Pokemon Champions And 40 Years Of Zelda

<v Speaker 1>Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast
<v Speaker 1>covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for
<v Speaker 1>a discussion but the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals,
<v Speaker 1>alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry.
<v Speaker 1>I'm one of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken, and
<v Speaker 1>today I'm joined by Kyle Hilliard.
<v Speaker 2>How you doing, Kyle?
<v Speaker 3>I'm doing okay. Thank you for asking, Alex.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, glad to have you here. We're also joined by
<v Speaker 1>Marcus Stewart.
<v Speaker 4>You know what's dangerous the podcast alone? Which one? I'm
<v Speaker 4>so grateful that you guys are here.
<v Speaker 2>Wow, okay, yeah, I like that.
<v Speaker 1>And lastly rounding out the show today, Charles Hart.
<v Speaker 2>How you doing, Charles?
<v Speaker 5>Ah, Hey, that's my regal impression.
<v Speaker 4>Oh oh yeah, you not McCartney. That would be more
<v Speaker 4>like this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I was thinking about bringing some moroccas and and dancing.
<v Speaker 2>To be has to do for this episode.
<v Speaker 1>Hello, listeners, We're gonna be talking about the best Zelda
<v Speaker 1>games today or our favorite Zelda games. Uh for the
<v Speaker 1>fortieth anniversary. We have a big, big oh.
<v Speaker 2>If you're watching the video version.
<v Speaker 4>Kyle is also tying it to a rocket shoot.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, weird. Yeah, oh my god, yeah that was. It
<v Speaker 2>was before Eric worked here.
<v Speaker 1>But one of my favorite streams actually, no, that was
<v Speaker 1>that wasn't a Game of Homer stream was that it
<v Speaker 1>was a charity stream, but Eric hosted a charity stream
<v Speaker 1>and we had I think it was called oh God,
<v Speaker 1>climb with the Core Rocks or something like that, and
<v Speaker 1>we had to make our way up toward h It
<v Speaker 1>was me and him and it was the first person
<v Speaker 1>whoever could get the most amount of co rocks into
<v Speaker 1>the top of the mountain the volcano in Breath Tears
<v Speaker 1>of the Kingdom, and you couldn't attach.
<v Speaker 2>Them to anything, okay, so you had to use the
<v Speaker 2>physics pure. It was so fun.
<v Speaker 1>Anyways, Welcome to the show, everybody. It's gonna be a
<v Speaker 1>great episode. Like I said, we're gonna be talking about
<v Speaker 1>our favorite Slash, the best Zelda games because our opinions
<v Speaker 1>are fact. We're gonna be talking about Pokemon Champions and
<v Speaker 1>then people of note. Before we get started, I do
<v Speaker 1>want to say, please, if you enjoy the show, pick
<v Speaker 1>up a copy of Game Informer magazine. Charles has that
<v Speaker 1>brand new shiny oh in Marcus the sole frame issue.
<v Speaker 1>We flew out to Digital Extremes in Canada and myself
<v Speaker 1>and Wesley chatted with the team for a day and
<v Speaker 1>a half. It was a great trip. And this book,
<v Speaker 1>this magazine, this physical print magazine that you can buy
<v Speaker 1>at GameInformer, dot Com slash Subscribe really turned out.
<v Speaker 5>Well.
<v Speaker 1>I think there's an incredible feature of Zelda's forty years. Kyle,
<v Speaker 1>you put that together, right, I think, well it was
<v Speaker 1>staff wide, right.
<v Speaker 3>Well, yeah, I kind of let it, but yeah, everyone
<v Speaker 3>sort of We all sort of leaned on our contacts
<v Speaker 3>and stuff like that, and shout out to r J
<v Speaker 3>Palmer who let us use his amazing Zelda art And
<v Speaker 3>here's a feature that Charles wrote about r J.
<v Speaker 1>Palmer real quick, fantastic artists, really recommend I followed them
<v Speaker 1>for a while and their work is just incredible, So
<v Speaker 1>we appreciate them for letting us use that and that
<v Speaker 1>that piece it made it so so so special. So uh,
<v Speaker 1>there's there's plenty of other incredible features in this issue.
<v Speaker 2>You can get ten issues.
<v Speaker 1>A year delivered to your door gamefor dot Com slash Subscribe,
<v Speaker 1>or if you don't want to get a subscription, you
<v Speaker 1>can find us in news stands. If you're in the US,
<v Speaker 1>you can find us at places like Barnes and Noble Books,
<v Speaker 1>a million aim stop, and if you are elsewhere, you
<v Speaker 1>can also find us in newsstands. Internationally, in the UK
<v Speaker 1>you can find us at tg Jones. If you're in Canada,
<v Speaker 1>you can find us in Indigo. If you're in Australia,
<v Speaker 1>I believe we're at Adelaide, I mean we're We're in
<v Speaker 1>plenty of countries Japan, So look for us in your
<v Speaker 1>news stand and if you do find us, let us know,
<v Speaker 1>send us a screenshot on social media. Well, those are
<v Speaker 1>called photos actually of Alex those are Yeah, those aren't screenshots,
<v Speaker 1>as are photos. We'll take a screenshot of your photo
<v Speaker 1>and share it in our slack and we'll all be
<v Speaker 1>excited because we'll know you know where exactly you got
<v Speaker 1>that thing, and we usually do repost those. So really
<v Speaker 1>appreciate your support. Let's get on with the show, fellas, Charles,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna send it over to you. Pokemon Champions is out.
<v Speaker 1>I know from watching Friend of the Show Jesse Vittelli
<v Speaker 1>and Kenneth Shepherd for restarting Kotaki, respectively. I was in
<v Speaker 1>discord with them. They were playing this and I know
<v Speaker 1>it's like going to be the new home for like
<v Speaker 1>the competitive scene, but that's about all I know. Also,
<v Speaker 1>I'm slowly withering away into withers from old.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. The more I talk, you're absorbing my life force.
<v Speaker 4>You're becoming a withering wasteland.
<v Speaker 5>Like ah, yes, that's what's happening with my voice right now,
<v Speaker 5>I'll talking to the people in that game.
<v Speaker 2>Boy, I need I need a rainstorm.
<v Speaker 4>Huh, get cowboy yogurt in hair?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Charles tell us about Pokemon Champions.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, So Pokemon Champions is a very odd product. The
<v Speaker 5>more time I've spent with it and the more I
<v Speaker 5>learned about it. So it is a game. It is
<v Speaker 5>on switch and it's on mobile, and it is a
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon battling game using like the base rules from the
<v Speaker 5>turn based Arpeage's So.
<v Speaker 3>You're playing a battle as well, right, it's not it
<v Speaker 3>to play, Okay.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, well we'll get into that for sure. But there's
<v Speaker 5>a lot of like spin offs of Pokemon games that
<v Speaker 5>have come out where it's like, you know, you're racing
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon or you're you know, running a cafe, or you
<v Speaker 5>doing this or that. I don't I actually don't know
<v Speaker 5>if there's a Pokemon Racer there probably is. There's a
<v Speaker 5>lot of these now, but this is one that is
<v Speaker 5>specifically designed to take the mechanics and like stats and
<v Speaker 5>all this stuff from the base game turn it into
<v Speaker 5>a battling app and you can do it on your phone,
<v Speaker 5>you can do it on your switch, and it connects
<v Speaker 5>to Pokemon Home, which is Pokemon's like cloud service where
<v Speaker 5>you can store your Pokemon that you get from all
<v Speaker 5>these different games. So theoretically, if you have like a
<v Speaker 5>team of Pokemon that you loved in a past game,
<v Speaker 5>you can transfer to the cloud and Pokemon Home and
<v Speaker 5>then you can send those over to Pokemon Champions and
<v Speaker 5>then use that to battle. And it's also meant to
<v Speaker 5>be sort of like the new platform, like you said
<v Speaker 5>for VGC Video Game Championships, the Pokemon competitive scene.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and it's.
<v Speaker 5>Kind of like a standardized platform, right, So it's not
<v Speaker 5>that that's not you don't necessarily have to get every
<v Speaker 5>new game as soon as it comes out and then
<v Speaker 5>play through the whole story into all the stuff. Theoretically
<v Speaker 5>it'll all be in Pokemon Champions. You can keep transferring
<v Speaker 5>your guys over there. It's a cool, it's a cool concept.
<v Speaker 5>And then also if you don't have Pokemon, for example,
<v Speaker 5>that you want to transfer in there, the game has
<v Speaker 5>ways for you to like get Pokemon to use in battle.
<v Speaker 5>It has codes that you can like recruit teams. Maybe
<v Speaker 5>it's called but someone can make a team and then
<v Speaker 5>there's like a copy code. I mean, you can download
<v Speaker 5>that and then use their team in battle. So if
<v Speaker 5>someone else has like a really cool spread that they
<v Speaker 5>have used or Pokemon and items, et cetera, you can
<v Speaker 5>kind of copy that and use their stats. There's similar
<v Speaker 5>like third party apps like Pokemon Showdown is one that's
<v Speaker 5>I think still around, but it's like an example of that.
<v Speaker 5>That's like in browser. You just pick all the stats
<v Speaker 5>and all the specifics for your Pokemon, and it kind
<v Speaker 5>of simulates competitive Pokemon bows that you haven't actually do
<v Speaker 5>the work of, like raising the Pokemon and getting the
<v Speaker 5>perfect diabetes, the perfect EV's whatever. And in the most
<v Speaker 5>basic sense, it's fun. It's fun to play Pokemon battles
<v Speaker 5>against other people. I like doing that. It has every
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon in it, right like incorrect. Okay, Kyle, you're doing
<v Speaker 5>a really good job at transitioning for me.
<v Speaker 4>Can I can I say a Pokemon. Can I say
<v Speaker 4>some of the Pokemon I've learned from Poco Pia and
<v Speaker 4>already in this game.
<v Speaker 5>I'm gonna bet zero, but go go ahead tell me.
<v Speaker 4>Is Professor Tang Grove in this game? Is there a tank?
<v Speaker 2>Doubtful?
<v Speaker 3>Clefke is my favorite isle poc I haven't found I
<v Speaker 3>don't know, let's see.
<v Speaker 4>Them.
<v Speaker 5>Oh sorry, Cleft is in the game?
<v Speaker 3>Mimic?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, game in the game?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>Wouldn't most of them be in it? Or no? Not all?
<v Speaker 2>Like I know, Ken was mad because Mega Ryischo's not
<v Speaker 2>in it.
<v Speaker 5>So the thing that makes this game so odd is
<v Speaker 5>that it is it is. When you're playing it, it
<v Speaker 5>becomes clear that it's it's in a weird spot where
<v Speaker 5>it's unclear if it's meant for people new to Pokemon
<v Speaker 5>or maybe new to the competitive scene that want to
<v Speaker 5>just get into the battles, or if it's for people
<v Speaker 5>that have played a lot and want to use this
<v Speaker 5>as a new platform. So one of the main things
<v Speaker 5>is that in Pokemon Champions there is something like one
<v Speaker 5>hundred and eighty Pokemon that are actually compatible with the game.
<v Speaker 5>This is of the over one thousand Pokemon that exists now.
<v Speaker 5>You can only use about one hundred and eighty Pokemon.
<v Speaker 5>It's exclusive for.
<v Speaker 3>The most numbers, a lot smaller than the bigger number.
<v Speaker 5>It really is. It is only fully evolved forms as
<v Speaker 5>far as I know, So like, for example, you can
<v Speaker 5>have Venosare, but you can't have Bulbasore or ivy Sore.
<v Speaker 5>It kind of makes sense.
<v Speaker 4>That would exclude Pikachu, who's like the mascot.
<v Speaker 5>Pikachu is the one exception to this rule. So you
<v Speaker 5>can get Pikachu in this game. And it's funny because
<v Speaker 5>it's like Pikachu is not a good competitive Pokemon. They've
<v Speaker 5>they've really given it a lot of like like tools
<v Speaker 5>and stuff over the years, but like Pikachu's stats are
<v Speaker 5>just not as good as a lot of like really
<v Speaker 5>high to your Pokemon. Raichu is like a little better.
<v Speaker 5>But it's it's they're they're just not You don't see
<v Speaker 5>them very often in the competitive scene. So it makes
<v Speaker 5>an odd thing where it's like, Okay, so not every
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon is available here, Uh, what are the pros of that?
<v Speaker 5>The pros or that if you're not into the competitive
<v Speaker 5>scene you have been playing for years and years and years,
<v Speaker 5>it does limit the amount that you have to learn, right,
<v Speaker 5>there's fewer types to learn, there's fewer combinations that exist.
<v Speaker 5>It's a little bit more accessible in that sense.
<v Speaker 1>I've heard because of that limited roster. Sorry to interrupt,
<v Speaker 1>I've heard because that limited foster in centerre is very
<v Speaker 1>very powerful right now, and maybe like in typical competitive play,
<v Speaker 1>there are other counters that are that are present for
<v Speaker 1>in Centre that like it's harder to do that right
<v Speaker 1>now because the limited roster is that kind of right.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, or I mean just just broadly speaking, Uh, the
<v Speaker 5>meta is is very unique because there's a lot of
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon that are showing up that it's like, oh, this
<v Speaker 5>guy hasn't been viable for a few years as the
<v Speaker 5>games have come out or as new abilities have happened
<v Speaker 5>or whatever. And there's also mega evolutions in this game,
<v Speaker 5>which as far as I know, for a couple of years,
<v Speaker 5>was not a part of the competitive scene because it
<v Speaker 5>wasn't like a main mechanic in the games. So now
<v Speaker 5>this is like mega evolutions are something that you're thinking
<v Speaker 5>about incorporating into the games a lot more so that
<v Speaker 5>that's like a that's like a pro is like Okay,
<v Speaker 5>there's there's fewer Pokemon, but there's fewer to learn. It's
<v Speaker 5>kind of more approachable. The con is that, uh, this
<v Speaker 5>is the new hub for competitive Pokemon battling, Like next
<v Speaker 5>year when there's the big Pokemon World Championships and everyone
<v Speaker 5>gathers to do the VGC stuff, it's gonna be in
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon champions and that It just is frustrating because there's
<v Speaker 5>a lot of people that are like, I have this
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon and this has kind of been a deal for
<v Speaker 5>a while now because Pokemons had to limit the amount
<v Speaker 5>of Pokemon that are available in each sort of game.
<v Speaker 5>But it is kind of frustrating to have it this
<v Speaker 5>limited of you can actually only do this, and there's
<v Speaker 5>a lot of strategies of Pokemon that aren't fully evolved, right.
<v Speaker 5>There's a there's an item called the Evia Light, which
<v Speaker 5>multiplies your defense and special defense by one point five
<v Speaker 5>times if you're not fully evolved. So there's a lot
<v Speaker 5>of Pokemon that have like okay stats in their middle form.
<v Speaker 5>You can give an Evia Light that become like really
<v Speaker 5>bulky tank type Pokemon that don't take a lot of damage.
<v Speaker 5>There is a I don't know if it's in the game.
<v Speaker 5>I guess I'll check. I'm going off of Sarabai dot net,
<v Speaker 5>which is my go to Pokemon resource. Of course, pachi
<v Speaker 5>Risu is not in the game. That's like a really
<v Speaker 5>good example of a number of years ago. Patrisu not
<v Speaker 5>a competitively viable Pokemon at first glance. Is like a
<v Speaker 5>squirrel Pikachu introduced in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl was in
<v Speaker 5>like a winning team one year because it was such
<v Speaker 5>a wild card that it would show up and would
<v Speaker 5>just no one would know what to do with this thing,
<v Speaker 5>and it would like run circles around everyone, which is
<v Speaker 5>so fun. That's so cool, And there's so many Pokemon
<v Speaker 5>that that's always like the dream, right is that? Yeah,
<v Speaker 5>you get your favorite Pokemon and it's like, oh my gosh,
<v Speaker 5>Charles's favorite Pokemon's Fampy. He made this crazy fanpy team
<v Speaker 5>that's stomping everyone who could have seen that coming.
<v Speaker 4>Sorry, I'm proud of myself because I was trying to
<v Speaker 4>look up Pichu. I've never heard of piechri resouit and
<v Speaker 4>I didn't want to ask you how to spell it,
<v Speaker 4>so I typed in a really bad version of it,
<v Speaker 4>but I still managed to pull it up. And I
<v Speaker 4>see a cute little two cute little squirrels. One's blue
<v Speaker 4>and one's pink, and they're not probably shiny, and they
<v Speaker 4>didn't make the cut. Huh, these adorable little things. It's
<v Speaker 4>messed up.
<v Speaker 5>So it's it's yeah, so it's it's an odd it's
<v Speaker 5>an odd state where if you are a competitive person.
<v Speaker 4>Oh.
<v Speaker 5>Also, not all the items are available in this game,
<v Speaker 5>So there's held items like the life orb for example,
<v Speaker 5>boosts all your damage and you take a little bit
<v Speaker 5>of damage every turn. That's like a competitive stable for
<v Speaker 5>years and years and years, it's not around. There's a
<v Speaker 5>few stuff like that that have been in all the
<v Speaker 5>games basically that we're just very used to seeing and
<v Speaker 5>anticipating that aren't around anymore. So it creates like just
<v Speaker 5>an odd kind of thing. If it was just a
<v Speaker 5>new kind of mobile or switch game, that would be
<v Speaker 5>one thing, but for it to kind of take over
<v Speaker 5>the competitive scene is making it rightfully controversial. And then
<v Speaker 5>there's the other aspect Kyle mentioned is it is free
<v Speaker 5>to play, which after playing it for a few hours
<v Speaker 5>it does feel icky. So I have the starter set,
<v Speaker 5>which is like seven bucks. We got a code for
<v Speaker 5>it from Nintendo. But but it's not that expensive. But
<v Speaker 5>it's a thing of like if you want to adjust
<v Speaker 5>your Pokemon's stats or change their moves or change their nature,
<v Speaker 5>these are all things you can do in the games
<v Speaker 5>with items that you'll get from like playing through an RPG,
<v Speaker 5>and this want it costs.
<v Speaker 2>The helmet or the iron band or whatever they are.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, and this one it costs victory points or like
<v Speaker 5>specific tickets for each of these things. So there's an
<v Speaker 5>element of in the game you can just be like, oh,
<v Speaker 5>this strategy isn't working, I'm gonna try to switch it
<v Speaker 5>up and use this or whatever. And this one it's like, well,
<v Speaker 5>if you've won enough games, you can change your strategy,
<v Speaker 5>or if you're paying money, then you can maybe change
<v Speaker 5>your strategy. But it's it is like a limited amount
<v Speaker 5>of wiggle room you have because all this stuff costs currency.
<v Speaker 5>And then also to unlock Pokemon is like kind of
<v Speaker 5>a weird It's not quite a gotcha system because it's
<v Speaker 5>a little more forgiving than that. But it's like, if
<v Speaker 5>you want to add a new Pokemon to your team,
<v Speaker 5>you can only do it once every twenty four hours,
<v Speaker 5>and then when you do it, a bunch of Pokemon
<v Speaker 5>will appear, and then if you have enough victory point,
<v Speaker 5>you can either pay to add them to your team permanently,
<v Speaker 5>or you can rent them for a week to use
<v Speaker 5>in battle, but you can't adjust their stats or moves
<v Speaker 5>or anything while you're renting them. You can also spend
<v Speaker 5>quick tickets maybe they're called to shorten that weight time
<v Speaker 5>so you can just roll over and over again. And
<v Speaker 5>then you can also spend these other like tickets to
<v Speaker 5>basically redeem to just gain the pokemon permanently. So as
<v Speaker 5>someone who has the starter pack, it's not that hard
<v Speaker 5>for me to have spent seven dollars and then build
<v Speaker 5>this team up relatively quickly. It's not all the Pokemon
<v Speaker 5>I want, but every time I roll, I get a
<v Speaker 5>choice of like ten to choose from something like that.
<v Speaker 5>It's a pretty wide thing, but it is a weird.
<v Speaker 5>It's just a weird game that like every time I'm
<v Speaker 5>doing a battle, I'm like, this is cool, but I
<v Speaker 5>might want to change up my strategy, and just knowing
<v Speaker 5>that that's like using my resources and I'm just draining
<v Speaker 5>my bank over time to just try to get like
<v Speaker 5>a slightly better team is odd and doesn't feel great.
<v Speaker 3>I would use the word bad.
<v Speaker 4>I would.
<v Speaker 5>I might agree with that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, I also I just I have a really distage.
<v Speaker 3>Free to play stuff just really rubs me the wrong way,
<v Speaker 3>especially when it's yeah, you know, I mean, we're all
<v Speaker 3>adults here, but a game for children, you know, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>not to say that way.
<v Speaker 5>This game has a it has a battle Pass. The
<v Speaker 5>Battle Pass has a paid tier, and it has a
<v Speaker 5>monthly membership subscription. So if you wanted to be playing
<v Speaker 5>this game, you could pay five bucks a month for
<v Speaker 5>the membership and then also pay ten dollars to unlock
<v Speaker 5>the higher tier of the battle Pass, which comes with
<v Speaker 5>mega Evolution stones and more Pokemon you can add to
<v Speaker 5>your team. How much is the paid battle the pay
<v Speaker 5>tier the battle passes ten bucks, and then so you
<v Speaker 5>pay that and then five bucks on top of that
<v Speaker 5>if you want to be a member that gets you
<v Speaker 5>extra things, I guess, and then seven bucks if you
<v Speaker 5>want the starter oh Pass, which is like on one hand,
<v Speaker 5>I'm like, well, if it's a Switch game, that's what
<v Speaker 5>ten plus five plus twelve that's twenty two bucks. It's like, sure,
<v Speaker 5>we can pay twenty two bucks to play a Pokemon game.
<v Speaker 5>I don't need to necessarily get everything for free. But
<v Speaker 5>the way it's all structured is like it's designed to
<v Speaker 5>make you feel and even you know, there's some games
<v Speaker 5>where you pay the price and then it's like, Okay,
<v Speaker 5>I'm past the paywall. I can kind of like relax
<v Speaker 5>a little bit. I feel like I've I've I've gotten
<v Speaker 5>past the there's no ads anymore. There's no like I'm
<v Speaker 5>having to stress about this, which is a game is.
<v Speaker 3>Usually pretty good about paying like that. They usually have
<v Speaker 3>a decent system for like their free to start games
<v Speaker 3>they like to call them where it's like like like
<v Speaker 3>where you hit a tier where you're like, wow, I've
<v Speaker 3>actually I've bought the game at this point, you know.
<v Speaker 4>Is there a is there like an in game currency
<v Speaker 4>that you can use in place of money that you
<v Speaker 4>can just earn like my only My Only sort of
<v Speaker 4>like comparison and I know it's not one to one
<v Speaker 4>is like you gi Oh Master Joel, which is a
<v Speaker 4>free game that you can buy things, but there's an
<v Speaker 4>in game current and see where you can just like
<v Speaker 4>just by playing matches you can actually unlock everything just
<v Speaker 4>with the in game currency, and you really can. Only
<v Speaker 4>you would really only use money if you just didn't
<v Speaker 4>want to like wait right, or you just didn't want
<v Speaker 4>to play competitive matches to get things. But like, I've
<v Speaker 4>rarely ever put money into that game. Someone that's put
<v Speaker 4>over like six hundred hours into that game. So I
<v Speaker 4>was wondering if, like if if Pokemon had like an
<v Speaker 4>alternative to like, oh yeah, you can just if you
<v Speaker 4>just played a bunch, you could just unlock everything.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, So the short answers, Yes, there's victory points, which
<v Speaker 5>is kind of that currency that fills that role that
<v Speaker 5>you get from winning. You get a little bit when
<v Speaker 5>you lose, but you get a lot more. It's like
<v Speaker 5>you get three hundred when you win in eighty when
<v Speaker 5>you lose, and I think maybe that scales up as
<v Speaker 5>you rank up through the ranked matches and stuff. But
<v Speaker 5>there's like the Battle Pass, for example, I think has
<v Speaker 5>My guess is that as the items are exclusive to
<v Speaker 5>the Battle Pass and the Pokemon Exclusive Battle Pass, assuming
<v Speaker 5>again that you don't have the games and can transfer
<v Speaker 5>them in from Pokemon Home, some of that stuff that
<v Speaker 5>is like quote unquote exclusive is just things you could
<v Speaker 5>get in like Pokemon Legends Za for example, and transfer
<v Speaker 5>them in.
<v Speaker 2>Sure.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, so it's an interesting game. I'm I'm having fun
<v Speaker 5>playing it, Like it's not it's it's Pokemon. I've heard
<v Speaker 5>people say that there's glitches so far, and people are
<v Speaker 5>definitely mad that like some of the stuff isn't present,
<v Speaker 5>But when you kind of look at it for what
<v Speaker 5>it is, it's like, sure, it's Pokemon Battles and it's online,
<v Speaker 5>and I enjoy trying to like.
<v Speaker 3>Is it are you? I know we've been talking a
<v Speaker 3>lot about the sort of like monetization, but like structurally,
<v Speaker 3>is it like you're just kind of playing match after
<v Speaker 3>match after match with other players online?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, there's like there's ranked, you can do single battles,
<v Speaker 5>you can do double battles, and I think maybe there's unranked,
<v Speaker 5>but I've I've just been playing ranked.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, but there's no like PvE, it's just other.
<v Speaker 5>Metters, got it, Yeah, it's all all other players. There
<v Speaker 5>might be bots. There's some people were making such bad moves.
<v Speaker 5>I'm like, this is probably a bot. But also it
<v Speaker 5>could be like an year old because it might.
<v Speaker 4>Have been.
<v Speaker 5>It might have been marketing.
<v Speaker 3>He was like what and it also, by the way,
<v Speaker 3>it also it looks like it's currently only on switch
<v Speaker 3>like it will come to mobile platforms later apparently, Oh no,
<v Speaker 3>because I was gonna send it to my daughter and
<v Speaker 3>see if she was interested, but I was like, oh,
<v Speaker 3>it's okay, switch only right now, okay.
<v Speaker 2>H all right.
<v Speaker 5>And it also, uh just kind of raises a point
<v Speaker 5>I've been wanting to make. And maybe this is like
<v Speaker 5>an opinion piece all write out on the site at
<v Speaker 5>some point, but I do I feel like there's there's
<v Speaker 5>too many Pokemon, and I think Nintendo needs to have
<v Speaker 5>a solution for that, because right now, it's a weird,
<v Speaker 5>like every time a new game comes out, it's a
<v Speaker 5>weird dice roll to see if like the one you
<v Speaker 5>like is going to get in there, and if you're
<v Speaker 5>not a fan of like like specifically the original one
<v Speaker 5>hundred and fifty one, like they introduced new Pokemon every year,
<v Speaker 5>and then there's a thing of like, well, who knows
<v Speaker 5>if you like I've I've got a yamper on the
<v Speaker 5>wall behind me. It's a stuffed animal. That's why Pokemon
<v Speaker 5>little like Corgi electric dog. He's very cute. You can
<v Speaker 5>get merch of him relatively easily. As far as I know,
<v Speaker 5>He's only appeared in like one game. He's only appeared
<v Speaker 5>in Sword and Shield and maybe a spinoff or two.
<v Speaker 5>Oh my god, it was introduced what seven years ago
<v Speaker 5>when those games came out, and it's just not a
<v Speaker 5>Pokemon that is recurring. So it's almost like she's punished
<v Speaker 5>for having a favorite that came out more recently. But
<v Speaker 5>it's just like a.
<v Speaker 4>Though.
<v Speaker 5>The longer it goes on, the more I think they're
<v Speaker 5>gonna be cursed to be like, well, you didn't include
<v Speaker 5>every form of Pikachu and every of this Pokemon. And
<v Speaker 5>people get angry at wind Goal. They're like, why do
<v Speaker 5>is wing Goal show up all the time just because
<v Speaker 5>this is on a beach. We need more seagull Pokemon.
<v Speaker 5>There's other water Pokemon.
<v Speaker 3>The solution is, obviously, we hold a battle Royale every
<v Speaker 3>three years where reader everyone people vote on their favorite
<v Speaker 3>Pokemon in the top the bottom fifty just disappear if
<v Speaker 3>they just get deleted.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah yeah, yeah, Like I think you need a Fano
<v Speaker 4>snap event in Pokemon lore, like randomly half of them
<v Speaker 4>just get wiped out and it's totally fair because it's random.
<v Speaker 3>Going half wow.
<v Speaker 5>That does that? Does? This will be the last thing
<v Speaker 5>I said about the game. They did. It was a
<v Speaker 5>number of years ago, but they they did a poll
<v Speaker 5>to ask everyone what their favorite Pokemon was. I remember, yeah,
<v Speaker 5>and the least favorite Pokemon, or the one that was
<v Speaker 5>the least people's favorite Pokemon was Semis, which is a
<v Speaker 5>fire Pokemon black and white. Uh, there's Semissage, Semis, and Simapore,
<v Speaker 5>which were three elemental monkeys that were just not favored
<v Speaker 5>by a lot of people. All three of these dudes
<v Speaker 5>are in Pokemon Champions.
<v Speaker 4>With this guy, I.
<v Speaker 2>Just know I can't stand him. I'm I'm with the public.
<v Speaker 4>I feel like there's stupid or Pokemon in this guy.
<v Speaker 5>It's it's not that I don't hate It's not that
<v Speaker 5>I hate Semis, it's that he was he I don't
<v Speaker 5>know that he was the most hated. He was just
<v Speaker 5>the least people's favorite. Everyone else had a different favorite.
<v Speaker 4>Maybe people just don't use him a lot. It's not
<v Speaker 4>so much like a personal distage. It's like I just
<v Speaker 4>don't really use since since.
<v Speaker 3>That is that is hilarious to Charles said, it was
<v Speaker 3>the bottom of that list. Is one that made it
<v Speaker 3>into Champions, is what you're saying, right.
<v Speaker 4>I think they did it despite those people.
<v Speaker 5>And another another Pokemon that is not good, Like it's
<v Speaker 5>not all the competitively best Pokemon. It's kind of a
<v Speaker 5>lot of Pokemon that are seemingly randomly picked in some cases.
<v Speaker 1>So nice, interesting, Well that's Pokemon Champions. Kyle tell us
<v Speaker 1>about people of note, I know this is a music
<v Speaker 1>themed game. I've I've seen it people talking about it
<v Speaker 1>a bit here and there and the lead up to
<v Speaker 1>the release, but tell us about it.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so I've only played like, I don't know, like
<v Speaker 3>an hour or two, maybe like two or three hours.
<v Speaker 3>It's like it's a it's a kind of it's an
<v Speaker 3>old school ish RPG in the sense that like I
<v Speaker 3>was like, oh, I'm in the first dungeon right, like
<v Speaker 3>I had that feeling. But the way the game is
<v Speaker 3>structured is it's like this very specifically like like musically
<v Speaker 3>musically themed world in the sense that like everyone uses
<v Speaker 3>musical terms, like you unlock the ability to like kick
<v Speaker 3>objects and the attack is called like forte you know,
<v Speaker 3>and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 5>Is it kind of like Troll's World Tour?
<v Speaker 3>Yes? Actually, yeah, that's a great Have you seen Trolls
<v Speaker 3>World Tour?
<v Speaker 5>That's that's all the Trolls I've seen.
<v Speaker 2>It was like this one's so good.
<v Speaker 3>They're fun, not like those movies. My my, yeah, I'm
<v Speaker 3>just like having a moment, like, oh, I didn't think
<v Speaker 3>anyone else on this call would have seen a Trolls
<v Speaker 3>movie other.
<v Speaker 4>Than my girlfriend has been trying to convince me to
<v Speaker 4>watch those movies because she loves they're fun.
<v Speaker 3>They're not bad. There are There are certainly worse animated
<v Speaker 3>movies to watch than Trolls, for sure, but.
<v Speaker 4>Yes, it is done a spoiler cast on one of them.
<v Speaker 3>Really Okay, uh god, you guys are throwing me off
<v Speaker 3>so much, but yeah, Like Trolls World Tour is a
<v Speaker 3>movie where they go to like different genres take over
<v Speaker 3>like different sections of the world. Right, there's like the
<v Speaker 3>the there's like the country section, the pop section and stuff,
<v Speaker 3>and that is kind of similar here there's like a
<v Speaker 3>K pop area and a J pop area and stuff
<v Speaker 3>like that. But the thing about it is that it's
<v Speaker 3>like it it's reminiscent of like a Final Fantasy nine
<v Speaker 3>or a ten. Right is like maybe the most direct
<v Speaker 3>line where it's like you kind of have isometric camera.
<v Speaker 3>It's fully three D. Like the beginning kind of reminds
<v Speaker 3>me of Final Fantasy ten a little bit in like
<v Speaker 3>a very complimentary way really, and then and then the
<v Speaker 3>combat is like turn based, and then you have like
<v Speaker 3>timed button pressing in the combat, which I love. Like
<v Speaker 3>that's that's the key to my heart when it comes
<v Speaker 3>to a turn based RPG when I when it's not there,
<v Speaker 3>I miss it at this point. But it's like it's
<v Speaker 3>not quite rhythm based so much as it feels like
<v Speaker 3>a QTE, it doesn't, you know, there's it's not like
<v Speaker 3>you're like need to like be on rhythm, but but
<v Speaker 3>it's it's it's good. I like what I played. Like
<v Speaker 3>the writing is is clever, like it is it's very
<v Speaker 3>heavy on the sort of the musical puns and things
<v Speaker 3>like that. But like there's I took a couple like
<v Speaker 3>it's always like the A metric for like, oh this
<v Speaker 3>the writing must be pretty good. It's like I'm taking
<v Speaker 3>I took a few screenshots of lines of dialogue that
<v Speaker 3>I liked them, Like, oh, that's that's clever, you know.
<v Speaker 3>And it's like it's pretty straightforward in a complimentary way.
<v Speaker 3>You know, you get into fights, you find a store
<v Speaker 3>and you can like buy stronger equipment and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 3>and like the way the random battles works, like you
<v Speaker 3>fully elect if you want to do them, in the
<v Speaker 3>sense that like no characters are running up to you
<v Speaker 3>to fight you or anything like that. It's not random.
<v Speaker 3>You enter a room and it's like you can if
<v Speaker 3>you want to fight, you can press the Y button,
<v Speaker 3>you know. But if you want to just like run
<v Speaker 3>around and like explore and try to solve these puzzles,
<v Speaker 3>you can do that too. And it was like I
<v Speaker 3>like that system because like a random battles drive me insane.
<v Speaker 3>I've always hated them. And then b it's like I
<v Speaker 3>ran into a situation where I was like I found
<v Speaker 3>this little shop and this guy was selling things and
<v Speaker 3>I was like, oh, I'm like just a couple you know,
<v Speaker 3>vinyls short of buying this improved vest, I'll just do
<v Speaker 3>a couple of battles right here. I'll just press why.
<v Speaker 3>And it's like I like that sort of like you know,
<v Speaker 3>it's fully up to me if I want to engage
<v Speaker 3>with that stuff. But yeah, it seems really solid, right,
<v Speaker 3>It's not like it's not really innovative as near as
<v Speaker 3>I can see, like maybe it maybe it gets more
<v Speaker 3>out out out of the bounds of what we expect
<v Speaker 3>from the genre later in the game, but like early on,
<v Speaker 3>I was like, yeah, no, this is like a really great,
<v Speaker 3>like solid turn based RPG that feels kind of nostalgic,
<v Speaker 3>and the combat is fun and the art style is cool,
<v Speaker 3>and like I like the protagonist, like she seems she's
<v Speaker 3>like really motivated to become this like popular singer and
<v Speaker 3>stuff like that. Like it's uh, it's it's very charming.
<v Speaker 3>And it's like if you like turn based RPGs and
<v Speaker 3>you have you have fond memories of like the the
<v Speaker 3>you know, Final Fantasy seven, eight nine and even a
<v Speaker 3>little bit into ten uh like era, like this is
<v Speaker 3>this is where taking a look at for sure.
<v Speaker 1>That's cool people, I uh yeah, yeah, that sounds good people.
<v Speaker 1>Note I did want to also very quickly chat about
<v Speaker 1>a game.
<v Speaker 2>That was set in my way. It's it's a port for.
<v Speaker 1>Switch to of of Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun.
<v Speaker 1>Have you did either any of you play the original?
<v Speaker 1>It's from me and Me games.
<v Speaker 3>Is that the Pirates they're not pirates in that.
<v Speaker 2>They made the Pirate Crew.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which is that which was their last game before
<v Speaker 1>they shut Oh god.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, they shut down. Not long after that game came out.
<v Speaker 2>They shut down.
<v Speaker 1>I think I think they If I remember right, it
<v Speaker 1>was before the game came out, it was like right
<v Speaker 1>after it was like it was pretty it was like
<v Speaker 1>it was pretty known that like this is our last game,
<v Speaker 1>but really and stuff, We're gone. Yeah, I mean like
<v Speaker 1>they me and Me has worked on a lot of games.
<v Speaker 1>Desperados three, I think they worked on that one last
<v Speaker 1>Tinker Shadow game, but the Curse Crew and then we
<v Speaker 1>talked about that in twenty twenty three, but they they
<v Speaker 1>have so Shadow Tactics. Blades as a Shogun first came
<v Speaker 1>out I think in twenty sixteen or so. There's also
<v Speaker 1>a DLC called Ico's Choice. It's also been brought over
<v Speaker 1>to Switch to. But I did just want to shout
<v Speaker 1>it out because I downloaded it for my cruise and
<v Speaker 1>then I got on my cruise and barely played my
<v Speaker 1>switch but I didn't. I I've been meanings it to
<v Speaker 1>just bring it up on the show. It's like something
<v Speaker 1>to highlight for people looking for, you know, a new
<v Speaker 1>new in quotations, maybe one you missed right. Maybe yeah,
<v Speaker 1>maybe one you missed right. Me me me do fantastic work.
<v Speaker 1>If you're looking for a a switch to Steal Slash
<v Speaker 1>Tactics game. I mean, the art is gorgeous, It's takes
<v Speaker 1>place in the Edo period in Japan, and it's got
<v Speaker 1>all these really cool systems. I'm still pretty early, but
<v Speaker 1>it's feels great for switch and I mean there's like
<v Speaker 1>a mouse mode now for switch To. I'm I, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I feel like I'm hit or I actually don't use
<v Speaker 1>mouse mode ever on my switch To.
<v Speaker 2>I know some I don't. I know some people like.
<v Speaker 1>That, but it is there and I've heard from others
<v Speaker 1>that it works very well.
<v Speaker 2>But I plan to talk about.
<v Speaker 1>It a bit more on probably this week's edition of
<v Speaker 1>our What to Play this weekend on the website. But
<v Speaker 1>I did just want to shout it out. I know
<v Speaker 1>we're kind of crunched for time today, but the whole
<v Speaker 1>thing in the DLC are out on switch To.
<v Speaker 2>It looks gorgeous.
<v Speaker 1>It's got like that that game has like such like
<v Speaker 1>a cool like there's a grain to the art that
<v Speaker 1>I find really, uh really neat, and I mean on
<v Speaker 1>the switch to screen it just looks incredible. So I'm
<v Speaker 1>excited to keep playing that. But I did want to
<v Speaker 1>shout it out. Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun.
<v Speaker 4>Nice. Do we know what happened to like the like Manbi,
<v Speaker 4>I'm trying not to say maybe you yeah, yeah, like
<v Speaker 4>do we know where any of those devs wound up
<v Speaker 4>or if they spun up anything?
<v Speaker 1>So actually it's funny. Maddie was the comms lead, the
<v Speaker 1>former comms lead on the game, and they're the ones
<v Speaker 1>who are emailing me. So there are there's. Their games
<v Speaker 1>are still being published, but they as the developer, is
<v Speaker 1>no longer around. However, I believe that the founders of
<v Speaker 1>the studio worked to help bring this port to life.
<v Speaker 1>So it sounds like a pretty complicated situation, but it
<v Speaker 1>sounds like people. You know, it was a situation where
<v Speaker 1>you know, there was a lot of sadness about leaving
<v Speaker 1>it behind, and people are so excited about the properties
<v Speaker 1>and such and the games and have found ways to work.
<v Speaker 2>On them still. But yeah, I might have more to say.
<v Speaker 2>I might.
<v Speaker 1>We'll see how the upcoming episodes happen. You know, it's
<v Speaker 1>always it's always hard, But I plan to keep playing
<v Speaker 1>this throughout the year, is what I'm trying to say.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, I know we're I know we're strapped for time.
<v Speaker 1>Let's take a quick ad break. We're gonna come back
<v Speaker 1>and talk about the best Zelda games. Be right back
<v Speaker 1>right after this. Welcome back to the Game Informer show.
<v Speaker 1>It's time to talk about Zelda games. Kyle, real quick,
<v Speaker 1>before we get started, I do want to give us
<v Speaker 1>a chance to talk about the feature that we pulled together. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>because that's what inspired this discussion, and it's it's the
<v Speaker 1>Zelda feature in the latest issue of Game.
<v Speaker 3>Informer magazine, which we did make free. We decided to
<v Speaker 3>not have it behind the paywall, so if you want
<v Speaker 3>to check it out forty years of Zelda's legend, it's
<v Speaker 3>on our home page. I'm sure you can find it.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, what it is is, it's we reached out
<v Speaker 3>to just a bunch of developers and said, hey, why
<v Speaker 3>is Zelda important to you and which one's your favorite?
<v Speaker 3>And we got all like we talked to and we
<v Speaker 3>also like extended it beyond developers a little bit, like
<v Speaker 3>we talked to Matt Mercer, who voices Gannendorff you know
<v Speaker 3>in the recent games, and Patricia Summrset, who voices Zelda
<v Speaker 3>I talked to. I'm sure I've plugged a bunch but
<v Speaker 3>I talked to Matt Johnson, the director of Nirvana, the band,
<v Speaker 3>the show, the movie, and I just when I interviewed
<v Speaker 3>him recently, I took some time to talk to him
<v Speaker 3>about Zelda, so I included his thoughts in there. But yeah,
<v Speaker 3>like we got we got in touch with Eric Barone
<v Speaker 3>from Stardoo Valley and he talked to and he sent
<v Speaker 3>us some because what I did is I reached out
<v Speaker 3>and just said I didn't like have phone calls all
<v Speaker 3>these people, but I was like, hey, send us like
<v Speaker 3>some some text about like what why you like Zelda?
<v Speaker 3>But Capcom, the director of Only Musha, Way of the
<v Speaker 3>Sword is on there. Greg Cassavin from Super Giant Games,
<v Speaker 3>we have words from him. I'm gonna shout out a
<v Speaker 3>bunch of these just to try to get you to
<v Speaker 3>go check it out. The creator of Iconoclass, which is
<v Speaker 3>like an indie game that I love. Young he Chi,
<v Speaker 3>who directed who is you know? I guess you could
<v Speaker 3>say it's still directing Pragmata because it's not out yet.
<v Speaker 3>He really he gave us some text, but he also
<v Speaker 3>was like, hey, do you mind if I draw a
<v Speaker 3>little picture for you guys? And he has Diana from
<v Speaker 3>Pragmata holding a little cake that says like happy anniversary.
<v Speaker 2>Just got a little green hat.
<v Speaker 3>On yeah, which is so great. I was like, I
<v Speaker 3>was so charmed, But I was like, it's funny that
<v Speaker 3>he felt like he had to ask permission.
<v Speaker 5>That more often just being like, uh, yeah, we can
<v Speaker 5>do an email interview, or you could just draws a picture.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, we have the direct draw a picture to all
<v Speaker 4>my as a response to my questions.
<v Speaker 2>I noticed you're wearing a green hat.
<v Speaker 3>I just realized, yeah, yeah, he's caused playing as Diana
<v Speaker 3>in that that little drawing that he did. Yes, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>just a shout out. A couple more we heard from
<v Speaker 3>folks from Sega, the director of Street Fighters six, Uh,
<v Speaker 3>let's see, uh, the producer of the Like a Dragon
<v Speaker 3>series is on there, Yacht Club Games we heard from
<v Speaker 3>uh yeah, just like a huge list of people just
<v Speaker 3>talking about a Lives of p I thought was a
<v Speaker 3>fun when we got the director of Lives and P
<v Speaker 3>on there, which West trackdown. But yeah, it's it's a
<v Speaker 3>big piece that looks great in the magazine and you
<v Speaker 3>can find on the site, and it's just it's just
<v Speaker 3>fun to hear like all these developers who are making
<v Speaker 3>video games as their career are like, yeah, no, the
<v Speaker 3>series is really important to me, and like here's here's
<v Speaker 3>what I love about it, and yeah, I thanks for
<v Speaker 3>letting me plug that feature and all you guys helped
<v Speaker 3>put it together, so I appreciate it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Well, uh, let's get started, y'all. Who wants to go first?
<v Speaker 1>Who wants to start talking about their favorite Zelda games.
<v Speaker 1>I think we said going in, like we were gonna
<v Speaker 1>like Link to the Past and Ocarina and Breath of
<v Speaker 1>the Wild.
<v Speaker 2>We've talked about those to death, not that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, like the larger ranch eys and what it means
<v Speaker 3>to us. I mean I Zelda is like not to
<v Speaker 3>not to be too like hyperbolic, like it is like
<v Speaker 3>the the most important like video game thing to me,
<v Speaker 3>like period. Like I would not be here writing about
<v Speaker 3>video games if I had not fallen in love with
<v Speaker 3>The Opera of Time, which was my first proper Zelda
<v Speaker 3>that I, like, you know, played on N sixty four.
<v Speaker 3>I had like dabbled with Link to the Past and
<v Speaker 3>things like that and and Links Awakening, but like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I mean that that game is hugely to me, Like
<v Speaker 3>it it is the series that made me recognize that
<v Speaker 3>video games are art, right, like very clearly, Like this
<v Speaker 3>is an experience that will make you feel things other
<v Speaker 3>than oh I beat that level right, like oh I
<v Speaker 3>was able to beat that Mega Man X boss that
<v Speaker 3>was really exciting. Where Zelda like I had a whole
<v Speaker 3>suite of emotions going through, like fear and sadness and
<v Speaker 3>like excitement and like confusion and like joy for figuring
<v Speaker 3>things out, and I felt like I was like Hiral
<v Speaker 3>felt like a real place to me, Like it is.
<v Speaker 3>I can't overstate how incredibly important Zelda is to me personally,
<v Speaker 3>like it is acream Time is like I always say,
<v Speaker 3>my favorite game of all time, and that is like
<v Speaker 3>it's it's not a position that can be unseated, not
<v Speaker 3>because there aren't better games, not because there aren't you know,
<v Speaker 3>experiences that are better designed, but like that game is
<v Speaker 3>the thing that made me fall in love with a
<v Speaker 3>medium that I otherwise really liked a lot. It was
<v Speaker 3>a fun hobby and Akarina turned into like this may
<v Speaker 3>be the most important thing to me period. Yeah, So
<v Speaker 3>I mean that's that's that's Zelda for me. I don't
<v Speaker 3>know if you guys have the same quite as strong
<v Speaker 3>feelings as I do. I'm not sure, but i'd love
<v Speaker 3>to know.
<v Speaker 4>My love of a series. A lot of it, especially
<v Speaker 4>the earlier stuff, is a little bit more kind of
<v Speaker 4>like in hindsight or retrospective, because it's like I grew
<v Speaker 4>up with an NES and an SNS, but I never
<v Speaker 4>had I never owned Zelda for either of them, like
<v Speaker 4>the original or Linked in the past, And the first
<v Speaker 4>Zelda I ever played was actually links Awakening. I had
<v Speaker 4>a game Boy, and I remember a kid in elementary
<v Speaker 4>school let me borrow his copy of Links Awakening, and
<v Speaker 4>it's like I was aware of the series. I knew
<v Speaker 4>of it, and I remember playing it for like a night,
<v Speaker 4>and I did not like it because I didn't understand purely,
<v Speaker 4>I didn't understand what to do, and cause I had
<v Speaker 4>never played anything like it at that point, like I
<v Speaker 4>was playing so many other games, but a lot of
<v Speaker 4>it was like platformers like Mario. I was like Super
<v Speaker 4>Into or like Sonic at that point, like just this
<v Speaker 4>adventure game, we just kind of more or less kind
<v Speaker 4>of are free to go around and nothing's really it's
<v Speaker 4>not as directed as something where you're just moving from
<v Speaker 4>left to right. So I was just like where do
<v Speaker 4>I what did these puzzles like? And I just I
<v Speaker 4>handed it back to him, like I don't know about
<v Speaker 4>this and I didn't really get it. And I always
<v Speaker 4>looked back on that and kind of chuckled because I
<v Speaker 4>was like, man, I was this close to like writing
<v Speaker 4>off that series forever. I was like, I don't think
<v Speaker 4>this for me, and like I played, I played a
<v Speaker 4>Karina at friends because I never had an n sixty
<v Speaker 4>four like from after the Superintendo. I didn't have a
<v Speaker 4>Nintendo console until the Wei, so I missed out on
<v Speaker 4>a Karina and Majora and stuff, and I would only
<v Speaker 4>play those at friend's house, but it would be like
<v Speaker 4>the beginning, like I played that opening Caca Ego Village
<v Speaker 4>part so many times, which is like, you know, the
<v Speaker 4>game doesn't actually start at that point, so it's not
<v Speaker 4>enough to really be like Wow, what a game. But
<v Speaker 4>like as I got older, I started admiring the series
<v Speaker 4>more and more from afar, like I remember reading game
<v Speaker 4>form a review for win Wa Cerren sing it get ten.
<v Speaker 4>I was like, and I thought it looked cool, like
<v Speaker 4>the art direction. Like I just remember having friends that
<v Speaker 4>were like enraged, like I can't believe what they've done
<v Speaker 4>to Link and I was like, this looks cool to me.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know why you're so mad. This looks awesome.
<v Speaker 4>I wish I could play it. I have a PS
<v Speaker 4>two and it was around when it was we Generation.
<v Speaker 4>Once I had that that I started to actually go
<v Speaker 4>back and play them because it was when they they
<v Speaker 4>added Links Awakening to the virtual console and I was like, finally,
<v Speaker 4>I'm gonna go actually sit down and play all of this.
<v Speaker 4>And what was the.
<v Speaker 3>First one that you like played beginning to end? Like
<v Speaker 3>do you know?
<v Speaker 4>I'm trying to remember because if it wasn't Links to
<v Speaker 4>Link to the Past, it might have been Twilight Princess
<v Speaker 4>because I played that on WI Yeah, so I that
<v Speaker 4>was definitely the first three D Zelda I played from
<v Speaker 4>start to finish. I just don't remember it was the
<v Speaker 4>first Zelda, so it was either that or Linked to
<v Speaker 4>the Past, I know for sure. And then I just
<v Speaker 4>kind of went backwards like I you know, I bought
<v Speaker 4>the GameCube copy of wind Waker played on WI whatever
<v Speaker 4>for like uh a Karina. I played in college like
<v Speaker 4>the original version of it on N sixty four because
<v Speaker 4>I had a friend who had their in sixty four
<v Speaker 4>and I was like, can I just come over your
<v Speaker 4>house like over like an hour long and just get
<v Speaker 4>through his game? And so that's how I played it.
<v Speaker 4>And I guess like the first game that I ever
<v Speaker 4>got in like brand new was Skyward Sword interestingly enough,
<v Speaker 4>but yeah, it's like I said, a lot of my
<v Speaker 4>someone that didn't like totally grew up with it but
<v Speaker 4>just admired it. I have so almost like a lot
<v Speaker 4>of like a historical appreciation for a lot of the
<v Speaker 4>series and was going, you know, going back and just
<v Speaker 4>like appreciating it for what it did at the time,
<v Speaker 4>even if I didn't have it wasn't like a formative
<v Speaker 4>experience for me. But then once I got into like
<v Speaker 4>the newer stuff, then it was like, oh, this is
<v Speaker 4>still like this is the best thing I've played, like today,
<v Speaker 4>Like when Link between Worlds came out, which is game
<v Speaker 4>it doesn't get talked about enough. I don't think I
<v Speaker 4>think that game.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that game is.
<v Speaker 4>That game is phenomenal, Like it might be my favorite
<v Speaker 4>three yes game. Uh and then Breath of the Wild
<v Speaker 4>is one probably top five favorite games of all time.
<v Speaker 4>Like adore that game and made me feel like a
<v Speaker 4>little kid again playing it. Uh. Yeah, So It's like
<v Speaker 4>I missed I missed the boat for like the first half.
<v Speaker 3>Of the Red Line. You missed the Red Line.
<v Speaker 4>I missed the Red Line. Actually, you know what, going
<v Speaker 4>back to which one was my first one, I just
<v Speaker 4>remembered I did have Minish Cap on GBA and I
<v Speaker 4>played it on my switch light, So I think, actually,
<v Speaker 4>I think minush Caap was my first one that I
<v Speaker 4>finished for like, played from start to finish.
<v Speaker 3>Not I love Minish Caps like a top five Zelda
<v Speaker 3>for me truly.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, Grace sound track. I mean, you all have
<v Speaker 4>great sales tricks, but I have a special affinity that
<v Speaker 4>I think, actually, I think that is my first proper
<v Speaker 4>Zelda from start to finish is Minage cap. Not a
<v Speaker 4>weaken that part of my memory.
<v Speaker 3>But yeah, his physical his copy like GBA box, I.
<v Speaker 4>Still have mine, but I just have the cartridge. I
<v Speaker 4>don't have the box.
<v Speaker 1>Well, when Marcus started talking, I was like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so I don't collect many physical games all, you know,
<v Speaker 1>I really kind of keep it pretty limited because I
<v Speaker 1>run out of space. I do have probably my favorite
<v Speaker 1>thing that I own is my my Game Boy collection. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>and Marcus started talking about Links Awakening. I've got links
<v Speaker 1>Awakening the version, yeah, d X version. Yeah, a lot
<v Speaker 1>of these I purchased. I would start with the cartridge,
<v Speaker 1>so these aren't like my originals, and then over time
<v Speaker 1>of like okay, I want to get like the full
<v Speaker 1>complete in box, and so I would like I remember
<v Speaker 1>I had this. I was watching eBay for ages for
<v Speaker 1>Pokemon Pinball like a mint box, and but I.
<v Speaker 2>I've slowly been accumulating them.
<v Speaker 1>But the Zelda Zelda feels I mean poke, it's hard
<v Speaker 1>not to not to say about Pokemon. You talk about
<v Speaker 1>childhood nostalga with the game Boy, but I just remember,
<v Speaker 1>like I've got Zelda Sporcle.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but like I for the first time, like recently
<v Speaker 3>when it came out on Switch, was the first time
<v Speaker 3>I played through it.
<v Speaker 4>Those are the two that I still have not played.
<v Speaker 4>I think those are the only two Zeldas I've not
<v Speaker 4>touched at all. But I got both of them on like,
<v Speaker 4>I have them on my three ys, and I bought
<v Speaker 4>them before they shut down the shops, so they are
<v Speaker 4>waiting for me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I feel like Ages and Seasons as a kid,
<v Speaker 1>it really appealed because it was that they were doing
<v Speaker 1>the Pokemon thing right.
<v Speaker 2>The Red and the Blue. Unfortunately there was no green.
<v Speaker 1>But you know, I just love every every few months,
<v Speaker 1>I'll pull out my game Boy collection and just kind
<v Speaker 1>of like rift through like the you know, the manuals,
<v Speaker 1>and it really there's something about the Zelda games in
<v Speaker 1>particular that bring up a a certain nostalgia for me.
<v Speaker 1>It's funny because like my friends owned all of these
<v Speaker 1>games growing up, and so I would like play it
<v Speaker 1>here and there, and I would like look at their
<v Speaker 1>game copies and read their manuals. But my family didn't
<v Speaker 1>really have the money to buy a lot of games.
<v Speaker 1>I was always renting games, and of course you couldn't
<v Speaker 1>rent game Boy games, at least not in my area, and.
<v Speaker 5>So that was the thing I was never I wasn't
<v Speaker 5>renting games when game Boy games were yeah on the.
<v Speaker 3>Shelves, but my Blockbuster had a few, but it was
<v Speaker 3>really really rare.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>I remember really wanting Probby Tilt Tumble and being disappointed
<v Speaker 3>Blockbuster never had. I don't want to try that thing.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's uh, it just like brings me back and
<v Speaker 1>I love it, and I love these games, and you know, game.
<v Speaker 3>Boy is like you're in for Zelda, Like that's where right. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that's kind of like where you love.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it kind of like with me a little bit. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I think it probably started actually in sixty four and
<v Speaker 1>then afterwards going because like I said, I never had
<v Speaker 1>the money to buy the games, and so my enjoyment
<v Speaker 1>was tied to my friends copies.
<v Speaker 2>And that kind of thing.
<v Speaker 1>And that was kind of like my story with Zelda
<v Speaker 1>in general. I played the Operina of Time games or
<v Speaker 1>a game rather countless times, but I always had to
<v Speaker 1>rent it, and so every time I would start from
<v Speaker 1>the start, and I never actually beat it because I
<v Speaker 1>would only have like two days and I was just
<v Speaker 1>not the kid who could sit down and play through
<v Speaker 1>an entire game in two days. But so a lot
<v Speaker 1>of my fandom for Zelda came after the fact, and
<v Speaker 1>like as an adult going back and while I remember
<v Speaker 1>I remember like picking these up in Target and stuff,
<v Speaker 1>you know, and you know, seeing my friends have them
<v Speaker 1>and look at them, it really wasn't until I was
<v Speaker 1>probably in my early twenties that I finally started going
<v Speaker 1>back and playing them. And uh, yeah, I just I
<v Speaker 1>love the Zelda series so much, and the game Boy
<v Speaker 1>games in particular, and I include the GBA games.
<v Speaker 2>You know, we were talking about.
<v Speaker 1>Minus Cap earlier, and then from there I really started
<v Speaker 1>to get into like like I had Spirit Tracks, and
<v Speaker 1>Spirit Tracks is like this show really interesting departure, but
<v Speaker 1>it's funny. Spirit Tracks was actually probably the it took
<v Speaker 1>me off guard. I didn't really know much about it.
<v Speaker 1>I saw Zelda on the cover and I bought it
<v Speaker 1>without sight unseen.
<v Speaker 2>I was like, what the hell is this?
<v Speaker 1>I was I was thinking it was gonna be like
<v Speaker 1>linked in the past, you know, and then it's like, wait,
<v Speaker 1>I moved the stylist.
<v Speaker 2>What is happening. It's a weird.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's a weird. It's weird on the touchscreen controls, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>like yeah, the structure of like being on the train. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>That's when I was gonna ask, like, did you ever
<v Speaker 4>play Phantom Hourglass before Spirit Tracks? Or have you played
<v Speaker 4>Phantom Hourglass in general?
<v Speaker 2>I have not.
<v Speaker 1>I've been trying to find a copy in my local
<v Speaker 1>stores and I just never see it. And I guess
<v Speaker 1>I could go on eBay and just buy it, but
<v Speaker 1>there's something about I kind of like to to stumble
<v Speaker 1>on those game Boy games when I'm out and about,
<v Speaker 1>unless I've already got the game and I'm looking for
<v Speaker 1>the packaging. Usually, like I find these at like I
<v Speaker 1>go to level Up Games in Minneapolis and I'll find
<v Speaker 1>the game and I'm like, Okay, now I can go
<v Speaker 1>on eBay and I'll buy the packaging if I really
<v Speaker 1>want it.
<v Speaker 4>I say, that was the first one where you played
<v Speaker 4>with the stylists and at the time and we're like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>this is so weird, but then eventually it kind of
<v Speaker 4>coialesces and it works. It still as one of the
<v Speaker 4>best Zelda puzzles ever where you have to.
<v Speaker 5>Shut the Do you think that's one of the best
<v Speaker 5>Zelda puzzles.
<v Speaker 4>It's I think it's one of the cleverest Zelda.
<v Speaker 2>It's very very metal gear.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, like it's such a fourth wall breaking puzzle. Like
<v Speaker 4>at the time, I was like, holy crap, that's such.
<v Speaker 3>A cool life before I definitely want to hear Charles's history.
<v Speaker 3>But Marcus, could you explain that puzzle for people that
<v Speaker 3>might not understand. It's very simple.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's basically I might get the d tales wrong.
<v Speaker 4>Feel for you to correct me if I'm wrong, but
<v Speaker 4>basically you have to I think you have a map
<v Speaker 4>or you have some sort of piece of paper you
<v Speaker 4>need to need to copy something or print something from
<v Speaker 4>the top, Yeah, from the top screen to the bottom.
<v Speaker 4>And the way you do that is that you have
<v Speaker 4>to physically close the DS and then open it back up,
<v Speaker 4>and the stamp appears on the other screen. And it
<v Speaker 4>doesn't like tell you to do that, is just like
<v Speaker 4>get this stamp from here to there. You're like wow.
<v Speaker 4>And then I just remember thinking, I'm I'm like, what
<v Speaker 4>if You're like, that's the only way I could think
<v Speaker 4>of it. I was like, and at that point I
<v Speaker 4>beaten other zeldagains. It's like, you know what this series
<v Speaker 4>would be, this would be something they would do, Like
<v Speaker 4>I give them the benefit of the doubt. They're like, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>they would do this, let's see if it works. And
<v Speaker 4>then it worked, and I still think it's one of
<v Speaker 4>the coolest puzzles they've ever done.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's fair actually, But yeah, Charles, I mean,
<v Speaker 3>you're I know, we I'm sorry, we bring this up
<v Speaker 3>all the time. I'm sorry, but you are the youngest
<v Speaker 3>among us, so I am curious what your sort of
<v Speaker 3>trajectory with zeld is. For sure, you know it's gonna
<v Speaker 3>be a little different from Mars in Bed.
<v Speaker 5>It is, but it's it's it's weird because I Zelda
<v Speaker 5>is the first game series that I remember, and I
<v Speaker 5>have no idea what it was about it. Maybe I
<v Speaker 5>just really liked Lincoln Smash Bros. But I remember being like, gosh,
<v Speaker 5>those games look so cool. I want to play them
<v Speaker 5>so bad, Like I remember yearning for them, and specifically, uh,
<v Speaker 5>Okerina of Time I played on the Wii virtual console
<v Speaker 5>because I I guess I had somehow found some stuff
<v Speaker 5>online where people were like, well, this is the greatest
<v Speaker 5>game of all time, Like the greatest game of all time.
<v Speaker 5>Everyone's got to be right about that. That's so cool,
<v Speaker 5>and you could just.
<v Speaker 3>Open up it's wrong.
<v Speaker 5>You could just open up the Wii Shop channel if
<v Speaker 5>you had no money or no no virtual credit.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that was the greatest game, the best game ever.
<v Speaker 5>And then there's like Smash Bros. Brawl had like weird
<v Speaker 5>demos for games, so like you could play the first
<v Speaker 5>few minutes of Okarina of Time.
<v Speaker 4>I forgot about that.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, so I.
<v Speaker 3>Had like ways where I'm sorry, I don't want to
<v Speaker 3>cut you up, Like is that was that your like
<v Speaker 3>early Okaarina experience was like the Brawl demo, Yes, you
<v Speaker 3>play it absolutely cool.
<v Speaker 5>I played that before anything else, uh, And I just
<v Speaker 5>remember going through all the steps of like one birthday
<v Speaker 5>I finally got a Classic Controller, and then the next
<v Speaker 5>birthday or maybe for Christmas, I finally got like the
<v Speaker 5>Wei Shop Channel Point, and I was like, I can
<v Speaker 5>finally play what I called Ocarnea of Time because I
<v Speaker 5>had never seen spoken out loud before. So even though
<v Speaker 5>it is like an old game, it's definitely the oldest
<v Speaker 5>game I have like specific nostalgia for. But then also,
<v Speaker 5>Phantom Hourglass came out in like O seven or something,
<v Speaker 5>and I had a DS before I had a WI,
<v Speaker 5>and I don't know when I played it, but I
<v Speaker 5>have just memories of my friend had Phantom our Glass
<v Speaker 5>and maybe I had New Super Mario Bros. And we
<v Speaker 5>like traded cartridges one time, and now remember being like, oh,
<v Speaker 5>this is so this is so much cooler than New
<v Speaker 5>Super Mario Bros. And then the thing too of like
<v Speaker 5>a lot of my I think I come from a
<v Speaker 5>very specific generations where like, uh, stylist controls and most
<v Speaker 5>controls to me, people are like, oh, these are like
<v Speaker 5>so obtuse, and they make the games so annoying. They're
<v Speaker 5>so unecessary. I'm like, that's how you play games. It's
<v Speaker 5>the WE and the DS, it's the stylist and the
<v Speaker 5>most controls. Yeah, heavy attacks. All the license games on
<v Speaker 5>the Wei would make heavy attacks shaking the WE remote
<v Speaker 5>and I'm like, that's just one of the buttons, and
<v Speaker 5>you just got to get used to that. Everyone that
<v Speaker 5>says they don't like it, it's kind of a skill issue.
<v Speaker 4>Wow, like you old cry babies exactly.
<v Speaker 5>So I was like, people would complain about the touch
<v Speaker 5>controls and Phantom irowglass and I'm like, you're being a
<v Speaker 5>little dramatic. It's it's not that big of a deal.
<v Speaker 5>You can touch the screen a few times. Interesting, It's
<v Speaker 5>it's nice to have a unique angle on Zelda, right.
<v Speaker 5>But but then but then you do play link between
<v Speaker 5>worlds and you're like, oh boy, it's nice to have.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no, and yeah.
<v Speaker 5>As the years have gone on, definitely not my favorite
<v Speaker 5>all games. I have a lot more nostalgia for. I
<v Speaker 5>think I owned Spirit tracks, but I never owned Phano
<v Speaker 5>myiaglass until much later. The other thing I want to
<v Speaker 5>say is like, musically, Zelda was very impactful for me,
<v Speaker 5>not just in the sense of like it's music that
<v Speaker 5>I liked, but like I was very much like a
<v Speaker 5>band kid growing up and would like learn to play
<v Speaker 5>songs on trombone or on piano of just like, oh,
<v Speaker 5>this is like the the the Agarina songs from Accrea
<v Speaker 5>of Time are really good because like it's just like
<v Speaker 5>three notes, so the bar for success is very low.
<v Speaker 5>And that's one of the things of like learning an
<v Speaker 5>instrument that I think is hard when people will just
<v Speaker 5>go out of a book. It's like, and here's how
<v Speaker 5>you play hot Cross Buns and hot Cross Buns is
<v Speaker 5>a boring song and you don't really feel satisfied to
<v Speaker 5>do it successfully. But if you know, like the song
<v Speaker 5>of Storms, you can play that even though it's like
<v Speaker 5>six notes, when three of them are the same, repeat
<v Speaker 5>it over and over again, you feel like you've accomplished
<v Speaker 5>something from just like playing it's like, oh, wow, awesome,
<v Speaker 5>I'm good at music. And that going on to like
<v Speaker 5>just YouTube compilation videos of like I would, I would.
<v Speaker 5>I still do this. Sometimes I'll just look up best
<v Speaker 5>Zelda music. It'll be like a three hour video and
<v Speaker 5>I'll have it minimized and playing in my headphones, and
<v Speaker 5>as soon as the song starts. I have to tell
<v Speaker 5>myself what game it's from and what the title of
<v Speaker 5>the track is. So one of my favorite songs is
<v Speaker 5>Crimson loft Wing from Skyward Sword, and it's like a
<v Speaker 5>duet between a flute and a French horn. But I
<v Speaker 5>would like to pretend it was a trombone because I
<v Speaker 5>don't have horn. But yeah, I it's it's very I
<v Speaker 5>also have I have multiple acrenas that I have played
<v Speaker 5>before just for fun. I just think it's a good
<v Speaker 5>I like it as a musical staple.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's like a nice It's just like a nice, little, pleasant,
<v Speaker 3>small instrument, right, because usually in struments are like as
<v Speaker 3>a drummer, that's always been my like my burden is
<v Speaker 3>like I can't I can't just be like, oh, you know,
<v Speaker 3>I want to play a little drums. It's like no, no,
<v Speaker 3>I have to like sit down and like spread my
<v Speaker 3>arms out, you know.
<v Speaker 5>Next maybe the next other game link I'll have a
<v Speaker 5>wood block and you like, yeah, the woodblock representation.
<v Speaker 4>The little drummer kit that you wear litt.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, well, hey, I mean when in Medora's Mask and
<v Speaker 3>that when you're when you're a gore on he pulls
<v Speaker 3>out the drums, and that was always my favorite. Like
<v Speaker 3>I would I would actually like pull a songs on there. Right.
<v Speaker 3>So it's funny to say songs when you're a drummer
<v Speaker 3>because percussion is like different. But it's like, yeah this, hey,
<v Speaker 3>this is the beat from that song. People be like, yeah, sure,
<v Speaker 3>I trust you on this.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. We did a whole super replay on it. That
<v Speaker 4>was the last three D's Elda. I'd never played.
<v Speaker 3>It was the you and I Kyle did yeah, and
<v Speaker 3>so yeah, so you can watch and then you put
<v Speaker 3>the last episodes over on mid Max, right because of
<v Speaker 3>the weird.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it is linked on our page. I didn't link
<v Speaker 4>it relay page. Hell yeah.
<v Speaker 2>There.
<v Speaker 1>There's actually several three D's Elder games I have not played.
<v Speaker 1>I've never played wind Waker, which I know is like
<v Speaker 1>that's a great one. I really want to play it
<v Speaker 1>really bad.
<v Speaker 2>Uh. And then I've never played Skyward Sword.
<v Speaker 5>Both are on Switch.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I've got I did buy the Skyward Sword, like
<v Speaker 1>the re release.
<v Speaker 3>It's a good way to play Skyward Sword. I like Charles.
<v Speaker 3>I actually will go to go to bat. I will
<v Speaker 3>go to we Remote Swing for most controls to a degree,
<v Speaker 3>and Skyward Sword is built around them, right, it is
<v Speaker 3>with that in mind, and I think it is is
<v Speaker 3>a fun experience to play with motion controls. But like
<v Speaker 3>the switch port of Skyward Sword, which gives you the
<v Speaker 3>option you can do it either way. Totally great way
<v Speaker 3>to play that game. You know. I replayed it when
<v Speaker 3>it came out without the motion controls and had a
<v Speaker 3>good time.
<v Speaker 4>I was gonna ask, Alex, are you are you holding
<v Speaker 4>out for Nintendo to bring win Wake or HD proper
<v Speaker 4>to Switch because you can't play it on Switch. But
<v Speaker 4>it's the GameCube version via the virtual or the Nintendo
<v Speaker 4>Switch online expansions. Yeah, and the HD version is the
<v Speaker 4>like holy superior version.
<v Speaker 3>Or that game.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I do have a we You and I took one
<v Speaker 1>when g I was shutting down. I was like, we've
<v Speaker 1>got like ten of these in the office.
<v Speaker 2>I would like a wee You game.
<v Speaker 3>You cannot go on the store for we You anymore? Right,
<v Speaker 3>it is totally not OK because I.
<v Speaker 1>Was unfortunately I found that the games are pretty expensive too.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, well, I because I I bought I I kind
<v Speaker 3>of like did a run before the store was down
<v Speaker 3>because it's like you can Phantom Hourglass and like Spirit
<v Speaker 3>trucks are are you can buy them for the WIU
<v Speaker 3>and play them on the WU because you can use
<v Speaker 3>the WEU game pad as a touch screen and stuff
<v Speaker 3>like that. And I was like, I was kind of
<v Speaker 3>like this is this isn't this is gonna be like
<v Speaker 3>the only way to play these games this way on
<v Speaker 3>a TV at a certain point. So like, so, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I have like I I made sure to have like
<v Speaker 3>Phantom Hourglass on my WIU that I'll just always keep
<v Speaker 3>in a cabinet that kind of thing.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's fair, But so I haven't played that.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't play Covered Sword. You know what I really
<v Speaker 1>love it we haven't talked about is the links Awakening
<v Speaker 1>remake is Yeah, probably like one of my favorite Zelda games.
<v Speaker 1>I think the art direction is just ridiculous and really
<v Speaker 1>brings me back to how I felt playing early Zelda games.
<v Speaker 1>It was like, you know, I've played links Awakening before,
<v Speaker 1>but not like this, And it was one of those
<v Speaker 1>I remember when that trailer first came out for the
<v Speaker 1>remake with the toy like you know, art style, just
<v Speaker 1>really being struck with like this wonder It's like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like this is a game that we've had access to
<v Speaker 1>for ages, but like there's just something about the way
<v Speaker 1>that they have rendered it that it feels like wholly
<v Speaker 1>new in a way and kind of brings me back.
<v Speaker 1>And I really enjoyed that that that remix. I think
<v Speaker 1>it was just really really well done, and I would
<v Speaker 1>consider it like one of my favorite Zelda games.
<v Speaker 4>It's a great game. Like I I had gone going
<v Speaker 4>back to like that being my first Zelda and almost
<v Speaker 4>and like hating it at the time, Like I rectify
<v Speaker 4>that with links Awakening DS, Like I played that on
<v Speaker 4>the DS or three DS and beat it, so I'll
<v Speaker 4>always have like a like a special SAFT spot for
<v Speaker 4>that game of like this is technically my first Zelda
<v Speaker 4>and I remember just like going from hating this game
<v Speaker 4>to like playing other Zelda games, loving them them, going
<v Speaker 4>back to links Awaken and being able to appreciate what
<v Speaker 4>it was doing and playing that remake and what they
<v Speaker 4>did so it especially like adding the d X like
<v Speaker 4>dungeon and contents. Yeah, like and I love that our
<v Speaker 4>stat too, like especially one of the few ambos I
<v Speaker 4>have is links Awakening. Yeah, I was like, this is
<v Speaker 4>like he's like perfect for like he's already a little toy.
<v Speaker 4>What you guys think of Kyle. I know your thoughts
<v Speaker 4>because you reviewed it. But what did you guys think
<v Speaker 4>of Echoes of Wisdom, which is like the first I guess,
<v Speaker 4>like proper Zelda, like technically not the first Zelda game
<v Speaker 4>where you can play a Zelda for talking about the
<v Speaker 4>CDI games, which we're not in this conversation, we're not.
<v Speaker 5>So we're actually not celebrating all of zeld this history.
<v Speaker 4>Quick.
<v Speaker 3>I tracked on the producer of those games many years ago,
<v Speaker 3>and there's a big feature on Game and formher. It's
<v Speaker 3>like if you google like Game Informer, Phillips CDI Zelda games.
<v Speaker 3>One of the proudest features I've ever done for Game
<v Speaker 3>and Former in my all my time here was tracking
<v Speaker 3>that guy down and talking to him about how those
<v Speaker 3>games came together. So seek that out. Yeah you threatened them, right,
<v Speaker 3>what's you threatened him? I threatened him, that's right, talk
<v Speaker 3>to me.
<v Speaker 2>By Echoes of Wisdom.
<v Speaker 1>I really enjoyed the first few hours of and then
<v Speaker 1>it started to kind of dwindle for me because my felling,
<v Speaker 1>my strategies weren't changing all that much.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>I remember being stuck in a boss fight in the
<v Speaker 1>sand area and it's a boss that flies around and
<v Speaker 1>I only had I was spawning archers, but they would
<v Speaker 1>only be able to fire like one arrow before they
<v Speaker 1>because I had run out of everything else. And I
<v Speaker 1>would spawn an archer, they'd fire an arrow and hit
<v Speaker 1>the flying enemy, and then they would get killed, and
<v Speaker 1>then I would do it again. That boss fight literally
<v Speaker 1>took me, no exaggeration, fifteen minutes to beat because I
<v Speaker 1>was like, well, I'm surviving, but I don't.
<v Speaker 2>This is my only option and that I have, I think,
<v Speaker 2>and it's taking forever.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, I don't know why you didn't do what
<v Speaker 4>I did and just stack a bunch of beds and
<v Speaker 4>then get up higher and then just shoot it. Oh
<v Speaker 4>that's the answer to everything that game. Just stack a
<v Speaker 4>bunch of beds and it'll probably fix something.
<v Speaker 1>I didn't stack a lot of beds because I felt
<v Speaker 1>like it was cheap, and I'm I was at the time, No, no, no,
<v Speaker 1>not not actually, but at the time I remember, I
<v Speaker 1>was like everyone else is just stacking beds, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna try it another way eventually. Yeah, I think
<v Speaker 1>I think I stacked a lot of trees, like planted trees,
<v Speaker 1>potted plants if I remember correctly. But yeah, that game
<v Speaker 1>had a lot of interesting ideas. It just it didn't
<v Speaker 1>hold me. I didn't end up beating that because I
<v Speaker 1>was like, all right, I think I'm.
<v Speaker 2>I'm a little over this.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I liked it. I finished it, but yeah, it
<v Speaker 4>gets to a point where it felt like I was
<v Speaker 4>solving certain things the same way, Like even though I
<v Speaker 4>have all these options, it's like, well, these five still work,
<v Speaker 4>Like these beds still get the job done. So like
<v Speaker 4>even though I can stack multiple things, I don't really
<v Speaker 4>have enough incentive.
<v Speaker 1>To like if it's not broken kind of yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but I needed some more limitations with that stuff to like,
<v Speaker 1>for I.
<v Speaker 5>Was going to say that, yeah, if they like limited
<v Speaker 5>in certain areas to you said to get new.
<v Speaker 2>Ones here and you can't place beds, you know. Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I like being able to like just walk, Like I
<v Speaker 4>got to kick of being able to walk over the
<v Speaker 4>tree tops and which would normally be like hard borders
<v Speaker 4>in a top down Zelda, and just like I'm gonna
<v Speaker 4>go to this area that I I don't think I'm
<v Speaker 4>supposed to be in now, but I can just stack
<v Speaker 4>enough things, walk over the trees and get to this
<v Speaker 4>new area, and I kind of like that. It's kind
<v Speaker 4>of had a breath of a wild style, like breaking
<v Speaker 4>the game kind of stuff. But I don't know when
<v Speaker 4>Echoes of Wisdom is interesting because that game came out
<v Speaker 4>when we were shut down, so it's like we weren't
<v Speaker 4>really around to like talk about it. So like outside
<v Speaker 4>of Kyle's retrospective review, I've never really gotten a sense,
<v Speaker 4>like as a staff, where we stood on that game.
<v Speaker 1>It was cool, ideas execution middling, I think, But I
<v Speaker 1>know Carl Charles not Carl Charles.
<v Speaker 2>Does need to get out of here, don't you, Charles?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, well I want to close real quick. Was just saying,
<v Speaker 5>I also have this made this stained glass heart container
<v Speaker 5>that's just as another example of Cool's elder stuff.
<v Speaker 3>That's specifically the Twilight Princess heart, right or is it?
<v Speaker 5>H I don't think. I think she she made this
<v Speaker 5>design herself. Just looking at a few looks great. Yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 5>I do have to get out of here.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So I think that's going to kind of wind
<v Speaker 1>down the show for us. Let us know in the
<v Speaker 1>comments what your favorite Zelda games are, and of course,
<v Speaker 1>don't forget gaming from dot Com slash subscribe, pick up
<v Speaker 1>a copy of the magazine, or pick up a subscription.
<v Speaker 1>You can find us on news stands as well. Guys,
<v Speaker 1>thanks for thanks for chatting.
<v Speaker 2>Today is a good episode. All right. We'll see you
<v Speaker 2>all next week. Have a good week. Goodbye.