It's dangerous to go alone. Please take this tier list and have an adventure. Ranking Zelda on our new and improved tier list today on.
Oh, don't say that. Don't say new and improved.
I mean, I was gonna say it's probably better than last one. That's a perfect. Right. Welcome back, everybody. To press me to cancel. It's Friday. It's Friday night. It's your favorite podcast of Friday night. Well, at least until something comes on after that. But we're here. We are here to talk what we always talk. Let's talk Victor Von Doom, guys. Let's go ahead and talk about the RDJ reboot. Let's talk about what's going on in the mo. Let's not talk about the Marvel MC universe. Let's talk about Zelda. But I'm not going to talk by myself. No, of course not. I have three of the best people I know on the planet chilling right here. Guys. How we doing, Jake? How are you this fine Friday sweltering evening, sir?
It has been hot this week. You know, what if they. When they do that Zelda movie because they're doing a Zelda movie, I think the cast of Zelda should be Robert Downey Junior.
I was thinking Zelda could totally be played by Robert Downey junior myself. Speaking of beautiful people, GP, how are you, sir?
Oh, I'm doing fine. Thank you for that warm lie of an introduction. I'm looking forward to being useful for exactly one half of this episode, and I'll let you guys figure out which one it is.
You'll probably carry the back end of the useful half, because I'm going to be just as useless as the first half of this. Speaking of absolutely the most useful person on this podcast, werewolf, how are you today, sir?
I. I've been better. I mean, I'm happy that I'm done playing the Zelda I've been playing this week. I'll leave it at that for now. We'll bring it up when we get to that one.
But I can't wait to get to your zelda. I already think it's going to be great.
I think Wolf and I did the most research this week, and I gave my best try for 15 minutes for a lot of these, and, man, I can't do it. I couldn't do it. I tried recording footage for the episode today, and I bailed halfway through. I just couldn't do it anymore, so. And I love these games. Well, most of them.
Yeah, I dropped the ball a little bit, but there was some good news this week that interfered with me being able to do anything from the side for a little while. So good news, but not great for this podcast. So I apologize. So I'm hosting. Cause that's the best thing I can do for this. This episode, this time. So since the last episode we did went about three and a half hours, and that was with cuts, let's go ahead and just dive right into this bad boy and hope that we can get through the first five or six relatively quickly. We're also doing. We're doing this in a different way because last time we started with the first game, we talked about the dates, blah blah. We threw all that shit out the window. So what we're going to do this time is we're going to start from the bottom up. So. So more of the recent. Now, we're also pointing out that this is the 2d top down, no 3d zeldas. So we don't have any.
Right.
Any 360, 60 fours. We don't have any twilight princesses, nothing like that. So this will be stuff that was on the Game Boys. All the facts, all the fixed amounts of the Game boys, the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo. So if we miss one of your 3d zeldas, we're sorry.
Any of them that are top down or 2d gameplay?
2D gameplay, yeah, just mainline. We talked about side ones, but I mean, I don't. I don't want to spend five minutes of our time talking about the CDI games, even. Even if it means we don't talk about Cadence of Hyrule, which is a fantastic one, but we just focus on just the main lines.
All the games we did sacrifice choices to make other choices go away. So just like RDJ snapping the finger, saying I'm Iron Mandae and making Thanos and his goons disappear, we snapped our fingers and unfortunately, spoiler alert, Cadence Cadence had to go away with the CDI zeldas. However, there's a good possibility that we will get so hyped up about this episode that we'll just do a single episode solely for the cd is so we can all have a good laugh.
I was not consulted.
I was not consulted. My agent was not called. All right, so first on the list or last on the list? But it's first we're going to talk about is the legend of Triforce heroes.
Oh, yeah.
Anybody? Please tell me what. What is this?
This is Akari warriors, but with the Zelda Ip.
No.
Nope, that's wrong. I.
This is assassin, but with the Zelda.
Ip, I didn't even know this game existed. This completely was not on my radar. And I had a three deciseconds. This is the second three deciseconds Zelda. And it was, I guess, Wolf. Do you know more background on this one?
I never played it personally. I watched a few reviews of the full game. Even back when it came out just. It did not look like my cup of tea. So basically it's a game that can be played single player or three player.
Yes, but there's a caveat to that.
What's the caveat?
That single player sucks so well. Yeah. So of this. Of this list, there's three of the Zelda games that we're talking about today that are multiplayer focused. Right. And in this one it's three links that you. Three colored links that you can. You can play as. And it was also a big focus on online play because the three deciseconds had online ability. It almost feels like, it kind of reminds me like Monster Hunter for Zelda in that you hop onto the room, you find two friends online or people Brandos online, and you form a group and then you go into very fixed set sets of missions. And that's what this game is, it's strictly online. There is a single player mode where you go into a different doorway and there's the crazy guy who shouts game Genie at you and that there's two wooden doll links come to life and you can control them, but the way they control sucks, right? Like there's a touchscreen on the three deciseconds. So swap between the three links. You have to click on the touchscreen or you can pick up one of them to carry with you, but you can't to get all of them to come together. They don't do a formation like another Zelda that we'll talk about does. You have to manually move each link to the end of the stage and it's really frustrating to deal with. There's some neat stuff, but that's the caveat. Single player is literally controlling each of the three links separately or picking up one of them, but you're still shuffling around the control of the three.
I see that there's a lot of usage of the three player. It's kind of a necessity to have the three because there's apparently some tall looking bosses that you have to climb up on each other's backs to get up on top to attack its weak point. But I can tell that Sinistar would love this game because there is apparently costumes you can wear and there's a snow brothers costume that you can wear on here. And you know how much Sunstar loves snow brothers.
Is it a point and click from 1989? Because. Yeah, he just might.
He just might with a crazy dos.
Port of this game.
Yeah, it does look like it takes a lot of the Wayne wind waker artwork, too. So very. More of the cartoony looking artwork.
Yeah. Weirdly, this game had a lot of focus on the costumes to the point where I think that was even a major plot point of the story. Like, the main protagonist, aside from Link and antagonist, were very, like, fashion focused.
Or something, which, it takes place in Drabsville, which is where the evil witches and the evil witch turned the princess of this land, which I think was, or the princess is named Styla. And style, it made her ugly, I think the story was. And you're trying to find the evil witch and Drabsville or whatever. And, yeah, the costumes are definitely central gameplay wise, they have different powers. Like the. The bomb outfit lets your bombs be big bombs. There's one that lets you shoot three arrows. There's a dress that does something that you can put on. It's neat. And you got. You basically craft them at the fashionista house. And she's got, like, a little. I think it's a pug or a cat. She's got a little pet. But you have to get materials, like, think, like, you know, jellies and resources from the various missions, much like monster hunter. Bring them back to her with some rupees, and she'll craft the outfits for you. And then when you do a mission, you can pick what outfit you're wearing. And I guess that's the fun part. Online, you would have been able to each pick a different costume as a group.
So, like, if you're trying to put together a certain outfit and you have to go retrieve a thing, you could go to the gym and see who could do more squats, and then, you know, they would give you a certain type of shimmery dress, and then you can go retrieve the drunk dressmaker and give them another reason to live.
Yeah, that sounds like Final Fantasy seven.
That's right.
Crossover. We didn't deserve.
Yeah, big bro.
We did. We did deserve. We just didn't want.
We didn't want it. So I will say that the big mechanic of this one and why there's three heroes is it's the call to totem, and you explain it. You stack on top of each other, and that's necessary to solve a bunch of the puzzles. Like, the one puzzle to open a door, for example, there's three pillars and they're different heights. So you have to stack each of the links and then the second link, you can pick control of him, throw the top one onto the first pillar, bottom link throws the second link and then you hit the switches. It's a lot of. A lot of that kind of gameplay. Three persons, very short bite sized stages, a lot of combat and a lot of comments very puzzledly. Like you, if you have a guy with a bow and arrow and you stack him on the top, then he shoots arrows from that level. So there's a lot of. A lot of verticality to combat.
It's like 40 chess single player.
Yes. Like 40 chests. Yeah. So I don't know.
All right, well, we've got a little bit of a rundown, guys. What kind of rankings do you think we should give triforce heroes? I'll tell you what, if anybody sways their decision on this, IGN, known for their amazing content, gave it an 8.5 out of ten.
Really?
Yeah.
That high.
The reasons were goofy outfits, unique single player gameplay and a couple other things. But their one downfall of the game was poor communication.
I would probably. Based on what I saw, it was nothing. I was like, oh, I gotta try that. Like, I was excited about it until I saw it. Cause I'll admit I enjoyed the four swords stuff. So I was like, oh, cool. But, you know, on the one hand, like, at least four swords for GameCube was designed to where you could play it all single player or multiplayer. Either way, it was a pain in the ass, but we'll come up to that. But triforce heroes felt like it sort of tried to change that up too much. And for me, it just didn't look enticing enough. Based on everything I've seen, I would probably give it a c. That's fair.
Okay.
That's fair.
Yeah. So I played a little bit of it last night. Graphics are great, even. I mean, the games resolve around the idea of style and dress up. And to its credit, the game does have style. It looks very nice, even though it takes place in the length of the past timeline. They went with the Toon link design, which is kind of a choice. Music is good, but I'm telling you, like, maybe I would have liked it if I played it originally back in the day with people online. But I can see how a communication would be a frustrating thing online because I don't know if there. If there was much in the way of chat on this thing. Playing locally with friends sure could have been fun, but all I would have had access to is a single player. And what I played as a single player was very frustrating. It was done better in other games that we're going to talk about tonight. And I think I would lean toward a c. And it's really just the graphics and the music alone is what's carrying it to a c. Otherwise it would be less, I think.
Okay, that's fair. Okay.
I am reminded of season one, episode two, I believe, of Cheers. It's called Sam's Women. And essentially Sam Malone, the owner of the Cheers bars or bar, has a concept parade of beautiful women that he is dating or otherwise socializing with, and he ends up realizing they're all dumb. And this goes along with the IGN review. This is what sparked that is looks good. There's some substance, but not a lot. But really, the communication sucks. And this is that equivalent. So I'm going to give it two out of three triforce pieces. So about 66% just under that of a c. And you're welcome for the cheers reference streaming now on Hulu, and you can look forward to more of those.
Fantastic.
Not a sponsor.
No, not a sponsor yet.
Not yet.
Sam Mayday Malone.
Hey, we love Robert Downey Junior. Let's. Let's talk deals. Let's talk a crossover. We'll give you cheers if you give us Robert Downey Junior. It's.
I might only be mildly upset.
I.
So apart from what I. What I've witnessed and what I've seen of triforce heroes, my. My verdict is this. Not having actually played it, I have a big problem with games that force me to play with either people or pretend that I'm playing with people. So if I'm soloing it, I just want to solo it by myself. I don't want two fake people running around, AI's trying to help me or whatever I got to do. Seems like a lot more work. So I'd give it a c because, I mean, it's going to be. I'm sure they're banger tracks. There's not very many Zelda tracks that aren't out of this world. Bangers. And the graphics do look good for being a d, you know, being on the old DS there. So, yeah, I think c looks good. I think c is comfortable. I don't know where this 8.5 comes from, but maybe if you have more friends than I do, which isn't many, maybe you have more fun with this, but I'm going to go ahead and give it a c. Also, it doesn't help that I have not heard much of this game, and I'm a pretty big Zelda fan, so that sucks. Okay, perfect. I forgot I was hosting for a minute. I was going to just sit there in silence, and then it was going to be really awkward. So we're going to move on to the next one. All right, next on our list, the legend of a link between worlds. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, gentlemen, this game is kind of a reimagining of link to the past or has some kind of connection to it.
It's sort of a sequel. It takes place in the exact same Hyrule that a link to the past did, or at least it's connected to that same Hyrule. I think you end up being in the kingdom of low rule, which is an alternate reality. Hyrule.
So Earth 616 Hyrule, basically a lot. There's gonna be a lot of marvel references in this Zelda episode.
Just papa always gets paid.
Well, there are, what, three timelines in Zelda, is there?
You don't wanna go down that rabbit hole, man. We'll never come out to grieving. The Zelda timeline is such a joke. It's worse than the MCU and what they're trying to do with the timelines. It just doesn't make any sense.
Okay.
Yeah, definitely a sequel to link to the past, or, like, tangible, related to the length of the past. Definitely has that feel to it, is that I've beaten. This was a while ago, but I have beaten. Has anybody else played this one?
No, I can't say that I've played too much of it. I'm the worst. I wanted to.
But I just didn't spend a lot of time playing the three deciseconds, honestly, like, I was kind of over handhelds with little screens at that point. And so this was the last handheld I bought, and it was just kind of like, well, I mean, it plays DS games, so I'll upgrade. It's got a slightly bigger screen than the DS, so that's kind of where I went with it. And even then, it wasn't even that, like, because I have the two deciseconds, so it's okay. That was another thing holding me back from the three deciseconds was the 3d aspect. It doesn't work for me, and so I wasn't going to spend all that money on a feature that doesn't work because I got a lazy eye.
So to be fair, even for people who can see 3D, it didn't work very well either.
Has nothing to do with you. It's just terrible.
Yeah, it was just a weird design. Well, let me speak on it then. Graphics are fantastic. It's awesome. It has two big gimmicks in this one. The first one is that you can go two daughter against walls. Like, you turn into, like, a picture to crawl across the walls. And they use that in almost every dungeon, and it's usually used pretty well. Pretty entertaining to, you know, if you. If you're one platform, but the other platform is across, but there's a wall that's shared. You blend into the wall and creep across. It kind of reminds me of what Mario Odyssey did years later. It's. It's a neat mechanic. The other one, which is kind of weird. And I'm. I don't want to say the wrong thing. It's been a while since I played it, but instead of getting items and dungeons necessarily, there's a store in town. And you go to the store and you can rent the classic Zelda items. Like, you can rent the bone arrows or the boomerang or whatever they were. I can't remember them all offhand, but you can rent the items. You can unlock them permanently, I believe, but you can also rent them. And the.
Right.
You can buy them outright, but the default is to rent them. And then if you die, I believe they go away. There's some kind of mechanic there.
Wow.
It's weird as neat. I don't know if I really cared for it, but I didn't run into an issue with it when I played the game. I got through the game just fine, and it never felt like it was in the way, but it was definitely weird not having all the items at all times. Right. Like, just having to go there and rent them piece by piece or only renting the ones I knew I absolutely needed was kind of interesting. It's kind of. Kind of weird.
Yeah. There's a logic leap that you really have to suspend your disbelief. Now, I understand we're in video game land here, but if you're like, hey, can I rent those five bombs from you? You're like, yeah, they're due back next week. And then you come back and you're like, well, I used those bombs, all five of them. Right?
I don't think I.
Here's the shrapnel.
Having not played it, but being familiar with the Zelda franchise, it was probably renting a bomb bag and not the bombs themselves.
Well, that makes more sense.
I don't recall what it was that full of explosives? Please. I'll bring it. The only thing of value is this bag.
Though I will say this about the renting mechanic, is that it kind of took the. The open ended approach into what. Where you want to explore in the game, which I thought was kind of a thing that was exclusive to breath of the wild, but it's really not. Like a lot of the Zelda games, even, especially the older ones, there is an openness to how you kind of explore the world and take things in your own way. There's only a handful of the Zelda games that actually have been a set path, like, completely. So this one was a little bit more open ended, and I appreciate that. I still kind of wish the items were more tied to the dungeons. I didn't like the idea of renting, but again, I didn't have any issues playing the game with it. But this is not when I would go back and play again. Like, I'll go and play link to the past any given week and have a great time. I enjoyed link between worlds, but I don't think I want to play through it again. So I think it's probably a, a b, maybe a c in terms of, like, graphics, music, and was well designed. The puzzles are really good, but I don't think it's much higher than that, personally.
It's the requiem for a dream of the Zelda games. Yeah, that was good. But I'm never going to do that again.
Yeah.
Just too much.
Yeah.
Less butt sex. Yeah.
And wonderful music.
Wow. Okay. And wonderful music.
Looking at you. Clint Mansell. No. Clint Mansell.
I know.
Okay. Anyway. Sorry.
Can you imagine if John Williams did the soundtrack for Rick? Beautiful soundtrack, I think of the right movie.
Now.
I hesitate to go any lower than a b on this one given some of the other entries.
That's fair. Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. Okay. I would go with b. I'll support it.
B sounds good.
So I'm gonna give it a c, because just by judging the way now I know. Listen to me. Hold on. I love link to the past. I think it's cool. I like alternate realities. I think that's cool too. But my issue. My issue with this is I'm not a fan of the artwork. I don't like it. I don't like classic Zelda spruced up. I just have an issue with it. I don't know what it is. It's weird to me. I don't. I don't care for it. I don't know. It's. It's probably fun. I just don't like the way it looks. So I'm gonna go ahead and give that a c, but we can keep it at a b, b minus. I don't give a shit. I'm cool with that. That's just my personal opinion, never having played it myself. And I think renting again, like you said, it didn't get in the way or anything, but that just is so it's like the draw system to me. It's just not necessary.
It's just keep it weird.
The same. Yeah. Let me level up how I want to and let me go find my items in a dungeon. If the dungeons don't give you items, why the hell am I going to the dungeon? What's. What. What is drawing me there other than the plot? You know what I mean? So that was one of the funnest things to do, was to go into dungeons and be like, what am I going to get in this dungeon? Oh, I'm getting the hook shot. Dope. Oh, I'm getting bags. Oh, I'm getting a burlap sack full of fucking beats. I don't know what. It's just. It's cool to find stuff in there. You're like, I don't know what I'm using for, but it's cool. It's in this dungeon. So I'm going to give it a c and live with my decision on that one.
So there is items to collect in dungeons, just because it's been so long since I played it, but I want to mention it. So what you get from dungeons is, like, the colored tunics, blue tunic, red tunic, upgraded shield. Titan Smith for picking up things. So there is upgrades in the dungeons, but the actual usable items, like the boomerang and stuff, that is what you rent.
Gotcha. Yep. I hate it. Okay, moving on.
So we grab.
Yeah.
You guys are giving me minus, if you will.
Yes. At least have my opinion be valid somewhere in there.
All right.
All right. Legend of Zelda Spirit tracks. This has something to do with a train, and everybody's heavy size says it's amazing.
I have played this for a few hours. It was not great, in my opinion. I got very bored with it very quick. I don't understand. They went down this route with the Zelda games for a little bit, and Phantom Hourglass and spirit tracks are really the worst offenders of this trend. They went with. But spirit tracks was just dull. Like, there was nothing exciting in the game at all. It was just constantly, go here, do this. Okay. Go here, do this. Okay. It felt like, there were no stakes. It felt like there was nothing interesting. The puzzles were not challenging. I don't know, it just. It left me very bored, and I couldn't do it.
This one I heard has Zelda in it, and she can control phantoms. That was her thing in it.
Did you get that far in spirit tracks? Yeah, no, I did. If I did, I don't remember it. Like, the game did not hold much of an impression other than the little loading screens between areas where link is riding the train.
Yes, there's that. Got a great title screen, if there. I like that. It uses both of the DS screens with the train. It was neat. Was there any placing? Because I did not get very far. I bounced off this in Phantom hourglass. I gave it a good try in an hourglass, but when I saw spirit tracks in the same control scheme, which we'll talk about, I bounced so hard, I wondering is you can. It's all folks are on the train and tracks. I think you can upgrade your train. Can you control where tracks go at all, or are you literally following one track that's fixed?
I don't really recall. I feel like you were adventuring to find pieces of track to be able to go to other places. Like I said, I tried this back around shortly after it came out. So it's been that long since I played it.
Yeah.
There appears to be a very interesting mechanic, but I guess we'll cover that later.
Well, I mean, we should talk about, I guess, controls, maybe.
It seems to me now, correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like you are able to. I mean, you control link by using your direction pads and buttons and all that stuff for slashing.
No, no, no.
But it looks to me there's. Yeah, there's.
There's a.
There's a partner that he's got running around with him that appears to be being controlled by his stylus.
The stylus controls LinkedIn. That's how you move around.
That's great.
Drag. You drag around, and he runs after the fairy or the partner, and that's the control. To pick up things. You tap it with the stylus, like. And if you throw it, you tap again. I don't know about spirit tracks, but phantom Hourglass, the combat was you tap the enemy and you hit it with a sword. You slash a line, you slash a sword, you circle it. You do a spin attack. It is the most clunkiest, most aggravating, annoying control scheme I've played in a while. And it sucks that it's in a Zelda game, because for me, Zelda, the combat is usually one of the highlights. It's usually fun. It's snappy. It's great under this. It's literally a stylus. And I couldn't believe it when I was playing it. Like, granted, I'm playing on emulation, so I have an Xbox controller in my left hand, I have my mouse in the right hand, and then I quickly realize there's no reason to hold the controller. You just need to use the mouse, and you're literally just doing the stylus. That's all the controls. It's. It's so bad.
Yeah, I don't. I don't care for that much, but that seems. That seems bizarre. I see that there seems to be a little, like, a shiny thing in front of link when he's running. So I'm assuming that's the stylus's cursor that's leading him in whatever direction he's going. Yeah, I feel like that would be very, very clunky to play against bosses with a stylus.
Personally, I never got that far. I don't know, Wolfie, if you made it any bosses.
I honestly, I don't recall. I hated the controls. I was not like. It seemed charming, but the gameplay made me not want to play the game.
It's understandable. I mean, that's. Yeah, it's when you're taking away. When you're the basics using of a fucking controller, and now you gotta use a pin to do things. I thought the puzzles where you were drawing stuff was kind of neat. There was some cool puzzles that you have to sketch the picture, sketch a design or something on there to open a door or. Or do something with it. That would have been neat if you just left that to. That way and then use the original shit to guide and move or link around. So I don't know.
Like, I thought if you moved around with the d pad and then use a stylus for attacking that, that could have been okay. That could have been. Having to use a stylus for everything was a choice.
You know, we always talk about Nintendo's attempt for innovation into the new games. You know, the Wii with the motion controls and the stylus was used for games and stuff like that. It's kind of a new thing, whatnot. Sometimes it just sucks. Sometimes it just don't work. It just doesn't. Like, just sometimes just gotta leave a duck a duck and let it go swimming. You don't. You don't need to put, you know, you to paint it red. And put it on fire.
Not a thing. Like Nintendo had a problem with that for a while. They were just like, it has to have DS MC. It has to have.
Yeah.
Touchscreen mechanics. Somehow, like Mario Kart for the DS had that same problem because you couldn't use your special item unless you touch the damn screen. You're sitting there driving. Or buttons on that thing you're using button the D pad on this head, and you still have to touch the touchscreen to use the special item.
Touch your nose. Like, what the.
It has buttons as a super Nintendo controller. And Super Nintendo did it all without a touchscreen. So I don't understand. Like, this was. It was a victim of having to shoe shoehorn in DS mechanics, I think.
Yeah.
Ridiculous.
If it had classic controls, I think I would have been more into it. I mean, the style was. The graphic style was okay. Music was okay.
I hate the graphic style. Like I said, I remember it being charming in terms of the world and the character designs, and I don't remember the music, but I remember thinking, okay, this could be neat. And then after about an hour of play, I was like, it's not that neat.
This is the worst thing.
Would we rank it an f or a d?
I would give this a d because there's f's on this list.
Is there? Okay. Wow.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, stick with d. Give it that d. I give it the d. I will say I got curious. And now I looked up the I. The IGN score for this one is like 9.2 or 9.3.
Is it really?
There are some. What? Yeah, fantasy tracks. Whatever. Spirit tracks apologists out there. I feel like this is a good example of, you know, that. That saying about, hey, yeah, you can copy my homework, just don't make it obvious. Kind of like that off of phantom hourglass. But the person who's copying your homework is much less creative than when you wrote your paper. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know. Not much about it outside of kind of what's already been covered. And some of that stuff, honestly, has already been news to me. But, yeah, I'm fine with this one being a pretty low tier fair.
Okay.
I mean, we are. We're doing ourselves a little disservice by going backwards because there's a lot of, like, mechanical stuff that's different from what we're used to playing as, which is going to hinder us because we don't like using it. So, you know, we're going to be old and crotchety and tell people to get off our lawns with their styluses and give me my old Nintendo two button cross direction pad controls. And I'm just going to run around and kill some things and get some rubies by cutting glasses and breaking pots. That's just what we're used to doing.
Sure, but sometimes the stuff that Nintendo does, taking advantage of the hardware can be interesting. Like, I thought breath of the wild in the Wii U. I liked the control path of the Wii U.
Not part of the conversation.
Yeah, okay, fine. But sometimes stuff hits and then sometimes stuff doesn't hit. So it's not like I hate all the mechanics they bring into the play. It just. Maybe just most of them.
Well, yeah, there's definitely a point where.
They didn't know what to do with Zelda anymore. For sure.
I'm going to say right now because it's also not in the discussion today, but when Twilight Princess came out and I got it for the Wii, I thought those mechanics were sick. I bought. I bought Phantom Twilight Princess before I even got a Wii because I was so excited to play with the Wii remote and. And slash with Zelda and block with my shield and shoot bows and arrows, like actually shoot them. It was cool as hell. I love Twilight princess. I think that's great mechanics. And it's a later addition to the game. So just that kind of, you know.
That'S that discussion, though. Some of those things are like, made for what the. The system is designed for, and it lends itself to that. But then, like you're saying earlier, if you shoehorn it in and make somebody do something, I'm out.
Sorry, Twilight.
So Twilight Princess also has the benefit of being designed for both control schemes because it came out on GameCube as well.
Right, right.
So if you realistically, if you really didn't want to play it with waggle controls, you could play the gamecube one.
But why? I would love to waggle. I love waggling my Zelda. I love to waggle my link.
That's. Yeah, you know, waggle your link.
I love the waggle my link. All right, I.
All right, so D for that.
Yeah, it's a big old D on that one. Speaking of D's, let's head on over to Legend of Phantom Hourglass, which apparently is going to get a similar or lower review because it has the same mechanics that make us hate spirit tracks.
I like it better than spirit tracks, but it's. It's a marginal difference at best. I would give this one a slightly higher d or a low.
Okay.
A small d. You'd said big d for the last one, and that's fine. This one, like.
Yeah, little d. It's my hip hop name.
Is an f. This one worse.
Yeah. Okay.
You learned some lessons from phantom Hourglass and actually made it charming despite still suffering the same issues.
Okay, you win because of charm. That's it.
Yeah.
You are Miss USA only.
Do we need to bring up Robert Downey Junior again?
Yes.
The charm and the Riz will always get it.
I want to throw in the caveat here that I am ranking it as a Zelda game, not as a game.
Yeah. Right?
And so this one, it, to me, it's an f. Like, it's not good.
That's fair for me. What threw me off of this one? I played this one today for about. For about half an hour. I know that's not a lot of research, but I couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't do it. I give it points because you can skip the intros, which is fantastic, because a lot of Zelda games are very wordy in the first five to ten minutes. And when I only have a half hour to play the game, I just skip the intro. But the graphics, the style of the intro was really cool. I liked the construction paper or felt like scrapbooky. Style is cool, but you start the game with no sword, which is normal. It's fine, but you basically go into this little village. You can only explore, like, two huts. You go into the one hut, he tells you behave yourself, you leave. You go somewhere else, and it doesn't let you. So go back to the hut, talk to him. He tells you behave yourself, you leave, go back again. You leave. You go back. You go on back and forth in that. That son of a bitch, like, four or five times before you. You end up getting that. What you need to. To progress to get the sword, and then you have to go do the tutorial with them. By the time I got that point, 30 minutes had passed. I had accomplished fucking nothing. And when I went to actually go into the first area where you fight these jewel jellies, I took two hearts of damage in, like, no time at all. And I got so frustrated. I can't imagine playing this as an entire game. Again, for me, the controls, like, would you say wolf like? It's charming, but the control, the gameplay, makes you not want to play it anymore. That is just, like, so terrible of a game. I don't think it's an f in that. I think there's more, maybe more of a story here. Than spirit tracks, personally, but it's definitely not more than a d, so I'm flexible.
I might say that Phantom Hourglass is a comparison to life.
Sure. No, it's allegorical. Absolutely. I think Wolf's part is the exact. Or, you know, you made a good point, but it's the exact opposite of my perspective here. You said you're ranking it as an overall video game and not as a Zelda game.
I'm ranking it as a Zelda game.
Okay, cool. No, nevermind. You and I are on the same page.
Yeah, that's what I was ranking, too, out of all zeldas. Not just out of video games in general.
Okay. That makes me feel better now. Thank you. Sorry. I.
As a video game, I don't think it's enough as a Zelda game. Absolutely. It's an f. Like a c?
Yeah. In context.
Really? That high?
Absolutely.
Okay.
I'm glad I asked or mentioned that.
Because, I mean, it's no Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde.
Nothing is Doctor Jackson, Mister Hyde.
They can't all be Circus Charlie's. Okay, I find something. You want to rank this one in.
F. I hate having to use the stylus on Circus Charlie. That's the worst.
It could work.
Oh, man, that'd be a fun dart game, wouldn't it?
Shit.
I sucks. Yeah, this game riff sticks. It's horrible.
I like the artwork. I like the wind Waker artwork, but I'm one of the few people that does like the wind Waker artwork.
I hate the wind Waker artwork.
I know you and I are thing is a problem. This stylist thing is dumb, and it makes me sad that that's a thing. So, yeah. Um. This is a failure amongst zeldas. That's fine.
Okay.
Like, this is one of those things that very easily could have just been, like, if you want to try these weird controls we came up with, go for it. Otherwise, just play it like a Zelda game.
Yeah.
Make it an option. Don't.
That would have been fine.
I hate it.
Yeah.
Big fat f on that one.
Wow. FDA.
I just.
What is it?
That's. Okay.
What is it about spirit tracks that makes it a d? The style and charm?
Yeah, basically.
Yeah. The charm saved it.
Okay. The charm saved it. Okay.
Say you're missing.
You off on track, on trains right away, whereas you're telling me phantom hourglass is, like, here, walk in and out of a hut for a half hour.
Please never stop leaving and entering this hut. This is the greatest experience of my life.
There's somebody who has, like, OCD to the point, you know, they're like, this is great. Just entering and exiting the exact number of times that you need. Like, this is wonderful. This I can do.
This really makes my brain stop itching.
To get the sword, just so you know. You have to unlock it, and it's in the old man's cellar, and it tells you the password. You have to write the password on the sign. And it's the number of palm trees on the fucking beach. I got so upset. Like, I have to, like, you mean I have to go from the house down to the beach and count trees on a tiny ass screen where you're totally zoomed in. I'm trying to count trees. I miscounted twice. So I just started randomly scribbling numbers on the sign until I figured out it was fucking seven. But just. It was just. This is the first 30 minutes of gameplay. I can't imagine what they use the styles for an hour, five or ten, or however long this game is. Hopefully it's not that long.
Getting worse and worse.
Buying a used copy of Metal Gear Solid back in, like, the late nineties when it was on the PlayStation one, and not knowing Merrill's code and just having to scroll through to, you know, to get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It works eventually, but it's a time sink.
Yeah.
Wolf's been going. He's been going right now.
I know.
All right, the greatest thing, a big, fat failure. Big, fat failure. Phantom failure. Hourglass. Phantom failure. Hourglass.
Okay, so still better than the other one.
So this next.
I'm gonna make this awkward silence now. Okay, sorry. Moving on. All right, so the next in our list, the Legend of Zelda the minish cap. I've actually seen gameplay of this. This is the one with the annoying bird hat.
Yes, that's the one.
Wolf looks like he loves minish cap. I can tell by the look in his eye that this is Wolf's all time favorite legend of Zelda ever played. At any point, I gotta shout out.
Jeff and Chad, who said it's the best Zelda ever, but is he's only played this one 2d Zelda game, so.
Because this is the only one he beat.
Yeah.
So, minish cap, guys, I remember this being a collectathon. Like, a ton of collection.
Okay?
It seems like. It seemed to me like it was very. Had, like, a lot of you had to go find a bunch of shit that had nothing to do with the main story, but it helped, like, get you a better ending or some crap. It looked cool. But I'll tell you what, that fucking bird. Super annoying because I don't think you can get out. I think if you die and the bird has to talk to you again, I think you have to listen to, like, all of it. It's worse than Navi. It's the hallucin of bird hats. And it's a hat. I.
What the fuck?
It's a bird hat.
I never beat this one. I didn't get very far in it. But what I played seemed fine. It was. I don't know. You guys have to sell me on how bad it was. I thought it was okay.
I'm not saying it's bad. I just remember there being a bird hat and a collectathon. But I think Wolf's gonna. Wolf's got.
This is the one I've been playing this week.
Okay. All right.
I am very near the end at this point, and I don't think I'm gonna finish it.
Wow.
It's game has two major issues. One of them is we were talking about how DS games suffered from being DS games. This is a GBA game that suffers from being a GBa game.
Okay.
In that they were like, hey, let's do this little monotonous thing that you just have to do over and over and over again. And it's not even that rewarding. And then also, let's. Let's. You know, it. The artwork is. It exists somewhere between two D and three D. Like, they. A lot of GBA games really suffer from this art style where they were like, they started with a really cool 2d art style and then tried to make it 3d ish. And it sort of removes the charm and makes it look just muddy or uninteresting or boring rather than unique. There are other games that did like, I love the Klonoa games. Both Klonoa games on the GBA did the same damn thing. Golden sun did it like, it's. It's a very prominent thing on the GBA in general. This suffered from that. But also. So we're going to talk about four swords. Unfortunately, since we're going backwards, this was a game that was made by Capcom that ported link to the past to the GBA as well as created the four swords component for link to the past on GBA. So this was Capcom making a full fledged Zelda game. And it shows that it wasn't nintendo. The, uh, really, it comes down to, like, all the music is either, hey, remember this track? Or this is the most boring music I've ever heard.
Usually Capcom has some bangers. I mean, all the mega man songs are bangers.
No. It's either the most. The most forgettable music that does almost nothing, or it's a direct rip of a track from a previous Zelda game.
Huh. Interesting.
That's.
That's not even the best tracks. Like, you walk into a building and you get the bam ba ba ba. Like, that's not even the best Zelda game. And that's one of the most prominent songs because that's most of the time you enter a building.
Right.
You get. It also suffers from the. Everything is over explained at the beginning.
Yeah.
Yes.
Except for a handful of things that are very important.
You don't need to know that.
They take forever to explain all sorts of things. And then when you finally get to the whole kinstone aspect of the game.
Yeah.
Which is actually a fairly important aspect of the game. You're introduced to it by a guy who's like, hey, when you see somebody with a look in their eye, like mine, interact with them and you can share a kinstone with them. And I was like, okay. That means I looked at his eyes. I was like, okay, he's either gonna look like that, or it's just gonna look like this guy every time there's somebody to a kid. No, it's anybody in the game. But then when Zelda, it's not. It's not just anybody in the game. It's random fucking circles on the wall. It's statues out in the wilderness.
Okay.
It could be anything.
This was the collective fun part that I was talking about. Yeah.
Would they. Had they been exposed to Mako? That could explain the look in the eye. Sorry. It's so contribute to this game.
And so the Kinston out the Kinstone thing is just a problem. The way they handled it. Like, some of the Kinstones are very specific drops that are only one time use. Some of them you can purchase or will randomly drop in the field or whatever. And you kind of do have to grind for them sometimes or purchase them. And what do the Kinstones unlock? Because whenever you combine a Kinstone with somebody, the person that you combined with is super happy. There's no way to track with who you've combined with. So you're constantly running around. Before you even talk to a person, you're hitting the other button to Kinstone interact with them. And sometimes it doesn't even register the first time you push the button. I had to push it. I'm sitting. Whenever I run up to a character, I push it, like, five or six times, because sometimes it doesn't happen on the first try.
That's gross.
Do you have to do this system? Do you have to do the kinstone stuff you do? Okay.
It opens up pathways to things. It opens up secrets. This game really, really trivializes the importance of secrets. Whereas in most Zelda games, the secret is kind of big. You know, you usually feel like you've gotten some sort of reward. Now what? Breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom. The secrets feel a little more trivial because a lot of times it's just like, hey, you got this cool weapon, or whatever, and the weapon will break after a dozen hits. But this was back in, you know, a very small world, and this does feel like one of the smallest Zelda worlds I've ever played in.
Um, okay.
And it's got just dozens of secrets. There's, like, a hundred kinstones that you need to combine or something, and they're just. A lot of them either reward you with just rupees, and at the beginning of the game, you're capped out at 100. And then you have to buy the wallet to cap out at 300. Then you have to buy another wallet to cap out at 600, and you can find one more that caps it to three nines.
Jesus.
So it's.
Yeah, I never liked the wallet mechanic in any of these other games. Yeah.
And then a lot of the special items, like the boomerang, feels completely worthless. You actually have to buy the first boomerang, and then later, you find a magical boomerang upgrade. And I've used them maybe three times in the game.
That's not unusual for some of the other games in the franchise, though. Like, I find, like, even late to the past, the boomerang Washington, I almost never touched it. It had usually, I used it a lot. I felt there's better items to have readied up than the boomerang. Personally, in terms of the graphics and the GBA, I actually agree with you. I think the GBA, I love pixel art, but the GBA, sometimes they push that high res pixel art, if that's one way to call it. And it does look kind of strange. It kind of looks a little bit weird. I had that issue with a lot of Game Boy games too, or, like, Game Boy colorization. I love the original Game Boy quite a bit. I love it because they had to kind of dumb down the graphics, but when they got to the game Boy color, they tried taking higher res sprites and shrinking it down, and it looks like a compressed gif I didn't like it, and I feel like that's kind of the problem here. It's just a weird style on GBA screen, but this is still not a bad looking game. It's fine. The mechanic where you shrink down is neat. I thought that was kind of cool. When you shrink down, your little tiny link, walk around for a little bit, and then it zooms in.
At first it was by the end of the game. I'm sick of it. I'm looking for ways to not have to bother with it. And let me. Let me talk about a lot of the secrets that you get. So the secrets are either a rupee reward or a magical shell. Mystical shell. I don't know. Something. Mystery shell. Mystery shells.
Mystery shell. Okay.
And so the mystery shells cap out at three nine. What? The mystery shells. The mystery shells have one purpose in the game. That one purpose is to go buy figurines from a figurine shop.
Oh, boy.
You can buy one figurine at a time. The more you buy, the smaller the percentage chances that you will get a fresh one. Each new time. You pull the. And it's not just like, yeah, I want to buy, yeah, every time you want to buy one, it's, you have to talk to the guy, and then you tell him how many shells you want to spend, because let's say you've got a 50% chance to get a new one, a new figurine. You can spend an additional 50 shells to bring that up to 100%. So then you do that. Then you actually have to go interact with the stupid machine and grab onto the thing and pull back, and then it'll drop the thing, and you go through the whole reveal process, and then it's like, hey, you got a new one? I'll keep it in the shelf. So it's like a good 45 seconds per figurine. There's 130 of these in the game.
Can I maybe just rent them?
If you get all 130, you unlock the last heart piece and a couple treasure chests. I had to google this because I was like, I am not going to do sit here and do this for hours and hours without knowing what the reward is.
Yeah.
So that's the gacha idea of the gacha system, which is, like, a very japanese thing, right? I mean, even games like today, modern games like Genshin Impact and something. Something Zen zero, like, just came out. Everybody's raving about. It's the same bullshit you're pulling. You're doing the polls right, and there's an animation, a risky chance of getting something that's rare or getting dog shit. And you're still gonna use it. Like, at that. That gacha style system I've never liked. Like, it's. It's neat. When it's a physical machine you go to and you put a, you know, ¥100 in and you get a little toy or whatever, but in a video game, no, thank you.
But, I mean, there's 130.
Thanks. November Zen list. Zone zero is the game was talking about. Yeah.
Takes $45 to acquire.
Yeah.
And it's just, uh. There were also mechanics in this I got. They don't really convey to you that you can put water in your bottles right away.
Okay.
So you get one bottle, and the first thing I did was throw a fairy in there because I was like, well, I know what the bottle's for. I played link to the past. Okay, cool. No, there's a point where it's like, you have to water a seed. But I was like, I even had that thought, do I need to water this seed? So I used my fairy and ran over to a body of water, swiped at it. Nothing happened. Ran over to a different body of water, swiped at it. Nothing happened. No. Apparently those bodies of water just didn't want to give me the water I fucking needed in the bottle because it.
Was saltwater and it was going to kill the plant. Also, you can't catch water in an egg.
And it was like, oh, yeah, you do have to put water on it. Fucking really? And then there was another one was like, you have to put mineral water on it. So I was like, okay, I get that bougie plant. Thank fuck that. The switch. Nintendo Switch online. Game Boy advance can rewind because I apparently missed by a pixel twice.
Jesus Christ.
You're lucky out of a game, though. You're probably thinking, f. It can't be an FD like, this game.
Isn't that, like, still phantom hourglass? But it's.
It's really weird because I really stand by the idea that Zelda two is not a great Zelda, but it's a decent game.
Oh, we're gonna have Zelda two?
Yeah.
This is, like, kind of a bad game and a mediocre Zelda at best.
Okay, I did not play nearly as much as you did, for sure, but I thought the combat was decent.
Clearly you don't mind.
The combat is not decent. The combat is repetitive. The items used to kill things require you to swap out constantly. It's for a. It feels as limited. Honestly, it feels more limited than, like, Link's awakening or oracle of ages and seasons of which had two buttons less than this game, because they were like, well, we're gonna make one button completely just kinstone related. That's the only purpose it has. We're gonna make one button, the select button instead of opening the map. It's how you make the stupid little bird hat talk. And he never says anything new. Whenever I hit select, I'm like, oh, no, I didn't mean to hit that. I was trying to open the map.
You want to talk to birdo the bird hat?
And the only thing this kind of did interesting was they were like, yeah, let's implement some four swords adventures mechanics for a single player game. But even then, they really did not use it well. And it's just sit here and charge up your. Your spinny strike for like 10 seconds, 5 seconds longer than you would have to charge up a bar so that you can stand on multiple of these little plat like little tiles that glow so you can push a block.
Ooh.
You need a copy to push a block. Oh, how exciting. Good use of mechanics.
Well, it gets wolf's seal of approval. I see.
This game was trash.
Well, what do you want to rank it as?
Game?
I don't understand why this game is so highly reviewed and regarded as a.
D. I was gonna say, well, you have given this more ire. Then you gave phantom hourglass and you gave that shit an f, but you're gonna give this one a d. I.
Kept playing this hoping it'll get better, and it doesn't. It just disrespects your time more.
And it's a d. Don't use my words. That's my words.
I will say this may be my favorite review that I've ever heard of from Wolf. That was. That was a journey. And the whole time I'm like, let him cook. This is wonderful. I'm in my brain trying to think, like, okay, what else is coming out? Mid to late 2004 that maybe people wanted to review this so highly. If I'm not mistaken, that's. That's the original release of this. I was straight up in my Metroid prime era to kind of reach back to last week. So, like I said, I sat this one out, but I had some friends in college who played it, loved it, but I never really knew much of it. So I'm gonna side with the very not enthused, passionate werewolf and say it's trash.
Metacritic, it has it as an 89, right? Like, I mean, that's. It's one of the better, like, trusted.
They were like, here's some great Zelda mechanics. Let's squander all of it.
You don't want to aim for, like, a c at all. You think? You think? I really think it's a d. If.
I just want to give it a c, fine. For me personally, it's a d. It.
Is the hardest of D's.
That is a super hard d. All.
Right, I'll go with D then. I think we might get some flack for that one, though. I think people like this one.
I don't care. It sucks.
He doesn't give a shit.
All right. Okay. All right.
I'm sorry. For those of you who enjoyed it.
Podcast werewolf on Twitter.
Who are you?
He's not a minish cap apologist. Fuck the bird.
This game, just like Stockholm syndrome, people.
Yeah. This game was. The quality was diminished.
Diminished, cap?
Diminished, cap. Yes.
I ain't shelling out any money for this gotcha game. Let's move on to the next one.
Since this is a giant.
All right, so since that one took so long, four swords adventures for the Gamecube. I'm sorry to step on you, chard. I will make this one very concise. This is a fun idea that quickly turns into fuck you. No, fuck you when you play it with four people.
But it's fun that way, though. It's a party game. I'd rather play this than 50 turns and Maria.
Party. I've never seen it because of that. Because everybody gets so annoyed and fed up with each other that we stop.
Playing four swords adventures. Puts the f you in fun, Jake.
Nice.
Okay, so look, so this is the GameCube one. This is the one where when we're saying one of the multiplayer focus Zelda games and then this one, if you play single player, I mean, so here's the. Here's the start with this game. The way it is meant to be played is you have one guy with a gamecube and then you and four friends. Four friends together sit down with your game boy advances and all connected together to the GameCube to play this multiplayer Zelda game. And the neatly mechanic is if you go into a house or a cave, that one player zooms to your GBA in front of you and you play on a small screen. It is very neat and very cool, but you have to be really rich with some rich friends to be doing this kind of setup. So the way I played it, I played it single player. And when you play single player, you instead of. I had a gba, but if you didn't have a gba, it would put a mini mock gba on the screen when you went inside. But what made this doable as a single player game is it had formations. You hit a button and the rest of your crew would follow you, and you can make formations. So you can be a line or this or a square, and that's how you got around the puzzles, and that's how you moved around, and that's how you got through everything as a single player. It was a little bit clunky, but it worked and it was fine. Unlike, you know, triforce heroes, I have beaten this game. Is it a great Zelda game? No, but it's functional. It's fun. There's some interesting twists. It looks like link to the past graphical style, but there's some upgrades, like there's like a fire rod, right? Which we all know from. From certain Zelda games. But in this one, if you. You can spread it as like a flamethrower, which is a really cool graphical effect. But if you torch grass, the whole field of grass catches on fire and just fucking burns the map. It's hilarious to see, and it felt very good. I know it's fun. Mission based bite, side piece, piece. Zelda game. I like this one. I thought it was fun, but I.
Thought it was super cool, but I've never beaten it because of the, you know, the, oh, you messed with. You messed me up for you. And people just end up throwing each other in pits and like this.
This is. This is one where there's like a competition between the players. Like, whoever gets the most rupees in a map, you're working collectively together to finish a map. But whoever has the most rupees gets like a shout out at the end of a stage. So there is some competition there, and you can fuck with the other player. It's like playing Chippendale with a friend. You can pick them up and throw them in a pit, right? It's that kind of trolling. This is a game that I would love to play with you guys because you can set up with emulation where you can play kind of how it was meant to. I love to play this end of.
The podcast because of four sword adventures.
I. Okay, I've beaten Contra however many dozens or hundreds of times at this point. But if you told me there was a completely separate and distinct ending for two player contra, I would have to take you at your word, because I know nobody who could, could get through that. And it's a similar thing. I remember when this came out, the idea of the mechanics and how, like, intertwined everything can be? It's such a cool idea. And it was even, well, I think, executed, but we never made it too far. We would. Okay, well, again, let's take a break. We'll order some pizzas or we'll go, you know, get drinks or something like that. And you come back, you start back up and everybody at the same time just says, I don't care enough to continue playing this with you guys.
Wow.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. It's a fun party game. When you take it as a party, I think it's a lot better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just, yeah. You step away because you get frustrated when you come back, your crestfallen and you don't care to. That was my experience with it. Now with you guys as a grown up in his mid fifties, I think, yeah, we could probably.
Yeah, I think we would manage to, like, work together enough and not fuck each other over enough to where we could get through it. And I love the concept of this. I enjoy the game. Like, my quick concise was not bad. Like, personally, I'd give it a b.
Yeah, it's a fun one. And, like, when we just said, like, zelda, Nintendo likes to, you know, incorporate mechanics. Sometimes they're shoeing them, shoehorning them in. This is definitely one where to have that set up where everybody has a GBA. Everybody has a fucking link cable. Nobody has a link cable, right. But have four people with link cables and gbas and one got the gamecube in this. That's a very rare.
I did it.
Small audience. Did you have all that stuff?
Oh, yeah, my friend. All of my friends had gbas. My brother had a GBA. I had a GBA. My friends had gbas, and we all had gamecubes, too. So it was like, play to your house. Play to my house, whatever. But, okay. I actually. I think I bought two extra link cables for the Game Boy to GameCube so that we could play it, because one person had that, and I was like, well, I'll buy one for me, one for my little brother, and one extra so we could play for a player.
Okay.
Because clearly this is the way of the future.
Clearly.
But, yes. Yeah, I don't think.
And then we played it, like, three times and never beat it. And everybody would get frustrated and they're like, no, I don't want to play that anymore.
Yeah.
It tested some friendship. In fact, to cool off from this game, we would play Monopoly.
Little Uno.
Reverse and just like monopoly, I can't play this with my kids. They would just cry. There's just no way. I don't play Monopoly with them anymore.
Let your kids win for once.
No, fuck that.
They got to learn the hard way.
Known rule in this family, which is family means more than anything except an uno. Like. And that's kind of the idea. Family doesn't mean shit in board games. Let's do this.
Yeah. 20, son.
Yeah.
So I'm fine with B. I think it's a good b. It's a fun game.
Yeah.
It's just not a classic Zelda game. It's a party game.
I guess I'll support your b. You were supported by b. Bees. Nuts. Okay, gotta reach next. Next innuendo. Next up, we're gonna talk a little legend of Zelda linked to the past and four swords. Now, this is the Game Boy advanced edition.
Can I recommend that we talk about link to the past first and then this real quick.
Because it's really further in on our list. And I'm going to go on a tirade about that. So.
So here's the thing with link. So the link.
Probably not.
It's a combo cart, right? So there's a link to the past game, and then there's the four swords adventure game. I think we just focus on the four swords adventure part.
Okay.
Yeah. Cuz otherwise it's.
Okay. Let's skip this one. Let's put a nil. Because, I mean, it's just a combination of the two. Yeah. And we'll.
Yes and no. Like, it's a different game.
And I do have words, but you.
Guys go, I have not played the GBA version of link to the past. I've only played the same.
The goodness.
Yeah.
Who wants to run with this? Who's gonna run with this?
All right, so let me. Let me say that, first off, you want to play four swords on the GBA there. It's very hard to do that. You can play on the Switch online right now, but spoilers, you need more than one player. It is not a single player game on the Switch online.
Yeah. No.
If you want to play four sword single player, there was a release, I think it was on the DS. Yes, it was the DS. That's how I played it. And they briefly had four Swords 25th anniversary edition on there. And then they took it down off the eshop because that's fucking what Nintendo does. But on that version, you could play single player. It basically gives you two links and you control both of them and you can swipe between, swash between the two of them. So I played a little bit of this last night. I don't like it at all when I love the gamecube one, which is also called four swords. That is a lot of fun. But the GBA one I found so tedious. I got to the first boss fight, which is this plant thing, and like, it's you and a pink link. And I assume if you're playing with four players, there's. There's four different links, all different colors, but the boss would alternate the petals between pink and green and would only take damage if you use the right link. So here I am swapping between links just to try and hit the goddamn plant to kill the boss. And it got to a stage where two poles, pulleys came on the side of it, and you had to get one link to go in, pull the pulley, pull it out of, swap the other link, pull it out, and then when the colors of the plant change, you'd rush in and smack it a few times only to repeat the process. It is one of those tedious bosses I've ever seen in a Zelda game, and it was the first boss. I can't imagine doing this in a group and being that coordinated, especially when the Gamecube four sword was so much more free form and just random arcadey. I didn't think about combat. It was just hectic mess. It was fun. But this one, you have to just with the two had to be really strategic in how you approach those bosses. I can't imagine doing this with more than two players.
You clearly haven't played Destiny with me and Lord Optic, so I actually did.
Play the four Swords adventure in this for. With like, two other people. We played through the entirety of the adventure and it was okay. Like, it was neat playing a Zelda because this was the first four swords thing. So it was the first multiplayer Zelda, really. It was neat to do it, but it wasn't the most exciting or memorable. It was. It just was.
Just exists. You are. Well, just you just is.
What's wild to me is that because when you mentioned Wolf, like you mentioned, that's on Switch online, I'm like, okay, great, I'll hop on Switch online and check it out. Why they went with the original GBA release and they didn't port over that limited 25th anniversary edition which lets you play alone, why they didn't include that is insane to me. Like, it just is the most Nintendo ass fucking Nintendo thing ever. To not include the game version of the game that you can actually play by yourself. They insisted you have this one because Nintendo Switch online. Yes, it has multiplayer, and it works, but it's so laggy. Every time I've tried online with Switch, it's such a pain in the ass, and it feels just awful. I don't know why they picked the wrong version of this game to play the release, so I don't. This one's an f to me. I think this is trash. I did not like the time. If you think it's better with real players and stuff, but I don't know.
But it's also a GBA port of Link to the past, so it's not that bad. You're still getting a link to the past. So I would give it maybe a BRC because it's not a great port of link to the past, but then it's also. The other thing is optional. I didn't buy it for four swords. I bought it to play late to the past again.
Really? Okay.
I mean, I was. I was interested in the four swords thing, but I. That's not why I bought it. A friend of mine ended up buying it, and he was like, hey, you want to try this? And I was like, yeah, let's do it.
Okay. I. I can see it being a combo pack being interesting. I still don't. I don't think I would give it a a b, but I could see it being a c because it has linked to the past, and I love link to the past combo pack. Knowing the g, the GBA port of this, if the sound is probably not as good. Sorry, GP.
It's not.
Oh, no.
It's also not the same size screen. So the resolution either gets funky or the way it fits on screen gets funky. So.
Okay, so you guys haven't played this, right? So seed, I. I'm cool.
Exactly. One half.
I could see it be a citizen.
It's a week. Four swords, so c is fine.
Okay, let's go with c. All right, we'll.
We'll go ahead and see our way out of that particular game and move on.
Fucking brilliant. With these comments you like. And I want to celebrate your wit and your charm. And I love you.
I love you because they're charming. You get an extra for charm. Rank bump.
C for charm monk. Charm monk is in full throttle tonight, ladies and gentlemen. There it is. Let's go ahead and talk about this. But now these. These next two have kind of a unique to them of being within the same realm of one another. We're going to go ahead and talk about oracle of ages, an oracle of seasons. Now, I'm doing that backwards because it's backwards in the orders, but chances are where we will talking about this in kind of a tandem and then we can decide on if the two of them received the same grade or if one had anything better than the other one. But I'm believing it's very much the leaf green firered of the Pokemon era of there's just little differences.
Not quite.
No, they are different.
No, they're very unique adventures.
If it's okay, I'm gonna go first. I'll be. I'll be concise. But when I found out they were putting this with the Game Boy whatever on the Switch subscription package, this is why I was excited. This is my favorite thing from that whole Game Boy musical games. I like the package. So, yeah, I enjoy these. They. I can't say enough great stuff about the game Boy, considering its roots and how everybody at Nintendo originally thought the whole thing would just fail and it would be abysmal experience to see everything they accomplished with that system as a whole. But to me, I think these two games are probably some of the best on that system, in my opinion. As an old school Zelda fan and somebody who just thought what a cool way to be able to still play a Zelda game and have it feel like something I love while walking around or riding in the back of the Dodge caravan. I love that. Good memories and playing again on the switch has been fun. So thank you.
I'll also make mine very concise as much as humanly possible. I've played tidbits of these guys both on them, but they have such a. We're getting into the classic, the more classic or versions of the Legend of Zelda that I was born and raised on and grew up with. And playing these even today, like, they have some really cool aspects to it. I like the jumping aspect where you get the feather and you have to jump from one point to the other. I thought that was a really cool addition edition. The having to swap it in and out was kind of a pain, but it's just part of the charm of the game, you know, since we're going to use that word all day. I love the musical aspect to it. I like finding the instruments and. And all that stuff moving on. And I like how these two are basically a sequel of one another. Like, almost, in a sense, like, I just like how they kind of. It's hard to say because it's not like a direct sequel. It's nothing. There's subtle differences between the two, but I like how they're married together, and I always.
It's not linked as links. Awakening chart. Right. Like. Or ages and seasons are, like, in tandem to each other in terms. They are linked. In fact, you can. I have not beaten these. I've only played a little bit of these. They're on my list to play. But if you beat one, then you can bring items into the second one. Is that what it is?
Not as much as you'd expect. Um.
Okay.
It gives you some bonuses to start the other one with the code.
Okay.
It's. It's a lot more limited than I expected. I personally only played through seasons, and then I took that code and entered it into ages, and I was like, that's all you get. And I was so annoyed that I didn't continue playing. I played it for, like, an hour and was like. It's basically like. In a sense. Yeah. They're basically the same game. There's different plot. They're a different adventure. It's a totally different map and world layout between the two games. But ultimately, it's, like 85% the same items between the two games and a few unique items in each game that change up aspects of the gameplay.
If the second quest from the original Zelda game had been packaged as a sequel game, think something along those lines.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it makes sense. I like it.
I think not even that, because second quest was the same map. Just rearranged.
Rearranged, yeah. And then more, like holes in the walls and things like that. But it was, you know, if you look at the differences between the first and second Zelda games, one's obviously a overhead, you know, adventure game. The second one has platforming aspects and side to side, this is just same aspect, same. Same design, but alterations, I guess is probably how I should have said that.
Right?
It's just more Zelda. It's more Zelda. If you like seasons, you'll like ages is more Zelda. From what I understand. One is more puzzling than the other. The other one's more action. Yeah. But it's the same vibe. They're both done by the same team. It's Capcom who did this, by the way, too.
Maybe Mario one and Mario. Not. Not Doki. Doki, Mario two, but, like, lost levels.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, like, I thought these ones were great. They were a lot of fun. They. They really nailed what made Zelda great at the time. And they did it on a handheld.
Right.
Yeah.
I. To me, this is like the last vestige of the good zeldas that we liked before we started getting the minish caps, the phantom hourglasses, and all that stuff. I feel like this, like, before we went into the 3d era, or, I mean, we were in the 3d era during this time, but this was like the last 2d Zelda adventure that was like, this still speaks to me in my nostalgia. And even going back and playing oracle of ages and seasons or one or the other, it gives me that nostalgic feel of like, okay, I'm back. This is. This is what I'm used to playing. This is what I like. I would give this probably an a or a b. Oh, I had a sneeze. Sorry. I would give this an a or a bde. Just. It's. It tugs at my nostalgia. Bones. I like the gameplay of it. I like. I like the feel of it, like the characters, and it's. It's something cool that was on the Game Boy color back in the day, and it's. It's still fun to play even today.
Yeah. When links Awakening got a Switch remaster remake, I was hoping they would take that engine and put seasons in or in ages in that engine as one thing, but of course that would make too much sense, and Nintendo is not going to do that there, so. But, yeah, I always want to play these I links awakening, which we'll get to. I love links awakening. Game Boy was one of my favorite devices ever. I think a makes sense for these ones. I think they're both, like, look really solid. Like, well designed story was. It was good. Graphics are good for a Game Boy. Music is good. I have no issues with these two games.
I I would lean s on these, personally. Like, these are the top tier Zelda.
Yeah. Okay.
I would put them below one, two, and link to the past, but that's me. I would put them at the high end of the a's.
Yeah, I'm kind of settled at an a, like a higher a, but not quite s tier because we're starting to get into the s tiers, like, next.
But if you are looking at Game Boy games, and yes, they are s tier. Game Boy games. Right?
Yeah.
Okay. All right. So without further ado, let's get to the greats. The great, the latest and greatest or earliest and greatest, I don't know. Earliest and bestest. We're going to talk Legend of Links Awakening, which for the longest time, whenever I see someone play oracle seasons, I thought they were playing links awakening because little did I know because they just look so similar. But, you know, obviously the story is completely different, and there's a bunch of different shit to it. But as Jake said, loving links awakening. I also love Link's awakening. I love playing this on the game Boy. This. This is an s tier game, in my personal opinion. I think this game brought Zelda to the game boy in a way that was. That was great. It was compact. You could play it in the back of your Ford Aerostar or your Dodge caravan and GPS resigned.
The Honda Odyssey fucks hard there.
Yes. Does. It does with the sticker. It says, I used to be cool on the back of it, but it's a great game. I love Link's awakening. What else is there to say? It's Game Boy Legend of Zelda. That was translated super well in a portable, smaller package, and I love it. I love it. I love it. I think it's an s tier game. Link's awakening definitely needs to be on the upper echelon with a couple of these other games towards the end of our list.
I didn't play it back in the day. I've actually only ever watched it as the rerelease that came out, whatever that was, three, four, five years ago. People seem to really enjoy that. I thought it looked great and seemed like it was an enjoyable one. It's on my list of shit to buy that I have yet to buy, and I got to kind of be at the mercy of whatever you guys say here. So I trust you, and I will take your word for it. But from what I understand, it is absolutely classic Zelda.
Yeah, for me. Sorry, Jake, do you want to go first?
No, you can go ahead if you want. It's fine.
For me, this is also s tier. Like, this combined the overhead that Link to the past did so well with some aspects of the 2d platforming that Zelda two tried to pull off. And it did it so well, and it was just a lot of fun. The game was super charming. Like, it brought in chain chomps and just random other things, and all the characters were just silly and fun. I mean, when you get your marin joins you, it's like, you got Marin, you got Marin. Everything was a. You got this thing.
It was a streamer that I. I still adore.
Yeah, I know her. You got Maren. But, yeah, like, I love that this game had so much charm, and the music was all awesome, and even though it was on that little four tone black and white screen or green screen or whatever, it really exuded charm. Even in the graphics, it did a good job. And this is s tier for me.
Yeah, that's the highlight for me is the music, because even the best example I can give, and I'm always impressed with what people do with music on the Gameboy. But whenever you go to the windfish egg and you play the orc arena, you get the windfish song. And as you collect the instruments from every dungeon, that song gets more and more complex as the instruments bleed together to make the song. That still is a wild to me, that there's that much depth to that song if you. If. As you get the instruments. I think that's so. Such a banger thing. I love this game. This. This is s tier to me as well. The graphics for, again, for a four color game Boy, what they do with that is staggering. Like, I look at so much like early Game Boy games, and you look at the late game, late generation of Game Boy games. It's amazing what they pack into a cart. It really is. This is my favorite zelda. I play it all the time. It's like this. And then tears of the kingdom, for me, in terms of, like, my enjoyment of Zelda, there's, like decades where I didn't give a shit about the franchise anymore until tears of the kingdom and breath of the wild. But going back to links awakening was, like, the last one I really enjoyed. I love this one. So this is us for me as well.
Sweet. That's a resounding. I think we all are in major agreement that this is. I still think, like, this was one of the last, I mean, next to Oracle seasons and ages, this was like the last really good ZelDa before we started, you know, two daughter 2d overhead Zelda before we got into, like, more of the 3d stuff and then trying to bleed the 3d artwork into the 2d art work that they did in the later installments and the weird mechanics that they keep adding, this was, like the purest form beyond what we were used to playing. You know, this is like the last. This is my last, like, grand Torino, you know, before they changed everything in the car and, well, put a computer.
This one. This one was like an after hours passion project for the team that worked on it for a long time. And then when they finally had it somewhere, they went and they're like, we want to do this as a game. And showed it off. And higher ups were like, okay, yeah.
I mean, that's why there's cameos like Kirby and chain Chomps and Goombas is because it was just like, they're just messing around after hours for fun. And this is what they came up with. It's a really cute game. Yeah.
I mean, even when you, and I hate to use the word dumbed down or the phrase dumbed down, but you do dumb down the sprites to make it fit on the GBA. It still looks great. It still looks really, really good for a two tone dumb down sprite game. It's a great, great game. Link's awakening, definitely s tier. Moving on to the next s tier. Unless anybody else has anything they want to add with links awakening before I just push the I'm going to be.
Lost in the hills later, so keep an eye out here. I don't know if you guys remember him, the dude that just announces he's going to be lost later.
Just so you know, I shouldn't be.
Leaving the house, but I will. You'll find me lost who knows where later, so keep an eye out. I need to be brought home.
What do you think? You give him a pineapple, I think, or something. You give him some vittles.
He's one of the guys you trade with. Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
What a charm, man.
We're going to continue the s train into the next game because if nobody else picks. If I'm the only one that picks s tier for this game, I don't know if I want to do this podcast with you guys anymore. Next up is Legend of Zelda, link to the past for the Super Nintendo. This is by all means and every thought in my brain, my favorite Zelda ever created. I love this game. I played this game religiously over and over again. I've done randomizes of this game. This game does not get bored. To me. There are times where I'm like, I can't think of anything else what to do. I'm going to play Zelda Link to the past because it's such a fun, cool, soul food esque type game where it's just. It's just comfortable to play, and I love playing it, and there's never a time in my life where, like, I don't want to play this anymore. I love link to the past. The characters, the story that, the boost from the eight bit to the fucking 16 bit stuff. It's just so cool. There's so, like, there's so much detail in this game, and it's. It's fun to map it out. I love the randomizer that they threw in there to make it, like, more exciting and more like, oh, I got to go here and do this and racing on that stuff, like, to the past is phenomenal rom hack, to be.
Fair, but yes, I don't think we can count that.
Whatever.
This is a homebrew game, wasn't it?
Yes. Yes. Anyways, just the sense of using the same baseline as link to the past is a lot of fun. It's the same thing with free enterprise for Final Fantasy for randomizer, and worlds.
Collide, new world for yeah, six.
It's great shit. But yeah, this definitely put the SNes. This is an amazing game, and I don't think there's any other Zelda out there that's better than this one. And that's my first.
I would say it is. In hindsight, with the benefit of the. The library of Zelda games being what it is, this is the quintessential experience. Up two. Well, I get because we're not talking about the 64 games, we're not talking about the Switch games. So of this list, I would say this is the definitive experience. I had the benefit of playing one and two before this, and I feared that if I had played link to the past first, I might not have enjoyed the first two as much as I have growing up. But yeah, this is the final Fantasy four of the Zelda realm. This is the. If I could get hit on the head and have selective amnesia for certain things, this would be one of the games I would like to go back and experience for the first time.
Absolutely.
And yeah, no notes. This is great. I do like that it has lent itself to, like you said, the randomizer thing that they've done with Metroid, all of that stuff.
So good.
You know, it's infinitely replayable on its own, never mind all the different versions that are out there now as passion projects and rom hacks. So that's all I've got. I'm s tier. Absolutely. With this one.
Yeah, I'm. I'm with you. This is definitely s tier. This is still my favorite 2d Zelda, and I too, I felt like I had to make that distinction for a long time. Still do. This is just the best 2d Zelda period. It did a lot of cool new stuff. The puzzles were super interesting and unique, and just the random items you find. This was one of those games that, you know, when you cut. Uncovered a secret when all you. You and your friends are playing this as kids, everybody was like, dude, I found this. What? And then everybody wanted to go home and test that exact thing. Be like, dude, that's red, right?
I have to run into the wall.
Some of the best music, the fine music, the. The item music. All that. All that. So good. It's so good.
Like, for me in this, like, I go back and forth between this or Link's awakening is my favorite Zelda in terms of charm and story, it's probably Link's awakening. But, I mean, I just love Link to the past. It's such a great game. It's one where I almost wish they redid it remake, but then I don't want them to fuck it up. So don't touch it. But this is the Super Nintendo game for me. Like, when we look at Super Nintendo, if I could only take one game to a desert island with that machine, it would be this one. I'll shit on Mario world to a degree. I can never. I can never talk bad about link to the past. It is hands down my favorite super tendo game. Like, it's really that good. And adding in all the rom hacks behind the scenes, there's. There's so many rom hacks. The randomizer with met Super Metroid combined, the two roms together has. Hilarious. It was so well done. I know it's a fan thing, but to show you that the fan dedication to a game like this is something I think to appreciate, I love this game. Absolutely.
Who could hate this game existed? When they sent the Voyager probe out into space, they would have said, we don't need to put the gold record on there.
Yes.
Open a textbook, children. Look it up.
I think this is an s tier game. Easy. This is a super, super s tier game, so, yeah. All right. I'm excited to talk about this next one because I I. I love this.
Hold on. Did Wolf get a chance to talk about that? I mean.
Oh, yeah, I did.
I have a stroke.
Okay.
Okay. I'm sorry.
It's okay. I'm. I'm interested to hear either the division that this game brings or the camaraderie that this particular title in the track brings. Wolf's looking at me like, I'm gonna burn this bitch to the ground.
No, no, no.
I'm gonna grab the fire hose and put out the fire. That's it. So let's talk Zelda to the adventures of Link, which is one of the most polarizing Zelda games, I think that's out there. Hmm.
Adventure of Link. No.
Yeah.
Venture. It's adventures. He has more than one. Don't let. Okay, this just happened. I don't know what of the adventures. I know. It is adventure. Link. It is a single player, a singular adventure.
I will lump both of these words together, if I may, or both of these games, and then I'll clam up for the rest of the episode. But if ever you ask me what my opinion is, which would I rather do, whether it's eat this food or eat this food, you know, have. Have this type of cologne or this kind of cologne or this game or this game. In literally every aspect of my life, I can choose between two different things pretty well. This is the one where I'm like, I literally do not care. Put the game on and I will play it and I will be happy. Don't make me pick, because honestly, you could flip a coin and I don't give a shit. I have no preference. Every time I think I'm going to like one more than the other, I hesitate and I find that I cannot bring myself to truly 100% get behind one or the other. I love them both equally in separate ways, and that is everything I have to say. Both of these s tier for me. Thank you. But I will say gold cart only. No, great cart. I know it's a weird bougie thing.
No, it's not bougie. Give me the gold cart with the sword on it. I'm all about it. Adventure of Link is a very awkward Zelda coming out of what the original Zelda was. It's almost an rpg in the aspect that you do level up. You gain experience, you, you know, raise your stats, you raise your attack power, your life and all that stuff. Magic, all that crap. There's always random encounters. There's random encounters while you're on the world map out there fighting things. But it's a weird thing because it's not a turn base, it's a platformer where if you get a random encounter, you either have to traverse from one side of the map to the other or fight off some things and then move on to the next thing. The towns are full of dangers, which I have found both to be humorous and super fucking annoying. There's a lot of really cool secrets in the game. The dungeon music is a banger. I think the music in Zelda two is absolutely top tier music. I hated this game as a child and as a. As an adult. I played through it again and have such a high level of respect for this game, for what it was that it's an s tier game to me. I've, you know, as much as people give. Give shit on this game and give it shit, I thought I'd be the only one. I thought I would be laughed off of this episode from all three of you guys because I gave Zelda to an s tier ranking because I think it is so unique in what Zelda did even after and before. It's no link to the past, I'll give you that. It's not even. It's not even Zelda Legend of Zelda one, but what it did on its own, right, gives it its own perk to be an s tier game for me. So I absolutely give this because the rpg are in me fucking love Zelda two. I was really disappointed when I read it as a kid, though, I'll tell you that right now, because I was bad at it. Real bad at it.
It's hard.
Yeah, it is very hard.
Wolf, you want to go or you want me to go?
I'll go. So I have long stood by the idea that this is not a bad game, but it's not a great Zelda game. I do appreciate what it did. I don't dislike it by any means. There's points in it that the translation could have been better, and the game suffers for the lack of a decent translation at points. I do like the random encounter method that they used. It's not just walk and all of a sudden you're in a battle. No. You see the little dude coming and getting you before you're in combat. I like that. The music in this game. Spectacular. I do like that they mixed it up from the first Zelda game. They didn't just repeat the same exact formula, like what, Mario to Mario two lost levels. There's a same game just with new stuff. Right. It's the same formula. This. They were like, no, let's do something completely different. And I appreciate that also. It's Simon's quest before Simon's quest to a degree.
Wow. Yeah. Okay.
Because this came out, like, eight months before Simon's quest, but, yeah, I also love Simon's quest. That said, I don't think I can give this anything better than a b.
Oh, that cuts me deep. That cuts me deep.
This is one of only two games that I had to call Nintendo powers hot or Nintendo's hotline for help on. There was. I want to say it was a, you need the thunder spell to kill the red boss in the one dungeon. And as a kid, that. That messed me up real hard. I couldn't figure it out. Is it different than Zelda one and all the other ones? Yeah, absolutely. But there's elements of Zelda two that has been re brought into the more newer games. I would argue that, like Ocarina of time and. And breath of the wild and all those other games where the combat is much more tactical, I think our callbacks to Zelda, too, in terms of the combat, I think so that's. That's my take on it. So I think. I think people think that's like a sequel that was kind of ignored going forward. I think a lot of that game gets carried on later on, but they certainly ignored it for Link to the past. Link's awakening. Absolutely. But I think it's definitely a game that is. Was used later on. I thought the controls are pretty slick. The controls feel really good. The combat is fun. I like how, you know, when you jump and do headshots with the sword. I like the spells that are there. Do I miss some of the items that, you know, Zelda before had? Sure, but you have the spells to kind of make up for that. And you still get items in the dungeons.
You still have to get some of the items out of the dungeons to progress and other stuff, too, so.
But they're not really active items. Right. Like, you get the cannon.
A lot of them are. Yeah.
But I still like the sense of exploration is definitely still there. There's definitely a lot of hidden stuff. I just. I actually like the leveling up. Like GP said, it's leveling your way. I usually wait to get the first attack upgrade and then I look at the other ones. I usually, you know, but you have that choice. It's really good. It's just. It's a fun game. I got stuck on that one boss, but other than that, this game was pretty solid all the way through. And I think Shadow Link. Right. That's incorporated later. Like, there's DNA from this game that is necessary for the franchise later. And I'm glad we have it. So I think it's a solid game for me. It's. I think it's an s tier. I love this game. And I know that, you know, in modern day, some people shit on as well. I know we did a whole episode about sequels that are different than the original game, and this is one of them. But having played it a bunch since that episode, I think this is a great game. I think it's s tier.
Damn, I love it. So I seriously thought I would get mocked off of this goddamn podcast tonight. I thought this was going to be my bane. I am so happy and proud to hear that that is not the case. That's amazing.
No, I'm. I might disagree with you guys, but that doesn't mean, like, decision. I don't like. I can understand how you guys came to s. I don't think it's an s, personally, but, I mean, you guys do it.
Keep that energy of cooperation so that when we do an episode of a circus Charlie next year, that you have that same of cooperation, you know, love.
For camaraderie, for circus fucking Charlie. That game's got. I do want to laugh off of this channel.
I I think. I think this game, uh, lit. Sorry. The adventure of Link is what awoken, awakened. Uh, whatever the front loading rpg enthusiast is in me, I I would go to that first castle or dungeon or whatever. Awoke. Yeah. That whole sentence was just fubard.
Yes.
One more time. Let's start over from the beginning. Anyway. I'd go to the first dungeon, and I wouldn't. I wouldn't leave or finish that out with the crystal until, like, everything was leveled up to, like, level five.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes.
I mean, that, you know. Yeah, I'll grind the fuck out of anything. Final Fantasy two was only doable because Zelda two exactly made it exist.
Yep.
And it was the gateway driver as well.
To the grass.
Yeah.
Give me more peabags, baby. Let's go.
Complain to me about grinding, kid. I was there with Zelda, too.
You don't know how to grind.
You don't know so many slimes.
Well, we got three s's and a b, which probably automatically knocks that to a high a, which makes me sad, but that's fine. I guess I can live with a high a, so I can respect Wolf's opinion about that game.
Okay.
Okay, last one.
Let's round this up. Let's round the wagons, baby. Let's talk about the pinnacle of all Zelda games. Obviously, we're talking about the legend of Zelda. That one. The first one. I have some fun stories about the gold cart and being young and playing it in a thunderstorm and my sister saying that if lightning struck the house, I would lose my entire save file. And then the power went out right when I got the warp flute for the first time. And I wept openly, which was one of the hardest things I had ever done as a kid and did not pick that game up until way later into my twenties and thirties and finally finish it on a plane ride over to Hawaii. So it was an incredible playthrough. I love Zelda. This is a nest tier game for me. It made Zelda. It made a. It's like. It's. It's better than Metroid, but it's still, like, within that vein of importance to the rest of them. Metroid one. I mean, you had to draw the map, you get lost in the. In the forest. You had to draw the map for the forest to get through that. And I remember where all the goddamn dungeons were. And then you play the second level or the second tier of the second playthrough, and everything was swapped around, and you were like, no, no, I knew where everything was. I memorized it. So everything got all swapped, swapped to dude on you, and it came up with great lines, such as the opener of this in particular episode. It's a great game. Zelda is classic. Forever and always. It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
Secret is in east most peninsula.
Yes. I always say this, you know, touching the statues and them coming to life on you, and you're like, what the fuck? Like some crazy ass shit that this game gave you a raft to get to dungeons that were difficult to get to. I mean, finding. It's the Metroidvania. It's the. It's the Zelda vania. The whole thing. I mean, this. This caused the whole thing to progress. You need to find more and love this game. It made money impossible to find, which was a proceed to the rest of my life always never having money and always winning shit. So, you know, I think I reflect my personal life with Zelda too much because I'm always poor and I always want stuff. So there you go.
I am saving the second quest for when I retire. I have yet to play through it. I am mildly aware of some of the things walking through the walls, things, you know, things I mentioned earlier. But I will play, you know, vanilla OG time after time after time after time. But my reward for my retirement is, all right, fresh Zelda. And it makes no sense, but that's how it is. That's where we are. I love this game. At least the first half of it. I haven't, like, said, played the second quest. No notes. It is the exact right amount of difficulty for when it came out. And I. Yeah, it was a game changer, and the world would not be the same without it. So there we go.
Zelda is the reason I like dark souls, because it's just. Just punishing enough.
It doesn't hold your hand at all. Like, right from the get go. You start with nothing but a shield, and there's a cave you walk into, and he's like, here, take this sword. And then that's it. It doesn't tell you where to go. Like, so, for me, nes championship came out the other week, and I've been playing through that, and one of the challenges is to basically get to the first dungeon. That's the challenge. Get to the first dungeon, and I can't remember the hell where the hell to go, but at least this one, it gives you arrows. And the switch came to tell you where to go. And that's what reminded me that it does not hold your hand. There's a map. It's mostly useless. It's a game where you broke paper as a kid. A great block. Yeah. And it just roughly tells you where you are. This was a game where you had graph paper and you made your own maps, even for the dungeons to make.
Didn't the instruction guide have some sort of map with it? Like a small map, but it didn't have the forest.
It was part of the map. It was like a third or half of it uncovered. And then, like, the upper right and left corners were gone.
Right.
And you had to hold it underwater.
I will say, though, that some of this, some of the hidden stuff, and I'm probably a little bit hazy whether it's first or second quest, but there are some of the hidden stuff, like you had a candle to burn bushes, and there are some of the bushes you could burn. Run a screen full of bushes or trees, and to find the one that you could burn was a bit much. Like, there was some stuff that was very obscure to find, like bombing just the right wall, just the right screen. That made this game very challenging to do without help or with the guide. But that's good. I mean, that's kind of what you wanted. And as a kid, if you bought Zelda, the fact that there was a second quest, that's a whole other game. That's a lot of gameplay, a lot of bang for your buck. There's a lot of value here, but it is a difficult game, and it is a bit hard in spots. So I don't know if I would call it s tier. I love this game, but I think for me, it's an a. But I might be wrong on that one with you guys.
I would also say an a because as much as this game got right, the save system requires you to die.
To save, just like in real life.
Yeah, that's how I say it works, right?
Prove me wrong so much. Right.
But there's no, like, way to just save and quit. You have to die to save. Like, what is that? That's a little weird.
I'm not being an a tier game. I'm not mad.
Also, if at any point in life, you ask me the question, GP, do you want to play Zelda?
One.
The answer is yes. And for that alone.
Oh, I love the game. I was terrible at it as a kid, and I relentlessly played it anyway.
Like, we were all terrible at it.
Memories of being, like, whipping out my game genie and trying to play it with that. And, you know, I'd be a ways in and be like, oh, I can't save because I can't die.
Yeah.
Oh, there are.
There are. Okay. Growing up, there were a small number of games where the closer you got to the end, the higher your anxiety got. And maybe that's just me as somebody who famously has anxiety issues, but, yes, this is one of those ones, especially after that final temple or dungeon or whatever. Wait, no, sorry. The word is no dungeons. The one I'm thinking of. Anyway. Have you ever gone through that whole thing and you're like, oh, my God, I'm there. And then it's just this giant warthog, and you hope to God that you, you know, have everything, but turns out you don't have the holy arrows.
Yep.
I'm just saying, like, shit was tough. You're right. They didn't hold your hand, and they made getting to the end such an extreme ordeal that you just. I don't know. I remember the anxiety. I miss it. I love it. I'm probably going to have to play it tonight. Going to bed. So.
Great game. A tier. I'm fine with a tier. I'm totally cool with a tier. I'm sad that Zelda two is only an a, but, you know, having a whole ass game in between a bunch of all the other ones there is. It's pretty good. I'm glad.
Almost every single dungeon design was awesome. There's one that was really, you know, unfortunate.
Right.
But other than that.
All right, guys, I'm gonna have. I'm gonna leave my screen up, so it's not to mess anything up, but I do have to take off. So I'm just gonna mute my mic and let you guys finish it out.
Okay, we're wrapping up now.
Yeah, my wife is giving you the test, so. All right, well, that is our. That's our list. That's our ranking episode. We did this with Metroid. We thought we'd try this again with another absolutely amazing classic with the Zelda series. Now, we were talking about, do we want to do them all? And we're already at 2 hours with the. The. So there was no way we were going to cover the three ds. So maybe sometime in the future we'll sit down and we'll do a whole 3d episode on all the other ones because I know GP is dying chomping at the bit to get to talk about words.
I have words for Majora's mask.
Let's go.
Yeah, me too.
So.
But the will be a shorter episode, I think, because there's less of them, I think. At least I hope so.
No, you're probably not. Probably not. I can't wait to get shit on for my love of wind Waker. Anywho, so that's what you got. If you guys have anything you want to add or think that we've ranked these terribly, or think that we haven't ranked these terribly and want to agree with the four of us because we're never wrong. We're on the Internet. We're never wrong. Please come and hang out with us over. Press B to cancel.com. yes, I said it right. This right? Or press B.org. i don't know if we still have that one.
Yes.
Let me know when you say.com.
It fucks me up. Because I keep thinking you're saying presby.com, which we don't own, but yes, presbytery.
Or guys who cancel the full name.
Buddy, go give me a follow over on Twitch at Twitch TV. Dj spin a star.
Yeah.
And please do.
Please go follow him. We'll go round robin. Anybody want to bring anything up that they've got coming up that they're doing?
I know it's a long episode. I'm good.
Okay. I go to bed over at Chard Monk. That twitch at treadmonk. We're playing games. We're down Isle awake. It's a lot of fun. It's hot as balls. So with that wolf. We love you. Send a star. We'll see you soon, GP Jake. I love you guys too. That's been an episode. We'll see you guys next Friday. And I'm just starting from the bottom up.
Yeah, yeah, let's do. Let's do bottom up.
It's gonna be like a face down. Yeah. Never. It hadn't been long enough yet.
Come. Come back for seven in seven minutes with that joke. GV.
Seven minutes. Is that how you. Hyuk. Wait, is that what we're doing? Yeah, I prefer we're doing the goofy joke.
Yeah.
No, goofy is the only. The only one with an actual offspring.
I.
Okay, I have. I know I'm not the first person to notice this, but. Goofy dog. He's a dog, right? He's a big old dog. Loveable. Pluto is a what?
He's a dog. Too.
Okay.
One of them talks and wears naked on a leash.
Well, okay. Oddly enough, Bill Farmer actually addressed this recently. Bill Farmer, the voice of great reason.
Really? Okay.
Recently, like, I got an article about this in the last few weeks. He said that they are sort of a divergence in the evolution of canines.
So I know which of the two.
I would rather be like, is this the. Is this an MCU timeline that. Earth 66.
Yeah. I feel like goofy would have met Pluto and been like, bro, what are you doing? And then when nobody's looking, Pluto's like, don't ruin this for me. I got a good thing going.
Nobody expects anything until the cast. Robert Downey Junior is both goofy and as Pluto. Then we'd have a problem.
But until then, my favorite so far is Robert Downey Junior s face superimposed on every single Avenger character, including Black Panther, on the COVID of the next Avengers movie.
And it was him from Tropic Thunder.
I have fucking amazing. It's actually really.
Well, Robert Downey Junior, if you're listening, please come on the show. We have so many questions.
We love our dj.
Oh, my God. Weird science. That was when I first, you know.
Yeah, he's. He was a great Iron man. I just don't want him as Doom, man. I don't. Yeah, they could have gone with anybody else. Any.
We need to do. We need to maybe put this episode on the back burner so that we can have a doom discussion because I. Doom talk.
Because you do got to understand, this is the third installment of the Fantastic Four. No, the fourth installment of the Fantastic Four.
Yeah.
And who are they going to get? They're going to get RDJ to bring that shit back.
The rumor I saw was Killian Murphy for the longest time.
He would have crushed such a great actor.
Veal was also out there, too.
Mads Mikkelsen. I know he was. But if you had done like a Kaecilius variant who, you know, or even if there's like a thing where Doom decided to, you know, try to be a good guy and change his name to Kiselius, you know what I mean? So like, he just had. I don't know.
Why not Gary Oldman conversation.
Doom.
Gary Oldman would be great, too.
I would say Gary Oldman Oldman was.
The other 17 dooms on stage with RDJ. But here, here's what I'm saying. And Mads can do anything. And here's the thing also, Robert Downey Junior is going to crush it. He'll do great.
Yeah, sure.
But Doom is such a great character. We're going to miss out on his whole experience so that we can get a Tony Stark variant so the whole thing can end how it began. And I just.
Victor von Stark.
Give me Tony von Doom.
I think they're not going to do a Tony stark variant. I think he's literally going to be Victor von Doom as well.
Can't. That's not. I don't think so.
I think he's going to be a Tony Stark variant that was adopted or something.
Yes, think so.
100% by the Doom family. Something we've seen from his history where he drops the, the mic and is like, no, I'm out. I'm done. And then he goes and, and becomes.
Von Doom if he ever does. If there's a scene, that movie where he's pulls the mask off and he just says, I am doctor Doom. Right, like the I am Iron man scene, I'm just going to walk out of the theater. I'll be, I'll be done with the friendship.
I trust in the writers and I trust in RDJ and I'm sure they're going to give us something great, but we deserve to be able to see the von Doom life and history. And I think we'll get that after the soft reboot. Doom will still be around, but they'll do another actor and they'll give him like the full treatment, but whatever.
Hopefully, especially after the last two Fantastic Four movies, which were. I mean, I didn't mind the most recent one. It was okay. But I didn't like what they did with doom in that one.
I just know they deserve so much better. Fantastic Four is supposed to be like this happy thing and like, you know, I don't know, but it. I think the guy who wasn't named Josh Trank, I think he just did not like those characters and we wanted everybody to be miserable. And that sucks.
Yeah.
I did like the design for thing, though. I thought that was great.
Yeah, yeah.
This episode has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
No.
Of this list.
Four of the gamestans this week.
And there's more than four. Okay. Let's actually start the episode now. I think that'd probably be a good idea.
Yeah.
I love you. Marvelous.