Video Gamers Podcast - [Holiday Rewind] Tears of the Kingdom - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

We're currently on break for the holidays, but we're re-releasing some of our favorite episodes in the meantime! In this one, gaming Zonai Paul, Josh and Ryan are bringing you the long awaited Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Deep Dive. We jump into gaming’s latest blockbuster smash hit The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. We break down everything from gameplay to story, the new innovations and the old rehashed content. Is this game truly the best thing to come along in recent years, or is it gaming's next over-hyped Nintendo product? Things get feisty as different opinions fly in this must listen episode. Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hey guys, it's Paul here. This is one of our Holiday Rewind episodes because at the end of every December, we take a two-week hiatus to spend a little bit of extra time with our families. And for this episode here, we decided to re-release one of our favorite episodes, The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. This is an episode that brought a lot of animated debate and discussion. I think our energy levels on this one kind of reached higher levels than they normally have because, as we kind of quickly realized while recording,

not all of us felt the same way about the game. So some of us are a little bit higher than others on it, and I think that a lot of our listeners enjoyed getting to hear both sides of how to consider Tears of the Kingdom. This episode was recorded by Josh, Ryan, and me. Fun fact, Ryan had just recently joined the pod, so this is actually his second deep dive that he had done with us. And when I think back on recording this episode, I think what just stands out more than anything is how I was so convinced that I was going to come in and all three of us were just going to praise this

game, talk about it being one of the all-time greats. And when I realized we just weren't on that same wavelength, it just felt a little bit like a gut punch. I was just kind of sad. Like, I hoped that we would all just celebrate this game, but it turned out that the mileage just varied between the three of us. And so whether you loved this game or felt like it was a disappointment, I think your viewpoint will be verbalized in this episode. So I think everyone will relate a little bit more or less to the three of us here. At the end of the day, I think where I've just kind of landed is that you have to just consider Tears of the Kingdom kind of like parkour. It's not just about reaching the objective and defeating the

boss and checking it off the list. If you run around this game just shooting wooden arrows, hand climbing your way up mountains, you're probably not going to find a whole lot of fun. But if you enjoy things like putting together wacky combinations with the fuse ability, finding hilarious and goofy ways to beat that boss. And if you enjoy building these crazy Zonai devices to let you fly through the air and engage in combat from above. You know, things like that. If you enjoy engaging in that kind of stuff, then I'm sure this game was far more up your alley. In any case, we're going to go ahead and get this episode started.

We'll get back to our regularly scheduled new content in January. I think that's about it for now. Let's go ahead and get into this one here and start the episode. Hello, fellow gamers. Welcome to Hyrule Castle Central Square. Pull up a chair and enjoy one of our enduring salt-grilled prime meats with a side of fried wild greens. Today we will be deep-diving one of the most anticipated games of the year, The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. If you're new to our show, on our deep dives, we spend the first half mostly

explaining and talking about how the game works. And then in the second half, we'll focus more on giving our final thoughts and assessments before we place it on our overall leaderboard. I am your host, Paul, and joining me are my two Goros. First up, he can be found combining minecarts to a shield to go shield surfing around Hyrule. It's Josh. You know, you could have picked anybody and you picked a Goro, Paul. I don't know if this is a comment on my dad bot at this point or what. I believe it's just slang for friend.

So that was the intention for what it's worth, Josh. Okay. All right. Well, all right. Cool. All right. Way to really save that that got away with it all right and then joining me and josh even though princess zelda desperately needs him to go find her he's exploring and clearing out every shrine

across the lands instead it's ryan yeah i'm not too worried about her i'm gonna do my own thing just take some own personal time explore the world yeah princess zelda she can take care of herself right yeah no she's got she got the wisdom and all that nonsense she's good to go there you go all right before we start our deep dive we do have a little bit of housekeeping to cover josh i think we've got a review or two to read we've got reviews hey i keep these things rolling in i love them uh we appreciate it it helps the show so if you haven't left us a review please take just a few seconds and leave one if you're on spotify you can just go ahead and tap and rate us five stars

but it really does help the show if you do write us a written review good chance we're gonna read it like i'm about to do right now this first one comes in from sean burger and it's titled best pod i've ever listened to and it says these guys honestly cure so many things in my life and bring out real laughter and happiness thank you oh what a sweet review right Number one. Right on, Sean. Appreciate that, man. That was great. And then this next one is short and sweet, and it comes in from Winning is Fun. It's titled Great Pod, and it says, I'm a new listener and genuinely enjoy this pod. Oh, well, welcome to the podcast. We always love getting new listeners.

I love it. That's all kinds of winning. Yeah, that's right. So thank you for leaving us a review you too and for everybody that's left us one and if you haven't hey join the club leave us a review oh it's our favorite thing favorite thing is getting those reviews yep and also one last thing for housekeeping guys we've got some new patreon supporters to thank i think this might be an all-time high i i think we've had three new supporters but we actually have four to thank today so for our listeners out there if you didn't know uh most of our funding does come from patreon and so we do want to give some shout outs here we owe shout outs to mr anderson who you might remember that

name they are now back with Rare status. We had Grilled Chicken Man sign up with Rare status. Delicious name, by the way. We have We Like Mowers, who upgraded from Rare to Epic. And just today, we had a new Epic supporter sign up, HG Knight. What a huge thank you to the four of you. Thank you so much. We can't do the show without people like you. Yeah, it is incredible to see

people just hop in there and really help support the show and keep things going i i mean i can't tell you what it means to us so thank you very much yep thank you everybody we love you uh keep it coming and and we'll be here yeah and for those of you out there that aren't currently on patreon supporting us you can head over to multiplayer squad.com that'll forward to our patreon page you can sign up starting five bucks a month you'll get bonus episodes a shout out ad free episodes you get it a day early uh you get a special color in discord all kinds of perks so once again go check that out at multiplayer squad.com all right i think we're all done with housekeeping. The upheaval has thrown all of Hyrule into chaos.

We've been tasked with investigating regional phenomena while the threat of the Demon King looms over all. Let's do it, guys. Let's deep dive Tears of the Kingdom. Okay, here's a description of the game on Wikipedia. The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is a 2023 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The sequel to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom retains aspects including the open world of Hyrule, which has been expanded to allow for more vertical exploration. The player controls Link, who must help princess zelda to stop ganondorf from destroying hyrule all right so let's start out by talking a little bit about

our histories with zelda what's your guys relationship to the zelda series and did you play breath of the wild and what did you think of it um i i played i guess the first one i remember is actually with your uh with your wife my cousin uh nikki we played a link to the past way way super nintendo yeah way back in the day and then uh ocarina time which i loved um mainly because i was 10 but that's that's about that's about the extent of my uh zelda make me feel old right zelda life i did play breath of the wild um not a ton because i just it just i i don't know i didn't get sucked in like everyone else did but yeah those those other ones were the ones that i i liked a lot ocarina of time especially

what about you josh yeah for me it's it's funny man i've got kind of a love-hate relationship with the zelda series i they have i mean ocarina of time is on my top 10 list of best games ever like honestly like i i mean it's one of those where i just think that game was perfection at the time majora's mask phenomenal the old school ones you know link to the past and all those. I played all those. I loved all those. And then there's been some misses for me. I did not like Twilight Princess at all. I know, Paul, you really love Skyward Sword. I thought it was mediocre. You know, I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. It didn't blow me away. Played Breath of the Wild famously have always said, I think it's a little overrated. That's not to say that it's not good by any means but it's just you know i think some of the hype around that game is is to this

day still overrated a little bit i just i don't think it's the best game ever made like a lot of people do so that's that's kind of where i'm at with the zelda series man love some of them really dislike some of them and it really i kind of take it game by game i am exactly the same way because there are zelda games that i absolutely love and others that I played for 30 minutes and said I have zero desire to go any further. I know that feeling. Oh, boy. Buckle up, everybody. All right.

So here's the thing. I never played any Zelda games until I was an adult. I didn't have any video game consoles growing up and my first one was in high school and at that point i just didn't really care about zelda now as an adult i have gone back and i love link to the past i tried ocarina of time it's just so dated and the camera is really janky and i couldn't get into it um but for me the first one that i really sank my teeth into was the wind waker which i absolutely loved i think that might have been what you were thinking josh because i actually oh i never touched skyward sword which is weird i don't know anything about that game i've never watched footage i know that the remake came out

but other than that i i never engaged with it at all same with majora's mask i did say skyward sword i knew wind waker wind waker is the one that you really liked yeah especially the music uh and then i absolutely loved breath of the wild i mean i loved every second of that game i was crazy hyped here about you know quote breath of the wild 2 being tears of the kingdom now normally at this point in our deep dive we talk a little bit about story do you guys care much at all about the plot of tears of the kingdom is there anything to talk about in breakdown or do we just want to talk about the gameplay there's there's definitely a plot to tears of the kingdom man it's just really bad is all i don't know that it's bad but it's very limited yeah it's pretty bad man

the the princess is in another castle? I've seen this before. Oh, no. What do I do? Yeah. Oh, save me, Link. Yeah, I was going to say, shockingly, you have to go find Zelda, and you're going to have to defeat Ganondorf.

Every Zelda game ultimately boils down to the same plot. Yes, in this game, there are regional stories and side missions and characters returning from Breath of the Wild. But since we have limited time, I don't think we want to, quote, waste any time on plot. So, all right, let's just try to rewind a couple of months in our minds. I know Josh and I talked a lot about Tears of the Kingdom leading up to it. Ryan, you hadn't joined us until just recently but there was a time not very long ago when we didn't know hardly anything about this sequel there was a lot of concern that it would just be like dlc for breath of the wild i think a lot of people felt like okay is this just going to be breath of the wild with a couple

of sky islands is that all it's going to boil down to and Wild with a couple of Sky Islands? Is that all it's going to boil down to? And I think a lot of people feared it would just be Breath of the Wild 1.5. Of course, now that we're past release, we know that's not the case at all. This game incorporates a ton of new mechanics, a ton of new material to work through. The opening of this game starts out where you are on a Sky Island, which I i think is very neat and the game starts giving you some basic tutorials where you learn about dodging swinging weapons you know how to make a baked apple on a campfire you know some very basic stuff and then the game tells you that you're going to start to power up your arm by visiting a couple of shrines in order to exit the first area and this is where the game starts spoon-feeding you these new mechanics

that we have not seen in Zelda before and make it very different from Breath of the Wild. So let's start out by talking about the Ultra Hand ability. And then in a moment, we'll kind of also cover Zonai devices because these two are going to come into play together. So starting just from the ground floor first how would you guys describe the ultra hand ability and what can you do with it in the early game so this is like the new hotness right like ultra hand is legitimately what sets tears of the kingdom apart from breath of the wild um and this was i was not excited for tears of the kingdom all that much, to be honest,

until we saw Ultrahand and what it could do and fuse and all that stuff. So the way that this works is Ultrahand is basically a way to interact with objects in the world and put them together. It allows you to build things. And it's crazy because the thing that really sets it apart is how intuitive it really is in that regard. Like, hey, here's a fan. Here's a platform. Put it anywhere on the platform you want. Rotate it any direction you want. Put it underneath.

Make an elevator platform. Put it behind. Make a little jet. It really is just open to your imagination on what you can do with this. And for me, Ultrahand is the thing that sets Tears of the Kingdom apart from Breath of the Wild. And not to pick on Paul a little bit, but you kind of entered that with tons of new content and Tears of the Kingdom and it's all – and I'm like, is it? Is it tons of new content? Because Ultra Hand is the new content.

Otherwise, this is Breath of the Wild. So that's kind of the thing. We're starting here, Josh. We're starting here, buddy. You're going to make me mad this early. That's not true. That is not true. I'm not talking about the game itself.

I'm not talking about the game itself. The entire map is underground. They literally doubled the map and they added Sky islands dude this map is this map is the same map from breath of the wild yes they added a dark underground cave system um they added sky islands which is great i'm not saying this is slanderous to the game itself but what i'm saying is for new content from breath of the wild to tears of the kingdom the only thing that is new is this ultra hand ability and what you can do with it the fusing of weapons you know yes those skills are the difference between breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom otherwise all the mechanics are the same the map is basically still hyrule i mean every time i went to like the

goron city or something i'm like i know this place i've been here before yeah so that is the difference to most people yeah you've got your ultra hand ascend recall all these new mechanics all right anyway we we can we can start to move on a little bit so the game does a very good job of just letting you play around with ultra hand first so you can just chop a couple trees and build a bridge and then that'll let you cross from like one cliff to another or you can pick up a rock roll it down a hill hit an enemy and it'll kill them you know it starts out very basic but then the zonai devices is what really makes ultra hand a ton of fun because during basically the opening cut scene which is 20 minutes by the way it's a lot of

cut scenes yeah for us saying that there's really no plot there actually is a lot of the best part of the game compared to old zelda's there's a lot more plot than normal although it's still not a ton compared to like red dead or god of war or something but basically there's this event called the upheaval that kind of like unleashes all these zonai devices out into the world kind of just think about like engineering slash robot parts that kind of get spread everywhere throughout the world and these basically run on power, and Link has what's called an energy cell, and it lets you run your devices for a certain duration. And there are a total of 27 Zonai devices in this game. You get to unlock things like wheels, sleds, hoverstones, mirrors, springs, cannons, lights, water-shooting fire hydrants, balloons, flame emitters, wings.

I mean, all kinds of stuff. And when you start to combine this with your ultra hand ability, when you are building machines and vehicles and weapons, this is where the gameplay is completely different from Breath of the Wild. I think maybe the best comparison to this is that it's a very simplistic system, but the skill ceiling is your imagination. I mean, you can do almost anything in a way. It's a little bit like Rocket League in that sense, where learning Ultrahand takes seven seconds, right? Pick up an item, place it wherever you want and click attach. And now it's combined. but as you start to get

really creative and go outside the box with your thinking this is where you can start to build some truly magnificent things in the game and i think everyone's been like seeing videos like this on social media but i wanted to spend a little bit about just talking through what are some things that you guys built or what are some neat things that you saw online where ultra hand can really start to be an interesting mechanic um i i mean i know you were spamming them in our discord feed oh yeah i really was all the crazy things people are building links left and right which was the only cool part of this game being able to build that stuff, like I was reading some article about it,

and it's talking about Ultrahand, and it says, Ultrahand makes an open world with open solutions. So everything, like you said, it's only your imagination holds you back, is you can really make pretty much anything. There's this one point where uh you you can grab i i saw a video where this guy took these these spike crushers fused them together

and and put them on wheels and then he just would roll up to to enemies and groups and he would just smash them together just and he would just go and just smash him it was like chomp chomp chomp as he ran through i mean it it is that's one thing that that was really cool about the game uh once you i mean it may take you a while to really get in the flow of how to use it and what to do with it and what things work best but i i thought that was a really cool aspect of it and the details that they put in to give you those options to make all these just crazy, crazy things. Every time you think you're going to get one up on them, I'm sure they thought of it before you made that. I will say, man, if the world is the sandbox, then Ultra Hand is all the toys that you want to have when you go to the beach or you're playing in a sandbox it's the shovel it's the bucket it's the little star-shaped mold it's that's a good you know i mean honestly this is what sets the sandbox apart from just

having a bunch of sand that you don't know what to do with at that point i think this is one of the coolest things i have seen in a video game in a long, long time, man. And it really is only held back by your imagination. I'm not a super creative person, but if you give me a task and say, hey, figure out how to do this task, I will figure it out. And that's what Ultrahand does, dude. There were so many moments in this game where it was like okay i'm in a shrine and there's this puzzle so i'm gonna build a tower that's 15 stories high so that i can jump over this wall to get to the end and it's like i don't think that's the way that this is supposed to be solved you know what i mean but like okay you can do it you know and that's because there

is no supposed to that's the beauty of it that is the can do it you know and that's because there is no supposed to that's the beauty of it that is the beauty of it is it's like i think there is like okay well this is what we imagined but they allow you to just run wild with this and i'll say because we may not be able to cover it but part of that is just the ability to manipulate objects you don't have to build skyscrapers and jet airplanes and stuff like that. One of my favorite moments in this game when I was discovering all this stuff was finding just a big iron grate

and fighting this monster that was kicking my tail. And I realized that I could just grab the grate, hover it way up in the air, and then just drop it. Just let go. Stop using the ability. And that thing would fall and hit the monster and take off like it just let go stop using the ability and that thing would fall and hit the monster and take off like a quarter of its life i'm playing this game with my wife and

she just loves she's like oh my goodness i can't believe that work so we're both giggling because instead of fighting this guy i'm just dropping this heavy grade on him over and over again and that's when i was just like, there's something special here, man. Oh, there really is. There's one video that we were talking about the other day where a guy builds a bunch of just Star Wars vehicles. There's X-Wings that he's flying in the air. He's got the Interceptors. I mean, I saw one guy on TikTok build a fishing boat.

I don't know if you guys saw this, but it's got a shock emitter in the front of the boat. And so when it periodically goes off, it just kills like 10 fish at once, but he's got wooden planks that are flailed out in front of the boat. So he just drives into a mall and now there's just a pile of 20 fish that he can quickly grab. I mean, this game really is what you make of it.

Like, if you want to cheese the whole game and just go find a couple of Zonai devices and build an incredible killing machine that flies in the air and homes and shoots lasers at stuff, you can do that. If you want to play this game kind of old school, like my son did,

at one point I asked him, how'd you get to the top of this? And he's like, I just climbed the mountain. And I was like, i was like oh okay like i took these mine carts and i like built machines and you know rode my way up but i mean this is the stuff that you get to see and i love the fact oh here's another silly example you know how you have the giant wheels and they have like a direction that they turn and obviously you're supposed to use them for vehicles one guy turned it horizontally and stuck blades to it i saw that so he would activate it and it's just the spinning like guillotine and he would just crouch as link

and all the enemies would just walk in and it would just slap the crap out of enemies i mean you can just use your imagination in so many ways in this game. And the game has an auto build feature. So if you tinker for an hour figuring out how to build something, you can save the format. And as long as you have the devices, you can immediately build it again, which I think is such a great quality of life improvement. That way you don't have to build your air bike. You know, every time you need to get somewhere you can just save it and just you know spawn it at will all right well believe it or not we're already at our first break guys so we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back all right guys now that we're done talking about ultra hand let's move on and talk a

little bit about fuse because these are definitely the two biggest changes in the Zelda series. So basically with Fuse, the whole idea is that Ultrahand lets you combine items in the world. Fuse lets you combine items from the world with your shield and with your melee weapons and with your arrows, and they combine to have various effects. Now, this can be incredibly simple, like we've joked about in the past. You can combine two wooden sticks and what do you have? You've got a longer wooden stick that does a little bit more damage,

but you can start doing crazy things by combining with those Zonai devices or maybe like major things you find in the world. So like that iron grate that you found, Josh, you could pick it up and just keep dropping it on an enemy you could also combine it with your shield and see what happens or fuse it with a spear and find out what happens and this is where the game also starts to get into some truly hilarious stuff is there anything that stuck out with you guys in regards to fuse yeah Yeah. There's one part recently I just played a couple nights ago where I'm trying to get to this tower.

It's not working. It's blocked off. Something's going on. But you see these blocks up above it, and I'm like, how the heck am I going to get up there? And I just noticed there's a rocket on the ground. I go, okay. Well, let's see what we can do here. I attach the rocket.

I fuse it to my shield, and then I can just shoot up like Rocket Man up in the sky. Boom. Then you just glide on down to that first layer. Boom. There's another rocket up there. I'm like, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do. I grab the next one, shoot up again. And it was from there.

After I found that one, I did that everywhere. I'm like, where can I just use a rocket on my shield to just fly into the air um and i just put rockets on everything from there but yeah that that was one thing that was really cool and then uh you know you can fuse just spike balls or boulders to your swords and then just you know just the amount of damage you do that it extends is is just crazy so yeah there's there's there's the fuse was was really cool i thought i actually used fuse more with i mean you have to fuse weapons together because they'll break so stinking fast right that it's like you really need to fuse things this is you do this a lot this is not like a oh let me be really creative kind of thing like it's it's just you know this this is a major part of the game so that you have

a weapon to swing i used fuse more for my bow and arrow and honestly like we're trying out just all these different recipes to sling arrows at things whether it was attaching a bomb or freezing things or you know a monster's eye yeah like a monster's eye so it homes in on something. There's a boss fight that's pretty tough if you don't. But if you put an eyeball on there to where it homes in on that boss, it kind of trivializes the fight a little bit. And this is what's crazy, right? Because I'm going to make myself sound stupid here. I never once thought to attach a rocket to my shield.

Oh, really? I'm not thought to attach a rocket to my shield. Oh, I, I, I'm not going to lie. I came up with so many creative ways to get high up in the air. Cause the verticality in this game is insane. And then like, if I told you how many times I had to cook a lot of stamina food to climb up

this big, tall mountain, instead of just freaking strapping a rocket on there, like, Oh my goodness. That's what's so crazy is like the everybody that plays this game is going to play it and experience it in a different way yes you're gonna run into so many things that other people don't you're gonna you're gonna like you said earlier you're gonna go through the shrines different ways that nobody else has gone through them and you think okay that's the way to do it and then you look and you're like i don't think that was the way to do it and and so there's just so many because to me you know i use that all the time i wouldn't i

thought everybody would have put a rocket on their shield but i'm sure there's 15 things that you did that i didn't touch like i i don't know if anyone else did this i'm sure there are people out there hopefully so i'm not just a big dum-dum but i completely forgot about the ascend feature like all the time so i was using that oh for everything and then i'm like oh wait dum-dum you can just do this and you just go right through so yeah it's it's it's there's so many different ways to experience every part of the same map from breath of the wild and it's so satisfying to go out of your way to combine random stuff right like you would never put a bomb on a shield but let's do it and let's see what happens i mean like i mentioned it in the intro but the fact that i this is what i never

thought of combining a mine cart with your shield that lets you more effectively surf on the ground because now you have wheels it's not just a shield on the ground i thought that was so cool putting a flamethrower or not a flamethrower a flame emitter on your shield yes now you literally have a flamethrower fun i would keep two of those just in there if i need to like melt some ice or do anything like that boom or if guys it was a big mob just you just mow them down with the flame oh the flamethrower is fantastic i mean you can literally create your own guns in zelda like take a spear put a cannon on the end guess what you're just shooting cannons at people out in the open field i mean the creativity around fuse i think is is really incredible i think between this and ultra hand this is where you have the

fun in zelda it's not about grueling boss fights or anything like that it's just here's a playground go try weird crazy different things and you're probably gonna end up laughing about something and having a really good time i mean there's all kinds of elemental stuff you can do in this game too with all like the choo-choo jellies or different food yeah you know put shock fruit at the end of your arrow and you can shoot an enemy with lightning you know things of that nature as well so you're constantly swapping weapons changing what's combined trying all these different effects and uh i found it to be utterly delightful i i will say too that your imagination is literally the limit for this game and that's not only in regards to the fuse and the ultra

hand abilities like i i had there was nothing in this game that i tried where it didn't like the game just went yeah that's we didn't think about that. Like, no lie. And to give a very quick example, it was early on, but you fight this really, really big, like, troll ogre-looking thing. I mean, this thing's giant. And if you're out and about when it's raining and lightning, you can't have any metal on you, right? Because it will attract. And you get these little sparky things that kind of say, hey, you're about to get struck by lightning. Get ready. So I took my metal shield i'm

fighting this boss this thing's wrecking me i probably shouldn't have been there yet i throw my metal shield on the ground and i kite the boss over the metal shield while it's sparking yeah and legitimately a bolt of lightning comes down and absolutely wrecks this big boss and i just my jaw hit the ground i looked at my wife and I went, it worked. And she was like, that's crazy. But that's what you can do in this game. I tried some wild outlandish stuff and none of it failed. I'm not saying my ideas weren't terrible, but the mechanics of the game were always there. I mean, always. And that's crazy. And that's what you're... To kind of go with what you're saying, Paul, is you are limited

only by your imagination. You are not limited by game mechanics or the developers not thinking of something in this regard. They really did a fantastic job of making sure that these things don't break the game and especially on such old hardware like the switch yeah i mean if you're doing really wild stuff the frame rate is going to drop off of 30 and you're going to get something in the 20s but i'm actually quite shocked it works as well as it does so you've got ultra hand you've got fuse and then the last two will just kind of briefly cover here. But you do get Ascend and Recall as well. So Ascend is an absolutely hysterical ability

where as long as there's a platform close above your head, you can activate Ascend, and it'll let you teleport through it on top of whatever's above you. So this was actually created intentionally for the developers when they were testing Breath of the Wild. Because they didn't want to go all the way through a cave and have to run all the way out. So their solution was, let's create the ascendability and it'll just let us test the game faster. But people realized that you could have so much fun with it that they added it as a feature to Tears of the Kingdom.

So it will let you get out of caves quickly but you can also build massive structures ascend your way up to the top so you don't have to climb it it's a quality of life update but it can also get you in other areas that you don't necessarily think to go look and explore and then you have the recall ability where basically any item that moves in the world you activate recall and it reverses that item's time. So if you see a giant rock fall from the sky, guess what? Jump on top of that rock, activate recall.

It's going to shoot you way high up into the air. Or this is where it gets really interesting when you start to combine Ultra Hand and recall because I've seen some things like where you have to go, maybe like, you know, get one of the little Korok guys and he wants to be with his friend, right? Well, maybe that's like all the way across a giant chasm. And so what people start figuring out is you can start combining these things together where I can put a piece of wood on my arrow, shoot it all the way across the gap.

Now I can fly across, combine with Ultra Hand the Korok, connect him to the wood. Now I recall the wood, and the wood pulls the wood pile and the Korok guy all the way across the chasm. And now I've completed that mission. So it's really neat how all these mechanics

don't just work independently of each other, but there is a certain synergy when they all combine together. Did you guys think Ascend and Recall were neat additions to this one? Because I thought they really were. Recall was my favorite of the two. Like I said, I forgot the Ascend quite often. But the Recall, even if you have the the glider there's these gliders in there and if you're up on the skyline you're on a rock you bust one out you can't really launch from anywhere you can take it you can use your ultra hand put it up in the air put it out over

the rock and then bring it back down then you go hop on it and then use recall and it'll put you back up in the in the air you just turn it off and then you can glide away you ryan you didn't know about that i freaking hate oh dude if i had a dollar for every time i had a glider and couldn't launch it because i didn't have the little glider rails that you had to have yeah or i didn't have the little skateboard platform that like with the teeny little wheels yep see dude this is that's what's? Dude, that's what's crazy. That's what's crazy is that there's... I never thought to use recall to get it up in the air.

You don't even have to do that. Just raise it in the air and ascend on top of the wing. I mean, you can do all kinds of stuff like that in this game. See, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, no. And then I loved every time I saw like the little blue streaks and I saw a rock drop, I'm like, yep, yep.

And I just beeline over to that and just shoot straight up to Sky City. Yeah. Oh, wow. Dude, I feel like an idiot now. But that's kind of the beauty of this game, honestly. I almost feel like this game's a fingerprint machine. Every single person will play it in a different way that is kind of unique to them. The thing with Ascend for me, I loved i loved ascend i thought that was super cool the problem is is that what gamer is used to being able to teleport

through anything over them now i played this game with my wife like a hundred percent of the time and it was funny because i'm wandering around or she's like what are you doing i'm like i'm running out of the cave and she's like just use that ability and then i was like oh yeah that's right you know and it's like i would just keep forgetting to use it because we're not conditioned for that like we're not used to being able to do that if you're in deep down in a cave you gotta run out of the cave you know you can't just teleport the cool thing with this ability is it works as long as there is something over you. So if you're way, way down at the bottom of a mountain, like in this deep cave, and you use it, you'll be at the top of the mountain. This isn't like it has a certain range on it.

Now, it has an activation range. So if you look up in the sky and there's an island way, way up there, you can't use Ascend. It has to be within a certain level over your head but it has no limit to how far you can ascend as long as there's solid material over you i thought that was super cool the recall was the one i used the absolute least because apparently i'm an idiot and i never thought about using it for certain tasks oh even if like an enemy threw a rock at you just midway through the air recall it and it goes back and it hits the monster instead so there's like really really funny moments in this game i i'm exactly the same as

you guys it kind of broke my brain in that regard because you're not used to being able to ascend i remember my son and i we we played separately and i didn't watch him play at all and he started watching me in one of the temples. And he asked me, like, what are you trying to do? And I was like, well, how do I have to get into this cage? So I've got to probably climb my way up to another level and drop down. And he's like, no, just go underneath it and use Ascend. And I was like, I never thought of that. And there's so many moments like that where you feel so stupid because you get that tunnel vision where you think, okay, I get that tunnel vision where you think,

okay, I'm used to games working this way, and I'm going to try the conventional method. And there's such an easy solution that you just don't see. If you want to have your mind blown, this is something that I really thought was cool. I keep referencing that I played this game with my wife because it's the first game that she's been really interested in a long time. But I'm a pretty smart guy for the most part, except for some of the stupid things that you guys have pointed out to me so far. And I've been gaming forever. And so it's like, I generally will have this idea of how I'm going to tackle this shrine or tackle this puzzle or get up to this mountain or whatever. And a lot of times I'd be doing

something and then my wife would be like, she would just point out something. And she'd be like, well, why don't you do this? And then I would be like, you're a freaking genius, man. Like, you're a genius. But in my gamer brain, I was kind of like, why didn't I think of that? So if you really want to have your mind blown, play this game with somebody and see how two different people go about approaching something. Because it's incredible, man. I would just look at my wife and be like,

I can't believe I didn't think about that. And it would work. And then I'd be like, yeah, high five, baby. Yeah, no, that's exactly like you're saying. And the cool thing too is that all these things can be used together with each other where there's a spot with, you know, speaking of Ascend, if you're not close enough to a spot with, you know, speaking of ascend, if you can't, if you're not close enough to that top area, you look around, oh, there's some boxes over there.

Let me use, you know, uh, my hand, bring them all together, stack them up, climb to the top of that. Boom. Now I, now I got enough height and I can just ascend through everything and just go right, right up. I did. I use that when I was, I spent 15 minutes looking around like, how the heck am I going to get up this area? I was like, there's no way. I can't use Ascend. And then I noticed some boxes. Bing, bang, boom.

I'm up through all the way to the top just like that. And so it just, yeah, it melts your brain. to look at it and see it from a different angle that you may not you know see it as as a traditional gamer that's always played this certain way to have that other you know opening of their thought process on it it's just great yeah totally agree yeah there are certain shrines because we're going to talk about that here now but there are certain ways that you can tell the game is trying to teach you a certain mechanic and there's always just so many other goofy ways to beat it so like josh you said that you didn't use recall very much did you not create lifts all the time just put down a platform use ultra hand raise it as much as you can let it drop and then just do recall and ride it like an elevator

because that's how i i mean that's how I got up every mountain, every ledge. I was constantly building lifts by using recall. I don't want to talk about it, Paul. So you were just going, I was just climbing free, free solo climbing.

There's no spoiler, but what's the, what's the mountain doom? What's the big mountain in the Goron area? The Mount something. I call it because it's a giant, but I climbed, I literally climbed that mountain.

I prepped a ton of stamina food because I told my wife like hey this is gonna be a long climb we're gonna need a lot of food for it so we did all the cooking and then i just climbed that bad boy like like you didn't notice all the mine carts circling yeah but i didn't want to run around the entire mountain trying to find a mine cart so i was just like i'm just going dude the shortest point between two points is a straight line, Paul. And the shortest method is riding those carts. Oh, my goodness. I can't believe that's what my son James did.

He climbed that mountain by hand. I'm like, dude, I rode these mine carts. I made it to the top. That's so funny. All right. Well, we're going to take our last break and we'll be right back. All right, guys, it's almost time for our segments. But before we do that,

I think we do need to talk a little bit about the shrines and the temples. So basically, all throughout the world, you see these shrines. They are both above ground. There's also shrines underneath the ground. You go around, you activate these shrines. They're incredibly short. They had shrines in Breath of the Wild.

And basically, these almost serve as like mini tutorials to teach you how to think creatively in zelda i think that's maybe the best way to word it um you hop in a shrine and maybe you you see devices you've never used before like balloons and all of a sudden you can kind of the game does a good job of giving you a balloon attached to a platform and next to the platform is a candle and you can kind of tell okay the game is teaching me if i put this candle on the platform the balloon goes up and then you ride a balloon to the top and now maybe you have to move a marble up to another higher surface and then you beat the shrine i mean the shrines are very fast most of them you beat just within a minute or two and then every time you complete four shrines you can get an extra heart or an extra portion on your stamina wheel what did you guys think

about the shrines and are there any examples that you'd want to share where the game kind of like taught you how to think through the game um i i'll be honest that i love the shrines i love problem solving that to me is i i enjoy it i like going like how do i do this and that's really where the shrines came into play for me and there are a gajillion shrines in this game and you're rewarded because you get a little quarter of a you know every four you do you get a new heart or you know an add-on to stamina meter. So they're definitely necessary as well. You know, but this is the part that I like, and I'm with you, Paul, in that I think the game is saying like, hey, learn, like learn how to use ultra hand, learn how to put things together.

You know, and again, it's your imagination. Maybe there is this kind of obvious solution, but you don't have to use that. I'm not sure that any really stood out to me. I mean, I did enough of them that I think they just kind of blur together in that regard. The one that I had mentioned earlier was making the 15-story skyscraper and then just flying over on something like that. But I do know that this was honestly one of my favorite parts of the game. Because like you said, they're very self-contained. You know, for me, it was five, maybe ten minutes. But they're very quick to kind of get through.

Sometimes I would get stuck. Like, honestly, there's a few of them where I was just like, I don't know what to do. And then I'd remember that, oh, I have this ascendability. I can tunnel through this archway or something like that. So there's times where it's like you just kind of feel stupid because it's like, oh, I didn't even realize the solution was right in front of me. But to me, that's one of the best parts of this game. Yeah, I love the shrines.

Part of going up to Sky city when i'd see a block fall is to get up and then look around because these shrines they have this kind of swirly teal blue light above them kind of help help you can see them from real far away yeah you can see them real hot the second i saw one bust out the glider and and just try to get to it and and i i majority of the game all i did was just look for shrines because i had so much fun just going in to see what little things like you said there they weren't that hard it wasn't crazy but everyone was a little different everyone had some other kind of flair to it um there's one it's it's this thing where you i i built like 15 planks together

to get over this long span. And I get over and then I realize, oh, I could have just done this and flown over from right here. And I spent all this time building all these planks. And I'm like trying to turn it through this little small area. And it's clunk, clunk, clunk, banging on everything as I go through. And I reposition and get over. A couple times I go and I'm trying to reposition. I'm not paying attention. I fall off the side and just you know all to the bottom splat so yeah i i absolutely loved the shrines that was

for me my favorite part of the game by far um i i had such a blast and there's so many and there's so many i haven't even touched yet there's 152 total je. And I remember the one that totally stumped me and I felt so stupid. You'd walk into the shrine and there was like a ramp and a marble would roll down and then it would fall off a pit. And off to your left, there was a ramp and a target. And it's like, okay, I've got to take this marble and I've got to hit the target. And there's all these planks on the ground. And so like an idiot, I combine all these planks on the ground. And so like an idiot, I combine all these planks into a super long stick. And then I attach the marble. I catch it

before it falls off the pit. I attach it to my planks. And I'm holding like the world's longest fishing pole trying to hit this target. And then James just walks by and he goes, you're not just going to hit it like a baseball bat? And I was like, what? What are you talking about? And there's just a little device right in the middle that if you hit it, it spins 90 degrees. And all you got to do is put one little plank with Ultra Hand, fuse it on there. And now as the marble rolls down the ramp, you just smack it with your sword. And if you time it right, it hits it like a baseball.

It flies off the ramp and hits the target. And I was like, that's the one shrine in particular where something with the way my brain thinks, it never thought hit it like a baseball bat. Dude, that shrine, that almost made me rage quit the game. Because I was so, they know, I had a little bit of my issues with this game in the beginning in playing I was on that shrine and I thought of that I did the baseball thing

and I was like okay I can hit this and it'll move but I put the pole on with the plank and then when I hit it the plank just broke off and just spun off and shot off into the netherland and disappeared and I was like oh you gotta be kidding me i'm like this game is so stupid but then you know i i took okay i was like okay let's

try it with just the stick then and then boom works right away no problem but that's what's so that's what is is is bringing me a lot of joy with this is seeing all the different ways everyone failed or succeeded at these shrines or different areas or how to how to fight or it's it's crazy because everyone has such a different experience it's just a problem solving simulator i mean that's literally what these shrines are and it's interesting how you can solve it in such different ways there's no right or wrong they're all just you know different uh last thing that i think we have to talk about are the temples so if you played breath of the wild but didn't play tears of the kingdom breath of the wild had the four divine beasts in this game you've got the four temples i guess spoiler

alert there's more than four but the game sends you initially to test out these four different areas on the map very similar to breath of the. You got to hit the four corners. You're going to find a temple. Each temple has its own elemental affinity, whether it's sand and wind, or if it's lightning or whatever it might be. These are more beefed up than the Divine Beasts. Josh and I always said the Divine Beasts were the best part of Breath of the Wild, and we just wish that there were more. Well, in this, we do have the temples, and they do take longer, and they are bigger. And this, to me, was my favorite part of the game, was clearing out the temples. And I was curious to hear what you guys think. They were okay. I'll be honest with you. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the way they went about the temples in this game. I miss the days where a Zelda temple was this big, giant dungeon where the challenge was,

how do you get through it? There's a big ledge or a door way across this giant chasm, and I have to get over there. But to do that, I have to do X, Y, and Z. I found with this, the way that the temples work is you basically just have to unlock a certain number of locks, right? So you get to the hub of the temple and it says, oh, you can't get across this drawbridge that's right in front of you because the door is locked. So you now have to go to six different parts of this temple and unlock each part so that the door will unlock. And I'm like, dude, I just literally built a death machine or a,

a rocket powered spaceship outside. And you're telling me that I can't get through this door. That's right in front of me. Like, come on. So I, you know, I had some issues with the repetitive,

the repetitive nature of it, to be honest. Like I felt like they did that, like to be a time killer. Repetitive. And, and, and so far the five locks?

Yeah. The puzzles are very different. The puzzles, I don't know, man. I disagree. The puzzle is go find this part of the temple and then roll the Goron guy into a fan or something like that. My favorite temple was the one that took forever to get up, the Sky one, because it's like, oh, I'm having to do a platforming game now. And to me, that was fun. And the temple itself wasn't that bad.

But then other temples were like, oh, there's seven waterfalls you got to activate to wash your waste off. And I'm like, seven? Like, come on, man. So I took a little bit of homage to that because it's like, I don't even know if that's the right word there. It's not. I took a little bit of like homage to that because it's like, I don't even know if that's the right word there, but it's not. I took a little bit of umbrage. Yeah. Edit in the right word there, Paul. But, you know, so for me, I kind of went, this is a little lazy because they didn't want to design like a big level.

They just wanted to have this little temple and then send me to six different parts of it. I just I'll be honest, I didn't enjoy them that much, man. See, okay, let me explain why I really loved them. First of all, before you can get to the temple, you have to solve riddles. And these riddles are freaking hard. Like, I think this game is so much harder than every other Zelda game. But generally, you have to beat some kind of mini boss, you have to solve a riddle, then you unlock the temple. And even though they do all have the same mechanic where it's get to these five things and take care of it, right? Whether it's blowing wind into the fan or

striking these shields with lightning. But each temple is completely different. Like the one that's in the Goron City is all about running trains. You've got mine carts everywhere. You've got to switch tracks. You've got to use your abilities. You have to fly or use recall. And then in another temple, you're having to connect sources of light so

you can light things up. I absolutely loved them. I thought they were far more enjoyable than the Divine Beasts. And I loved solving those riddles beforehand as well. Talking about a fish in the sky and shooting your arrow through a water drop. That part was cool. And when you figure that stuff out, I thought that was pretty neat.

What did you think of the temples, Ryan? I thought they were okay. I liked the temple in the sky one. That one was pretty cool. Getting up there was probably my favorite part of it. Yeah. I thought they were okay. I liked the temple in the sky one. That one was pretty cool. Getting up there was probably my favorite part of it. I just hate once you get to these, I hate having to craft food and have all that stuff because now all of a sudden I'm cold. I'm Link, man.

I'm this super legendary warrior. Now I'm cold. I need to eat this spicy food to stay warm. And then you go to the other one, the gore one. Oh, now I'm oh i'm cold i need to eat this spicy food stay warm and then you go to the other one the gore one oh now i'm too hot now i gotta you know i just i hated that part of it for me i know that's an aspect in games and i know that gives another kind of uh fold to it but i i one time uh i put a mod on skyrim i played a million hours of skyrim. I put a mod on, and then next thing you know, it was one I didn't realize. You have to eat all of a sudden. And so my guy's hungry and my life's going down.

I'm like, ugh. I immediately took it off. I'm like, I don't want to deal with that. Not for me. No survival. Yeah, no survival. I don't want to deal with having to craft stuff and eat food and things like that. If it's for cool enhancements, then yeah, that's fun.

But just a standard of being cold or things like that. If it's for cool enhancements, then yeah, that's fun. But just the standard of being cold or anything like that. But other than that, I thought the temples were okay. I thought they played well. I thought it was neat that they all had their different aspects to them and different kind of focuses on how you get through it and how you beat it. But they were just – it's still, to me, the shrines and building and stuff is what would really set the game off. I'm really surprised to hear that because the temples are just super shrines.

So, I don't know. All right. So, moving into our segment. Well, actually, before we move into our segments, guys, is there anything else about Tears of the Kingdom that we need to cover that we didn't touch on yet um for me as far as as far as i go because i know i was whining and bemoaning and complaining about this game like the whole time i was shocked and i know you were and i know and i don't take any of that back and i have 40 hours in this game and i was i was like miserable every time i'm like because i i've since i've joined up i always tell my wife when I'm going to go play, I go, I got to go work.

I got to work, honey. And I'm going to go and I just go and play video games, which is awesome. This actually felt like work. I was just like, oh my gosh, I got to run all the way here. I'm like, how do I even get to this place? And you had made a comment before, and I didn't tell you before until just recently when I figured it out. But you were right.

You said maybe you're playing the game wrong. I was trying to, and maybe it's just the emphasis of the pod, and we have so many games coming up. And I was trying to play the game and beat the game instead of just being in the game. Once I realized to just, I know that Dot is blinking, but I'm just going to explore and figure out what I can do throughout here. The whole thing changed. I was sitting – a quick story. I got up to the sky island. I jumped down to a place.

There was one of those floating blocks, and there was like 15 rockets on the ground. And so I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to mess around. I put rockets – We're going to the moon. I lined them all the way around it, and I just shot up up i didn't go as high as i thought i would go and then i tried to get to somewhere else and i died so next time i went to it i'm like all right i'm gonna put half of these rockets on here i'm gonna set the other half on top and hopefully they stay on and then

i'll see if i can reattach them once i get up it worked and i got as high as i could go and then i'm like well let's see what else I can do. I threw a bunch of fans on the back of this block. And then I just started coasting through the middle of like the top peak of all of Sky City, just cruising through there. And I'm like, okay, I get it. I even told my wife, like she was kind of half awake. And I was like, I get it.

I get this game. This is what it's about. It's about just exploring, building stuff, just doing crazy things. And then the game itself, as far as the story, quote unquote story, is the side part of it. But what you can do and what you can make, it just clicked. It was just like, I get it now. I'm glad you weren't miserable the whole time better late than never it won me over about hour 37 hour 37 yeah you really do have to like tune yourself to how this game works it's not objective based it's not about just beating it

and having epic boss fights it's you know finding clever ways to get around the world and you know take your time getting there all right well guys time for our favorite segment time for some hot takes all right i don't know whether to be excited or nervous for this one who wants to go first with a hot take i'll go first all right let's hear it josh this game has some of the coolest ideas and mechanics that i have ever seen in a video game and simultaneously some of the worst gameplay i have experienced in a long time okay where was the gameplay so bad for this combat there is such a dichotomy between the game itself and then the creative ultra hand aspect separate this thing

into two games and i it would like if you take ultra hand and this is going to just lead into my thoughts on the game spoiler here but i'll make it official here in a minute but if you take ultra hand out of this game this is breath of the wild but worse in my opinion like if it was not for the ultra hand and the stuff that they added i would absolutely hate this game dude like the like the controls are terrible nintendo the fact that nintendo can't do more than eight directions you know at any given time is infuriating like like i can't tell you how many times i died because if you are running forward and you jump you'll jump forward but if you jump first and then push forward you just jump up and down you don't move at all you know the fact that i have to have weapons mario one yeah well it sucks all nintendo games the fact that my everything that i have to have since mario 1 yeah well it sucks all nintendo games the fact that my everything

that i get in this game is is temporary is infuriating to me oh what's that chest we just talked about this right with the with jedi survivor oh what's in that chest over there it's just a cosmetic i don't want to go get it that part of the game sucks it's the same for zelda no it's not not at all there's not a single cosmetic there's not a single cosmetic you get five arrows i just for 20 minutes going to get this treasure chest and i get five arrows out of it josh can you use those arrows guess what you did you got the chest you get an opal what the crap is that none of these are cosmetics you're listing things that you use every single one of those items you use in the game. I use opals a whole lot in this game.

Put them on your arrows. Put them on your arrows. Or sell them. No, we disagree so vehemently on this. You're wrong. You are wrong. The loot system in this game is absolutely abysmal. The weapon fragility is abysmal.

Okay, wait, wait, wait. Calm down. Wait, wait, wait. You can say it's bad. Don't tell me it's the same as jedi survivor because that's not the same because it's there is no cosmetics in you could use the mullet in jedi survivor yeah that's true it's just pointless i i take such it's not pointless how's she gonna get arrows josh how are you gonna get rupees yeah i okay i i mean you know this is this i don't need five arrows, man. I don't need my 17th opal.

I don't need whatever is in that chest. Even my wife, dude. And again, this is not just me. She basically said, these chests suck in this game. And I'm like, you are absolutely right. There's no reward other than just the exploration part of this. They're loaded with weapons. The combat sucks in this game you

never looted a weapon out of a chest game there's so much that actually sucks in this game but too because paul's turning red but at the same time there's so much that's glorious in this game and that's why it's my hot take because there are moments of sheer genius and wonder and awe. And then there are moments of like, oh, my goodness, again. Like, what are you thinking? Like, why? It was just, it was so up. It was zero and a hundred for me in this.

I don't understand how you can say this game was worse than Breath of the Wild apart from Ultra Hand. Because Breath of the Wild was new. This is just rehash of Breath of the Wild apart from Ultra Hand. Because Breath of the Wild was new. This is just rehash of Breath of the Wild. There was so much that was just ripped off and rehashed and reused. So if you're like, Breath of the Wild at least had some newness to it. Tears of the Kingdom,

apart from Ultra Hand and some of that other stuff, is just Breath of the Wild. So it's worse because I've already done it. I completely disagree. The map's twice the size like i don't know i i i i try to understand what you're saying i like hot takes i don't like wrong takes all right moving on to ryan ryan what's your hot take uh mine is i i guess personal opinion or it's what it should be is Zelda is not game of the year. I don't – in accordance with Josh on all that stuff, I think there's so much amazing about this game.

But I think there's also so much that I disliked and that it shouldn't have taken that long to understand it and to get it. Also, combat combat absolutely horrible and then after after all the hours i put into red dead redemption riding a horse on zelda was the worst oh the amount of times that stupid horse just shook his head at me and he wouldn't he couldn't go over to make it love you ryan before over a step that was like a foot a foot tall he can't go over that little rock he's like you know and he just shakes his head and then you're like oh my gosh let me turn around now i gotta keep running too granted that was that was before i just was kind of had

my epiphany but i say why are you riding horses anyway you should be flying yeah uh-huh well i was also a bit of a zonai like orb hoard. I was like, I'm going to save these for the bosses. Because I was focused on the mission at hand. And once I just abandoned that and I just was like, boom, boom, boom, and I was making crazy things, that's when it changed. But to me, this is not and should not be Game of the Year. Do you think it should be nominated or you think it shouldn't even be nominated? Oh, I think it should be nominated and honestly, it may win just because of how people are going to just love

the other aspects of it, but I don't think it should. Oh, wow. Okay. I knew we were going to be in slightly different places here with this game. I'm a little shocked because at least in my circles, this game has near universal acclaim

i do not know a single person who has breathed one negative word about this game other than you too you do now baby uh i do now and our listeners do all our all our zelda fans are uh are are leaving us in droves sorry guys um my my hot take is i think a doubt, this is very much in contention for best game of all time. I think there's a small handful of games you can make an argument, and this is one of them. I think there's maybe seven or eight games that you can say almost anybody would say it's one of their favorites. This is definitely one of them. It's by far the best Zelda game. I mean, bar none. It is so much more creative and inventive than every other Zelda game.

They took it also in a little bit more of an adult path, which I didn't totally expect. You have to have some sense in order to beat this game. My son Jackson beat Breath of the Wild single-handedly. I did not help him at all when he was five years old. There is no way a five-year-old is going to be able to fully beat this game, I don't think. I definitely think it's a step up. I'm not saying that it's a hard game, but I

think it's incredibly fun. I think Ultra Hand is the best mechanic I've seen probably in the last I don't know five years ten years like what do you compare it to the portal gun like have i seen anything as cool as ultra hand since the portal gun maybe but nothing that comes off the top of my head yeah gravity gun it writes up there for sure no that part is super super cool and innovative yeah Hot take part two.

I wish Diablo wasn't live right now. I'd rather play Tears of the Kingdom more. Shut your mouth, Paul. And I'm not alone. I think 9 out of 10 gamers... 9 out of 10 children? With a Switch, you mean? We're going to see in a minute here because

it's time to move on to community reviews. I can't wait to hear the overall community score, but we'll find out. Josh, you got some reviews? People have written this? I do. So for those that think either I am crazy and Ryan is crazy in the, oh, we have to write this review and agree with the crowd and stuff like that. So I always pull a gamut of reviews as well to give different opinions on it.

This is a Nintendo game, so I just used Metacritic and pulled user reviews on this. So this first one is a 7. And it says, I had a weird feeling about this sequel. While the trailers at first tease interesting twists in the story, game structure and progression and some aspects of the world, I just wondered how they were going to refresh a game with essentially the same map, enemies and combat without entering into redundancy and shallowness. And after putting the hours on this game, I can confirm that this weird feeling developed to disappointment as much as I wanted to love the game. For starters, if you didn't like Breath of the Wild, you probably won't like Tears of the Kingdom, and that's a huge letdown for people who wanted something different considering the years of development.

Exploring the world hasn't changed that much. The feel is quite similar, and while the Sky Islands and the Underground provide new areas for traveling, there isn't something really refreshing about them, and the reward for exploration feels unbalanced. You're just going to find some more shrines,ines some enemies and some weapons that you probably won't use or be excited about this is nothing transcendental paul's eyes glazed over so hard there it's someone who doesn't like zelda clearly yeah i mean if it's not for you it's not for you i mean what

if you don't like breath of if you hate breath of the wild you will hate this game paul is gonna get so triggered unlike the zero review. All right, Paul, here we go. I'll give you a 10. This review is a 10. This person says, it's an easy 10 so far. I'm 15 to 20 hours into the game and haven't even completed the second major area I visited. It's less overwhelming than Breath of the Wild because they give you a bit more guidance of where to go and a lot more clear objectives once you get there.

But where this game shines is the exploration. If one is game to step into a world like a virtual reality and make the most of it, there is a nearly endless supply of moments this game can offer you. As of this writing, I think it may be superior to Breath of the Wild, but no need to make such large statements so early. There's also a possibility it's one of the best games of all time but also why make such a claim so early for now just enjoy this masterpiece yeah wish i could enjoy it longer all right well let's see uh okay so here's a zero buckle up paul oh yeah let's see. Okay. So here's a zero. Buckle up, Paul. Oh, let's hear it. All right. This guy gave it a zero and it says it's a giant world with no content. I would not mind the quality of the graphics if the gameplay and story was good. But since there is no content

here, the bad graphics stick out even more. It's insane to me that they could just copy the previous game's map and barely do any improvements whatsoever whatsoever what do you do during all this time also the idea of being able to go wherever you want since it's an open world game is not utilized well at all other good open world games let you actually choose your own experience this way in this game it usually just means that you can skip parts of the game that's not fun there is no loot in this game just like the previous game why would i care about this new cool weapon if it's just gonna break within minutes if i have a full weapon inventory which you always do i'm not going to bother opening the chest and see if the weapon inside is stronger

than what it currently has since it doesn't matter i take issue with someone saying that this world has no content like we already, there's 152 shrines. Now, if you're going to say this game has a lot of content I don't like, that makes sense to me. I understand if someone doesn't like any Zelda game. But to say there's a giant open world with nothing to do, that I don't agree with. I would assume he means of importance. You know, like where is the progression? Where is the, you know that kind of

stuff right like it's a sandbox but if you're never actually able to keep a sand castle because the ocean just comes and washes it away then then what are you doing like i think there's a lot of people that want a good story like you yourself paul Paul, you love story and character development. This game has none of that. None of it. You know what I mean? Well, very little. Well, right. Okay. So, all right. All right. So this one is a six. So two, you know, one 10, one zero and two mid tier, right? And it says, if you liked Breath of the Wild, you will like this game. It's basically Breath of the Wild 2.0. It's mostly the same map. The music's very similar. It runs terrible on my Switch, just like Breath of the Wild 2.0 it's mostly the same map the music's very similar it

runs terrible on my switch just like breath of the wild but like many other sequels it didn't really address the problems of the first game combat is still clunky and boring midway through the game you can use your builds to cheese just about anything cooking and all the other systems are stupid weapon durability is absolutely infuriating it ruins the flow of combat its new fusion system is fun but it's clunky as well what should be a five second mechanic in the inventory turns into a nightmare as you have to open inventory drop the item you want to fuse your weapon with select the power select the item then fuse press y it's just not optimized very well all in all this game is

basically breath of the wild 1.5 it's not enough new to justify a new game in my opinion but it was also more than what you would usually put into a dlc in the end it's basically if you liked breath of the wild you'll like this game because it's almost the same if you didn't like breath of the wild you won't like tears of the kingdom yeah i mean i just keep saying the same stuff i feel like this game is totally different defending every review that's not the 10 and then on the 10 goes like yeah sounds about right well i was waiting for any of you guys no one's saying anything so someone's gotta jump in well i just disagree okay well paul wants to paul you brought this up so what we always do is we always

guess the score of what we think the the user score this game is. This is on Metacritic. So it uses a system of 0.0 to 10.0 using decimals. I'll just go first on this one. I guess a 9.2. I know. I mean, there's not many people out there that think that this game isn't phenomenal. I went, it's going to be super high. And I know Metacritic's grouchy and stuff like that. But you've done nothing but hear the hype. You've seen all the videos that are taking over social media. So I kind of shot for the moon a little bit on this one. Okay. What about you, Ryan?

What's your guess? Oh, I actually had written down 9.2. But let's see. Since I think, I mean, for me, it's like an 8. And then I think there's a lot of people that are going to do, you know, 10s like that. So I'm just going to go, I guess, with a 9. Okay. Kind of split the difference of the two. I think it'll be somewhere in the high 8s.

I'll say, I won't just take the 0.1 under i'm gonna try to nail it i'm gonna say 8.7 and give give josh a time a minute to do the math i know we need a math check this time we don't want another debacle eight points okay well this one's easy because somebody nailed it so i don't have to try to do addition or subtraction and paul nailed it eight seven on the die okay yeah and i bet over time that'll creep a little higher i bet that'll even out somewhere around 8.9 because early on you're going to get a lot of the haters there's a lot of people that are going to play this game for 500 hours and then they'll rate it later i will say my tiktok feed has never been more fun and it's probably 33

tiers of the kingdom ultra hand builds like i love scrolling tiktok and i'm like oh what's this thing and it's a guy who's built a cockpit with a vehicle around it but he's got all these axles so no matter what his vehicle does it can flip over and he's always right side up i mean seeing all these creative builds i think is awesome and i have a lot of gamers on tiktok that i have heard say i think this is the greatest game of all time and i'm not surprised that it's really high i think it should be in the nines i bet you do i bet you do paul all right does this mean we should move on to our next segment one all right let's hit that music hey there zelda i was wondering if you had an extra heart because mine just got stolen all right so this segment is called make love marry or murder this is where all three of us

give this game an individual rating is this game marriage material you highly recommend it is it murder material we say do not pick up this game it is not worth the money it is not worth the time investment or is it make love a game that is maybe worth it if it's on sale maybe pick it up play a few hours and quit obviously you guys know how much I love this game. It's an easy marry. It is absolutely going to be. Okay. So legitimately, I look at this game from two different perspectives. I look at it from old grouchy gamer that I am and I go, the mechanics, I don't like the

mechanics. There's parts of this game that are just stupid. It's infuriating. I don't like a lot of the systems. Why is the combat so sucky? Why do my weapons break all the time? Why do I I can't go into this cold area unless I get clothes. But to get the clothes, I have to eat fruit that makes it... There's just a lot of really dumb stuff in this game. There were parts where I told my wife, I said, this is so stupid.

This game should just work better. And I'm not talking about frame rates and other stuff i just don't it feels so just dated and like just dumb to me sometimes you know and it's like dude this is 2023 are you telling me that we can't have better controls or that i don't have to hit five buttons to pull something out of my inventory that i just i found so many things about this game to be clunky and unenjoyable. That said, there's parts of this game that are absolutely mind-blowing and innovative and things that I've never seen before. And this game is going to change gaming like we know it. More people are going to pick up on this ultra hand ability and the ability for you

to just utilize the world around you in any way that you want to do. So I'm having a tough time because I don't like the game itself. I legitimately don't like the game itself. I'm not saying it's bad. No part of me is saying that this is a bad video game. But if you took the innovation out of this game, this would be a mediocre five or six for me all around. Like, honestly, it's an open world. We've seen that a thousand times, you know? And so for me, I have to recognize, Paul, what you love about this game and say that there are going to be millions of people out there that are going to say, this is the best game I have ever played. Game of the year 2023, locked in, hands down, no question about it. And that bugs me a little bit because the game itself is just mediocre, man. If you want to say most innovative game of the

last decade, I'm with you. I am with you 100%, man. This game is so innovative, it's bananas. But as a video game, it's just mediocre to me, man. And so it's like, do I weight this as like a video game critic to where I say, oh, it's going to be game of the year. And millions and millions of people are going to say it's the best game they've ever played. Or do I say, how do I personally feel about it? I'm going to go with how I personally feel about it. It's a make love for me. It's fine. I enjoyed playing this game. Don't get me wrong. Is it worth the money? Yes. I got 60 some odd hours into this game.

I enjoyed that money well spent. I love the fact that my wife, you know, wanted to play it with me, but I find it to be thoroughly mediocre 70% of the time and absolutely mind blowing 30% of the time for the innovation part of it. So for me, it's an easy, easy make love. I, would I recommend it? Absolutely. I'd recommend it to nine out of 10 people. But personally, how do I feel about it? I feel like it's a pretty mediocre game overall with an absolutely phenomenal innovation.

It's almost like you're rating the game one-third marry, one-third murder. Yeah, I mean, honestly. Paul, you hit the nail on the head, really. And then I just wind up in the middle for it. Yeah, that's like the average. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Ryan?

I'm kind of there, but instead of the one-third murder and the one-third, you know, Mary or whatever, I'm more, I'm like, just right there. I had, I honestly, like I said, I was cursing in bed just playing this game. I'm like, oh, and I was just so stupid. And I was just running through. Every time the horse would neigh and wouldn't go over the thing. Every time I was doing this

and this would mess up. And every time I fought a guy and I couldn't roll. Like, what can i do with like a little jump roll and get out of there and get some smooth combat they they're nintendo they have the money they have the the assets to be able to develop these types of things and then the the lack of uh of audio as far as with the care within the characters if i if i if i have to hear another huh and then i have to read the stupid thing they say

what i don't know whatever language that is but means three sentences i it drove me nuts i hated that part having said all that once i figured out that that's not what the game was about. If you can even, I guess, call it, you know, like a game. It's once I figure that out, I realize, okay, this is what you're supposed to do. And I can enjoy this. I can have fun with this. I can spend time building these things, making these creations and just kind of drift off into Neverland and, you know, do all this for as long as I want to. And just lose track of time. Once I figured that out, it changed.

Otherwise, this game would have been a murder in a heartbeat for me. So having said that, I'm going to go with just a barely make love because of those aspects. figured out how you're supposed to play it how it uh it kind of goes you know goes the way that you imagine and you and you can dream that that kind of what pushed it over for me but yeah all the other things that that are negative on what my personal opinion is as far as how i like to play a game and how i like my games to be um that that's where i'm at like like josh said i i would recommend it to people it's an awesome game you'll at like like josh said i i would recommend it to people it's an awesome game you'll get a million hours of it i would like to give them some tips ahead of time do this do that so so you don't get so frustrated but other than that yeah i'm

i'ma make love yeah it's all for certain people they would really enjoy stumbling into how to play the game and there's other people who would want to watch Things I Wish I Knew before playing Tears of the Kingdom. One weird trick. And that way you don't... Yeah, yeah. Alright, so this is going to be very interesting because we have one last segment. Let's go to the leaderboard and see where this game stacks up.

Oh yeah. This part is is gonna be great all right so our leaderboard is a list of every game that we have done a deep dive on we are sitting at 96 games this will be number 97 as opposed to make love marry or murder where we each give an individual rating this has to be consensus where are we going to rank tears of the kingdom against every other game that we have covered um looking at our list here boy i don't know where we're gonna land on this this is a little reminiscent of games like outer wilds or stardew valley where josh and i were kind of on polar opposite ends or even like elite dangerous when michael was on the podcast where where do you guys see ranking this in our 97 games where where would you guys put it personally and then maybe we can

move from there are we rating this game as a video game or as a very innovative sandbox because that's that's the problem for me right like if say, Hey Josh, rate the innovation for tears of the kingdom, it's right at the top. No game has done what tears of the kingdom has done it to the degree that it's done it. But then you're like, is it fun? Is it like, how do you rate this as a video game?

And then I go, Hey man, it's okay. It's I mean, you know, let's part parts were good that, you know, but then there's parts that aren't good.

So I, I mean, and then there's the part of like, you know, parts were good, but then there's parts that aren't good. So, I mean, and then there's the part of like, you know, I would recommend this game to just about everybody. So then like, where does that come into play? So, I mean, I think this is probably legitimately like a top 20 game for me. It's just not a perfect game. Like, Paul, I know you absolutely love it i know you've said where you would put it but i like i don't i don't feel the same way but i also don't want to discount that i'm sure that a ton of the population feels exactly the same way you do

i'm very confused so you're saying you want to put a top 20 and it's mostly not because you found the game fun to play as a video game but you want to honor the innovation yes of how they're changing the industry yes okay so even though you would rather play probably games in the 30s above tears of the kingdom you would personally put it somewhere in the top 20 um yeah i mean like fun factor right for me i play video games for fun and competition and escapism and like this game is great for escapism absolutely the fun factor that's so much for me you know um and so it's kind of like they're like i said this one's tough because i think there's zeros and i think there's 100s to this game okay and josh mentioned that uh

i may have let slip where i would put it on the leaderboard because ryan and i were going back and forth a little he was saying like do legitimately think this game is good and i was like yes everyone thinks it's amazing i would put it number two on the leaderboard i would have it right below red dead redemption i would go as far as to say tears of the kingdom is more fun than than Red Dead. Why Red Dead is above it for me is that Red Dead has a fantastic story. But Tears of the Kingdom, I think, is the most fun game I've ever played. But there's no real story. So Red Dead for me is still number one.

I would personally have this above God of War 2018, Cyberpike, Disco Elysium, Red Thlysium rust all of those i would have it number two uh what about you ryan what kind of where are you thinking um i i understand like and that's what i thought too that's why earlier i kind of gestured to josh i was like it's got to be at least three because there's no way it's better than uh god of war 2018 but it's hard because like the same thing that he said is it's it's how are you going to rank it based on there's so many games here i'd yeah i'd totally rather play resident evil 4 hogwarts uh legacy gta online halo i mean there's so many games that i would rather play than this but also i understand what it is and what it's going to do to the industry and and the game that you know the game that it is so it's it's man it's

it's tough for me but i would think in that kind of mid-teens range if we if we just equalize 2, 19, and 19, it would be somewhere around 13, just with averaging them out. So I think we're probably looking somewhere plus or minus a few spots. I would personally vote to put it at 17. I would have no issues putting it at 17. The problem for me is I start to want to barf a little bit when I think about putting it above games like Hogwarts Legacy, Elden Ring, Divinity Original Sin 2. Oh, wait, there it was right there. I'm sorry, guys. So you're saying you'll move from 19 to 17 and I have to move from 2 to 17? No, I'm saying that's where I want to put it.

I'm asking consensus. What is a fair consensus when we're ranking? Put it at 11. Put it at 11. I'll give you 11, Paul. 11? Yeah. That's satisfactory.

I mean, it makes me nauseousous but i would do that for you because we've been satisfactory also has zero story and fantastic you know what and innovation really fun satisfactory is really fun it's got good mechanics as fun as tears when i when i run around and i move and i parachute the buttons respond my character does what I want it to do. You know, like not every single thing I pick up breaks. There's good rewards because when you find something, guess what? It actually progresses the game.

I unlock new research and I get new stuff to do. It doesn't just break two minutes later. Do you remember combat and satisfactory? There's not a ton of combat. Yeah, you got the little rebar gun. Combat's worse than satisfactory. I don't know about that. This is a big ad call. I would be good putting that eight just after Rust. That's where I would be comfortable.

Above Rocket League? Josh will be equally as mad as me in the other direction if he puts this above Rocket League. How about 10? Is 10 fair? I'm fine. I'll put it at 10. 10 works. 10 will keep people from revolting against the podcast

and leaving us bad reviews because they hate the takes. Sorry, Zelda fans. I'm not going to lie. I thought it was going to end up a little lower. I'll be happy with 10 considering I think it's one of the best games of all time. So, okay, then we will have it within the context. It is below

God of War, Ragnarok, Rust, Apex Legends, Rocket League, and it will be above Valheim, Satisfactory, Outriders, DOS 2, and the Resident Evil 4 remake. Regardless, that's really good company to be around. We're ranking it here amongst some of the best games ever. Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. All right. amongst some of the best games ever yeah oh yeah for sure all right so we will lock that in at number 10 and then we gotta wrap this show up guys anything to say before we close this one

i think this was the longest leaderboard and make love marry murder we've probably ever had yeah i'll just say sorry zelda fans but gamers understand oh yeah oh fix your fix your combat eight what was the rating 8.7 rating i don't know it was in eight somewhere eight gosh the switch second best-selling console of all time don't even get into the qualities of the switch all right so we are all done with this deep dive i was really looking forward to recording this i'm glad that we have this one done i know people are really excited to hear our thoughts. If you're curious to know, our next two deep dives are going to be Humanity and Diablo 4. Those will be back-to-back.

Yeah, real game. Humanity, I know, right? Real game. We wanted to get Diablo 4 out as soon as we can, so it'll be a little bit of weird scheduling. Just be on the lookout. We might have a couple deep dives back-to- then a couple bonus rounds back to back uh we wanted to give ourselves enough time but to also get it out as soon as we can as a reminder if you're still listening to this episode 90 minutes in go check out our patreon page at multiplayer squad.com hit us up on socials everywhere at multiplayer pod and until next time, happy gaming.

See you, everybody. I'm going to go play Diablo for the rest of the night. Yes, a real game. Let's do it. See you, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye.