yeah, the gravekeeper's like dead now, but people keep seeing his ghost. You should you should go see what that's about. Okay, I know where to go next. Go check out that ghost. So you do that, and then you can go get a opponent. But I thought the um the little race with the underground to get to the hookshot, that's pretty interesting. Right.

Speaker 1 1:20:27

Yeah, yeah. It's it's well again, having played it as many times as I have, like, I was like, okay, I gotta go this way, gotta roll here. Like, I was yeah, pretty it was pretty easy to do this time, but I feel like as a kid, I I kind of struggled with that race. Cause like if you're not kept hitting the flames. Yeah, like if you're not taking the right pathing, like it's it's kind of hard.

Speaker 3 1:20:46

Like Does it feel like a good preparation or a good way to get you used to the feel of adult link versus how you've been playing the game so far as a kid? Or is it more of just a new challenge?

Speaker 1:20:58

I guess it doesn't feel that much different than Kid Link at that point because you're just running and rolling. Um maybe maybe you roll a little further. I'm not sure. I I forgot that you roll so much faster than you run if you spam it. So I never really did it as much as a kid, but then I started using it as a lot as an adult. So I'm wondering if maybe it doesn't even work that way as a kid. I'm not sure. But yeah, you get out of there, you can go do the Ipona thing then, which um I I definitely remembered that from being a kid because I just remembered like that cool scene when you he's like, haha, you think you've won, but I have locked you in my ranch. Whatever. I stole this ranch for them now to not be able to get into the part where the money is made, but fine. So then you can jump over the gate and it's a cool cinematic thing, and now you have Ipona for the rest of the game. Uh that's I love that part too.

Speaker 1 1:21:41

That that's an awesome part. I didn't learn Ipona's song as Kid Link originally. Like I I guess I I went to I went to Malin, like I went to the ranch, but I don't think I ever pulled out the Ocarina in front of her to actually learn the song. So you actually have to wait till after the forest temple to go back to be Kid Link if you don't have the song. So I didn't actually get opponent until after the forest temple.

Speaker 1:22:09

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 1:22:10

Yeah, that's happened to me a lot too, is that I can't do it right out of the gate because I've completely forgotten to stop by the ranch as a kid. Yeah.

Speaker 1:22:18

Because you know you can't really do much, but yeah. Yeah. You can get um, you can get the second bottle there though as a kid. So I was.

Speaker 3 1:22:26

Which I did, which I do do. Yeah, yeah. What I remember, I do go get the bottle. And, you know, some nice milk. That's a good way to heal yourself early on in the game.

Speaker 1:22:34

Yeah, it is. And I love that you can just find random cows underground and refill on on the milk.

Speaker 1 1:22:40

Yeah, I mean, you know, what why wouldn't there be random cows underground? I mean, I I don't know.

Speaker 3 1:22:46

Found a cow here. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 1:22:48

Here's a cow, get some milk in this like weird underground cavern that has like milk and bugs.

Speaker 3 1:22:55

The little underground cavern things are so funny sometimes because it's it's like you do so much work for five rupees, and it's yeah, why it's like this was completely useless, but uh the Zelda series seems to have like an addiction to uh you know giving you chests that are easy and then also filled with useless items, like I don't know, when I get two arrows out of a chest in Breath of the Wild or something, or I don't know in this game, five rupees is it does kind of make the world feel alive in a way where it's like sometimes you just you do something for kind of a minimal reward, but it's like it feels kind of organic in that way, where it's like like everything you do isn't always going to give you some like great big reward, but here's another option that you can do a thing, like, oh, there's a there's a big rock, blow it up with a bomb, see what happens.

Speaker 1 1:23:46

It could be 50 rupees, it could be five, it could be a heartpiece, it could be, you know, some bugs. Like, I like that it it keeps you guessing and you it kind of forces you to try everything because you never know what will be worth it and what won't be.

Forging Through the Forest Temple

Speaker 1:24:13

So at this point, like you said, the forest temple's next. You you know, Navi's like, um, what what do you think happened to your your childhood home or whatever, right? So you go there and it's overgrown and infested, all the kids are hiding inside. There's those um the decous stick flower guys are like freaking everywhere. You go to where the tree was. No, not yet. The sprout doesn't come out until you beat the forest temple, right?

Speaker 2 1:24:35

Yeah, so you kind of believe so.

Speaker 1:24:36

You go into the forest, and like you you somehow know that you need to go back to where you learned Surrey's song, but now that path doesn't play Surya's song louder as you get closer to it, and that was killing me. I was like, well, there's not that many paths. You know, you can kind of if you walk but not all the way, it kind of reveals itself, so you can kind of still cheat your way there. But I don't know why. This was frustrating the hell out of me because there's that is a there's like this one clearing. Do you know what I'm talking about? There's like this one clearing with like a tree, but it's a dead end. And I was like, Oh, I bet I can hook shot something up there. So I'm just I'm I I just could not realize that I was just literally going the wrong way. Um, eventually figure that out. This part with the charging pig soldier demon guys. Yeah. Uh-huh. First time I died in this playthrough. No, not game over, because I have three fairies at this point, of course. Of course. But first time I actually lost all my hearts. I don't know why. I kept like getting way too aggressive, thinking like, I'll I'll get by here. I don't need to wait. Charge, hit you, reset. Um, could not figure out the guy at the end where you just have to like zigzag. Oh, really? Uh yeah, I I took so much damage there, and then eventually was. Yeah, so I eventually figured that one out. Uh immediately killed him from behind because I was so freaking pissed off. Um yeah, so then then you get to the forest temple. I love the forest temple. To me, this there's so much about it that feels different from being kidlink, you know. You get the small keys finally, right? I'd kind of forgotten that small keys are not even a thing as as Kid Link.

Speaker 1 1:26:08

I forgot that the kids are not.

Speaker 3 1:26:09

Dungeons just weren't that complicated.

Speaker 1 1:26:11

Yeah, I forgot that too coming into this one. And I was like, man, I haven't gotten any keys.

Speaker 3 1:26:17

I I do feel like the adult dungeons here start like giving you many more. It's like you can kind of explore the dungeon like uh widely first and like a breath first kind of way and hit tons of dead ends. Whereas like as a child, it's much more designed for there being only like maybe one or two obvious paths for you to go figure out the puzzle in, and then like in the forest temple, it to me it feels very much like they take the training wheels off.

Speaker 1:26:42

You you meet Sheik right outside the Forest Temple, right? And she teaches you that forest song, or I guess you think maybe it's a he at this point, but and you'll notice that like unlike all the songs as a kid, unlike literally every song you can get as a kid, this one has more than three notes. And it's almost symbolic of what you are about to experience as an adult. Right. You're like, this is a good thing.

Speaker 1 1:27:02

We're evolving.

Speaker 1:27:03

Yeah, exactly. Like things are gonna be a little more complicated now, not much, but but noticeably more. And that's how the dungeon is. Um, the bow is such a cool item to get as your very first tool. Um, it's a lot like the slingshot, but just better. I mean, the slingshot would not hurt every enemy that the bow does, so it's just like a stronger version. Um, you know, you eventually get the elemental arrows over time. So the bow is an awesome addition to your arsenal.

Speaker 3 1:27:29

The bow is so good. Like again, you can't use the slingshot as an adult. So you let you like walk out of the temple of time and like half your shit's gone. You can't even equip it. And I'm like, what is this bullshit? I hate everything. Right.

Speaker 1 1:27:42

Where's my ranged attack? Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:27:45

It's like, oh, I have to start all over. Yeah, yeah. And then you get into the Forest Temple and you finally start getting things. I was even skeptical of the hookshot at first because I was like, is this supposed to replace my slingshot? No, no, it is not.

Speaker 1 1:27:58

Right, because the the hookshot doesn't really hurt anymore. Besides a couple things like underwater, but for the most part, it it just freezes things, so it's like, well, this isn't nearly as good as my slingshot. Um, and then you get the bow, of course, which is like the best the best thing in the entire game. I love the bow. Yeah.

Speaker 1:28:16

I will say I was mildly disappointed that you don't really you really just don't spend much time using the boomerang because you get it and then immediately become an adult. And the boomerang in the previous Zelda games before this were like awesome. Like the boomerang is like the coolest fucking thing in Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, right? But in this one, it's like you basically get it for one dungeon, and it kind of sucks to use outside of Z-targeting mode. Like throwing the boomerang outside of Z-targeting is just awful. It's so hard to figure out where it's going.

Speaker 1 1:28:40

It's so hard to figure out where it's gonna go.

Speaker 1:28:42

Yeah, it's really a couple puzzles where you're supposed to make it like curve around something to hit a switch, but it always curved the other fucking way that I needed it to, and I wasn't sure what I was doing. Yeah, dude. Uh but yeah, uh Bo, freaking awesome. I love the puzzles.

Speaker 1 1:28:56

I might say it becomes absolutely instrumental in puzzle solving for every dungeon throughout. Like it is it becomes like the biggest puzzle tool. Yeah, for an eyeball out, look for an eyeball to shoot in. But also, like, it's so great because even in the Forest Temple, they're they're teaching you, like, okay, you don't have a stick anymore to light things on fire. How do I light these torches? Shoot an arrow through fire. Like such a great evolution of like, okay, I need to light this torch somehow, but I can't do it the way as I did as a kid. What could I do? And then you look around and you're like, this lines up pretty nice, like, and then and then it lights it, and you're like, oh my god. Like again, just so intuitive game design, because it's like, okay, here's this torch. Like, it lines up pretty well with this torch. You just got a bow. Maybe try that. But I do remember something like that.

Speaker 3 1:29:53

I do need uh I need the uh like a Mythbusters episode to decide if you could actually set an arrow on fire by shooting it through a flame, but it is an incredibly good game mechanic.

Speaker 1:30:03

Is it is it covered in gasoline? Because maybe like right, right.

Speaker 3 1:30:06

I I just assume look, Link has very flammable arrows. Okay, that Hyrule Wood is just real just just really, really dried out.

Speaker 1:30:15

No wonder Ganondorf burned down the castle and looking after me and you just turned out.

Speaker 3 1:30:18

Absolutely. It's basically made of wood.

Speaker 1:30:20

So I I do remember as a child not understanding this one at first, and I thought I just had to use a din's fire worth of magic every time I needed to light one of these torches. Um but hey, it's it's nice to have options, right? It's true, it's true. Yeah, so this is uh a pretty good dungeon, I think. The boss is really cool. I will say, I don't I was being an idiot and not Z-targeting Navi information for this boss when I couldn't figure it out. And what I kept doing is I thought what I was doing. So, you know, you do the thing where he's charging out the portraits, you shoot him with the bow, he he then comes out and is floating around in the air. And what I thought what I was doing is when he got close to me, I was jump slashing and hitting him, and that was bringing him to the ground. Turns out what I was doing is I was reflecting his attack right as he started it, because I had completely and entirely forgotten about the tennis ball thing. So I managed to kill him in the most tedious, annoying way I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 1 1:31:13

That that is insane. That that is how you you fought that boss, but uh that is extremely funny. I think it's interesting. I think it's so interesting because this boss's mechanic is essentially exactly what Ganondorf's like final, like the final fight Ganondorf is. So it really teaches you early on, like and and you also have to use something a little similar, not quite the same for Twin Rova, with like taking attacks and and returning them back to the you know, return to cinder mechanics here. But the I I thought it was really neat reflecting back on it. It was like, okay, this is just a prelude to what you're going to do later in the final fight.

Speaker 3 1:31:52

I always this boss is always the first one that like really trips me up in the game because I'm just not a good I don't know, I'm not good at the reflection bit. Eventually I figure it out, but it's always like the first time you get to this part and you're supposed to start tennis ball again, and it gets me like the first three or four times, and I'm like, fuck. It is a it's a decently long like cycle time if he like knocks you down, you have to like restart it in order to get back to the tennis ball match. So it can be annoying.

Speaker 1:32:19

Apparently, it's a thing. I was reading about this right before we started recording. You can use a bottle to reflect it, and the attack animation on the bottle is much quicker than your sword. So you can just like spam the bottle and knock it back at him.

Speaker 1 1:32:34

Again, just that like weird Japanese shirt. Like that is like like a Western game would never do that.

Speaker 3 1:32:41

That's uh that sounds like some some uh uh programming edge case, right? It's like, oh, we didn't realize that we one of the flags that we left on the bottle was, you know. Uh accidentally makes it a weapon that can punch back balls of energy light.

Speaker 1:32:56

I thought so in in Link to the Past, you have a butterfly net that you use to catch fairies and stuff and put them in the bottles, right? So you don't use the bottle itself, and you can use that to reflect something at the Ganon in that game. And I wonder if they were kind of just echoing like a kind of like a little nod to link.

Speaker 1 1:33:15

I mean, so much of this game is just a nod to Link to the Past.

Speaker 1:33:18

So I mean, there also essentially is a time travel mechanic in Link to the Past. It's like it's a little different, but yeah.

Speaker 1 1:33:24

Right. Yeah, I mean, so much of Ocarina is obviously just a 3D version of Link to the Past, but I think that 3D space really does so much for the game. Like Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1:33:38

So this this is a great dungeon. You get out of there, you meet Surya out front, and that's when you learn about the sages. And she's well, I guess you meet the light sage coming out of the top of time, but but now you realize, okay, these are going to be for the most part, I think save one people I know already that are gonna be these sages.

Speaker 1 1:33:53

And um Which is which is really cool to me, by the way. Like it is callbacks. It's so cool how so much of this game, like as an adult, it it is informed by stuff that you did as a kid. So it's like the more the more effort and time and like the more bought in you got as a kid and like explored the world and talked to everybody, the more impactful things are as an adult when it when you're reflected on. It's like, oh, Saria's the sage. I have a connection with her. Like, all the callbacks just work so well once you're an adult.

Speaker 3 1:34:26

Sorry, I've I've listened to Austin and I'm like, is he giving life advice or are we talking about a video game?

Speaker 1 1:34:33

You know, it's just you really gotta buy into your childhood, you know.

Speaker 3 1:34:38

You gotta you gotta socialize, build a community. That's all Link's really doing is building the community.

Speaker 1:34:43

Build your inner circle. Variety with people in your circle. All the sexy fish people in your circle. You gotta have at least one freak. Yeah, in your circle. Um so I I thought it was interesting that every time you save one of these sages, they're like, here's this medallion that will add my power to yours. I'm like, oh, what's it do? Oh, nothing? Okay. Yeah, I guess I guess that's kind of like adding your power to mine. I thought what they should have done is instead of there being one fairy in one place that doubles the size of your magic meter, each of these should have increased your magic meter a little bit. That would have been a fun that that would be cool. But ultimately, it's just misleading dialogue, and they're all just to build a bridge at the end, which is cool. I mean, not a problem.

Speaker 3 1:35:22

You needed to wait 20 more years for them to have like sage-specific uh hours in a mainline Zelda game.

Speaker 1 1:35:29

Right, right.

Freeing Gorons in the Fire Temple

Speaker 1:35:46

So after this, you I'm trying to remember what the bread crumb is. I think Nabi just keeps saying, like, those are some pretty ominous clouds over Death Mountain. Don't remember those being there the first time around. So you go there, you go up to the top, you notice that the Gorin village is more or less empty. Austin, this is where I texted you and was like, I think this is the first time I've been frustrated during this game. Because I was trying to be too smart for my own good. So I know that um you have to go to the top and it's like hot and you can't. I'm like, okay, well, you got to go buy the vest. I remember the vest. I remember the vest from when I was a kid. Like both me and Link as a kid. So I go down there and it's closed, and I'm playing Zelda's lullaby and I'm shooting the bombs and it won't open. I'm like, okay, maybe you have to buy it as a kid, but you just can't equipped it as an adult. So I go back as a kid and I come all the way back there, and it's like 200 rupees. Damn, I don't have 200 rupees. So I go get 200 rupees, then I come back and it's like, sorry, this item's not for sale. I'm like, wait, what? It's on your fucking shelf. And I was like, okay. So then I come back and I'm like, there must be a way to get into this thing. And I don't know why I didn't decide to interact with the one Goran who is still left in the city. Because it turns out that's what you do. You throw the bomb, he blows up, his name is whatever you name your character because um the leader of the village decided to name his son after you, which is like a cool little touch. Yeah, he gives you the free vest, which I was like, why? Why is it in a shop? If you just get it for free. Now, of course, it's because there's like a couple enemies in the game that can steal your vest, and I guess if you have to buy another one. So finally moving past me outsmarting myself, I get to the fire dungeon. I really like the fire dungeon. I thought it was cool how the little flame keys or the small keys are in little prisons and they're always in the prisoners area. So it's like every time you see one of those, you're like, okay, that's I know that's where the next key is. Let me figure out how to get in there. There's a huge vertical, like 3D keeping track of the space in your head element to this dungeon. And you know from the beginning that you have to get to the top and unleash this pillar to get to where you saw, I forget his name, the leader of the Gorans, like go into the he doesn't need the boss key for some freaking reason. That's fine. Wish he had taught me his thief skills before you get.

Speaker 1 1:37:55

He's just he's just baller. He just like busts down the door, but then like puts it back up so that you can't get in. Yeah.

Speaker 1:38:02

I like this one a lot. There's cool moments where you're navigating these kind of flame puzzles, and the camera will zoom out so you can avoid the boulders, and um, you get the megaton hammer, which is just a big ass hammer, man.

Speaker 1 1:38:15

And there's it's a cool item, even if it's like not that useful, I feel like it's just so cool. Like what?

Speaker 1:38:22

There's like rusted switches you have to hit, and there's certain rocks that bombs don't blow up, but then other than that, it's that's like the end of its uses.

Speaker 1 1:38:28

Right, right. And I mean, you know, you need it for the boss, but you need everything.

Speaker 3 1:38:32

I was gonna say my most memorable moments with the Megaton Hammer are with the boss and the boss in general. Um, what did you guys think of the flaming flame dragon boss?

Speaker 1 1:38:42

I liked it. I I love, I love, I can't remember his name, it's like Volvegia or something like that. Yeah. But yeah, I I love, I love this boss. I it's so silly in the concept of like it's just whack-a-mole, but like I love that for some reason.

Speaker 1:38:58

Like he he looks so cool when he pops out and he goes through the air. Um, he's actually really he does a ton of damage to you. Like, if when he pops out, if you don't hit him quickly enough and he shoots out the flame, that shits like a third of your hearts at that point in the game. It's actually quite a bit.

Speaker 3 1:39:14

It will mess you up. This is where uh as a kid I discovered what fairies actually do. I did not realize that you die and they pop out. You thought you would just use them, like use them. Uh so I have a core memory of like, oh no, I died, and then the fairy comes out, and I was like, No way.

Speaker 1 1:39:35

I I think at this point in the game is when you're really starting to see the like scale and scope of everything, too. Like Phantom Ganon like coming in and out of the pictures and stuff is really cool. And then like a flying dragon, like it's like whoa, like for for N64 era stuff with like no pre-rendered backgrounds, like we were talking about earlier, like this is some really intense scale and like scope that they're working with. So I I thought you really got to see some of that here by this point of the of the game. I I also really like the Fire Temple, it turns out to be one of the like less memorable ones for me, but it's yeah, it's like it's just good all around. Like it's just a really solid, like puzzles, good puzzles. It's not too hard, but it's not too easy to solve. Like it's just a really solid dungeon all the way throughout. It's it feels all like Didango's cavern in that way. Like it it really exercises that Didongo's cavern energy.

Speaker 1:40:32

Yeah, it almost feels too much like Dodongo's, I think, from an aesthetic point uh perspective, and maybe that's why it isn't quite as memorable. Um, I feel like the forest temple, it feels like a castle in the forest instead of the inside of a tree, right? And the water temple feels like a sunken temple instead of the inside of a whale. This kind of felt a lot like Dodongo's cavern with prison cells.

Speaker 1 1:40:51

Right, like that like this could have just been another cave. Like it is not really a it doesn't feel as much like a temple as some of the other ones do. Yeah. Um but there are some good, there are some good puzzles, especially like switch, like switches and stuff, like shooting arrows at switches to cross gaps and stuff, and like bring down firewalls and everything. Like there's some solid puzzles here. Again, it's so much of like what I was talking about earlier, with like there's a thing over here that you need to get to. How do you get there? And like solving that element of getting to it, you know.

Speaker 1:41:22

The switches that you at this point have been just kind of hitting and they do things. There's like three or four in here where you have to throw a bomb at it so that you have enough time to go do the thing that it's setting up. And I thought that was really cool. And it's and it also, I just thought it was neat because it was like, where do you get the bombs the first time? The fireplace and the kid, right? So it's like echoing that that's gonna be a useful tool for this one. I just yeah, I thought this all came together really well. It was a great temple.

Wading in the Water Temple

Speaker 1:42:00

Next temple. Well, actually, the worst part about the water temple might be the ice caverns. So it's like it's true, it's true.

Speaker 3 1:42:09

You don't like the slip and slide puzzles?

Speaker 1:42:12

There's not one 3D platformer in which slip and slide is something I enjoy to any capacity at all.

Speaker 3 1:42:18

You just gotta shove it, make sure you're shoving it in the right place.

Speaker 1:42:22

And then you like you roll, you try to roll, but you just roll in place. Oh god, fucking kills me. Um they're really not that bad as an adult. I remember absolutely hating this as a kid, especially because of the wolf in there that you have to fight. Yeah, yeah. Now that I know you can just sidestep, jump slash it twice, and it's dead. It's kind of a different story. But as a kid, I'm just sitting there with my shield over my, like, oh my god, don't kill me, don't kill me. Um, but you go to Zora's domain again, because you know that you're I can't remember what the bread crumb is here. I think Navi says something about like, Hyrule Lake sure is looking pretty hot there right now. Um so you go to like I remember going and thinking I could use the shortcut. Well, it's a wall of ice, that's interesting. So then I go back to the riverway and you get in there and everything's frozen. And uh King Zora's frozen in this red red ice, I guess. Yeah. And so is the shop that used to buy. Um, but you go out to where Jabu Jabu is, he's gone now, but there's these platforms of ice that are leading to this cave that you could not get to as a kid. So it's like, okay, you go in there. This this really wasn't all that bad. I thought, you know, especially this time where Alana was much more equipped, like as a 36-year-old man, to do all the mechanics and this and this part. But man, I so there's this blue flame you have to get to melt the red ice. And I warped out of there after finishing it without any flame, and I realized that I couldn't get into the shop to get the tunic. But I had already warped to the lake where the temple was. So my thought was, okay, I'm gonna go into the water temple and just see how far I can get without the vest. Um, turns out you don't need it. It's actually not that hard to beat the water temple without the blue vest at all, because the hard part of the water temple is not the 90 seconds it gives you underwater. It's figuring out how the hell to get to the three fucking rooms where you change the level of the water. So I think there was one time I ran out of air, but I had a ferry, so it didn't matter. Otherwise, it like really was not that much of a problem to not have the water tunic. Uh, Austin, you mentioned to me that in this one there are these little like colored light pathways that kind of show you from them the front of the entrance of like the path you need to take to get to the rooms to raise the water up and down. So it's like way easier to find them in the 3DS remake. Otherwise, I think it's more or less the same dungeon, but just having those, you know, one of them's pretty easy. It's always in the center column. But God, finding the one at the top and the one at the bottom was so much easier this time around. And I I actually ended up, dare I say, enjoying the Water Temple because it felt more like a puzzle that I knew how to solve as opposed to like an old adventure game pixel hunt of like, where the hell do I need to go?

Speaker 1 1:44:57

Well, also, and one of the most annoying things that the Water Temple did in the original is the constant going in and out of the menus to equip the iron boots anytime you have this game lets you hotkey the iron boots in the 3DS version, and it makes it so much better. Like that annoyance is completely gone because now you can just click a little button, or if you are crazy enough to put it on one of the face buttons, which I never do, but you can just touch on the touch screen to like use the iron boots, makes it so much easier, and it really encompasses that. Like, this is really probably the the biggest example of navigating through this temple and like finding the next area in the whole game because there's there's really nothing else to it. Most of the puzzles are just which level do I need to have the water level at to get to the next room with the next key? Like, that's so much of this temple.

Speaker 3 1:45:54

Yeah, and it's really what makes it so frustrating and gives it the reputation of being incredibly difficult, is that you're not doing a ton of unlocking new areas or picking up new items. Actually, is there any kind of new item in this temple?

Speaker 1 1:46:09

You get the long shot. You get the longer version of the side. This is where you get the long shot?

Speaker 3 1:46:12

Okay, okay. I couldn't remember if this is if you actually got it in the water temple. Even that is just a modest upgrade. Like, you know, you got the Megaton hammer before, that's new and different. Before that, you got the bow, which is the best item in the game. Um, and now the water temple is like you're sinking, you're floating, there's not a lot to it. It is just it's very tedious. But all of that said, it has, in what's my mind, the most iconic fight in the game, which is the mirror link in the room. So you go into uh it's basically the Dungeons Mini boss.

Speaker 1 1:46:48

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:46:49

Uh it is the Dungeons Mini Boss.

Speaker 1 1:46:50

It's way more interesting than the actual boss, mind you.

Speaker 3 1:46:54

Correct, correct, correct. This this this is this is so uh it's certainly the most interesting mini boss in the game, where you walk into this like giant, like white, it looks like everything has uh you know shallow water on it, and there's just a tree in the center. Um, and you eventually walk deep enough into the room and you turn around, and behind you is essentially your shadow. Your shadow has decided to come and fight you and take you down. And so the whole game is a mirror match where the opponent literally mirrors your attacks and your input commands, and you have to figure out how to defeat the mirror version of Link. Um, which honestly, the last time I played this, I did very quickly, and I can't remember what. Uh, you guys have played this fight more recently than I have. Tell me the nuances of mirror link.

Speaker 1:47:42

Austin, you might be able to explain it better. I can explain the cheesy way that I cheese.

Speaker 1 1:47:45

I'd say I cheese this fight almost every time.

Speaker 3 1:47:48

Like let me rephrase it. Um, this most iconic mirror match battle where you just can't quite figure out how to defeat, you know, your version of Vegeta or whatever. How did you guys crush it?

unknown 1:47:59

Right.

Speaker 1:48:00

So uh going back to things I had no recollection of at this game whatsoever, if you hold R to block without Z-targeting and then attack, you do like a quick little stab. I had no memory of this technique whatsoever. Turns out I don't think Shadow Link does either, because he has no idea how to deal with it whatsoever. He will just run into it over and over and over. Um, so that was probably the easiest way. You can basically like, if he's if he's moving at you too fast, just throw on the iron boots so it slows him down and then just like line up perfectly with your shield, then take off the iron boots and just stab him.

Speaker 3 1:48:32

I want to say that he um does he only mirror your Z targeting abilities or does he mirror everything you do?

Speaker 1:48:39

I'm not sure. I know he kept, you know, most of my techniques up to this point weren't working, which is why I resorted to this. Because he kept just like hopping on the blade or backflipping out of the way. And the thing where he like hops on the blade and taunts you and then hits you before backflipping away. That looks so cool. It's yeah, it's a sick evidence.

Speaker 3 1:48:58

So fucking cool, but also so frustrating. It's talk about a moment in the game where I'm always like, oh, he's just better than me. Like, what am I what am I supposed to do? He's me but better.

Speaker 1 1:49:09

Right. Like this guy just he's better than me. I suck, because all it is.

Speaker 3 1:49:13

Yeah, and and the answer is don't play him on you know at his own game. You can't have this fight on his terms. Uh so I usually do shit like try and hit him with a megaton hammer. Um what did you do on this?

Speaker 1 1:49:25

I just get lucky most of the time, honestly. Like if you if you like sidestep, if you hit at the right angle or like you hit right before he swings or something. Like, I always just get the hits in right around him, it feels like. And it's like I'm it's honestly almost luck most of the time when I do this fight. Because I've never like figured out the the right pattern, you know. And maybe there is no right pattern, maybe that's the point.

Speaker 3 1:49:51

Well, yeah, because like it's talk about a simple thing, right? Because the game is just literally mirroring your inputs to you on this character with a couple of cheats, like the fact that he can flip onto your.

Speaker 2 1:50:00

Sword.

Speaker 3 1:50:01

So the first time I beat this fight, which uh was by dropping the Z targeting and just spamming slashes kind of off to the side because he'll mirror you. And if you like do it in the right way, um, it'll happen in a fashion where he'll miss you, but you'll like clip him. Right. And if you do that enough times, you will finally fucking kill him. It was the most ridiculous struggle of my childhood. Yeah. Um yeah, I don't I don't know how I did it as a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, it was probably Nintendo Power that helped out a lot.

Speaker 1:50:34

You call the hotline. I think one of the what you're maybe supposed to do is use the iron boots to limit his mobility because that stops him from moving very far, right?

Speaker 3 1:50:44

And then I don't think I've ever once done that. That's wild. Okay.

Speaker 1:50:47

Now, granted, the thing is like on the N64, I probably wouldn't have thought to, because you have to go into a menu and like I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that. Right. I'm in a fight, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:50:54

Right.

Speaker 1:50:55

But but on this one, since you could toggle it on and off, I think I might even just like accidentally hit it, and I was like, oh shit, look, he is slow too. That's interesting. And I was trying to throw bombs at him while he had the iron boots and he couldn't get away from it. But dude, I struggled so hard to put bombs where I wanted them to in this game, like tossing them. I think I hit myself with bombs more often than the case, like for sure. It is tough. So I did damage to him a couple times that way, and I thought this might be a very legitimate way to kill him. But then once I realized my little stab exploit, I just did that instead.

Speaker 1 1:51:23

Uh it beautiful. The fact that we can talk about this fight for as long as we did just shows you that it should have been the actual boss because the actual boss of this dungeon is so bad, dude. Do you think?

Speaker 3 1:51:35

Yeah, someone decided the boss had to be like actually thematic, um, and I guess related to the item you got in the game, the hook shot. Gar talk about something I don't care about. Um, Mirror Link is just so much more fun. It's clearly inspired by like the uh you know the Japanese samurai fights that all of the one-on-one battles like are vaguely referring to. And then this one literally sends a scene because the whole room looks like something out of like a Japanese painting from the modern early modern area.

Speaker 1:52:02

So it's actually interesting you say you don't like the hook shot because once I got the long shot, I basically stopped using the bow because it does really it does the same amount of damage and it does damage to things the bow does not. However, this came back to bite me later with the friggin' Gerudo guards because I didn't even think to shoot them with the arrow and did almost like a damn thing without them.

Speaker 3 1:52:21

Um doesn't that make it significantly easier?

Speaker 1:52:25

Yeah, yeah. It it went from like the most annoying thing in the whole game, bar none, to something I did in about two minutes. I but we'll we'll get there.

Speaker 1 1:52:32

I was like, Adam, shoot it with a bow. And he's like, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:52:36

Yeah. But yeah, this boss was frustrating because like I think the the basic idea of what you're supposed to do with it is is simple enough. But one, at this point I'd gotten very used to my technique of like you can kill any boss in like two cycles by doing the jump slash because it does so much damage. Well, this little thing, you could you could do it once and it would get away, and then you would be lucky to get it once. So I was doing the normal stab, like, man, freaking normal stab. And then on top of that, just trying to get the timing of your hook shot with it going back and forth through the tentacle, sometimes it would just miss. Yeah, you'd have to wait a whole nother little phase for it to be vulnerable again, and then I'm not watching my back, and then another tentacle comes up and puts you in this annoying locked animation. The second time I died, not game over, but died, was the Water Temple boss. I think I took more damage though, like backing up into the fucking spikes, trying to line up my hook shot. Yeah, this boss sucks.

Speaker 1 1:53:25

And then the camera can get really wonky too, like when you grab it and it's like it's over here, and your hook shot's now at like a 90 degree angle to your right, it's like not supposed to bend that way, but it does anyway. Then the camera freaks out, and it's it's so bad. It's it's an awful fight. Um, for for as much as I love this game and it's it's my all-time favorite and all that jazz, this fight is ass.

Speaker 3 1:53:50

Like, yeah, the Water Temple sucks. This might even be why, like, so back when we were playing Metroid Fusion, uh, listener, go check out that episode. Um, all of the little like globs just reminded me, gave me flashbacks to the fucking amoeba. Yeah, and and being unable to hit it properly. Like, whenever I would like push the buttons wrong and Samus wouldn't shoot in the right spot. I was just like, oh god, it's the amoeba fight all over again. I don't want to be here.

Speaker 1 1:54:17

Um I I really don't think Water Temple is as bad as I remember it as a child with the 3DS like upgrades, with with the iron boots, with the markings on the on the doors. Like, I think those things really help this temple be more of a more of an intriguing puzzle than it is a frustrating like nightmare, you know, test of my patience. But um it is still, I would say, probably the weakest of the dungeons in the game.

Speaker 3 1:54:45

If it wasn't for Mirror Link, like I would be endlessly dunking on this dungeon.

Speaker 1:54:50

Um, Mirror Link does redeem it. That's such a cool fight. Yeah, it's a cool fight for sure.

Speaker 3 1:54:54

It really makes me wonder because it doesn't necessarily thematically fit. I mean, I guess it's kind of got like that shallow water aesthetic, but I'm like, did they just stick this here because this dungeon sucks and you have to have something cool?

Sailing in the Shadow Temple

Speaker 1:55:22

So it's it's interesting. So after this dungeon, this is really the first point where I felt like I did not quite know where to go next in this playthrough. Because up to this point, like between Navi and uh playing Surya's song and talking to her, they give you pretty good hints about what to do next. This is where Navi just starts saying, Hey, we should find someone that knows about the sages. And you're like, wow, okay, thank you. Um that's that's that's helpful. And Surya is like, you may need to go back and forth in time to meet the rest of the sages now. And what she's referring to there is how you need to go to the bottom of the well as as kid Link. But you have to go into the fucking village first as adult Link to trigger all of that. I wasted so much time trying to figure this out. I had a vague memory that like the well was next. I couldn't figure out how to do it. So I was like, you know, I'm going to the desert. So I go to the desert, I realize that like um you know, there's like the mirage or whatever, you can fall into the quicksand. Well, you can hook shot to the flags pretty easily. So I get all the way to the point that's like you need the shadow thing to proceed from here. And I'm like, okay, goddammit. So then I go in, and on my way back, I get like captured by the Gerudo guard or whatever. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm doing this. I guess I'm doing this prison thing. So I was talking about before. I didn't realize you could freaking shoot them with the bow. And this took me like two and a half hours of just agony trying to find my way through this. Uh luckily, the Gerudo guard ladies, Jeff, you're saying, are such cool enemies, and they are. Uh, they don't know how to block a jump slash at all. They have no idea what to do. So they weren't easy. Um, but yeah, dude, I I did I did not like this stealth section compared to the Hyrule Castle one. I thought that was a much better instance of stealth mechanics.

Speaker 1 1:57:01

100% agree. And I think a big part of that is the perspective that you were talking about with the castle section. Like this, you're just you're trying to like Z-target around corners to try and like line up the angle to see where they're at. It's so hard to tell where they're looking sometimes because it's like, okay, I don't see one, and then you walk out and it's like, oh, you've been spotted. And then I think this one's really frustrating to me because like the layout of this area sucks. And this would be the best place to have a map, and you just don't get a freaking map. It's like the one time in the game where I could really use a map, and there's just no map, and it's like, ugh. And it took me forever to find that like door at the top that was like kind of off on its own little platform, and it's like, okay, that's the one I have to go to, but it took forever to find that last, uh, that last like cell.

Speaker 1:57:51

Well, when you figure out how to get you hookshot your way up to that chest where the heart piece is, and then climb on the roof, you feel really smart. You're like, oh yeah, I think I figured this out. But the one door up there that you have to get in from that way, because the rest of them you can ultimately get to through other paths, but the one that you have to get in through the roof is the most tucked away, hard to see, and hidden from any normal human angle you would be looking at. Oh god, it killed me. But ultimately, like it wasn't that bad once I could kill the Gerudo guard, because I was like, well, no, I just have plenty of time to explore and figure out where I'm going, as opposed to just being captured every 30 seconds constantly by someone I can't even see on my freaking screen.

Speaker 1 1:58:29

Well, what I think is really interesting about this segment is that you this is the only time I believe in the game that you can do things like out of order. Because you can go to the I did the shadow temple first. I think you did the spirit temple first.

Speaker 2 1:58:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:58:44

Right? Like, I always do shadow temple first. And I I always find I always remember every time I do that that the medallions are in the like proper order, I guess, for lack of a better word. And I always get the shadow one first. And I'm like, did I do something wrong?

Speaker 1:59:02

Like this kind of reminded me of our Pokemon episode, thinking about who was it Sabrina first or was it the other guy first? Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is weird because you go, so like you go to the village, and Sheik is like Impa's the sage. You're like, okay, slow down. Like, what's what's going on here? Um, but then you you do the well thing and you need the mirror thing, what is it, the eye?

Speaker 1 1:59:24

The lens of truth.

Speaker 1:59:26

To get to the spirit temple.

Speaker 2 1:59:28

Yeah.

Speaker 1:59:29

But she tells Sheik immediately gives you the song to warp to the shadow temple before you even go down the well. So it's weird to me. And also, by the way, the whole, if you go do the spirit temple first, the whole time, Navi's like, have you tried playing that shadow song yet? So it is so bizarre that the order of the medallions is shadow last because everything about what the game is telling you to do is play the damn song and go to the shadow temple. It's so good. I thought that's really strange. I only did it backwards because I, once I got the eye, I thought to myself, oh, that was the thing I needed in the desert where I got all the way there. So let me go back. But then as I'm going back, I notice that she just keeps telling me, Have you played the not turn of shadow yet? Have you played the not turn of shadow yet? So I'm like what like what does the game actually want you to do here? I don't know. It doesn't matter because you can do either one, like you said. Um, but yeah, I'm with you. That is it's very strange the way like it's it's kind of schizophrenic about what it wants you to do next here, and you can ultimately do either one anyway.

Speaker 1 2:00:27

Right. And it's like it it wants to lead you to shadow, but that is technically the last one. It's like weird.

Speaker 2:00:33

Well, why don't we talk about Shadow first then, since you did that one first. Yeah, I love Shadow. I I don't think I actually hate Shadow as much as I was complaining about it, finishing it a couple nights ago. Um, because I was being a friggin' idiot with the last boss, but we'll get there. The sort of gimmick of Shadow is once you get the lens, there's a bunch of stuff in here. Fake walls, uh invisible floors, invisible chests. And so the whole thing is like you gotta use the eye to do this. None of it it doesn't it doesn't feel as much like you're solving a puzzle to me, I think, as a lot of the other stuff in other dungeons. It feels more of just like let me put up the lens and look around. Which, like, I mean, you could argue is a puzzle, but I think just personally I liked the other type of dungeon uh puzzle solving compared to this one, but it's a neat idea. And you get hover boots, which aren't nearly as cool as they sound, unfortunately, but you do get you do get hover boots.

Speaker 3 2:01:24

Aww, I was a huge fan of the hover boots. I don't know why, it just felt I I don't know, but by this time in the game, I think I had grown like overconfident in everything, and so I was looking for a little bit of that danger and panic again, and like being out over the edge, you kinda can't quite tell. I mean, you should be able to tell when the boots are gonna go out, but it's always like you're oh god, am I gonna make it? Uh it was just a lot of fun to me. I liked the lens of truth. It felt like a straightforward and like easy way to put like puzzles in a dungeon, because it's not like you're looking for secret switches or traps or anything. It's just like turn on vision mode, turn off vision mode. Yeah. Um, then you can slide around on the hover boots, but I don't know. I the Shadow Temple and the Spirit Temple for that matter are the parts of the game that I've played the least because they're at the end, right? Um like I think I had everything up to the water temple, like memorized practically, but not shadow and spirit. And maybe that's just because those mechanics are a bit less engaging.

Speaker 1 2:02:31

I don't know. What do you think, Austin? I think what I like so much about Shadow is it's has a little less to do with mechanics and more to do with aesthetics and just the design of the temple. I think the I mean there's like guillotines and like just like really dark imagery throughout this temple. Everywhere there's this like boat of the dead, this like you know, you have to hop on this ferry that like ferries you across the river of the dead, basically. Like just some really like crazy dark imagery and uh really ominous like environment design that I think is is so different than anything you've seen before. Like you kind of get hints of this stuff with like three deads in Market Town, and you know, the bottom of the well's kind of got some weird, creepy shit going on, but like Shadow Temples, like this doesn't feel like a game that's rated E10 anymore. Like, these are some crazy concepts to be dealing with and like kind of dark imagery.

Speaker 3 2:03:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:03:35

And I I think it's it's also it's different than all the other temples, and we were talking about like the fake walls and the random pitfalls and stuff. Like it's just it's doing something unique that I don't think any other temple has done, nor does the spirit temple really do. So I I like that it's a it's a bit of a twist of of on the rest of the dungeons throughout the game.

Speaker 3 2:03:57

And I I have a weird fondness for this boss. I think the fact that you are on uh I think his name is literally Bongo Bongo.

Speaker 1 2:04:05

It's literally Bongo Mongo. I I love Bongo, it's so stupid, but I love Bongo Mongo.

Speaker 3 2:04:11

It really, it really is. It's extremely silly. Um, I don't know. I like trampolines, and it was like your character was on a trampoline the whole time. It was it was very silly. I like the giant disembodied hands as like a boss. I think Nintendo likes to do that a lot. It's a boss in Super Smash Bros. It's sort of part of the boss of Star Fox 64, and so here we have giant disembodied hands again um for our protagonist to fight. Um and I don't know, it's just always a good time. It's such a fucking creepy dungeon, right? Or at least it's supposed to be. Um, but at the end of it, it has this ridiculous voodoo-esque bongo drumming monster, and I'm just like, ah, this is this is fucking hysterical. Plus, you know, nothing will piss me off again after the amoeba fight in the water temple.

Speaker 2:04:56

So it was a good time. Everything you do with the lens is better in this than the well, I think. Um the well, the well felt like really annoying when you fucked up something you were supposed to use the lens for. Uh this one wasn't, I mean, there was there was a lot of sections where if you fall off a pit, you start surprisingly far back, and I would always forget about the skull tools, and I'd run into them. And I was like, okay, I'm just gonna wait until it turns around and hit it with a sword. And there'd be like three of these in a hallway. And so I would think I was getting really frustrated. And then often, like, I'm sorry, that boat is my single least favorite 60 second span of this entire game. It's not even close. It's not that bad. I don't know. It's awful. Those skeletons are legitimately the hardest enemies in the whole game. I don't think there's anything that is so capable at blocking your attacks as the skeletons. And there's something to do with the way the boat's moving, that their arcs keep going around your shield. I was just never able to block their sword swings. Um, the Shadow Temple is the first time I actually saw a game over screen in my playthrough. Uh, and I saw three of them. So you can imagine how frustrated I was. Although part of that was God, um, this was easily my least favorite dungeon in the game until Austin like just gave me a couple hints. He was like, hey, um, all these things you're saying about Bongo Bongo, nothing I've ever dealt with. Are you sure you're not just like kind of being an idiot? Turns out I thought you had to use the hover boots. I thought that was like the thing because it kind of bounces you around. Turns out, no, not really. It just makes it harder to dodge things. Uh, secondly, I thought you couldn't use the bow with the lens up because you can't use fire arrows with the lens up, because they're two magic things, and I always had the fire arrows equipped. So I was like, can't use the damn bow. What am I supposed to do to do damage to these hands? Like just dodge their attacks until I get a little window of opening. Turns out, when I went in there with the right knowledge, I beat him without taking a single hit because you can shoot both of his hands with the fire arrows, turn off your lens, then just charge up a sword slash for when he comes at you. And it's that easy. It was so easy. I was like, oh my god, I feel so dumb. I've died to this guy three times. And now I just beat him with without taking a hit, right? So I don't know. I think it was maybe just like a lot of this is definitely a skill issue on my part. Like, I'm not I'm not gonna uh deny that, but not not my favorite dungeon.

Speaker 1 2:07:07

I mean, it yeah, I mean that does speak to its intuitiveness as well. Like if all the other if all the rest of the dungeons you didn't have a lot of problems, and then this one you feel like you're frustrating more. It's like, is that because the game is not feeding you the information as easily, or you know, like as somebody who as you know, I feel like I remembered a lot of this stuff, it was like, okay, like I just know kind of what to do. Uh I I you know that that was the hard thing recording this podcast and talking about this particular game. Like, so often when we do these podcasts, I'm coming at it from I either haven't played it in a really long time, I don't know a lot about it, I've never played it at all. So I can I can look at all this with a more fresh perspective, but like with Ocarina, I just I remember so much of it so vividly that it's like I it's hard for me to analyze like how good is the game at teaching you this thing versus how good am I at just remembering exactly what to do.

Speaker 3 2:08:06

Um yeah, yeah. I'm uh I'm very much in the same place. Um like I love those um skeleton enemies on the boat because you're like trapped in a little arena and you're going like one-on-one, and it feels like the first time that the you know the game is getting you to do a cool. It's not a duel because there's like multiple of them, but it's a challenge for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, to Austin's point, I've played this game so many times at different periods of my life that like, yeah, it's difficult to um come at it with a fresher perspective. I will agree with you, Adam. Um and Austin, uh this dovetails with like the menu just being shitty. I I try to keep the hover boots on throughout the whole dungeon just because it's so fucking tedious to take them off all the time. Yeah, and that routinely ruins my day. And I'm just like, uh, shouldn't have been lazy.

Speaker 1 2:08:57

I was about to say, well, that's that sounds psychotic. Um portable ice cavern. I I fucking hate it. Yeah, that's what I was about to say. I I think I think the 3DS remake really alleviates the tedium with the hover boots as well, right? It works just as it does with the iron boots, because you could just toggle them so easily. So I only ever used the hover boots in the exact moment I needed it, and then immediately toggled them off. Which was really smooth, you know.

Speaker 3 2:09:25

Yeah, another reason I hated the iron boots so much is that like, you know, they slow you down so much, and like you're talking about having to swap them on and off as a gigantic pain. Right.

Speaker 2:09:34

Truly the only downside to the 3DS version is you're playing a 3DS. That's really the only that's that is very valid. Um the shoulder buttons, uh, what's that meme? Like, what are these made for ants? They're so fucking small. They are so and then the way the D-pad is designed, that kept slipping out from under my finger all the time. Like I'd be running and I would just stop. I'm like, what happened?

Speaker 1 2:09:55

It's like, oh, it it just like yours, yours at least probably still has the grip on it. Like mine, I don't know if yours does.

Speaker 2 2:10:03

You've worn it off.

Speaker 1 2:10:04

I've worn the grip off entirely, so now it's just like the really sleek surface. It's really hard to use the d-pad.

Speaker 2:10:11

But uh, to you guys' point, like up through the water temple, I was having little moments of deja vu constantly. I'm like, I know I beat this game at least once back in the day, but it must have only been once, and I must have stopped at the water temple every other time because I had so little recollection of the shadow in the spirit temple compared to the ones before it, especially the shadow temple. I at least remembered um the the twin witches in the spirit temple. But I had almost no memory of Bongo Bongo at all.

Speaker 3 2:10:38

So yeah, I must have I must have, you know, gotten stuck at the water temple just a half dozen times before I had to, you know, move on with my life to Sega Dreamcast Era, but

Switching Timelines to conquer the Spirit Temple

Speaker 3 2:11:02

that really does feel like the portion of the game where the momentum kind of like drags. Um, or it's just you've been through a lot by that point, and it also it's not quite as clear as like what do you do next. It does feel like a very natural stopping point. More tons of I say files and after the water temple.

Speaker 1 2:11:20

I'm gonna say it's also probably because Water Temple, especially in the original N64 version, can be so tedious that it's like I don't want to play this game anymore. Um, because I I really think like Shadow Temple may be less so just because I I think a lot of my enjoyment of Shadow comes from aesthetic and like lore type stuff around it. I think Spirit Temple though is like genuinely one of the best temples in the game, as far as like puzzle and theme, and like the idea you do half literally half of it as a kid. You literally go to the left as a kid and the right as an adult, and like this kind of element of having to really utilize. Why is that time travel mechanic in a new way is so cool.

Speaker 2:12:04

I think the game would have done well to have more of that, especially since they give you the teleport spells. It's not so tedious to go back and forth. Because, like in Link to the Past, you have a magic mirror that's just wherever you're standing, you teleport to the certain location. Yeah. And so they were able to utilize that kind of thing a lot more often in those games. So I can't necessarily remember if you do it a lot in the dungeons themselves, but in the overworld you do it a lot. So I but yeah, I really like that aspect of the spirit temple. I wish there was more of that in the game. I thought it was really cool how you went back and forth. Um the boss I thought the bosses were really cool in this one, or the boss was really cool. I guess I guess it is two bosses, but it's like one fight. But you do also you fight the big um night guys for the first time, right? Yeah, which are really cool enemies because for as often as the enemies in this game, like the path of least resistance is wait. This one, it's like the more aggressive you are, the better, because you can go with them into attacking. So it's like you go in with a quick stab and he'll wind up, then you just like backflip out the way, and as soon as he misses, you go back in and hit him. And I just I loved fighting these little night guys.

Speaker 1 2:13:09

It's cool because you you fight the first one as a kid, and like you're way out class. Like the Kokiri sword's not doing a ton of damage, like he's strong. Like, I I threw a bunch of bombs at this guy when I was running as a kid. I was like, just throw bombs to blow him up. Like that it's it's a really intriguing fight because you're just so outclass compared to all the other enemies you fight as a kid for the for the most part, at least.

Speaker 2:13:34

The way that you have to um reflect the spells back against the two witch bosses. You know, it's like the first couple times, it's like kind of standard. You're like, okay, I get it. I'm just gonna sit here, absorb it three times, knock it back. This almost feels too easy. Then in that third phase, where they start mixing up the elements and they can cancel each other out. Yeah. So you actually have to dodge them in order to get the same one three times in a row. I was like, okay, that was a cool twist. Like, I I thought that was a pretty fun.

Speaker 1 2:14:00

I I was struggling to do as much damage like each phase, so I ended up having to do this one in like five phases. It was brutal. Oh wow. Uh yeah, I was like really struggling to I I I think it was like I wasn't getting to them quick enough, and by the time I got there, like they were already starting to float away, so I wasn't getting as many hits in as I would have liked. Uh so I had to do this one a lot, but this is a fun fight. Like, I it's it's kind of like the Ganon mechanic, but with a twist with the mirror shield, but you just got in the temple. So like I thought that was cool. A cool twist on a mechanic that felt kind of familiar.

Speaker 3 2:14:34

I do think the mirror shield. Once you got the mirror shield, did you guys ever switch back to using your old shields after this temple?

Speaker 2:14:41

I I did once wondering if that had anything to do because I did the spirit temple first. So I was like, does this have anything to do with why these skeletons on this boat are getting their swords around my shield? And the answer is. Interesting, interesting. So I had switched back to the Hylian for a little bit, but I think ultimately they're the same, they're the same thing. Just one is reflective.

Speaker 1 2:14:58

Yeah. I I never I never switched back because I it's just I I might have switched back when I actually got to the Ganondorf fight just for like aesthetics, just for like thematics. Like I should like I should fight this with the Hylian shield, right? Um it looks weird too.

Speaker 2:15:13

You gotta have the emblem. It looks weird to have the mirror shield and the bigger on sword on you compared to the master sword and the highest shield. Yeah, you just don't look like Link in the Right, right.

Speaker 1 2:15:23

Right. Um But yeah, I I really like the Spirit Temple. I think it's one of the best temples in the game, right next to like the Forest Temple. Yeah, I love the Spirit Temple. And the and the Deku tree, of course, but like of the adult temples, I think Forest and Spirit are the two, like the first and the last, well at least the way I did it, feel feel like the best to me.

Speaker 2:15:44

So before we get to the f the finale, there's maybe just a handful of other things I wanted to touch on. There's the Gerudo training ground where you get the ice arrow. That's a pretty interesting one. It really kind of forces you to use like your brain and a lot of the tools at your disposal. There's really only that one fucking key that you have to like climb up the net in the treasure room and go through the ceiling to get to. You know which one I'm talking about?

Speaker 1 2:16:12

No, I don't think I got that one.

Speaker 2:16:15

So I you may so here's the thing.

Speaker 1 2:16:17

I think if you I never finished the training grounds in this run. Like I have in the past, but I didn't actually finish it this run because I couldn't find the last key before the before the gauntlet. So I was like, ah, I don't know.

Speaker 2:16:28

Well, there's also to the right of the gauntlet block is a hidden wall that you can get another one in. Um but I think it's weird too, because if you go straight to the left path in the treasure room, you can actually get through it with one less key. Um but if you go right first, you can still ultimately get all of them. But it's so hard to tell where this one is. I think the only real hint you get is the last key that you can get, I think, past the strength block. When you get it, you can see on the other side of a net that there's a chest you can't get to, and you can kind of see down and see that it's the treasure room. So that does sort of hint to you that like there may be a way to climb up from the treasure room into like an area. But it's this tiny little hole that you have that you have to use the lens to see like where it is. That was the only one where I felt like, man, the rest of this, the rest of the challenges to get keys felt so cool and so like either logical or combat heavy, and I just really enjoyed it. And this one felt like bullshit. But overall, like the Gerudo training ground's a pretty like interesting optional addition to the game.

Speaker 1 2:17:26

I I would agree. I don't did you use the ice arrow at all once you got it?

Speaker 2:17:31

Uh literally not once.

Speaker 1 2:17:32

Yeah, exactly. It's like you get it you get it pretty late in the game, it doesn't really have many uses. Like, it's an interesting idea, but it's like it feels like it was in there because they just had an idea and we're like, yeah, we should get it in there somehow.

Speaker 3 2:17:46

Like there is some extra content. This is in the era of where you can't uh you can't do DLC, right? So it's not yeah surprising to me that there are extra things at the end of the game that only really makes sense if you hang out at the end of the game a lot. Which I'm realizing as we come to the end that I have played like the castle, Ganon, you know, a high rule castle, probably far more than either the spirit temple, the shadow temple or the training grounds, because you can just repeat that segment over and over again. Um whereas that back half of the game requires you to start over at the beginning if you would like a fresh experience with any of those.

Speaker 2:18:23

Yeah, then there's like the fire arrow, which you also get optionally, but is way easier, way earlier, and way more useful. Yeah, yeah. And it's also like that's a cool, that's a cool puzzle to figure out. You're just reading an inscription that's like the hero of light shall stand here and fire like at the sunrise or whatever, and then it's that cool cinematic. Like, that's I love that part. Yeah, no, that's so cool.

Speaker 3 2:18:43

It's the puzzle that has taught me to take everything as literally as possible at least once in a video game.

Speaker 1 2:18:49

Just try like, wait, that's literally all you do? Okay.

Speaker 2:18:53

I guess that's really it. We talked about the bigger on sword quest, which is basically just a huge um it's like a bunch of fetch quests.

Speaker 1 2:18:59

Fetch fetch quest, turn in chain thing. I um I do think that one is interesting a little bit because of the certain items are timed, like you have to deliver it before it expires. So and you can't warp. You can't warp because it'll reset the timer. So you have to either like hop on a Pona or just like run and roll your way to the next spot, which is kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and it that really does go to show how like tightly designed the world is and how quickly you can actually navigate from area to area if you wanted to. Um but but yet it still feels so big, and I think that's what's so impressive about Ocarina is like the way the game is designed, it still feels like this huge world, but like the distance to cross from farthest point to farthest point is like five minutes. Like it's it's impressive how that was crafted to be.

Speaker 2:19:51

There's that little quest by the guy in the carpenter's tent that's like in the Gerudo Valley, that's like a ratio here to the bridge in Kokiri Forest. And you I think the first time you do it, he just beats you by a second, and then you have to like beat your time to get the heartbeat. I wasn't gonna do that again.

Speaker 1 2:20:05

I was about to say, yeah, like that was annoying because I did it, and like he said his time was like 228, and I didn't like 150, and I was like, I crushed your time, dude. What do you mean I have to do it again?

Speaker 2:20:16

I lied to you, I actually just uh broke a new time, 150.

Speaker 1 2:20:19

Right, right, right. It's like no, dude.

Speaker 2:20:22

But I just did this so well shave off time, so I'm not doing this again.

Speaker 1 2:20:26

Like I just optimized this shit, and you want me to do it again? No.

Grand Finale at Ganon's Castle

Speaker 2:20:30

So you get to Gandor's Castle, you go to Hyrule Castle, it's now his thing. The sages build you a little rainbow bridge, you go in, and there's like a barrier to the top, but you have to do these, um there's basically one room themed after each temple. This is fine. I had another frustrating moment that Austin was like, Adam, just do the shadow temple and stop complaining, or the shadow one. Turns out, dude, there's like there's this room in the fire part where you have to get these the silver rubies, you know, you gotta get the five silver rubies. It's like the the red coins of Mario 64, right? But you can't get to one until you get the gold gauntlets, which allow you to move this obsidian thing out the way. Well, the gold gauntlets is the item, I guess, from this dungeon of Ganon's castle. I thought that was just the light arrow. So I'm thinking there's nothing here. Well, it's in the shadow path, but even then you can get through the shadow path without getting them. So I'm like, Austin, I feel like if you hadn't told me where it is, I would have just stopped playing. I would have just given up and been like, I'm close enough. We'll do the episode today. Because I because it's like there's this random switch in the corner you can hit, but you don't have to to proceed in the shadow thing. And the shadow thing's full of invisible platforms and hover boot segments, my favorite. I was like, I'm not doing this. So I just went straight to the end and I'm like, all right, Austin, I did the shadow thing. Like, what what now? And like, oh, you gotta hit that switch. I was like, no fucking way. But you do that, you you get through the six things, you go and you go to the fight, the ultimate battle, and it's like Austin, it's like you said before, it's really similar to Ganon's fight in the Forest Temple, where he's flying around, he shoots you with electric bolts. When he is destroying, you know, he's like pounding the ground, destroying the platforms at first. Well, do you just take damage? I don't I couldn't figure out what to do.

Speaker 1 2:22:09

Uh luckily he just stopped, but like if you if you are standing on one of the four corners, I don't think you take damage.

Speaker 2:22:18

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 2:22:18

Okay. That's I always I always go right to one of the like four corners because it's like a flat piece of it's like it's like stable, I guess, so you're not taking it. So he's not like he's not electrocuting it or whatever.

Speaker 2:22:31

So that's what I've always done. Uh so Jeff, I don't know if you know how the damage values work on the weapons in this game, but I was looking up some of this. And it's fucking crazy. So the Kokiri sword basically does one damage, the master sword does two, the biggeron does four. Spinning attacks and jump slashes double all of those. So one jump slash with a bigger on sword is basically eight Kokiri slashes. Okay. Uh I killed Ganondorf in just like two, like the second time I knocked him into the ground, he was dead. Same. Same. Yeah. Because all you have to do is just dump jump slash with the bigger on sword, and it's an absurd amount of damage.

Speaker 1 2:23:07

It's insane. It's so it's so fun to watch, though.

Speaker 3 2:23:10

Um, I have not I have not defeated him with the big or on sword. I probably did it once when I was a kid, but I am too much of a thematic stickler, and I'm like, I'm gonna beat you with my hero of time weapons.

Speaker 1 2:23:24

And I understand that. I didn't know, Adam, you can tell me this because I I didn't want to test it to find out, but you can deflect back and forth with the big or on sword, or you have to use the master sword to deflect.

Speaker 2:23:35

Oh, you can use the big on.

Speaker 1 2:23:37

Okay. I for some reason I was like, I think you have to use the master sword to reflect, and I don't know why I thought that. So I equipped the master sword to reflect, and then I swapped to the big around sword when I went to attack him. Um but I mean that's just a small, like it just took a second to swap it in, and then I went and continued to wail on him with jump slashes. I I remember that fight being so much more difficult as a kid, and it probably was because I was a kid, but it's so easy as an adult.

Speaker 2:24:05

Like I I remember having to shoot him with the light arrow. I didn't have to figure that out. I thought maybe I would have struggled to figure that out if I didn't remember. I'm not sure. It's like what you guys have been saying how do you separate intuitive design from just a memory I have? Right. Um, he was he was kicked this time around.

Speaker 3 2:24:20

That's funny. I mean, that does jive with the modern games, um, like Breath of the Wild, and I still haven't even done it in Tears of the Kingdom, but presumably the boss fight will be very easy to do.

Speaker 1 2:24:30

Uh he's actually pretty hard in Tears of the Kingdom.

Speaker 3 2:24:32

That that final fight is finally it took them 25 years to to make Ganon difficult. Um that's funny.

Speaker 1 2:24:44

But I I love I love this first part of the fight, just in the like like the the ore game, like when you walk in, he's playing this ore game, it's like really ominous music. He's all like uh scary, and like I'm gonna use my my triforce of power, and I finally got all the pieces together, and like the way he just like drops the floor out underneath you, like that that stuff is really cool, I think, thematically. And then the the ping-pong mechanics, right? Direct callback to Links of the Past, where you have to do the same thing, like it it all feels really cool to me. It's easier than I remember, but I still really like the the feel of it.

Speaker 2:25:24

Yeah, and um I'm just thinking, like, it's just so funny that you were worried about having to use the master sword when you can apparently use a bottle. Yeah, true, true.

Speaker 1 2:25:34

I forgot about that. Yeah, you can. You can you can hit him with anything, apparently.

Speaker 2:25:39

So he goes down. You have I'm I'm such a sucker for time to escape sequences things, so I kind of let us know. It's great.

Speaker 3 2:25:46

Yeah, it's so much fun, especially there's at least a few parts where the like uh the gates drop down and you have to like fight enemies quickly. Um it's it's such a good time. Um, and again, brings back my favorite skeleton foes.

Speaker 2:26:00

So yeah, and you know, I was wrecking them with the bigger on sword, but I still only got to the bottom with like 35 seconds left or something. And I was like, man, that's that's actually probably a lot tighter than I would have thought it was.

Speaker 1 2:26:09

It's it's a pretty tight. It could be pretty dicey. I've I've failed it before for sure. Like I have I have not made a hundred bottom in past runs for sure. It's tight. And it's so funny that I say that though, and that we say that, because like if you watch speedrunners do it, they finish with like two and a half minutes or some nonsense. It's like, what are you even doing? Like, that doesn't even make sense.

Speaker 3 2:26:29

Like look, we're we're enthusiasts, we're not yeah, I don't know what to call those people. Uh but they are different.

Speaker 1 2:26:35

According to time speedruns are so insane, dude. Like, like the absolutely the the like world record speedrun has you do some like weird warp thing that like you go into Goma's, like Goma's layer in the Deku tree, and somehow it warps you to Ganon's castle and like the escape, like it's insane. I I don't even know. It's like some programming nonsense where if you hit the right things at the right times and like press the right buttons, it'll like rewrite the code of the game and it will like warp you to Ganon's castle. It's nuts.

Speaker 3 2:27:08

They're just hacking. You're just hacking.

Speaker 1 2:27:09

It's literally do you fight Ganon as a kid? No, you you just become an adult. You don't even fight, you don't fight Ganon Dorf at all. You skip that straight to the escape, and you just turn into it.

Speaker 2:27:23

Um, what, three hearts though? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, but these dudes butters, they don't give me come on now. So you get down there and it's kind of like it's the end, but of course, like haha, he's not dead yet. And I love that the Triforce of Courage and Wisdom are fucking worthless. The Triforce of Power lets you turn into a demon, but that's fine. Um so you fight this form, Austin. You were telling me your magic meter, you never got the extension. No. Uh dang, bro. Like, was this part tough? Because only have to use the light arrows to stun him.

Speaker 1 2:27:56

So so you you can, and that's what you're supposed to do. The proper way to fight this fight is to shoot him with the light arrows, stun him, and then and then hit him. What I've always done since I was a kid, because don't ask me why, is I will just get up close to him, wait for him to swing, and then roll under his legs, and then attack him that way.

Speaker 2:28:16

Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 2:28:17

Absolutely insane decision making because if you miss, he hits you for like five hearts. It's crazy how much damage he does. So, like, yeah, the the first part of it is really easy. Like, I didn't get touched. I had the big oran sword, I rolled under him, and I just wailed on his tail and like easy peasy. The second phase when I'm doing it with the master sword, I don't know why it was so much harder, but like I was not able to get under his legs nearly as efficiently. So I had to start using the light arrows to do it the proper way.

Speaker 3 2:28:51

Is the um so I've read that you only have to deliver the final blow with the master sword. Yeah. That's probably okay. When did you switch to the master sword, Austin? Was it just in phase two? Yeah, yeah, I just used as a finishing.

Speaker 1 2:29:05

I just used it for all of phase two. Because I didn't remember for sure if you had to or not. Um, and I I could have just tried the big or on sword and I figured it probably would have worked, but I was like, yeah, we're gonna stay on theme here. I'll do a second phase with the master sword. If you don't have the big around sword, do you just have to hit him with the hammer the first time around? I think so. That's what I've always done. If I didn't have the big auron sword, yeah, it was the hammer.

Speaker 3 2:29:27

Yeah, exactly. And you're not crazy, Austin. I've definitely spent a lot more time just trying to like roll under his selection. Okay, I'm sorry. Because that feels more efficient than like switching into. I'm also bad at using the bone arrow without like aiming down the sights and stuff, so I don't like using the light arrows. Um, and until I went back to to rewatch this boss fight, I haven't replayed it recently. Um I thought the like the Breath of the Wild sequence where you like use the light arrows and stuff. That's like clearly like the light arrow is like an instrumental weapon in the Legend of City.

Speaker 1 2:30:00

Yeah, it's it's definitely always like a peak, like final, you know, ultimate weapon.

Speaker 3 2:30:06

Yeah, yeah. And I've just never found it that iconic, and it's because I spent more time rolling around because I thought that's what the game taught me. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2:30:14

You just roll at the time. Rolling is a like one of his uh tools, basically. It's one of his dungeon weapons, is the role.

Speaker 1 2:30:19

I really love I really love when you get out of the castle, even the 3DS version cannot, like the frame rate just plummets as the castle crumbles because the game just cannot handle such a such an intense sequence. Like my frame rate drops so hard as the castle was crumbling.

Speaker 2:30:40

I was like, this game to me, um cannot handle that. When you shot too many polygons. When you shot first phase Ganondorf, like before the tower collapsed, and he would fall to the ground sparkling, yeah, the frames on the DS went to like four. Yeah. But that was fine with me because it gave me all the time in the world to react to getting over there and immediately bigger on sorting him. So it turns out though, you can if he swipes in this in the last phase, right? If he swipes those pillars that are scattered around, they break open and have a shitload of magic and arrows.

Speaker 1 2:31:09

Oh, really? Okay.

Speaker 2:31:10

Yeah, because I actually ran out of magic and I was like, I know he's almost dead. I probably have to hit him once or twice more, but how do I do that? Because I didn't think to roll underneath him. And so in my panic of running around, he breaks one of them open and a bunch of pods fall out.

Speaker 1 2:31:21

I'm like, oh no, that's it. Okay, yeah, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:31:24

That's cool.

Final Thoughts and Outro

Speaker 2:31:25

Um you know, Austin, you always talk about it being your favorite game of all time. Uh I definitely understand why it's at the top of your list. I I knew I was gonna enjoy it going back. I really did not realize though, just how much I was going to enjoy it from just kind of a like game design standpoint and thinking of it and the way that we tend to when we do these episodes. It's just so well done. It's the mechanics are tight, the design as far as guiding the player to the next thing are tight. The aesthetics amazing. You know, we talk about timeless aesthetics. Most of those games we talk about are not from this era. Most games from this era look like garbage. This game is still beautiful, even the N64 version, it's just everything about it is so well done. I think it is completely deserving of like the legacy it has built for itself.

Speaker 3 2:32:40

This game is just formed so much of my early video game experiences and core memories of gaming as childhood that I very much can't tell like what are my preferences and opinions or like what's me doing good analysis, and what's just the fact that I played The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time so early. And what's so cool about this game is that if you go play the modern Zeldas, Breath of the Wild in particular, you can see uh you can see the through line from Ocarina of Time to Breath of the Wild. It's one thing to do a remake, uh, you know, HD graphics or a remake or whatever of a game, but it's so completely different to take like 20 years in technological advancement and just completely reimagine this world and the story. And it's just so clear that like Breath of the Wild is the Ocarina of Time of its era. And it's just so much fun to be able to see that through line through the games. Um if you've never played a Zelda game, play Ocarina of Time, then go play Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. If you're a fan of the modern Zelda games, go ahead and play Ocarina of Time anyway, just because of how iconic it is and how it's a true masterclass of creating a piece of art on the Hardware of the time. It's totally worth the effort.

Speaker 1 2:34:04

Yeah, so I've always claimed this game as my favorite for a long time now. It's it's at the top of my top 100. It's, you know, I always go back to Ocarina as being probably the game that made me realize that games were something special. There's something important, you know, and it's not just Mario hopping around on platforms, right? Like this is an art form, and Ocarina is one of those games that has really brought that to me from the very beginning with the jump down into the spiderwebs all the way to the final fight with Ganon. Like it is a really special experience. If you haven't played it, play it. Like it's it's it's a vital game, I think, that everyone should play. It holds up wonderfully. It has so much history and context, and it informs all the games that have come after it. So many games can draw their origin back to Ocarina. And if you look at every Zelda game to come, it its basis is here in Ocarina. You know, so much of video games can trace back to Zelda as a franchise, but especially Ocarina and the first 3D outing. And for nothing else, like you should you should do it for that alone, to just see where all this started and then kind of what impact Ocarina has had on the video game world.

Speaker 2:35:23

Well, that about wraps up our discussion on the greatest action adventure game of all time, the iconic Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time.

Speaker 1 2:35:30

You can find this episode, as well as all of our other episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcasting platform.

Speaker 3 2:35:37

And as always, you can find everything we do on our website, gamesgoneby.com.

Speaker 2:35:43

Here to play us out, friend of the show, Andy Cars, with his wonderful slide guitar cover of Zelda's Alibi. You can find Andy's music on his website, andycars.com. That's A-N-D-Y-K-A-H-R-S, or any popular music streaming platform. Signing off for Games Gone By. I'm Adam.

Speaker 3 2:36:00

I'm Awesome. And I'm Thanks for listening, everyone.

Speaker 2:36:06

We'll see you next time.