Almost Gamers
Join us in a casual conversation with friends about gaming. It's a humorous journey into what we are currently playing, sometimes poorly and not usually on trend. We also talk new and upcoming releases, gaming news, best of lists, and are never afraid to go off on crazy tangents.
Almost Gamers
Episode Eight: The Inn Part 1
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Back at it with some updated What Yinz Playing. Matt starts the 33rd expedition and likes what he see so far. Andy and Matt are both on team dodge, those parries can suck it. MAtt also gives the final review on South Of Midnight. Andrew takes a deep dive into the sounds of Mick Gordon and the creation of our Boss Battle music. Speaking of which, our BB comes from our first request and we take a stroll through time with The Legend of Zelda.
So I find myself drinking less coffee. Okay. Like it's interesting. It it it You just eat the beans? Well swallow them whole man. Just imagine line them up like Coke and just do lines of uh lines of coffee beans.
SPEAKER_03Straight Colombian.
SPEAKER_01But I do find it like it makes it more special when I do have it. Have you ever gone like a week without caffeine and then like have a triple espresso or something like that? Speaking of cocaine, I mean I imagine that's what cocaine feels like. Like it's uh yeah, you feel the fluttering of the god, I'm gonna die, but I love it.
Intro
SPEAKER_01Hello yens. Welcome to episode six.
SPEAKER_00Six.
SPEAKER_03Wow, can you you know what? I was thinking actually, episode six, we only have six hundred and sixty more till episode six six six.
SPEAKER_01Well that that gives us some motivation to keep going.
SPEAKER_03And we can I think we should just play the inflamed song nonstop for an hour.
SPEAKER_01That'll be episode six six six will be episode six six six played. All right, I'm in. I'm in. We're doing it. So I first want to thank everyone out there for listening. We've been really growing. We've had a lot of plays, a lot of people uh listening, and it it it's good to know that we're not just talking to ourselves.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's oddly, you know, not comforting to know people find this interesting.
SPEAKER_01Maybe maybe. Maybe I mean it's also like we don't get much feedback. No, no, no one yet no one has yet to message us, but uh but I assume it'll have we're doing something. Well, we'll get the hate mail. I mean, once you get the hate mail, that's when you know you've made it. Ah, there it is. That's that's the true sign of a good podcast, is when people hate you for no reason. Or nitmail or nitpick nitpick here. That's that's the thing.
SPEAKER_03Oh, there's a ton to nitpick. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I do want to uh mention uh, you know, check us out on social medias right now. Uh Instagram is almost gamers. Uh we have almost gamers.com is the website, which will therefore lead to all sorts of fun pictures and links to all the other fun things we're doing out and about. And uh that also leads us to the Buzz Sprout page where you can obviously listen to us and as much as you want. And if you want, uh support us. There's a little thing, and more importantly, message us. We want to hear from you. Yeah, let us know what you like.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and also feel free. Like if you're in Spotify, just give us a five star. But you know, you don't have to actually think we're five stars, but you know, it's a little white lie. You can lie a little bit. Yeah, you can lie for us, fluff our numbers up a little. You guys like us, yeah. I guess support us, right? Yeah, all right, all right, all right. That's enough plugging, I guess.
SPEAKER_01And now it's time for what yin's playing.
What Yinz Playing?
SPEAKER_04What yin's playing!
SPEAKER_01All right, so Andy, Andy. We're you know, I'm always adding uh work for you. Okay, here we go. Okay, so here's here's here's what I want the the music to be here. Oh, I didn't even think about music. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So for what yin's playing, I'm picturing like a marching band drum cadence.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Might have to get Kurt involved. I was thinking, you know, and then we'll get like in a thick Pittsburgh accent. I'm thinking we'll have my sister do it. Oh and be like, what Ian's plain.
SPEAKER_03She's good for that. I mean, she does have a classing. Yeah, I think real short and sweet. Bam bam. But yin's plain. All right, work on it. All right. Well, me and Kurt, yeah, that's a chance for us to bond over music and him to use his many, many drums. But honestly, we probably just do it electronically. Yeah, really, it's way easier. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01All right, man. Have you have you been have yin you been playing? What's the singular of yin? Yins. Yines. No.
SPEAKER_03Anyways, what have you been doing? Uh well, I I could get into what I've been doing, but I'm curious because I think you've been gaming. I have. So how? I feel like the gamers who listen to this might be interested in actually games. Oh, the gaming podcast?
SPEAKER_01Want to hear about gaming? Well, I mean, we've been getting almost gamers podcasts. Don't worry, well, it'll turn into something about Christopher Nolan or Metallica pretty soon.
SPEAKER_03Or goat simulator. But that's a game.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I so if you remember, if the audience remembers, um, my task, my duty was to play Expedition 33. Yeah, you said you put a picture. I'm sorry, the full name was Claire Obscure, Expedition 33.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I did dive into it. I I kind of didn't want to. I really, really, really wanted to finish uh Avowed first, so I had that off my plate, but I knew time was short. I'm like, I have to try out some of this game. Um I had no reason not to. It's on Game Pass, and all I had to find any money for it. Um, so I did start it. I've only I played one long session and one quick session of it. Um yeah, it's the hype, the hype is real. Really? I'm I'm really you call it I I feel I don't know, I think you would like it, but it's definitely up my alley. It's it's really cool, it is very different. Um, you talked a little bit about it being more of a like a JRP, yeah. J RPG kind of a style, and it sort of is, but a lot of people have actually been calling it since it's made by a French company, actually, yes. So it's a J RPG, you know, J apostrophe, which is so witty, and it definitely feels very French. There's a lot of French feel to it, interesting, and it does sort of have like that that western meets eastern kind of development to it, but um I'm really loving it. It's yeah, the turn-based is not very turn-based. I mean it is, but it's not here. I mean hurt. There's a lot of what it is, there's a lot of parries. Oh, okay. Um you so you can do one of two things. You can either parry or dodge. Dodging is much easier. This is every attack, by the way. Oh, okay. Um, yeah, it's almost every attack.
SPEAKER_03Like even magic? Yes. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Because it's in it's all timed, like if there's a they do like a uh a lightning spell, it's like it slowly moves toward you. Almost like a rhythm game kind of a thing. Um sometimes you you can actually jump off things.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01Um but if you dodging is easier, but you just dodge, you just don't get hit. But if you parry, you it's uh like a retribution type parry. So it's like a counterattack thing. So it's a big payoff, so it's like a risk reward sort of thing. Do I just dodge and not get hit? Or do I parry and you know hurt them? And I'm not too far, but I really I'm pretty sure there's going to be some things that build up your parry counterattack. So it becomes more of a reward at the end. Right. So I'm not I'm only I'm probably like eight hours into it, and I feel like I'm not I barely scratched the surface. There's a lot more even mechanics I haven't even explored yet. I've only gotten two other party members, I'm sure there's more. It's it's but it's neat. It and then even when you attack, there's a way to like QTE um to increase the chance of the attack being better. So most time it basically is an automatic crit if you succeed. It's different for every attack. It's like a it's always a time button presses, right? And each one has its own kind of things. You gotta learn every spell or attack skill, you know, and that makes it very neat. So it it it's it's passive because it's turn-based, but during your turn, you can't just say hit a button, you gotta do shit. You don't have to, but it it's well but some of the attacks are uh the opposite, like there's a uh very powerful area of attack fire spell, and if you miss up the button prompt, it hurts your you too. Oh, that's cool. So yeah, it's neat, it makes you really fully engaged.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, that sounds actually pretty awesome. Yeah, I I get why the hype, you know, yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_01Totally. It's it's it feels different than anything I've ever really played. Uh, it is it definitely has a large sense of wonder. Um, a lot of games, you know, have the same trope of you know, there's a bad guy trying to kill, ruin the world, and whatever, and you're out there to save them or save like the princess or something like this. And this is not, I'm just kind of figuring out what's happening. It reminds me a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn. Do you remember first playing that when you're like, I don't know what's going on, I love it. Yes, that was a big guess. Yeah, again, that sense of wonder. You're like, I kind of have some guesses, but I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, it really just it doesn't do a whole lot of explaining uh off the you know, does a lot of games have this like uh epilogue where it explains everything, and it really doesn't at all. There's some you just have to figure out. And what I've heard from other people, it's not a game that never explains it. Okay, it does. That's good. Yes, I know. I don't I don't know annoying. Yeah, I don't I don't want like a uh yeah, an obscure, you know, art film where I have no idea what's gonna actually what is actually happening in another credits roll.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and then they're just like, hey, there it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, make your own conclusion. Yeah, no. So that's really cool, but it is a little hard. You can change the difficulties, there's difficult different difficulties. Um it's interesting, you can make it so it's auto-parry, but I don't think you retribution or maybe it's auto-dodge or something. So it's interesting. So you can make it so it's easier, but you're not getting that benefit of the uh most games, dodge is more of my thing, and I'm not very good at parrying. Like my parry timing is awful.
SPEAKER_03I honestly I like we were talking about parrying, and I was like, Elden Ring, you could parry, right? I don't think I ever did it. I just rolled around like an idiot. That's it. That's just dodge, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's dodge. And I said paring, I it's weird because I don't know if paring technically is just blocking or if paring is technically blocking and then re-attacking. Actually, I don't know, but that's what I mean is the actual, you know, the parry. Yeah, I never parry. I just roll around like that. Parry is the uh block and return. Yeah, yeah, return. But in this game, it really rewards it. But uh actually Paul Tossi had had said that you can't actually do the whole game just dodging. Okay. He says, like, if you're having trouble with it, just dodge, which is I'm kinda do, but man, when you do parry and you do it, it feels real good. So that's right, it's it's rewarding. It it's they've they've nailed that, and I'm like already hooked on this gameplay. So I'm hooked on the gameplay, and yet the story is also just great. It's it's just in a lot of boxes, yeah. It is the uh the voice acting is uh very good. One of the main characters you play is Mael, is voiced by Shadow Heart, same voice actor. Wow, she's already yeah, yeah, she's she's shooting up there. Good for her. Yeah, very good for her. In fact, she got the role because the developers were a fan of Shadow Heart. Wow. So that's pretty that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03That's just yeah, makes me feel it's good stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The graphics aren't the best.
SPEAKER_03I really I thought those were the best part.
SPEAKER_01One of the best. So the style, it's neat. The worlds are very unique. It's not your cookie cutter, like, oh, this is cool. Yeah, but I mean, coming from like Assassin's Creed, it's yeah, you can tell there's a drop a little bit. Yeah, there's some pop-ins, there's some that's kind of with Kingdom Come. Yeah, you know, it's it's just not as smooth as other games. You just tell it's not a huge you know, development team. Right. Yep. Um, there's a lot of chatter. You know, your typical, like when you do something, a person says this and they say it over and over and over. I mean, that's typical of games. Yeah, right. I spoiled from remember I talked about um the throwback everybody. Uh yeah, throw back the episode where I talked about how much I enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy game and how it didn't have that. Like the dialogue was never repeated. So some games just spoil you. Matt remembered something. But again, it is a small developer, even though um there's been some controversy over that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01Uh yes, because uh Jeff Keeley during Summer Game Fest, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, had mentioned, you know, he was talking talking about small developers, and he said, you know, this game was created by a team of uh under 30 people. There's been a lot of talk about that sort of thing now, because technically, yes, the company that made it is under 30 people, but they hired out a lot of help, and that's kind of been a big thing now, even like Bellatro, which is you know, one guy did it. Yeah, he hired out teams to do QA and some of the, you know. So I but I mean, you know, it's it's still a small, you're not you're not EA. You're not you know, and it's it's interesting because it used to be, you know, there's a lot of middleware. For you people don't know, that's things like speed tree is like a famous middleware. Right. Like they made their money by like, I don't have this time to do all these trees in this physics. Yeah, they do it for you. Right. And so that's cool. In a blink is a big one. I did a lot of the physics kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03People who start businesses hire people to do their energy.
SPEAKER_01HR, yeah, you know their website, I should say. Yeah, you you just you can't do it all. Can't do it all, and it's just kind of part of the business. But I get you got to give those people credit. Yeah, but it you know you're still a small studio, right? Right. You know, it's still small, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Just outsource some of it so it's not overwhelming. Yeah. And you can compete. Yes, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_01You couldn't you can't actually they couldn't have done it without that.
SPEAKER_03Right. Like the game wouldn't exist, probably, or it would be just be terrible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, I will obviously come back to that game once I you know get dig more into it, give my actual opinion. So this was just a preview. Yeah, I wanted to just I because I I was contractually obligated to talk about it.
SPEAKER_03You kind of were. You did say you were gonna do it. Yes, and I did. Not like Blue Prince, you gave up on that motherfucker. Yeah, well, yes, I did, and that's fine. I'm still learning, I still get articles about that. Like, what? Oh, how do you even begin to figure that one out? And I gave up, so I'm happy. I'm in a ignorance is bliss.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I guess so. I I am very close to beating a vow, though. I actually was really I was gonna, I thought I could beat it last night. Yeah, I got to a point, I'm like, all right, how close am I? Looked it off. I have like three hours to go, and it was like 1 a.m. and I had to be up early. I'm like, all right, we'll wait. But old school man would have stayed up. I know, that's true. But I just wanted to get that out of out and done so that I can just move on. Right. Speaking of another game, wow, we're going into another one. Well, I what I did finish is I finished finally, not finally, I finished South of Midnight.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, you've been talking quite a bit about that. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And I realized it's been a long time since I really finished a game.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna ask, how many games have you finished in the last couple years?
SPEAKER_01It's I mean, uh quite a bit. Okay.
SPEAKER_03All right.
SPEAKER_01Not like I used to. I remember I back in the day I never didn't finish a game.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That was finishable. Right. Some of those old school games beatable, and it's like sports games, those type of games aren't technically beatable. I actually do remember the first game I didn't finish.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01It was Jack 2.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01Remember Jack and Daxter series?
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the second one where the one Jackbox. Oh no, no, no.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I guess you can't finish those.
SPEAKER_01Uh uh. It was the it was the second one, which kind of that went dark and edgy for the second one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I played a little bit of them, but I don't know them very well.
SPEAKER_01The second one is notorious. It's funny, I thought it was just me. Then I've I've seen a lot of like uh like Rob Pearson on uh PlayStation Access talks talked about this game a lot. Like there's a scene where uh a section that is just unbelievably hard and aggravating. And I'm like, yes, yes, I remember I clearly remember that. Right. And I remember I actually beat it. I didn't quit because I couldn't beat it. I finally beat it, but was so frustrated and mad at the game because they put me through it. I'm like, yeah, I beat you. Fuck you, I'm not playing anymore. Yeah, and that's like the first game I ever like gave up on. Yeah, and it felt good. It felt it felt great, yeah. But I still don't I still don't like that feeling for the most part.
SPEAKER_03I hate not feed finishing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can tell you not beating blueprints is good, but you did beat it technically.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Those things. I was such a forlorn, I guess. I want to like give you a hug right now.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah. That's a sore spot, everybody. Should I go back to South of Midnight, maybe?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. A game I did complete. Yeah, let's talk about the good things in life.
SPEAKER_01Good things in life. So I'm ready my final verdict. I think it before I said You gave it a nine. I gave it a ten. I gave it a ten. Yeah, because the experience I had with especially that first sitting, right, was I will I would not give that up for anything. Yeah, like I it was so great. But now that I've gone through the game collectively, maybe a nine. Probably a nine. Nine. And the reasoning being it does that combat wasn't great, and it started to get really repetitive. Didn't really add any more enemy types. I was doing the same battles over and over.
SPEAKER_03That gets yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, I'd finished a skill tree pretty early on, and you know, in the end in the end, the game wasn't that long, but it was a little too long. It just kind of dragged.
unknownDragged.
SPEAKER_01But the the story was great. I'm very glad to finish it. Uh, one of the things I will say that this game did great that other games need to learn from. Have you ever been in a game where you're climbing up something? You know, a platformer game where you're climbing up a very long, hard tower or whatever, and you fall off of it, but maybe you land and don't die. Right. And you just have to then start from where you land. Uh you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. This doesn't do that. If you ever fall from a really high spot, it just starts you back up where you fell from. Oh. That was such welcome. Yeah. Because sometimes I'm like, oh no, it told me 10 minutes to get here, and then they start you back. And it's just see, it's just that small little love that I really appreciate.
SPEAKER_03You know, because technically we're almost gamers, so we have lives and we don't want to climb shit all day long. Right. You know, so it's it's not fine. Once you get to a certain point in life, you don't want to keep doing the stupid shit over and over again. And it's no real it doesn't add much.
SPEAKER_01No, it yeah, it doesn't. And you feel more oh, I feel better about my right, right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Fine line between you know difficulty and accomplishment and having fun. Right.
SPEAKER_03So that's good.
SPEAKER_01That that's why, yeah, give it a solid nine. Nine. I absolutely recommend it. Everyone should play it. And it's on Xbox. It is on Game Pass right now. Game Pass. So if you already have Game Pass, you're good to go, folks. Just try it out. Do yourself a favor. Span a code. Good music. Yeah, good music. Um, we'll actually talk about that on the rewind or uh respawn segment later. And that is all that eyes in play.
SPEAKER_03That's a lot, considering you you're in a big transition.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I only took him a couple hours to finish that, and I said, Yeah, but yeah, I'm at this.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. It might get a little heavy.
SPEAKER_01Ooh. All right, Andrew. You look like you have like almost like a secret to tell over there.
SPEAKER_03I don't have any secrets. Uh gaming-wise, uh, I've been sticking to uh Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. KC D 2. Yeah, okay. I you know, I I've been focused on finishing it, mostly for this this uh podcast. See, we we're working hard for you.
SPEAKER_01We don't we don't want to do this, we don't want to play these fun games.
SPEAKER_03I don't want to finish a game. I haven't finished a game in a long time.
SPEAKER_01And that wife of yours is like, why don't you do this and that?
SPEAKER_03Sorry, Han. I gotta game the ball and chain. She's tough, but yeah. Uh but this last three weeks I played it pretty hardcore. I there's not much to report on it. It's still the same game, but uh Matt might understand that I um I think it's gonna be on the last episode. I don't know. They're all getting confusing. But you
The Mick Gordon Sound
SPEAKER_03heard the new uh music for Boss Battle. So my big my big thing this whole entire three weeks was trying to come up with this theme song for Boss Battle.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that did debut on the uh episode five. Episode five, part one.
SPEAKER_03Part one. So that was pretty much what I worked on for probably two out of the three weeks that went on. Oh, between.
SPEAKER_01You know what? It shows. It is fantastic. I I told him this. It was I told him the channel uh McGordon and uh he definitely did, man. I appreciate it. And that's it was great.
SPEAKER_03That's where this might this might kind of go into what what do you call them the uh Tangent of this. So as you might know, I'm a little bit crazy when it comes to recording and trying to be a little bit over.
SPEAKER_01This man will record like 40 tracks and be like, man, that's amazing. And he's like, and just delete them all and start over.
SPEAKER_03I have done that multiple times in my life. And this was no different. So I I guess I got in, you know, like I listened to Mix soundtrack quite a bit, and uh and I was using it to motivate me. And I didn't realize like, you know, he's so far beyond my capabilities at this point in my life. But you know, and I was having a lot of frustration, and actually it's funny because that the the riff that actually made it, I hated. I went through quite a bit of hate for it. I rewrote I rewrote it. The one day I got home from work and I spent like like three hours probably straight just trying different ideas out. I I just literally just played my guitar for three hours trying to find something better, and eventually it all came full circle. That doesn't really all matter, but I'm just trying to get into like I finally caved and I was like, I'm just gonna Google how did Mick Gordon do Doom because that was what I'm trying to I was trying to get the essence of Doom.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, did you I I know that there's I uh I noticed at least one YouTuber that literally does like the hair, this is the Mick Gordon method.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and so there are there are like YouTube videos, but I was I mean there's a YouTube video for everything. Pretty much, and I I did a lot of research. Well, research, but I I no, it's research, it's yeah, and this today.
SPEAKER_01Went to the library, yeah, yeah, went to the uh the card catalog.
SPEAKER_03Right. I uh but and there were I just was more or less looking for his actual amps, and then like or like amp settings, like I wasn't looking for like necessarily what he literally did, but I just was kind of looking for a basic idea because my guitar sounds were I I tend to go with a certain sound. I just my ear tends to to go one way, and I was like, Mick does something very different, and I I learned quite a bit, but there is a um game developers conference, and it's on YouTube, and I I actually watched it, and it's actually Mick Gordon himself, and this was before all the terribleness happened with ID Studio. I think it's id Studio, Id, they call it id.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I'm assuming as opposed to super ego, super ego, like the Freudian, you know, id and super ego.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay, yeah. No, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I mean I might be completely wrong. I have no idea. Wow, it could be like international demon. International demon.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't know what it stands for. I wouldn't even begin to know. But I didn't realize like it was such a cool story how he came across like the soundtrack for Doom. Now I'm talking about Doom 2016.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh the modern Doom.
SPEAKER_01Everybody, you know, talks about you know reincarnation of Doom, if you will.
SPEAKER_03And and it was a really cool and I recommend it if you if you if you have time. And I'm gonna get in a little bit of the weeds about the whole thing. I'm gonna try.
SPEAKER_01Let's do it. You know, the the the we we like to focus on the music.
SPEAKER_03A little bit of the music so I thought this was appropriate. It's it's game.
SPEAKER_01There's chapter markers. I will uh may I section off this entire thing. I'll call it Andy's Doom Tangent.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, we talk quite a bit about Doom, but this will be probably my last Doom talk.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, this tangent off. Yeah, you were talking about like, hey, I like you know Doom, but I don't want to. I'm interested in uh Doom Dark Ages, but you're not gonna blow the money on it. Yeah, right. That's a Bethesda game, so yeah, Game Pass.
SPEAKER_03It's on Game Pass.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. Spend the 10 bucks and play the damn thing. Oh, it's not I find this funny. That's right. We talked about this. Yeah, Game Pass for Xbox is more expensive than Game Pass for PC, which is well, I'm so backwards. I'm grateful for it, but it's just so weird that if you're in that ecosystem ecosystem and already supporting Xbox, it'd make you pay more. That's what I'm saying. But for me on PC, who doesn't want to buy an Xbox, I get it cheaper.
SPEAKER_03You're winning, man. In the game, you're l winning. So I thought you'd find this a little interesting. Do you know much about the history of how we came about Doom soundtrack? I don't think. No. So I thought you more or less you'd be a little bit interested in this. Definitely. I'm all excited. Yeah, I'm scooching forward. Um so this was around two like this conference happened in 2017. So shortly after Doom the original came out in 2016. So this was right after, yeah, like I said, before the fallout. And so he was really in a good spot with id um studios. He got a um request from them. Like they were talking about like soundtrack stuff, and they asked him to basically come up with a with a soundtrack, but they gave him like three, I think it was three, but either way, they gave him kind of like what they were looking for, and they wanted it to like be great for the fan base. It had to have they love synths, so it had to have synths. And then the third one, which was the big twist, was no guitars. So if you know Doom, guitars is a big part of it, which was kind of crazy to me. Like no acoustic guitar? That's what I thought. I was like flamenco. Guitars eventually did make it into the soundtrack of Doom 2016, and and a lot of people like have said it's changed metal music in some ways. So I was curious, like, so then I was hooked on this conference, this video, and so I watched the whole thing and it went into this whole process. And what was so cool about what he did was he kind of was like dealing with sine waves, and that was his like motive. He was like, Well, let's start with something pure, like a sine wave, and send it through a distortion channel.
SPEAKER_01This is up my alley here.
SPEAKER_03So he did that, and then he sent it to them. Well, before all this, they were jamming, like they had jam sessions, and it was like synth jamming, so they were like all on nerds on PCs, trying to like create more y crazy sounds. And so they they kind of developed this element of like, let's just experiment. And so he was like pumped after their first meeting. He went home, he came up with this idea of maybe just sending a sine wave and just seeing what happens when it sends it through a distortion channel.
SPEAKER_01And did he find out it does not distort that much?
SPEAKER_03Well, he I guess he did, but it wasn't so much the distorting. But then he also like there's this complicated thing where he sent actually white noise with it through the channel.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was gonna say because we know sine waves do not distort because they're not much harmonic content. That's why he sent which you can learn more about at the Fire Case Studios YouTube channel when I talk when I try to distort a flute, uh a low-D flute, and say same thing happened. Like it doesn't, it's too pure, it doesn't distort on its own. You need to give it a little something.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's what he would I guess that's why he eventually introduced well he initially did introduce white noise. There it is. And uh then that created some harmonic character to the sine wave. So that was his process. So then he sent it back, and the uh person, I've I don't know names and stuff. Obviously, if you want to know the whole details, go to the video. The guy sent back, he said, Hmm, sounds okay. I think you're on the right path. But he gave him hope. Like at first it was harsh, and he said he wanted to crawl up and just in a shower and cry himself to sleep when he got that because he thought he was made a major breakthrough.
SPEAKER_01I know that feeling. I know that feeling.
SPEAKER_03But then the guy with the the person who was, you know, the id software company said, Hey, let's uh, you know, you're on the right path. I feel like you're on the verge of something amazing. Just keep going, explore this further. And so I guess through interactions, they sent him artwork. And I don't know if anybody's followed Doom's storyline. Basically, what happened was is this major corporation in Doom found there was this infinite energy mineable on Mars through hell, and like they like somehow like used hell essentially to to mine this energy and create uh infinite energy. But he liked this idea that something pure like energy was being corrupted by this major corporation, so it went with his idea of sending this. So he created a he created an instrument with like we said, and he had uh four channels, and he sent the sine wave into four different buses. This is getting really into the weeds of of recording, like three other people listening too. Yeah, keep going, right? Keep going, keep going. But he sent it through, uh and it created these weird, like harmonic artifacts, and like all he did had to do was take this pure sine wave, which is the purest audio you can get, and all he changed was amplitude and uh what was the other term? It doesn't matter, frequency, frequency, and he created these crazy patterns, uh and it was it was just nothing like you heard really up until that point, and so like they were all blown away by this, and so then eventually it led to like he was like it's still missing something, even though everybody was happy, yeah, and you can imagine what it was, and he just threw in a guitar just to see what they would say, and then they all were on board after hearing the guitar. So that's a long way of saying, like, it was just he really created an instrument out of thin air, and he just because he wanted to, and that was his big thing, and I I just and his whole thing was kind of change the process, change the outcome because he kind of wanted to crawl in the hole when they said we want to hear something that we've never heard before. He's like, How do you even begin to he said I could load up a bunch of plugins and create you know, or patches that just make weird sounds and have fun with that, but that would be me doing basically what everybody else has done. So he literally came up with a whole new way to record crazy sounds, but yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01It was it's you know what, man, that reminds me a little bit. This is the second shout-out to the endangered minds album, Vigil, um, and then Fallen Road, where we weren't happy with it was kind of backwards, we weren't happy with the guitar. Yeah, so we added a distorted synth on top.
SPEAKER_03And that's actually that's a huge thing now.
SPEAKER_01Like everybody And we did that in 2008, yeah, just saying Mick Gordon, yeah, Mick Gordon.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, also he talked about this interesting technique, and I I wanted to write it down and I forgot to mention it, but he got the idea of like his his little bus channel of like all these multiple distortions built on multiple distortions from uh a producer named Tony Visconti, and he came up and he was from the 70s, but he came up with a three-mic technique for David Bowie. And I don't know if you our listeners are familiar with it. So, what what he did was he threw gates on three different microphones and set them three distances away. So they had a close mic, he had a medium mic, and he had a really distant mic. And so what happened was when David Bowie was singing quiet and intimate, the first mic would open, the gate would the gate essentially shuts it shuts all signals going through so you don't hear anything. But once you hit a certain threshold, it lets the sound in. So the first mic would let in the most intimate sounds. But once you really belted, like once you got to like a little bit of belting, I should say, the second mic would gate would open and let the sound through, and that would create a reverb. And then he would do when he really went for it, the third microphone, which was really far away with a mic.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, I want to try that. I'm thinking about it now, like, oh I guess I want to try that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so like that's what gave him this idea of having these chains of distortions. Like I'm guessing maybe he created like little chains of distortion. Like once one it passed a certain threshold, another distortion would kick in. And it created these brilliant, yeah. And I think like I would call him a genius, but I don't know. Like a lot of people throw that term around. But I do feel like there is a genius to Mick Gordon, and and uh, you just stumble upon some things, like let's give the truth, and that's what happens. That's what innovators do. And I at the very least he's an innovator, you're always building upon other innovators, right? And that's what I mean. Like, that's why I didn't throw that in there because the the video mentioned him, and I thought that was actually genius for the 70s. Now we're talking about the 70s, and it the the the came with like he had a a di limited um tape, they were rolling on tape, so like they were running out of tracks on the tape, literally, like running out of room, I guess. I don't know how recording on tape works, because we're mostly digital in this world, but yeah, so I mean, out of out of necessity, he came up with this idea of doing this reverb technique, and so Mick Gordon similarly just said, Hey, I want to create unique sounds that nobody's heard before, and boy, did it work. I and that's the other thing is he approached the music from uh a little bit more of an electronic. And I I I listened to a guy during all my research of trying to figure out how to create Doom. I uh learned that like, and I agree that that there was a uh element that the new Doom soundtrack, the new Dark Age one, is more metal. It like they went and they approached it from guitar first versus electronic first, then add the guitars, and Mick Gordon had that element, and I think that made him different and unique. But the fairness to uh who does the new one finishing move, uh maybe they got the prompt. Let's go for what metal, and that's might not be their decision, they might have just said, hey, this is our prompt, they want to go metal, and so like why bash them for not being Mick Gordon? Maybe they didn't want McGordon again. I mean, probably they didn't because they had a big falling out, but I don't know. So, but that is a big difference. You can kind of feel that Mick and another neat little thing about Doom through six Doom 2016, and this will be the end. Matt's falling asleep. Even he likes this shit and he's falling asleep. Uh I never noticed, but I listened to like the song I used as my uh as my guide was uh BFG division, the big fucking gun division. Uh if you want to listen to it. I think it's my favorite song on that soundtrack. Uh what was neat is he uh I never noticed, and it's something you might want to try in one of your mixes, is uh every time when the snare hits, literally there's silence for the split second the transient hits.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so make the space for the transient.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so it's like a split second, and I never realized there's absolute silence. Oh, I definitely want to try that. I definitely so quick you don't even really notice it. But it'd do that with editing or with a gate? I it'd have to be both because you'd have to cut all the reverbs, all the delays, everything would have to stop. Yeah, and I was trying to think of the logistics of trying to do that for every snare hit.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Well, it's fine if there's one every bar, but yeah, we're doing like eighth notes. Oof.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, so it creates this energy. Yeah. And that's on the level he thinks. That's just to show you. Super, super cool. It's cool stuff.
SPEAKER_01So where did where did this lead you then in uh creating? So what happened?
SPEAKER_03Uh I just kind of gave up at that point. I was like, there's no way I'm gonna compete with Mick Gordon. Uh, and I just wrote a metal track because I I'm a guitar guy. That's all I do. I I just try to write metal, but it gave me ideas and uh also hopelessness of trying to compete with somebody that on that level. But hopefully I did okay.
SPEAKER_01I love it. So there you go.
SPEAKER_03All right, move.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, moving on, right?
SPEAKER_03Sorry, man.
SPEAKER_01No, that's that's great.
SPEAKER_03Probably gonna cut most of those.
SPEAKER_01All right, Ian's time for a boss battle.
Boss Battle: Zelda
SPEAKER_01All right, this segment is uh is gonna be a first for us. This is a a request.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was excited, and that just shows back to what we were saying. We listen. Uh-huh. We listen to our listeners.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. And this actually comes from my niece Rain. Who Jesus? Niece Rain, you Jesus. That's a unique name. So I have two nieces, Ryan and Renee. This comes from Renee. Her friend, Sarah Pavlik, requested we talk about Zelda. I'm assuming she means the Legend of Zelda video game series and not Robin Williams' daughter.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he named her after the game.
SPEAKER_03Did he?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Not a lot of people think he named her after Zelda Fitzgerald?
SPEAKER_03That's a name.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, isn't that a singer, right?
SPEAKER_03Is her first name?
SPEAKER_01Ella Ella. Ella Fitzgerald.
SPEAKER_03Why would her name me Zelda? No, Zelda.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm thinking Zelda from um the Great Gatsby. Right?
SPEAKER_03Well, I read the cliff notes barely. I actually did. We're not smart. Anyways. Wait, I got a thesaurus. Smart. Uh not idiots. We are What's the word of the podcast? Let's find idiots. There's idiots. Uh blockheads. We're blockheads. Ooh, I like that one.
SPEAKER_01Reminds me of Minecraft.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, blockhead.
unknownAlright.
SPEAKER_01Fuck Lucy. Um wow.
SPEAKER_03Where do we where are we going?
SPEAKER_01Legend of Zelda. Yes. Classic. I mean, it is the classic of classic. Now, I I'd already told my niece that like we're not the hugest Zelda fans. Where is she at in her? Um, I don't know that she's ever gamed much other than like little mobile games, and with me done some like VR things. So, what mobile Zelda game is there?
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_01No, I mean like period. Like of any video games, okay, that's all she's ever done is like those endless runners and kind of she's not a gamer at all.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01My my niece, her friend, Sarah. I have no, I've never met Sarah. I've um I I probably have.
SPEAKER_03So we don't know where she's at in her Zelda or oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I'm assuming if she's my niece's age, we're talking 22, 23. So what's that? Probably didn't grow up playing the original. Probably like, oh geez. I don't even think about the first. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Do you have the list you said of the games?
SPEAKER_01I do have the list of the games.
SPEAKER_03So let's go over.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we can go we can go through them in uh timeline order.
SPEAKER_03Let's just go to the timeline, because I'm probably gonna focus on the old ones.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean that's kind of you know, the so that I mean it was uh probably the is it the f no Mario was the first blockbuster game. But Zelda was pretty pretty close.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I would say even more so, um, so uh Koji Kondo was the composer. And I mean the Zelda soundtrack is pretty uh pretty damn classic. I mean you can't and I I really respect those guys because they had very limited what they could do. Yeah. You know, you had you had you know, you could only do probably three note polyphony at most.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, and then not to mention you had like probably 16 sounds to choose from. Right. And what they did with that was limited is is amazing. So I really respect for any of the storytelling and everything. Like you had such limited resources to make a game that made you like care about the characters and feel emotional was very different. So it's great they did that. But yeah, the first one, the very first, Zelda is the Legend of Zelda. Right.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Uh it was released on originally 1986 on the Famicon, which was the Japanese version of what we know here in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System. Or the NES. But uh and in the UK they sounded out to NES.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's always kinda weird to me. Like it went and then for the Super Nintendo, we call it the SNES.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they say SNES.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's one of those weird like Brit versus America thing. There's such subtle differences. Like we call it a sweater and they call it a jumper. Right? And lieutenant left tenant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's also a garden. We call garden, they call it something else.
SPEAKER_01Oh, really?
SPEAKER_03Like a garden to them is their yard.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we call garden like where you plant things. I don't know what they call the other where you plant shit in. But fascinating.
SPEAKER_01Alright, focus. Focus. I'm losing.
SPEAKER_03If you listen to the Mick Gordon segment, you know I'm just out of control.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. So the the second, it's interesting because the very, you know, made a lot of money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Very it had the gold cartridge, remember?
SPEAKER_03I was gonna talk about that. You ruined that for me. That was the only thing I had to talk about. Like that was my number one thing.
SPEAKER_01I mean, uh I don't remember anything about that game, Andy. Was that a cool cartridge or something? I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Very cool, Matt. All right. Well, you ruined that. Thanks, Matt. Moving on.
SPEAKER_01Our segment. Wasn't didn't it also have like the battery pack so you could save the game, right? Was that the first game you could save? Yes, you could save.
SPEAKER_03And I I well, man, you're just ruining everything, man. Speak up, man. Well, we we were gonna go in the history of the games, but I uh yeah, like I just literally Matt walked in. I was trying to do research for this segment, and I was trying to play Zelda, and I did, but I also used a walk walkthrough because you didn't know to hit that third bush on the left? Yeah, that's the thing about you figure that out back in the day. Here's the thing like it was word of mouth. Like, I just remember knowing, like, somebody was like, hey, you just gotta burn that fucking bush. Like, what?
SPEAKER_01How the hell is true? Like, I definitely learned from a friend of a friend. Yeah, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_03And there's certain things that kind of I remember, but also like, how did they learn that? And I think Game Inform was around. I do think there was a magazine that helped Nintendo Power. Power. That was it.
SPEAKER_01Nintendo Power. It probably was, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think somebody owned it. Some parent was like, some rich kid could score. I was gonna say something.
SPEAKER_01Probably $3.99 a month would subscribe to Game Inform.
SPEAKER_03But some parent was like, Yeah, whatever. You're gonna have this stupid ass magazine. But it I don't know how it got past.
SPEAKER_01You want me I didn't have the Nintendo.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was gonna say, how do you know all this? You don't even know what it is. Oh yeah, they played played play a friend's house. Uh yeah. Uh that was one of the few games that we owned. And my sister, who's a regular listener, that is actually her favorite Nintendo game back in the day.
SPEAKER_04Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_03And uh which is unique. But I I just, you know, and like I don't know, I don't have that many fond memories of Zelda because I I don't know. We can get into that in later stuff as we progress. But uh one thing about the original Zelda was unique is you could save, which was cool. And I think what made it ahead of its time too was uh you didn't lose everything when you died. You only the only downside to dying is you um start over with only three hearts, um which is your life bar. And so it it wasn't too brutal in that sense, other than the secrets. I don't know how you figured those out. Sometimes there was like a weird old guy who was in a cave who'd tell you a few of the secrets, but whether there's more access to that, I don't know. Um, but yeah, I think like Zelda also had that metro metroidvania kind of element where you had to get things to get first.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was the the start of that. It wasn't quite as elaborate yet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it wasn't as elaborate, but they came out at the same time. I I looked them up and I guess really yeah, I they're in the same year they came out. Whether one was before or not, I don't know. Interesting. So I don't know who like I guess Met Troid gets the the claim to fame for that element, but there is a certain charm to Zelda that you just the original Zelda like Legend of Zelda, and uh I I guess yeah. So Matt summed it up, and then the gold cartridge was fucking killer.
SPEAKER_01I remember that being like a market thing, like oh it's a gold cartridge.
SPEAKER_03Like, why didn't everybody use that? Like, what the fuck made it gold? And why didn't you? Why did they get that? Why did I get to get that?
SPEAKER_01I don't know.
SPEAKER_03And there was like six games that had a gold cartridge. I think there was a couple other ones, but really yeah, it was very rare. As gold should be. That's true. Maybe they use real gold. Yeah, real gold. Yeah. Anyway, sorry. That's all I gotta say about that. But it's a fantastic game. And I uh and it set the precedence for the rest of them.
SPEAKER_01Yes, very much so. Uh well, sort of. So remember that this yeah, the second one was I watched somebody beat that game because I could not get through I don't I can't remember. I I I don't think I don't think I ever beat the first one, even really, yeah. I I don't know. I I again I never had the console, so I'd have been played with a friend or watched a friend beat it, and I just don't remember. But the second one was absurd, uh, was Zelda 2, The Adventures of Link. Yeah, which is interesting because you know, is I even think playing the first Zelda game, I was confused why it was called Zelda.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, most people don't realize the main characters Link.
SPEAKER_01Link and yeah, some games barely even have Zelda in it. Yeah, and I don't know the story behind that at all.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. It was confairing.
SPEAKER_01But Zelda 2 was kind of divisive because it so uh the first Zelda was it wasn't isometric, but it was more it was close to it was top almost top down, like in an angle top down. And I like that kind of view. Zelda 2 was like a side scrolling, and it was just very, very different. I actually remember this was a game that I played um with or watched um another Steve. We're gonna introduce a new a third Steve to the conversation. This is Steve Yurechko, who lived on like the lower street from me. Okay, and um hey Steve, I highly doubt he's listening to this because I haven't talked to him at all. That's not drama, right?
SPEAKER_03No, that was that was another Andy, right? That was Andy, yeah. I don't know this.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, you probably never met Steve. I uh yeah. Anyways, I remember playing at his house. Um, this game, and it was just it was just very, very different. It almost felt like a spin-off. Looking back, it seems like uh more like um Mario 2.
SPEAKER_03That was what I was about to say, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I don't think it was. I think it was pretty sure it was the same development team. They just for some reason went in a very different direction.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because before for this segment, I I I watched some I I tried to research and I watched a little bit of a playthrough of a uh a speed run of of that game and it it definitely has a different style, but it remind it it was so much like Ninja Turtles or a lot of those games in that time period where it was like the side 2D element, yeah. And it was I don't know, it it created I had PTSD because a lot of those side like Roger Rabbit and games like that, they were just so hard and hard.
SPEAKER_01We talked about in our uh Apostle Beat episodes.
SPEAKER_03It was like I didn't I had no fun with this.
SPEAKER_01It was a part where you beat or you fight Shadow Link, so it's yourself.
SPEAKER_03That was the end.
SPEAKER_01Oh, was it? And I I think the trick is to not fight him or something weird.
SPEAKER_03Like I said, I watched like and I had it on two times speed because I was like, I just want to see what this was about.
SPEAKER_00Interesting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think that was like the last boss. Like you had to fight a shadow version of yourself. But I was like, oh man, all those like 2D graphics, like like there were 3D backgrounds, but it was like 2D. Yeah. I don't know why, I just that time period was rough to be a gamer. Yeah. Like they weren't forgiving.
SPEAKER_01Nope.
SPEAKER_03Anyway.
SPEAKER_01Alright, so the next game in the series is uh the first one for the SNES super Nintendo, and that was uh The Legend of Zelda Link to the Past. Now this is like one of the formative games for me. I remember this. Well, you owned a Super Nintendo. I did own Super Nintendo, and like this game was like my shit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I I didn't play it, but uh like the guy I worked with he he was always obsessed with this, and then I ended up playing a little bit of I don't know if I actually beat it, I watched it again, I watched a little synopsis of it. Yeah. But it really captured the element of the first one, but it took it to a whole new level, which kind of pun intended and linked it with the newer versions, like it was smart, good story, everything.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the story was good, it was almost like an origin story of uh Ganon. Right. Yeah. Ganonorf. That is name. I think the game actually explains how Ganon becomes Ganon Dorf or Yeah, yeah. Again, I I don't know if this was um longer ago than I care to admit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I think that was like the game that everybody really loves.
SPEAKER_01And they've remade that, I actually says right here that remade it in 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, 2006 for the Wii, 2013 for the Wii U, uh 2016 for the 3DS, and 2019 for the Switch. So they they know. They know. So right after that was the infamous CD, the Phillips CDI offerings. I don't know if you've ever seen those.
SPEAKER_03Not at all.
SPEAKER_01So the Phillips CDI, it's a complicated thing. It was it was the it's like the PlayStation that never was um kind of CD-based, but the controller was the remote, it's like a TV remote, is how you played it. I vaguely remember um these games were basically had like anime, not anime, Saturday morning cartoon cutscenes, like poorly drawn Saturday morning. And then like Nintendo does their best to provide basically try to pretend that these games don't exist. I've ever seen shots on them, but they are like, yeah, they're laughably bad. Wow. It has your wizard like, whoa, I'm the wizard, like that, that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_03Not quite like Mad Symporium, but oh yeah, pretty close to it.
SPEAKER_01It's like a cross between Zelda and I've ever seen any shots of like the Beatles Lord of the Rings movies. I've heard of that. Yeah, it's it's like that stuff.
SPEAKER_03I I've never seen it, but I've heard that that was something ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Anyways, yeah. So I I've never played them. I just I know they're legendary for being uh nothing. Uh there were there's some Game Boy games like uh Link's Awakening. But the next one is uh Ocarina Time, which is probably where where I stopped on. Yeah, but me too. So that was in wow, 98. I thought it was a little more recent. Oh, you know what? This is why, because I never played it then. Okay. I played it on the GameCube re-release in 03, you know, much later.
SPEAKER_03We're not that old. Uh yeah, Ocarina Time. What can you say?
SPEAKER_01Like I mean, it first of all, it taught the world what an Ocarina was, which is Which is huge. Yeah, I mean it's one I do own one. We bought at the Renfair, which is how on a nerd scale, I don't know. This is not the first time we talk about Ocarina on this podcast, actually. Yeah, really. Ugh. But it's neat because this is the first instance I remember of uh diegetic music. Um, for those of you who don't know, so that is where there's music in the media, whether it be a game or a movie, that's not a soundtrack. It's actually takes place in the fiction of the of the world itself. So you're you you know you actually have to play that ocarina, you have to play a tune on it to do certain things. So it's music, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Say that again for the people who don't give a shit music. Okay, we learned something we don't give a shit about. Uh yeah, that game, it's like Mario 64 and the element, like it kind of blew my mind. I just remember I didn't own it. I didn't own a Nintendo 64. Sean, I've mentioned before, Sean Williamson.
SPEAKER_01Which uh sorry, and I feel bad we haven't done this before. Yeah, that is a doctor, Sean Williamson.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I'm sorry, Sean. You are a doctor, you earned that shit. Very much so. Yeah, he worked his ass off. And if I offended you, I'm sorry. You're a doctor, but you're always my buddy, Sean, so I just forget that element that you are a legit doctor. Uh but yeah, Gamer Man, he owned a Nintendo 64, and I watched him play that game, and I was blown away because it just felt like a whole world of amazing everything. Don't fuck with the chickens. Yeah, don't fuck with the chickens, and uh yeah, that's a good point. And uh yeah, I just think there's not much you can, you know, it's one of the best games of all time, I would imagine, for a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01Although that was one of the first games that created the the the unfortunately like decade-long trend of awful water levels.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, yeah, they were big on the water level, weren't they?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03It took a while to kill that. But yeah, uh like I uh I I I think I played it, I don't know if I officially beat it. Like I on a uh not the Wii, maybe the Wii. One of those versions of it. I I think I played it myself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this also had yeah, reiterations on every console.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so like it was I I did think I potentially played it. I I think the thing I never liked about Zelda the series, especially once it started to go 3D, was like I hated Link was a kid. And it was so bubblegum poppy fantasy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean you change obviously you change out ages in that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's what I but I don't know, like that that early on when you're a little kid and you like and then you gotta remember too, like right one, what what year did that? Hey, yeah, listen, yeah, listen, Navy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, fucking navy.
SPEAKER_03What year did that come out?
SPEAKER_0199, 98 uh 99, 98, 98.
SPEAKER_0398. So I was I was a teenager, and we were used to games that were like starting to get real visceral, like Mortal Kombat, and I don't know, this the kiddie nature of it.
SPEAKER_01It just didn't Yeah, right that age where like yeah You wanted the hardcore for me.
SPEAKER_03Not everybody cared about that stuff, but you started seeing games be more realistic and visceral. Okay, we're playing a kitty game. Yeah, I don't know, like it just didn't I didn't think it was bad, I just wasn't interested in it.
SPEAKER_01You know, in voice in games are to have voice acting in it, but unlike now with Zelda games are uh the exact same.
SPEAKER_03Really? No, they still it's still doing it all the time. I think Nintendo saves a ton of money on voice actors, and they don't give a shit. You just go beep to me, it's like what the fuck? And then they'll charge the shit out of games. In fact, they're charging $80 for games, and it's like, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_01Although, and I was gonna touch on this, so Nintendo definitely has a niche market, you know. Their first part, yeah, their first party games will always be. Well, they know parents will pay for that shit, and I will admit their quality is unparalleled. Well, they like you never hear about bugs or they're polished, yeah. They don't release a game until it's perfect.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I've never heard a bad thing about that. You're right. But man, they will rake you over the cools, and they know parents will pay because their kids are gonna be like, I win Mario game, I win Mario, and you're gonna be able to do it.
SPEAKER_01I actually remember I remember my sister buying Mario Kart or Mario Party from my nieces, like Mario Party 8 or something like that. It was like five years after it came out, and she paid like 60 bucks for it. I'm like, what do you it shouldn't be? And then I looked, I'm like, oh, that's what they're charging for still.
SPEAKER_03I bought Mario Jamboree for Liana. It was probably it was full price, it was it was full price for a game that's probably at least three years old. I don't even know, but they don't give a shit. They know people will pay them. They're like, you're gonna pay, motherfucker. Just pay. You're not getting a discount on our. I mean, Mario needs the gold, motherfucker.
SPEAKER_00I mean, he's gotta keep Peach, man. Bowser's coming in because Bowser got the gold.
SPEAKER_03That can't so make it cheap, motherfucker. Alright.
SPEAKER_01Alright.
SPEAKER_00So Mario got the Mario or something.
SPEAKER_01Uh same thing. Okay.
SPEAKER_00I actually never see a crossover.
SPEAKER_01Like Zelda. Uh, but I mean, like, yeah, I'm trying to think of the Mario movie if Zelda appeared at all. Oh.
SPEAKER_03Did you watch the news, Mario?
SPEAKER_01Like the one that you have. Yeah, with Chris Pratt. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Did you like it?
SPEAKER_01I liked it. It was fine. Well, alright.
unknownAll right.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Moving on. Uh, The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask.
SPEAKER_03Now that one, I have no fucking clue about it.
SPEAKER_01But I I know a lot about that. That was a very divisive one. That's one of those ones that people that love or hate.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I watched some people, I watched a playthrough, and I didn't realize how weird it was.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think I would have liked it at the time if I had if I had the ability to play. I saw I never had an N64. Right, me either, yeah. Um you had a GameCube. I had a GameCube late. I bought the GameCube.
SPEAKER_03Late, yeah, you bought you were late to the game. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Literally. I I bought the GameCube just to play Metroid Prime.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, that was a big game. That was fantastic. I never played any Metroids, believe it or not. Never played any Metroid. I even Sean never played it.
SPEAKER_01Blew my mind a bit there.
SPEAKER_03That's Sean never even owned a Metroid. He owned like Metroid.
SPEAKER_01So you were the uh the you were only the vania.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You never did Game Castle. He never did the Metroid. Nah. I'm curious.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Uh maybe we'll do it on a Twitch.
SPEAKER_01There it is. That would be interesting. Making you play like uh Super Metroid's probably the way to do it. Is it?
SPEAKER_03I'm curious. I I am curious about Metroid.
SPEAKER_01Alright, so that was yeah. Majora's massive one played it. I guess. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03It was like it was just weird.
SPEAKER_01Weird. You played the same day over and over.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was a groundhog day. And that was unique. I didn't I didn't know that's very ahead of its time.
SPEAKER_01Like you see games like that now.
SPEAKER_03So basically a rogue.
SPEAKER_01Uh Outer Wilds, that was kind of how that game was.
SPEAKER_03It's a rogue lightish.
SPEAKER_01So before that would have been that would have been pretty neat.
SPEAKER_03And that's what I think they've always been like kind of. Innovators. Innovators.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I'll give them credit for. Um, there's a couple other weird Game Boy. Yeah, we don't care about it. We're not gonna go with that. Oh, I forgot about there was one more GameCube one, uh, The Wind Waker. That one was extremely divisive. Yes, that was the one it had more of a uh cartoony art style, and Link was definitely a kid.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I remember all that. Yeah I just don't know much about it.
SPEAKER_01That's actually all I know about it.
SPEAKER_03So it's cartoony and it sucks. Burler.
SPEAKER_01That was uh 2002. They were really pumping these out here. They really uh some more games.
SPEAKER_03I was always shocked because I saw like Zelda came Legend of Zelda from NES or NES. Uh and then like a year later was the next one. I was like, oh fuck, they're putting these out a year, but I guess you know what?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, we didn't have four year development cycles. Like the next mainline one was for the Wii. It was the first Wii one was the Legend of Zella Twilight Princess. This so I did play this one.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01It was so the Wii, you know, I had a Wii. I love the Wii. mainly play the Wii use the Wii to do party games like WarioWare and Mario Party and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun for that. And I've complained about this before, like the Wii was innovative. Like for playing single player games, like I didn't want to have to wave my hand around. You know, I just want to sit on the couch and move a air ultimately that's what kind of comes down to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so that's why I I only played a little bit of Twilight Princess. I never really got into it. It's interesting um I don't know if you know this, but Link is left-handed. That's kind of like a big thing. He has he has always had the sword in his left hand and the shield was in the right hand. So for the Twilight Princess, that's how they started developing it and they realized most people are right-handed and because the Wii has motion controls it's not gonna work. So they'd obviously didn't have time to like redevelop it. They literally just flipped the video. And then anytime the East and West came up in the game they had to swap out the text. Wow. So it was you're literally playing a mirror image of the game. But I believe there was a game queued version that didn't do that. So it's their mirror images. If you ever see screenshots they're mirror images of each other apparently yeah that's that's crazy.
SPEAKER_03Like wow man that's deep deep deep see that's why you tune in that's right that brings the probably didn't know that shit. Nobody knew that shit. Now you know it.
SPEAKER_01So this is where we get into the weeds though because after this like I stopped paying attention to Nintendo consoles. Yeah well so the next game is the Phantom Hourglass which I'm not sure if that's a a mainline game or like a spin-off I never heard of it yeah I just don't know what's the person we're catering this to uh what's their name it was Sarah. Hey Sarah tell us more about that game if you had a chance more she would have I mean hold on my niece she would have probably been like five five and and is she you said she's in college now no she she I'm assuming if she's my niece's age she's she's out of college what they graduated where'd she graduate from doing you don't I don't know where'd your niece graduate from um I no uh Penn State UP UPJ nice um all right cool um and that was some amount of time ago I would say two two years three years two years maybe two years two years uh how old are we I don't know two old I get lost I'm I'm I'm 23 23 here we go all right the next one is skyward sword I know that was that was 2011 uh what um that was 2011 yeah I definitely remember that one that was uh that was the in-between console so it was a Wii and a Wii U kind of a thing right well the Wii U was a weird in-between anyways so I know nothing about that game so um we can't talk about it so sorry Sarah so she may have she she may have played that game maybe you were seven uh well really that's right there was a huge so there was there was a huge break there again there was spin-offs and they kept remaking the old games but the next actual mainline Zelda game after that is Breath of the Wild. There's the one I there it is that's the one I'm most interested in yes so just because it's I remember at the E3 this game was uh pre like revealed at there was shots of people literally crying in the audience because it had been so long since they'd done anything and people really love Zelda.
SPEAKER_03Again good for them but yeah uh it's interesting watching grown men cry over a trailer but I've probably done that myself never mind yeah we've all we've all gotten emotional yeah right yeah I uh I think that's the game I might play but the only reason I thought I'd play it was because it might be on sale but Nintendo doesn't give a shit is it's still full price B that was 11 I mean eight years ago did you tell me it's still full price it's uh I mean I think I looked and it was at least 60 bucks wow and you can get you can get the you know extended version with has DS I um I actually play a little bit of uh of this game really yes um uh when I was doing those overnights working okay uh Frizzy was kind enough to loan me his uh Nintendo Switch yeah nice and uh that was one of the games he had so I played it was weird because I for some reason I hated this game without playing it like I just didn't I didn't want to I don't know that that yeah so that kind of like poisoned me to it and but it was it was fine.
SPEAKER_01I just I wasn't in the mood for it. I just wasn't and I know that the you had a breakable weapons that was a big thing of the game people didn't like weapons had a limited lifespan. Yeah that can annoy um although I don't think I got beyond like a stick in that game stick's good yeah it was interesting because it it was the game that I also broke from the norm.
SPEAKER_03It was very open world yeah and a lot of people say well it's too much like other open world games and that but I I'm curious and I thought I would play that but it's never on sale and Nintendo doesn't go on sale ever.
SPEAKER_01So I maybe I'll just play the newest one because you have to pay full price yeah and then we'll go right into the sequel to that which is I think the first time they ever done yeah it would be the first time they ever done a sequel sequel. Yeah think about none of the other games have been they're always very very different. Yeah so the first time they kept the art style they kept everything pretty much similar yeah because it was actually um yeah Legend of Zelda um Tears of the Kingdom was essentially Breath of the Wild too right uh I I've heard there's very interesting things about it. I isn't there like a yeah there's a there's a build yeah it's kind of reminds of a game that no one remembers uh Banjo Kazooie nuts and bolts never yeah it had that same mechanic where you can just build things from what I've heard it's amazing like you can just whatever you can think of you can build it's like Legos like we'll put this to that that that add the engine to it add a flamethrower to it and bam you have like a walking tank really flamethrower thing so there's a little bit of Minecraft to the yeah it's literally whatever you want to do you can do. Interesting it is very interesting. So I think I think Liana would really like that I think well that'll be jump into a link uh game um that's gonna be the one that's gonna be the one yeah we will probably yeah wow that does sound interesting it sounds too time consuming but like I said maybe for Liana like a joint game maybe a little fun time and she might run off and make random shit because she likes doing that and definitely Minecraft.
SPEAKER_00That might work then all right there you go so Andy your job then is to uh play Tears of the Kingdom Tears of the Kingdom with let's just skip Breath of the Wild hey let's do it all right so uh thanks again to Sarah thank you Renee yeah and uh that's it for the boss battle stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to this episode coming soon to a podcast near you guys