Triple Click - Triple Play: Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Maddy, Jason, and Kirk conjure echoes of themselves to record a podcast and then sit back and eat some chips. It's time to talk The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom!One More Thing:Kirk: Delicious in Dungeon (Netflix)Maddy: Elsbeth [Paramount+]Jason: Metaphor: ReFantazioLINKS:Featuring excerpts from the Echoes of Wisdom score and “Sleep Walking Orchestra” by BUMP OF CHICKEN from Delicious in DungeonSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Each Legend of Zelda game echoes the same myth with a hero, a princess, a sword, a staircase of beds leading to a hard-to-reach area. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about the Legend of Zelda echoes of wisdom, a game that finally allows its protagonist to take naps as often as I do in real life. It's a fun conversation, so stick around. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shrier, and here we are again. We're here. We're here. Yet again. Here we are. Hello. We made it. We've conjured echoes of ourselves to do this podcast. So we'll all be stepping back.

And we've fought all of them off and took their powers. And now those impostors are gone and it's safe and we're all ready to do the show as ourselves. Yes, that's who you're listening to right now. The three of us are actually just standing by elsewhere. And this conversation is being had by our three echoes. I feel like echo that's kind of, it's, it should be used more as an insombing. Like, oh, you're an echo of yourself. I feel like that would be a really good, like, antiquated insult. This is like when people say, yeah, this sounds like it's AI generated. Right. In the land of high rule, they say, man, this seems like it's just an echo. Yeah, that's what they have instead of technology anyways.

Very good. Very good. Mystical happenings. Yeah, pretty much. Hey, why is Zelda's Facebook full of this echo slop that you can't get that kicking off the feed? Yeah, wrong number of fingers, et cetera. That's how you can tell. You will not hear any.

I Slop on Triple Click because the three of us handmake this show every week. We work hard so that you can have a good show to listen to. And we put a lot of ourselves into this show. And we're only able to do that because of our wonderful listeners who support us. And if you want to support us, go to Maximumfund.org slash join and sign up. Become a member. Get access to all kinds of bonus episodes, including the current three-part run of TripleQuest, a role-playing campaign that the three of us went on along with our guest game master,

Matthew Mercer, which was really fun, and it was nice to bring in a professional while the three of us got our D&D sea legs under us and just sort of learned a lot about role-playing. It's very fun. The first part of that is in the feed now, along with our character creation, and you can listen to that. And, of course, a ton of bonus stuff from months past and plenty of bonus stuff in the future. So yeah, maximum fund.org slash join. Become a member. Support independent media and our independent podcast,

which we promise is being made by three real human beings and not three echoes that have been conjured by a strange wand. But that's what we would say if we were three echoes. That's right. But you can't prove anything. That's true. We need some kind of like watermark. Maybe if you look really close on an echo,

there's something that identifies it. Well, sometimes their eyes turn red. Because the Hyrule Trade Commission forced people to add a watermark All the echoes that you can know. Anyways, that's what we're talking about, right? Maddie, you're leading this conversation. Take us away. I am leading this conversation.

We did a triple play of, you'll never guess it, the legend of Zelda echoes of wisdom. That's why we're talking about echoes here today. This is a Zelda starring video game that was created by Nintendo and also another developer called Grezo that did the Link's Awakening remake

and a few other remakes. I had a fun time looking at their Wikipedia page today and finding that out because, hey, this video game looks a lot like the Links Awakening remake. It's got that same really adorable art style that I actually really like. So this game... The same frame rate dips. Yeah, we'll get to that. I mean, I would say there's some ups and downs with this game, but something about it that

has excited me since it was announced is that this is a video game where Princess Zelda has a starring role. You play as her for as far as I know. the entire video game. I haven't beaten it yet. I could certainly see Link coming from behind and stealing his spotlight back once again. That seems like something could happen. But for now, we're playing a Zelda the entire time, and we are using a mystical, magical object called the tri-rod that conjures echoes. This means Zelda can duplicate objects in her environment of Hyrule, so she can duplicate a bed or a table, which is something I've been duplicating.

constantly surprisingly helpful those two objects. Also the tree, the really tall tree. Those are like my three core echoes that I duplicate all the time. But she can also summon, summon like a moblin or like a bunch of keys to fight on her behalf. She needs to do that quite a bit because she

isn't much of a fighter in this game. That's another thing I feel like we'll get into. But yeah, aside from like the really old CDI games in Zelda's adventure in the 90s, there have really not been starring role Zelda games. So That's a pretty big deal to me emotionally.

You could only really play as her in Smash Brothers. Yeah, you could play as her in Smash. You plays her in the Hyrule Warriors games. Spirit tracks. You must not forget. Spirits. She's like a ghost. Oh, yeah.

Just for a bit. There's all kinds of like, oh, but actually citations that we could be adding to this list here. But I still think this game is a big deal, but it also comes with all the attendant expectations that I know I came in with of like what kind of story is this going to be? How much is Zelda really going to get to do? What will it feel like to play as her in a story that's mostly about tactics and using the Triforce of wisdom and her smarts as opposed to the sort of courage, triforce associated sword and board combat that Link is known for? So I've been playing it for a while. I have personally gotten up to the Cheruto Sanctum. That's like one of the dungeons.

And I feel like I've only started to really get into it as of this dungeon. The game has a pretty slow start, I would say. But I want to hear from you too. Kirk, how far are you in the game and what are you thinking about it so far? I'm not super far. Yeah, I'm around there, like around that area. I've done a few dungeons, explored the overworld, solved a bunch of puzzles, but also can tell I have a lot of the game yet to go.

So these are, you know, fairly early impressions, I suppose, but also I've played enough of it that I have a pretty good sense of the game. I like it overall. I mean, I think it's really charming. I think it's a neat game and a surprisingly experimental one. And as a result of that, experimenting, it kind of moves away from my experience of it as a Zelda game and just into something else. And in that way, I actually wind up thinking of it sort of separate from the whole idea of playing as Zelda and Zelda being the main character. Like, she is the main character, but to me at least, it feels as though that may not have always been the case.

I think I saw this that this game was maybe originally conceived of as a game starring Link. It was conceived as like a Zelda maker, like a dungeon maker. Yeah, very originally, yes. And then at some point in the process, they had Link as the starring character as well and then changed it to Zelda. Right. So I think that that is apparent throughout everything about this game. And actually is, I don't know if it's a problem exactly, but it's definitely a really defining characteristic of it for me. and as a result, it leaves the game feeling a little bit stuck in between.

I mean, you know, we're talking about this as a game where you play as Zelda, but this game begins with you playing as Link. That's true. And you play as Link through the opening sequence, and then that move set that you're given, which is quite fun. The sort of jumpy, flippy, sorty, you know, action moveset is then granted to Zelda, which is a very important mechanic in this game, both in terms of the gameplay and in terms of understanding it, I think.

And so that mechanic is that you have a limited bar that you can activate, it at any time that transforms Zelda into Link, basically, gives her a sword and shield, and suddenly she has an aggressive, offensive move set for a very limited amount of time. And we'll talk about that more, I'm sure, later, but I want to at least mention it here to kind of plant the flag that I think that that that mechanic and the knowledge and the evidence, just the quality of the game that makes this evident, that it was a Link game that became a Zelda game, is like really important for understanding it overall. Jason, what about you? What do you think so far? Yeah, I'm actually further than both of you.

I've finished the second dungeon, the Gerudo dungeon, although it doesn't have to be the second. You can do the Zora one first. Which is what I'm going to, like I'm doing the Zora one now. I am a little underwhelmed and I'll give the caveat here that I've actually heard from several people, including some folks on the giant bomb cast where I appeared last week, that it gets much, much better. Like after the first few dungeons, after you really start to unlock all the possibilities. But so far I'm underwerew. And the main reason is that, it's funny, Kirk, you mentioned, like, not even thinking of it as a Zelda game.

I mean, it's like, it doesn't feel like a Zelda game, but then you run into random encounters with enemies and you want it to play with the Zelda game. So, okay, let me back up for a second. The reason I'm underwhelmed by this game is the combat. I think the system of conjuring objects and using them to break the game in, like, this immersive sim style in the same design philosophy as breath of, the wild and tears of the kingdom before it of saying yes to the player. I think that's all awesome. The problem with this game is that because there's no easy way to attack enemies, you have to go through the fiddly, awful menu system and conjure a monster or an item and throw a rock at an enemy or summon a mavelin and hope it throws the spear in the right direction to hit the

enemy because its AI is super dumb. That adds so many layers of complexity to the combat that it just is not fun. And because you are constantly running into enemies when you're just trying to get from one place to another, it winds up becoming a lot more, makes more sense to run away from them or circle around them or find some way to dodge the enemies, which is also not fun. And I am really not enjoying the kind of moment-to-moment experience of just exploring the way that I do in most Zelda games. And that is not great. That said, I can see that. there's some moments I've had when I'm like, oh, this is cool. I can see why this is going to be appealing.

For example, I was trying to, after I beat the second dungeon, I was trying to get to that water area. And I wound up going all the way back to where you first see the rift, this little forest that you go in, and there isn't like a clear way to get from there to the water area. It seems like you're blocked off by boundaries. And then I was like, wait a minute. And I started building like staircases for myself and playing around with like the flying tiles.

And I got on top of the tree, boundary and like essentially walked over the walls the way you would and like if you're speed running link to the past and you're breaking the game to cross through the bargers and I was like this is super cool like I can break the game even though I know the game wants me to be doing this sort of thing it feels like I'm breaking the game this is really cool I want to do more stuff like this and then I get to this water area and they're more friggin enemy encounters that are just a such a pain to deal with that they add like too much friction to the experience I am just not finding that fun on a moment to moment basis, which is like, it's so not Nintendo. It's just like, it really is

baffling me a little bit and I'm really not enjoying it. And I wish I was because it's a Zelda game. I love Zelda. I wish I was enjoying this more. But yeah, a little underwhelmed so far. Yeah. I'm having a very similar problem to you with the combat. And that's the part that it's hard for me to see how it could get better. I heard the same thing from my, my guides, coworkers, who've both beaten the game, that it gets better as it goes along. The puzzles get harder and and more interesting. Like, the solutions aren't all build a tower of beds and water blocks and so on. Like, you need to actually use whatever other items you come across nearby and try to take

advantage of that. In class of video game fashion, whatever echoes are, or creatures or objects that you can create echoes that are nearby a puzzle tend to be the ones you need to use in order to solve the puzzle. And I can see how that's going to continue to get complicated and fun as the game goes along. And it's started to happen in the dungeon I'm in, which is why I'm. having more fun as the game increases its complexity. However, I don't see how the combat could get better because of the exact problem that you

explained, Jason, and also just my own mental just habit of I am a video game character. I am going to run towards an enemy and try to hit it. And it has been so difficult for me to break that habit, except you must in this game. With the number of times that I have just unconsciously run towards an enemy and press A to swing my sword at the enemy and then been like, I'm Zelda. I can't do shit. I need to run away. Like, I hate that feeling of just being like, no, I need to just summon an army of moblins who are going to stand around me. And then what am I supposed to be doing during that time period?

Because right now, I'm just standing there or I'm just dodging around. And that isn't that fun for me either. And it makes me feel like there's something missing for me where I'm just like, I don't, I don't know. Like, am I supposed to be doing something else there other than just waiting for the encounter to end? Yeah. I mean, to be fair, you can grab monsters and like move them around, throw them off cliffs and stuff like that. So there is a little bit stuff you can do. And you can grab rocks and throw them.

And that's more active feeling, I would say. So I do a lot of that. To me, what kind of makes this all worse is what kind of. Kirk was describing, which is that it's super fun to play with the link move set. But the problem is, you can only go into sword master mode, as it's called, for a limited amount of time. So it's kind of like the game saying, here, this is fun. Now we're going to take it away from you. And that is also super frustrating. I'm like, I want to be flipping around and hitting these enemies with swords because it's so much more engaging and interesting and

faster than summoning all this stuff. But I can't actually do that without running out of energy super quickly. And then I think that is another reason that it's going to get better as you go because your energy can last longer. Yes, that's what I hear. And also you get, you can just build up this collection of smoothies with more energy restoring powers. So that I think will help. But yeah, at the beginning, it's rough going, I think. Yeah. Kirk, what do you think? So I'm not having that issue with the combat for what it's worth. So I will chime in as a combat defender in this game. I find it fun. I think my grape is actually that the sword combat exists at all.

I think that the bolder move for this game would have been to just remove it. Yeah. Because I don't need to have that in the game. I don't know that it's, I'm sure it's necessary for something. I mean, I know there are barriers you need to use the sword to get through, for example. Yeah, there have been. But it doesn't seem to me at least so far as though they couldn't have designed this game without that in it. And then eventually you just have a few combat stand by.

You know, like you grab like a spinning, whatever, like thing that you can, hold using your ultra hand. We should mention that Zelda has this ultra hand ability. Yeah, it's called bind in this game, but it's an ultra hand. That you will forget about in the opening hours as you, as you play the game, it is the ability to just grab many objects in the world. If you're anything like me, you'll forget about it constantly and then be looking at a puzzle like, what am I supposed to do? Oh, that's right. I have this whole other ability I keep forgetting about. It's mapped to the top button, whatever that is on the Nintendo controller, what I think of as triangle or Y. I know, it's X actually at the top. I had to literally look over at my controller to remember.

Yeah, it's X for Nintendo. Yes. So it's it's mapped to that button, which I just think that button should be a toggle between modes button or an inventory button. It should never be, it just in my brain. Like maybe it's just a me thing, but it shouldn't be like, I get it. It's a little out of the way. Yeah. How'd you imagine a Nintendo game having weird controls and button schemes that you can't change. It's so weird that Zelda games are always these really well-designed games with very strange control schemes. Also, like the D-pad being the shortcut to get monsters faster is strange, too. It took me a while to figure that one out. I don't know if you, you're nodding, Jason, so I'm glad you know, because you mentioned the menu screens at first, and that's how I was conjuring

echoes for a while, but actually you can use the D-pad eventually, or I don't know when, probably immediately to do it. Is that something I should know how to do now? So like the left and bottom D-pad buttons can be assigned as shortcuts? No, no, no, no, no. No, no. Just press right. You're just just talking about the right feedback. As opposed to going all the way through the menu. No, when I say fiddling through menus. Yeah, you just mean scrolling. Yeah, I was saying about that.

Well, okay, hang on, hang on, hang on. I want to talk about the UI, but let me give my combat take here. We're getting sidetracked by the UI. So I am not that bothered by combat because I find it pretty fun, actually, to just summon a Kese army and see what happens and watch this kind of, you know, weird combat between various famous Zelda enemies. I kind of think that's pretty fun. I mean, it's a very different experience than running around with a sword,

but I'm finding it enjoyable. And yeah, Jason, I was glad you mentioned picking up enemies, because pretty early on I just tried that and then realized that I could do that. And that's pretty cool. Like, Zelda is kind of on the outside of the fight manipulating the enemies, moving them around. You can just hold an enemy in place while your monsters hit it. Or, yeah, in the shadow realms, like in the dungeon or the still realm, I suppose it's called.

You can grab them and, like, just carry them over the edge of a cliff and drop them. And that's really fun. I mean, it makes me feel very powerful. I agree that it requires kind of rewiring your brain away from the Zelda impulse of like, I'm going to run up to this person with my shield out, and then I'm going to hit him with a sword. But I don't know. I haven't, that hasn't really bothered me about the game. Like, I do skip some combat encounters just because if I've already collected the echo for the enemy and I'm being swarmed by a bunch of enemies, I'm like, well, there's no XP or anything. Like, there's no need for me to fight these guys, so I might as well just keep moving.

I don't really see that as a bad thing, though. But yeah, overall, I'm actually like, I find a combat encounter is to just sort of be these fluid, optional little puzzles that I think are fine. They're not the meat of the game. The meat of the game for me is the puzzles themselves, like the environmental puzzles. But the combat is not really bumming me out or anything. Yeah, I agree with you in the, like, in the context of dungeons or like other areas where they're a little bit more limited as opposed to the overworld exploration, where, again, I'm just so used to as Zelda. game just the joy of wandering around and finding new things, finding caves and dungeons, and there's a lot of that in this game. There's a lot of little mini dungeons with little rewards at the end. Sometimes

they have bosses. There's a ton of optional stuff in this game that is super cool. But while you're exploring, you just run into so many of these encounters, so many annoying enemies that yes, I mean, I guess it's fine to just be dodging them and running around them. I just, I don't know. I just wish there was an easier way to just take them out, which maybe I'll get a little bit later on, or maybe when I get my sword fighter mode up. I don't know. Again, this is why I want to give it more time. And the three of us have not had that much time with the game. We're recording this episode a little bit early. So we've only had about a week with it. So maybe my opinion will change as I play more. Yeah. I think I need to rewire my brain too as well. Like I for me,

it's mainly just I really need to change how I'm thinking about it. And I need to. to just get into the mindset of, I am not link. And even if there is a link mode in this game, I am not going to play this game like him. I am playing it in a completely different way. And when I get in that zone, I'm enjoying it more. It's just that it feels really different to be in that zone. And that's cool.

And it's pretty brave, actually, that they did this, the developers did this, to completely change the way that Zelda fights in a game, as opposed to just doing the CDI, game Zelda thing of just literally giving her a sword and board situation, which I do think it's like, that would be the obvious choice to just be like, yeah, the CDI Zelda game that we all played in love. Everyone knows Wanda of Gamalian. Everyone knows what those games were like. They're all common touch points for every single gamer around the world. I think that is true that a lot of

people picture a playable Zelda game and it's basically a palette swap for Link and she just has the same moose set where reimagining and imagining what it would mean for Zelda the character as she's existed across this mythos and these different incarnations, like what it would mean for her to be playable is, it's cool that they tried something different. Yeah, I mean, I don't use the sword mode. I just, like, avoid it.

Anytime I do it, it feels like kind of a failure to me. Not because I'm like, you're playing wrong, but just because I'm like, I don't like this. Like, I don't like the minute I have the sword and the music changes and I'm just like hitting things. I'm like, eh, this doesn't feel like the heart of the game. The heart of the game is, you know, make a bed while your army fights and, like, go to bed.

go sleep and like at your health back like that's the core of the game is this very like very different thing you can tell who among us is the the the true immersive sin truly yeah hardcore grognard yeah the two of us who are like i need to like embrace this mentality genuinely yeah you're inspiring me i need to do this i need to get here i think it's a fun way to play is to just try to do the sword thing as little as possible yeah for sure you know what this game reminded me of is uh pray arcane's prey because as I was like building staircases and like maneuvering up to break the borders of the world, I was thinking about that glue gun in prey that lets you do the same. It really is. I mean, I think for those, for people who don't know what immersive sim means. An immersive sim is

essentially a game that like has these systems in place that let that say yes to you no matter what you try to do to them. And a lot of games built with that philosophy are games that almost encourage you to break their mechanics like in dishonored, how you can blink anywhere. And and use these other powers in really cool kind of game-breaking ways, or in prey with the glue gun, which really lets you break everything, just like create infinite staircases and stuff. And this game is just carrying on that philosophy from Breath of the Wild and Cheers of the Kingdom. And that's where it really shines.

I mean, when it encourages that sort of thing, like when it sets you up with some sort of interesting puzzle, and maybe there will be some obvious solution, or maybe there won't. There's some cool ones in the Gerudo Temple. There's, like, one area where you have to figure out the best way to, like, light three torches and then there's some wind blowing on one of them. So you have to figure out a way to get that wind to stop in order to actually properly light the torch. And there are a lot of different

ways you could do it. There's a big gap, a big pit that the torches are all on. And you could, if you wanted to, you can kind of build yourself a bridge and do it that way. Or you can use long range arrows to take out like a certain part of it. And there are a lot of different experiments you can do. But at the same time, the dungeons and the dungeons feel pretty cool to me so far. The dungeons are a lot more gated and send you on more of a linear path than any of the dungeons in

Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom did. In those games, you could really just break everything and sequence bypass and not do anything in the way you're supposed to. Well, and a lot of people complained about those dungeons. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying this is a very good thing. I'm praising this in the game. And the one thing that is keeping me wanting to play is wanting

to see more dungeons and more puzzles that feel a little bit more on rails and have more of that tradition. dungeon feel, yet at the same time, being able to solve puzzles in a lot of different ways, as opposed to the traditional Zelda method where there's really only way you can solve most puzzles, that to me is super cool. I really like that about this game. It's why the combat is moving me out so much. I'm just picturing a version of this game that didn't have any combat in all and how cool that could be. But yes, I mean, I'm just, I really am excited to see more

of them, and I really am impressed with the dungeon design so far. Yeah, I think, you know, another key part of an immersive sim is the ability to manipulate the artificial intelligence of like NPCs and enemies in the world. And I do think that like that part of the combat where you're you're summoning enemies and then just they do their own thing is sort of furthering the immersive siminess of the game. That's true. That's true. It's not just about the environment. This is why I feel like I got to change my mindset. But yeah, keep going. I want Kirk to convince us both.

I know. I'm loving this. Kirk is convincing me in real time. It's great. Well, and you know, and like I said, like I certainly have my criticisms of this game. But there are some other things that I like about it, and I just want to sort of list them. One is I really enjoy the way that this game flips between side scrolling and a sort of isometric top-down view. I think that's really cool.

It's fun. If you take, I think the way that it works is if you take a staircase, you're just moving from basically top-down isometric like 2.5D world to world. Like you're keeping the perspective the same. But if you see a ladder and you take a ladder, then the ladder takes you into a side-scrolling room. So there are these really cool just 2D platforming puzzles that use all of the same, you know, the same echoes and the same mechanics, but are, you know, constrained by that shift to, like, jumping side to side. And it's just a different kind of platforming. I just think it's cool. Like, I like the way that the puzzles in the midst of a dungeon will just shift from one type of puzzle to another type.

I think it does that really elegantly. And I wasn't expecting it. I didn't realize that was like an aspect of this game. Yeah. And the other thing that I will say in this game's favor is that that the, you know, that's the game's favor is that. the soundtrack is just exceptionally great. I love it. It rolls.

This is so, this is similar to Link's Awakening. It must be something that Grezo likes to do, but both of these are just woodwind ensembles. Like, Nintendo is just employing woodwind players over here. The whole thing, it's like oboes and soprano saxes and flutes and picolos and beautiful clarinet solos and bassoon and like bass clarinet popping off. There just aren't soundtracks like this, almost anywhere. Like games where the score is a chamber ensemble of solo. There's one person on pretty much every instrument, even the string instruments. It's very rare that you hear, like sometimes you'll hear multiple, like a string section,

but almost everyone, it's like a unique voice. And so it's a very pleasurable experience for me, I guess, especially as a woodwind player, but it's just a really nice soundtrack. I think all the little compositions are lovely. That overworld theme is great. The Garudo, like the desert theme. Yeah, it's cool. It really like, I'm really into the music.

And that is actually a big part. of any given Zelda game for V. It's just the music. And so, like, the music is really, really great. And furthermore, it looks really good. I mentioned the frame rate issues before, and those are unfortunate, especially I had been playing on the TV, and they're much more noticeable to me when it's docked.

I started playing handheld and I was like, oh, okay, this is fine, whatever. It's okay. But it is kind of too bad, considering the Nintendo, it used to be in my mind kind of synonymous that just, like, their games were perfectly dialed into their hardware. The fact that it just really feels like, all their developers are like, when can the Switch 2 come out?

Like, we are dying here, like, trying to make these things work. And just how the game looks really great. It has that kind of Lego World, Toy World look. If it were running perfectly, it would just be, like, beautiful looking. And instead, in the overworld, it's just like a little stuttery. And I'm like, ah, this is too bad. So I guess we'll see what it looks like on Switch 2. Yeah, it's been almost eight years.

One other thing, I mean, so a problem I had with Link to the Pass and also have with this game is that it feels like you move like a hair too slowly. Like Zelda walks just a, like, I wish she could walk a half a step more quickly. And there's something about, maybe it's just because of the view that makes it feel like it's going a little bit more slowly. Or maybe it's because the maps feel like they're smaller

than they actually are. I don't know. I don't know what it is. But something about the graphical style, and the reason I say it's the graphical style is because the exact same problem with Link's Awakening, despite the fact that was a one-to-one remake of a game, Boy game in which that wasn't a problem.

So something about the style makes me feel like she walks just like a hair too slowly. Yeah. You can get a horse. Did you guys get the horse yet? Oh yeah. No, not yet. That's awesome. Maybe I'm about too.

Yeah, the horse is nice. The horse is nice and fast. Yeah, something you should do, Maddie, something that I think that made me enjoy the game more and might make you enjoy the game more is that like even though you're kind of, you're encouraged to go to either Garudo or Zora. And it sounds like you're already in there, so you might as well finish it. but you can if you want, just pick a direction and start exploring, like you can in Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. And there's a lot of stuff you can do even when it's not part of the main quest.

A lot of stuff you can find, including the horse, which is like just above the desert area. Yeah, it's kind of right there. Yeah. All right. That's good to know. I mean, it's like it feels almost like an open world in a good way, but then it's on rails and the old school Zelda way that I, like Jason, really enjoy and was really digging. And that's part of why I said the dungeon I'm on right now is when I really started to enjoy the game. Because like those environmental puzzles, like that's classic Zelda to me, like definition of Zelda in my brain.

I don't want to start arguments about whether Breath of the Wild is really Zelda or not. I love that game, et cetera, et cetera. But this feels very like me as a child playing links awakening levels of I'm looking at this room. I'm thinking to myself, what do I have in my arsenal that can solve this? What's the thing I just picked up and how am I going to take advantage of it in order to get past these very hyper-specific environmental puzzles? And then when you figure it out, it's so exciting. It's that combined with just the additional layer of immersive simness that, I mean, that exact puzzle you described, Jason, with the three torches. I loved that puzzle.

I thought that was so fun. Like, as soon as I watched in that room, I was like, this is exactly what I wanted this game to be. Like there's no enemies. I mean, maybe there is an enemy in that room and I've already forgotten it. But like, that's not the point of that puzzle. It's really just you're walking into a room and you're like, I just got to figure out how to light these torches. Okay, let me just take a second here and think about this and think about what I have. That's such a great feeling.

And I don't know. I'm loving that part. So I really just got to fix the combat thing in my brain and stop using it. I will shout out. Part of why swordfighter mode is bugging me is that they made this decision to have Zelda's jump height be a little higher in sword fighter mode. And there's puzzles where you need that, where you need just slight additional jump height. I don't know why they did that. That is completely baffled. Well, for the puzzles, I mean, you can do that by just seven. Yeah, but you don't have to go into server. But why not just have her jump height just be able to high?

Yeah, well, so that's interesting. I think it's because when you're in sword fighter when you can't conjure. So the idea is like if you're fighting a boss where maybe there's like a little bit. I see what you're saying though. It's a little bit annoying to feel like you're getting nerfed when you're out of sort of fire mode. That's just strange. Yeah, no, yeah, I agree with you there.

But yeah, that said, I mean, you can always, like, if you guys have the trampoline, that's super fun to just use. That's true. You can get around a lot. There's also, you get some stuff pretty early on that you can break things with, and that's very fun. So, for example, I think it's, I don't remember exactly when you get this. You get the platform, you get the, like, the enemy, it's kind of like the thwomp in Super Mario where it just like goes straight down and you can ride on its back and then go up. Yes.

You can use that to get up pretty high, up vertical heights. There's some other stuff. I mean, beds are super powerful in that you can just build infinite stairs with them. The spider. The flying tile, make sure you guys in the Georgia dungeon, make sure you pick up a flying tile, because that is super cool and helpful. And then I think once, I think my, my try power is only. four tri-forces right now. So I can't summon multiple flying tiles. But I think once you have enough to do multiple, you can just make them infinite and just glide across the entire map if you want to

using flying tiles. So there's a lot of cool stuff you can do to break the game. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that this game came out after Tears of the Kingdom. I think that kind of situates it in a sort of weird place in terms of the overall arc of Zelda and how Zelda has evolved. Because it's such a kind of revolutionary. Like it's such an experimental game. And you could imagine like, you know, in a lot of ways it feels in line with what used to be

the console versus handheld split between Zelda games and still kind of exists. There's this feeling that there are the big games, you know, the 3D games with the bigger teams, the bigger budgets that come out every so often. And then in between, there's the smaller games. You know, your link between worlds or your spirit tracks

back when the DS was a thing. The 2D and the 3D, yeah. Right. And then, those games look a little more like the old Super Nintendo Zelda games. And so that split still exists. This game in so many ways reads as one of those games. But then you start playing it and it's really bold and really, you know, like experimental and it's throwing out so many things that make, that we associate with Zelda and it is doing

something new. If it weren't coming after the 3D games also did the same thing and Tears of the Kingdom in particular, like also threw out a ton of what people thought. a Zelda game was after Breath of the Wild did it first. And like, so I don't know, like, it's kind of interesting that both branches of the Zelda tree are like growing really weird fruit that we've never seen before. Well, it feels like that's, this is just what Zelda is. Like, this is pretty definitively saying, Zelda is now a game where, like, the goal is

say yes to the player. The goal is no longer, like, guide you by the hand and take you on rails for this roller coaster or theme park type experience. The goal is you can go in whatever direction you want. And Maddie, you mentioned. the term open world before, I would describe this as fully open world because pretty much from the beginning, you can use that your glue gun or your stairs or whatever to break the boundaries and go wherever you want. You're really not that limited once you get a certain number of echoes.

So I think it's just this is what Zelda is now. This is the philosophy. The philosophy is no longer you are going to stick to the script. The philosophy is throw away the script and go whatever way you want. The one thing I'll say, this is a problem in Tears of the Kingdom, too. There's so many fiddily annoying UI things that really you would think a company like Nintendo would get this right. And the fact that there isn't like a favorites menu, the fact that it's not easier to kind of sort through all of the different echoes that you can conjure, you can toggle it to do like most used, which is essentially the equivalent of a favorites. But it's still, it's a pain to have to go through all of those echoes.

And I mean, it is, it can be fun to be like, okay, what should I use here? I'm going to scroll through all of these and just pick something at random and play around with it. That can be enjoyable. But the fact that there aren't more options for that, the fact that it's just one long, horizontal bar instead of more. That's the thing. It needed to be a radial. Yeah.

The fact that there's a radio and some kind of favorites option. Like, yeah. I totally agree. I don't really understand why the interface isn't better. I suppose this is also true in Breath of the Wild and Interior to the Kingdom. And both of those games are games that I played for like 100 hours, so I just got

to the point where my muscle memory worked, where I could hold down the button and then use the thumbstick to navigate a horizontal menu bar, which just feels crazy to me. But I don't understand that. I mean, as unimpeachable as some of what Nintendo does is in terms

of design and feel and all these things that Nintendo games tend to do very well, there really is this weird disconnect with interface and UX that I just, it's like, I don't really know. I would be very curious, like, what the meetings at Nintendo are like when people sit down, like the UX designers and the interface designers who are like, whatever, studying all the same, you know, kind of basic principles as any UX designer or UI designer at any other company. They know all the same basic rules about like how long it should take a person to be able to do something,

about readability, about arranging, you know, using a thumbstick to best, like, pick things from a menu, just cursors versus menus. There are so many things that there's so much established knowledge about. I really would be curious to know why they just keep designing interfaces that are, like, really limited and weird and hard to use that really do detract from a game like this. I mean, it is, well, it's fine that you can slide through this menu, but I just don't do it very much. And I'm constantly having to switch between, you know, okay, wait, most recent or most used or most expensive. They're each useful in their own way for different circumstances.

But it just, it's very, it really slows down the flow of the game. And I do think it's a significant issue that I just feels like it doesn't need to be there. Like it's totally just like pulling down the experience in a way that if it were way easier to do all this stuff, the whole thing would work better and would be a better gameplay experience. Yeah, it makes sense. And stubbornness maybe. I don't know, who knows why, but like, it's the same issue as them not adding button remapping, which is just insane. Right, the accessibility stuff feels like a cousin to this. It is, right.

It's all just part of, I think there's a certain degree of like, well, we're Nintendo, we know what we're doing, we know how you should have fun. In fact, it actually, it's funny because these games are so much the opposite philosophy and the old Zelda games were very much, we will guide you along the way. This is how you should endure yourself. Mom is going to tell you what to do at every turn. Exactly. These games are like, find your own fun, but they don't apply that philosophy to the U.X and U.I and button remapping and something like that. Here is how you're going to enjoy yourself. Here is how are you going to navigate the menus. Here is how you're going to find your own fun. You're going to do that, but you're going to do it in spite of all of these interface hurdles that we put in your way.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, I guess there has to be, there has to be some friction. There have to be some obstacles along the way. I suppose, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's part of why I am a little worried about how many more echoes I'm going to have collected by the end of this game. And I'm like, okay, so people are telling me this is going to get more fun. And I am experiencing that in terms of puzzle design. But I'm also like, this is already so much scrolling and memorization on my part of like, what do I have? What can it do?

And like you were talking about forgetting the bind power, Kirk, which I've experienced that too. It's very Tears of the Kingdom-esque where there would always be something like the rewind power, whatever, where I would just go a few hours and be like, wait, why am I making life harder for myself for no reason? Because it's not like quite in your primary moves. Exactly. It just sort of slips your mind.

And then you're like, wait, no, I have this other power that very obviously is going to make this entire encounter way easier or this puzzle way easier or make it even possible to solve the puzzle at all. There's that. Usually make it possible. Yeah. But then there's also the echoes where I'm like, oh, actually, I could just use the spider here. That's going to solve all my problems and be exactly the right length or whatever it may be. But I'm like, well, I haven't even thought about the spider in like two hours. Why would I have even remembered that I had that and why wouldn't I be using some other item?

Part of what's worked for me there is, like I said at the beginning of this, just thinking about the recent echoes I picked up and being like, this is probably what they want me to try first. And so I'll just go through that and be like, okay, what does any of these fit the bill? And then beyond that, it's just my own, my own blissful creativity. And that's fun. But I'm just like, I'm thinking ahead to future Maddie having like 72 X. goes and what is her life going to be like? I don't know. There are a total of 120, I believe. Amazing.

And Maddie, to your point about it being kind of the recent stuff, I mean, from a design perspective, they don't want you to be in a dungeon and have to leave to go find a solution. So they're always going to make it so you can find the solutions pretty close by to where the puzzle are. Yeah, which is good. So, yeah, that makes sense. That makes logical sense. And, yeah, I mean, I think that once you get used to, I've gotten accustomed to kind of

toggling the most used, which really, I mean, that'll get you what you need most of the time. But yeah, I mean, it does kind of suck. It's also, you can also navigate from the menu and have a better idea, like better visualization of all of your echoes and what the options are. It's easier to kind of look through them all when you're looking at them at like a five-by-five grid as opposed to just the single horizontal bar. But yeah, I mean, it's just a big kind of problem with this game. But yeah, I mean, overall, I'm looking forward to playing more.

I think I have a feeling that I'll like it the more I play it. But definitely a game that, like, does not grab you quickly. Definitely a game that takes some, at least for me, takes some kind of meeting on its own terms, which is not typically what I expect from Nintendo and especially not what I expect from Zelda. Yeah, same. I feel like it might help if the story had been a little grabier right off the top as well. and I'm not sure what I would change about it to make that the case.

But like the fact that you start out as Link for the first few minutes and then he falls into the rift and there's that sort of record scratch, you're suddenly Zelda now. But then also Zelda immediately gets disempowered because she's accused of causing all of the problems in the kingdom and she's in a prison. I mean, this is like sort of classic Zelda stuff. You're in a prison. You need to escape the prison. I'm fine with that.

Always some sort of self-section. Yeah, but like there was just so. something about that like a series of events that felt like a little stuttery in terms of story pacing, where it was almost like it took a little too long for me to get to the part where I was Zelda, and then I had the magic wand, and I could start making echoes. And then it started being like, okay, this is the video game. Now I'm understanding what the structure of everything is going to be. And I'm going to start having fun and being creative and getting past the guards and doing

the series of events that lead to me having more and more echoes. and that's exciting. There's just something about that. But I did really like the idea of the premise, which is like these rifts are forming around the world. There can be sort of like an evil version of someone that's emerging from the rift, like this dark version of the echo concept that can be used for evil where like some people are impostors and they're from this other world.

And like that's why Zelda gets imprisoned. Yeah, exactly. They're AI. I even like the idea of you having to fight Link. Like it's very like anti-Zelda that Zelda has. has to fight Link and then he gets his weapons. Like, I thought that was really fun. But I don't know.

I also am now emotionally and spiritually agreeing with Kirk at the beginning of the show where I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have any of Link's weapons. And I should have just gone pure triforce of wisdom mode and just not had any of those story beats even be present at all. You should try just playing totally without them, except when you absolutely need it. I think that'll change things for me. Yeah, it works for me. It's been a fun way to play so far. Yeah, I don't know. I think that the way this game has felt to me is almost more like an indie developer or an outside developer taking a crack at Zelda. Maybe kind of similar to Cadence of High Rule. So the cadence of high rule was this really great game made by the developers of Crypt of the Necro Dancer. That's this music dancing, rogue-like combat Zelda remix where they got, you know, they made it with Nintendo's permission, and they have all of the Zelda characters,

and it's all your faves in a completely different kind of game, with these, like, extremely killing Danny B., remixes of all the Zelda songs where you're dancing around and fighting. And that game is super cool, and, you know, everything in it feels like a remix because it's very clearly under the auspices of a different developer. And this game, to me, it's a little weird because it's being released by Nintendo. It's a, like, proper Zelda game or whatever that means. but at the same time, it feels for all the world, top to bottom, like the same kind of thing

as Cadence of Hyrule. And so I've just been thinking of it that way. And maybe that, I don't know if that's why, but I just, like, as I play it, I'm like, this is cool. This is like a cool, weird little Zelda remix that may or may not say some definitive thing about the future of Zelda or what Zelda is now. Like, I'm not so sure that it does, even taken in the context of Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild.

I don't know. Maybe we'll see, I suppose, whatever the next Zelda is. the game is. But playing this one, I do just kind of feel like I'm playing some some kind of fun, weird remix of Zelda. And that's pretty cool. And yeah, I guess the way I've been playing, by kind of avoiding sword mode and just sort of taking it on its own terms, has kind of leaned into all the things that make it extremely different from any other Zelda game. And so far, that's worked. I've really enjoyed it. I've played. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely going to keep playing. It's, you know, I just want to hear, like, when they're going to have, like, a real

Pickleau Solo and the Supranosax is going to get a step forward for a battle theme or something. I just, I got to know. Yeah, yeah. That seems like a great note to end on. That's the energy I'm going to as it were. Take, take with me and into my, into my next adventure with Princess Zelda and try the wand, the try rod and also my friend try. Can I just say, Piccolo versus Soprano would be a fantastic Dragon Ball Z crossover. Yeah, that would be good.

Band Geeks everywhere are having that debate. Tony Soprano versus Piccolo. Yeah, is that going to be in multiverses? I don't know. We'll cover it on Triple Click if it ever happens. I'm a fan of multiverses. I'm pre-ordering multiverses. I didn't see that kind.

Yeah, right on. We'll be back in a bit with one more thing. Hey, it's Danny at Maximum Fun. Have you checked out Triple Click's bonus content? Every month, Maddie, Kirk, and Jason release a bonus episode just for Max Fun members. That's when they have episodes just to take a deep dive into things like Succession, or Balder's Gate 3, or the 1993 Super Mario Brothers movie. And they just released the start to Triple Quest,

their tabletop RPG miniseries, d-med by none other than Matt Mercer. You can listen to those right now if you're already a MaxFun member. If not, any time of year is a good time to support the show by joining Max Fun, starting at just five bucks a month. And when you do, you'll get bonus content for every other Max Fun show, too. So head to maximum fun.org And thank you so much for your support. And we are back.

It's time for one more thing. Kirk, why don't you go first? Oh, man, I have a show that I have been watching that I'm so excited to tell people about. It is an anime on Netflix that I am just in love with. I've heard nothing but good things about this. I'm sure some people will know it. I need to see it.

I need to. A lot of positive versions. You will like it. This show is called Delicious in Dungeon, aka I think it's Dungeon Mishi, which I think just means dungeon food in Japanese. Seems fine. And that is, dungeon food is discussed quite a bit in this show. But on Netflix, you will find it under Delicious in Dungeon.

It is an anime based on a manga by Ryoko Kui that I have not read, developed by Trigger, the production house, studio Trigger. They've made a bunch of anime. They actually animated the cyberpunk anime, which I really enjoyed and is kind of equally artistically amazing, sort of similar to Delicious and Dungeon. But Delicious in Dungeon, it's so, so good. It's so good that I just, I wanted to describe it and recommend it to people. This show begins very much as a fantasy sort of anime, you know, like a fantasy RPG.

You've got your fighter and your mage and your healer and they're kind of in a fight against a red dragon and the dragon kind of beats them and it eats their healer and then they like die and they wake up and you're like, wow, what is going on? It's very full on. It's very anime. There's a lot happening. And then they kind of assemble a party as best they can, the main characters, a mage and a rogue and a warrior. And they're like, the warrior, it turns out, the healer, their other mage is his sister.

And she's been eaten by the dragon, but is not yet digested. So they have to get back down to this very low level of the dungeon, which is just the dungeon. And you're like, okay, okay, I'm following this. I'm following this. There's a dungeon. They were in there. they have to go back in because I guess they died, but they got resurrected or something, I don't know. And you start to kind of piece this together. And then they meet this guy named Senshi,

who is a dwarf and a very, kind of an oddball who they run across. And very quickly in the first episode, it becomes clear that Senshi's whole thing is that he is a amazing cook. And he understands that in this dungeon, there are all kinds of monsters and plants. There's a whole complex ecosystem. And each floor has its own ecosystem. And he is a spent years studying all of the monsters and he understands how to cook and prepare them and eat them because dungeon delving requires you to keep eating. Food is actually a huge problem for people exploring this dungeon because you have to buy all this food and carry it in and it's really heavy and the further you get, you start to run out of food and then you get tired

and you don't fight as well. And so that's kind of the breakthrough with him is he makes them food out of like the very first thing they find this little mushroom creature. And it's really delicious. And they're like, oh, you can just make food out of the stuff in here. And then that kind of reveals what this show is actually about. So he joins their party, and they begin delving into this dungeon. And then it's really a show about ecology and about understanding, like, how things fit in with one another. And it's imagined this dungeon, this amazing dungeon that slowly reveals more and more of itself, as this, like, beautiful, really well-thought-out, just like complex, magical, almost like organism, like a series of ecosystem.

that then as they learn more and more about, they're able to kind of thrive and live within. And you even begin to see this very early on. Like a whole society has sprung up around this dungeon and people live in the dungeon. And the dungeon is like, it's more than just a dungeon the way we think of it in like Dungeons and Dragons.

And that's kind of the whole riff. You mean in Triple Quest. Yes, in Triple Quest. And it's the whole kind of like subversive, like, idea of the show is like, it's not necessarily like, what if we befriended the monsters? It's more just like,

what if we understood, them and we understood our place in them and also like how to eat them. Yeah, I'm going to say it sounds like the opposite of befriending them. Well, but I mean, but it is like centered on like understanding and not wasting. Like he's like, like Senshii is very much like a conservationist in that he like he hunts, but he hunts to eat and he does not ever want to mess with the ecosystem. But even then he'll sometimes be up on a high horse with them a little bit because he's like a master.

Like he knows everything. And he'll be like, oh no, you don't understand. Like you can't kill that many things. fish because, you know, the fish are part of the ecosystem and the larger monsters eat the fish. But then he'll kind of be humbled even later. And he'll say, you know, I kind of thought I understood the ecosystem. But actually, turns out I didn't. There were like even bigger things and like we're part of the ecosystem too. It's so good. It really reminds me of watching Avatar The Last Airbender insofar as it's a show that starts out with like a very easy to follow premise

and then gradually expands only as needed to like flesh out the world building. and introduce new ideas, and then more and more new ideas and new characters, and then as you go, where maybe like eight or nine episodes in, it's just become richer and richer and richer. And I'm like, man, this world is so interesting. Like, this is such a cool and clever riff on like basically D&D, like basically that kind of a fantasy world. So I can't say enough good things about it. And just like every night we just watch a few episodes and I'm so excited to watch more. And last thing about it, it has the most killing opening theme song and closing theme song.

They're, man, they're both so good. The full versions of both songs are good. But like opening, it's by this band Bump of Chicken. It's got this like river dance riff that plays every time at the end that just like gets me so pumped up for the show. So yeah, it's got really great music too. Anyways, Delicious and Dungeon. It's on Netflix. If you haven't already watched it, you should go watch it.

It's super good. Yeah, this has been on my list for a while. I really need to watch it. I feel like Dina would love it too. I'll go next because I also have a TV. show here. So Dina and I watched the entire first season of a show called Ellsbeth, which is technically a spinoff of the good wife and the good fight, but I've never seen either one and you don't need to see either one. And I don't know. Good wife. Good show. I don't know. I don't know anything about them.

I have nothing to say about them. But I will say that Elspeth is really good. It is a procedural mystery show, one mystery per episode, and it's really funny. And I love laughing my way through a mystery procedural. I like it when the dead body is kind of de-emphasized and there's a whole lot of jokes, but also a really good mystery. So the premise of this, the starring character, Ellsbeth, Elsbeth, Tascioni is played by Carrie Preston and she is like this Midwest style too friendly for New York City, kind of a detective. She constantly is wearing mismatched, garish, overly colorful clothes, and carrying at least three tote bags in every single scene. Like they costume her with so many tote bags.

Like she's some sort of soccer mom. She is out of place in every crime scene she's ever in. She's also an attorney who's on assignment to observe the cops. So of course they don't want her there because they don't want to be observed for any reason, but she's investigating a corruption scandal. And she has this like sort of like sweetheart well actually affect at all times that just becomes extremely lovable. Yeah, she's a little Colombo. One More Thing, Ask. But also, the way the show operates is very similar to Poker Face in that, except for the finale episode,

which has a different structure, because Elzbeth is off her game and the finale, in every episode, you know who the killer is. So just like Elspeth, you know at the very beginning, like, this person did it. You get to see mostly how they did it as well. And Elzbeth also, like the heroine of poker face, has an uncanny ability. to tell when somebody is messing with her, but she would never say the word bullshit, and instead she has this, like, sort of Midwestern overly friendly way

of just inserting herself into criminals' lives and annoying the crap out of them until they are worn down into admitting what they did. And it's just so funny, and Carrie Preston is so hilarious. This is, like, the role she was born to play. I don't know. So if you like mystery shows,

it's just such a breath of fresh air. I mean, especially if you thought, like, poker face was too serious, too much of a downer, but you, like, kind of like the idea of that. Elspeth is, like, the perfect panacea for that kind of thing. It goes down so easy. We just watched it all in a row, and I just laughed the whole way through and had an amazing, amazing time watching it. Where is it? Gosh, where is Elspeth streaming? It's like it's a CBS show, so I don't know how it would be easiest to watch that.

We watched on Paramount Plus, but... I guess that makes sense. Yeah, she was a great character on the Good Wife. Like, I could see her having a good show. Also, I'm seeing Wendell Pierce's in this. Yes. That's rad. He's great at it.

Yeah. Can't get enough of that guy. How many, how many spin-offs does the Good Wife have? I guess, too. That was a huge show, man. The Kings are like, they are like TV royalty and it's pretty wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

My wife watched a bunch of The Good Wife. I know it was used, but I didn't realize there were so many spin-offs. I knew about, like, the good fight. Yeah. Again, this one stands alone. So if you're like me, listeners, and you haven't seen the other two, you really, you don't need to. And it's designed that way. They just introduce Ellsbeth to you immediately and it's fine.

And it's just a mystery show from that point on. So yeah, highly recommended. Jason, what is your one more thing? My one more thing is a video game called Metaphor Refontasio. And we will be talking about this much more on next week's episode. It is a humongous game. And I don't think any of us are even close to finishing it. but we'll still die.

Actually, I finished it over the weekend. Oh, did you now? I invented a time machine. Congrats on fitting more hours into the weekend than actually exists. I've used the echoes of myself. Right, right. This game, okay, I want to start by a quick anecdote, which is that a while back, like a month or two ago, I tweeted something about how, like, not enough people are talking

about how there's a new fantasy persona game coming out in just a few weeks. And I got some flack to that from, like, Shin-Megami Tensei people with anime Avatar as being like, how dare you call this fantasy persona? It's not. It's a Shin-Megami Tensei game. Like, what are you talking about? My friends, it is fantasy persona. I cannot, I cannot emphasize that enough. So metaphor re-phentazio, this is a new game from Atlas, from the people who, the director of persona 3 through 5, the art director of persona 3 through 5, the and the composer of persona 3 through 5. And it has the exact structure of persona 5 with some new twists and it is set in a brand new fantasy world. And my God, I am in love with this game. I love

everything about it. I love the job system, which replaces the persona system. I love the dungeons. I love the rhythms. I love the persona structure and the new, the story and the escapades and the heists. And I love everything about it. I cannot recommend it enough. Like I said, we'll get more in depth on this next week when we do a triple play. I just wanted to bring it up because it's actually out this week. comes out this Friday, I believe, October 11th. And if people are wondering whether they should check it out, 100%. If you like persona 5 and you want more of it, I mean, this essentially feels like persona 6 and all but name.

It's a brand new persona game. The only difference is that it's not like set in a high school. But you have the same calendar system every day you choose whether to like develop your social links or go dungeon crawling or go into there are a bunch of side dungeons. One big advancement over persona five is that in persona five, the kind of the big side dungeon was all randomly generated in Mementos. In this, you have handcrafted side dungeons in addition to your main, whatever kind of the main dungeon of that given month is, and that's a big advancement. And then the one other thing I'll talk about real quick is the

new job system, which I think is awesome. It's kind of, it's the jobs in this game, there's some 40 of them, something like that. And they all are basically like persona. except you can switch any character's job at any time, and they each can be kind of advanced, and then you can get further jobs from them, and sometimes they require you to mix and match. So, for example, you get this job called the knight that is kind of like the tank job,

and one of his big skills, or her big skills, is to absorb enemy damage, make all the enemies redirect towards the knight, and, like, the taunt, it would be called in a standard JRP. and then the knight can advance to a mage night, or magic night, which requires you to max out the night job and also get to level 10 in the mage job. So there's some stuff like that. And then a lot of the advancement requires you to do the social links. So that's all tied in really well.

And I just love it. I'm playing so much of it and just really loving every minute of it. The one caveat I'll give here is that I'm playing it on PC. When I first ran it on Steam, it was running at like five frames per second. know why, and it turned out after some troubleshooting that for some reason it was running on my integrated graphics instead of my GPU. So if you are playing on Steam and you are having that issue, make sure you go to your window settings and graphic settings and set it to manually, like to make sure that it's forcibly set to your running your GPU, because I had to do that

to get it working properly. I've been playing it mostly on the Steam deck, actually, and it's not great, I would say, it runs fine. I mean, I think, I think, it's beyond. I mean, I think he on Not great, but okay. Whatever, I'm biting my tongue. This is your one more thing. Yeah, okay. If you're out there and you're on the fence, you could always wait for us to talk about it next week. We'll go more in depth. I think we all have different feelings about it. But I will just say that I love it. And it's one of my favorite games of the year. I wholeheartedly recommend it. And I've only played 30 hours, so I'd probably like a third of the way in. Yeah, you're like about to finish the prolog. The first act, yeah. So maybe my opinion will change as I've. play much more, but I've been bouncing between this and Zelda, which has been a lot. I love it.

Metaphor, Refontasio, aka Fantasy Persona, which if anyone ever criticizes me for saying that again, they could go F themselves. It is. It is that. Yeah, we'll get into it next week. It'll be fun to talk about. Yeah, that'll be fun. I'll also quickly say it has a bit of a slow start, and then I ended up liking it a lot

more. I mean, it is a persona game. Yeah, I know, but Persona 5 really starts with a bang. This game kind of takes a few hours. But regardless, we're all going to talk about our takes to next week. When we all talk about metaphor refantasio, Fantazio, whatever. Haven't heard a character say that word yet. Don't know what it means.

Fantazio. Fantazio. And with that, we will see all of you next week. Yeah, see you all next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ.

Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun.

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