#i've also never played windwaker

[hawke-jpg]

At @moominhands behest here is my game list thing! <3 Reasoning under the cut:

Favorite game of all time: If i absolutley have to pick one it'd have to be Shadow of the Colossus, tho runners up are definitely ICO, FNV, Okami, Windwaker and Twilight Princess. it's hard to choose just the one honestly there's so many more too, but this game was so influential and i sunk so many hours into just exploring the world and taking in every tiny detail, it and ICO really changed my perspective on games in general.

Favorite Series: Dragon Age, it's camp and has a lot of issues, but it gave me extreme brain rot and i love it a lot.

Best Soundtrack: ICO, this game has barely any music! But when it does, it really goes all out, the resting theme and the erie music before the final boss are my favorites.

Favorite Protagonist: Hawke, from Dragon age 2, this is surprising to absolutely no one.

Favorite Villain: Dormin from SOTC, I love this thing, is it even really a villan? who knows but it's very cool and i love the voice acting for it! runners up are the shadow creatures from ICO for similar reasons and The Master from Fallout 1.

Best Story: Night in the Woods. This was really hard to pick tbh i could've put a few in this spot but this is one of my favorite story focused walking sims and i love to revisit it.

Have not played but want to: Disco Elysium, I've attempted to play this game on console very briefly once but couldn't get used to the controls. Now that i have a PC I'm planning to play it but i need to be in the right headspace for big CRPGs as i find them hard to get into so, i just need to wait till the time is right to play it. I also want to play Hades.

You Love, Everyone Hates: The Last Guardian, everyone hated this game SO MUCH, especially at launch.. Heaps of streaming people who had only ever played Shadow all expected it to be SOTC again but when it turned out to be much closer to ICO with only some elements of Shadow people just hated it so much for what it wasn't. This game much like ICO can be frustrating at times but it's really good and had a lot of love put into it, the A I of the Creature Trico is especially cool as it learns depending on how you interact with it and becomes more responsive and easy to direct. It's certainly not a game for everyone but it didn't deserve the amount of disdain it received on release.

You Hate, Everyone Loves: (please don't kill me for these I don't actually hate them they're just not for me) Kingdom hearts, I tried multiple times to play these games and i just couldn't get into them, they're just not for me i think, i don't really find the gameplay or story elements particularly engaging. Sad! a lot of my friends really love these and seem to get a lot out of them. I never had the chance to play them as a kid though so i feel like i may have had different opinions if i'd started playing them earlier. Last of us 2, The weird opinion split when it released between bigots who hated it cause women and queer people were in it and then the other people saying it was the most profound piece of media ever was really frustrating because it kind of shut down a lot of good faith criticism. I think the main problems i have is that it came out in a really depressing time where something with such a bleak and unsatisfying ending came across as a bit gauche even though the devs couldn't have anticipated it. And that there's a bunch of good elements about it that just didn't really stick the landing for me, or were handled poorly imo. Personally the overall message it's going for via it's gameplay and story had already been done, and done better over 10 years prior (see Shadow of the Colossus; Ico was a stated main inspiration for the first last of us and i'm pretty certain Shadow was for part 2 considering the parallels), and it would've been quite ground breaking back then but now it's not so much. Again this is personal opinion of how it's just not really for me.

Best Art Style: Okami! Kind of self explanatory, even on ps2 this game's graphics still hold up because of that art style, and i love how it was incorporated into the gameplay.

Favorite Ending: Zelda: Twilight Princess, love this game, the climactic boss rush and the story conclusion is so good, it's such a long game and the characters go through so much it all really wraps up nicely even with it's melancholic tone. This was the first Zelda game i fully finished so the ending had more of an impact on me too because of that.

Favorite Boss Fight: Crimson Helm, from Okami, this guy is super fun to fight, cool design, great arena, always a good one to revisit.

Childhood Game(s): my first ever game was Duke Nukem DOS on the floppy disk on my dads old computer, it's a side scroller that's sound effects are drilled into my brain. Frogger i got later on the same computer once dad upgraded his for work, it was the first game i ever finished. and Nintendogs i got much later again with the old clunky silver DS, i played this game way too much.

Relaxing Game(s): Lil Gator Game, it's so fun and cruisey to play, really charming and great controls. Flock, I only played this recently but it's so fun, very pretty, you just fly about and spot new creatures to list in your encyclopedia! A Short Hike, really great chill vibes, i love revisiting this one every now and then. Proteus is also a good one.

Stressful Game: Mass Effect 2, I love these games but they're so stressful trying to avoid people dying from random dumb choices you make hours prior omg! 2 is especially bad for it off memory, i remember writing up a strategy sheet for that last big level so i could avoid people dying.

Game you always come back to: Drakan The Ancients Gates, I love this one, it's a bit janky but it's got a really weird and interesting world, with a weird plot and bizzare character design.

Guilty Pleasure: The Dog Island, this game is so silly but i played so much of it as a kid it was kind of ridiculous, so i really enjoy revisiting it every now and then, it's also kind of bizarre in terms of how the story is written.

Tons of Hours Played: Baldur's Gate 3, I've only played it through twice but it's stacked up a bunch of hours, really good tho! others that I've spent way too much time with is Dragon age Inquisition, Animal crossing NH and NL, and of course SOTC but i dont actually have the hour count for that one, i can only assume.

[shannonsketches]

Been casually following your stuff for a while, but I only just now went through your blog for real. So since I know you also have major Ganondorf brainrot, any particular takes on him and his philosophy in TP?

I haven't played Twilight Princess in a thousand years, unfortunately, and apparently I never bought it?? So I've got a lot more hours logged in OoT and Windwaker. I did however snag myself a treat on ebay so I may have more thoughts about this in the coming weeks.

That said, I do remember that he was the first Ganondorf that made me and the friend who I originally started doing Zelda comics with think about Ganondorf more critically as a trickster and not a tank (I was too young to really be considerate of Wind Waker when it first came out, but I was 16 when TP dropped and we were already having fun playing in the zelda sandbox. I remember really hating his design in TP, so I must've already been knee-deep in my OoT shit lol)

Idk if it's necessarily what you asked but I think I recall that his dynamic with Zant and his literally possessing Zelda really changed my perspective on him as a magic user (even though he is still pretty hands-off in OoT, we had SSB: Melee by then and if you know you know) and probably spurred the idea that the Gerudo stones in the OoT dungeons could be read as Ganondorf setting those traps up.

His monologue and death scenes are also some of what formed my headcanons about his very calm demeanor masking this bitterness and stubbornness and being inclined to succumb to his anger and grief (because what is left for him here? He's already lost everything, and all that remains is revenge). I also really liked that in OoT his beast form is a result of him losing control of the triforce, and in TP he can switch back and forth, which implied to me that that anger and grief is controlled and terrifying and precise, which is just such an excellent fucking flavor of villainy. Twilight Princess said, "Remember Ganondorf? He's older and wiser (this is a threat)."

Anyway that's all I can think of off the top of my head -- but I'll be thrilled to report back if/when I'm able to replay the game soonish!

Also....This is not what you asked but I have a very fond memory of watching my friend (who was a Link stan) play TP and commenting in-character as he played through, and every time he died I would laugh and say 'Try Again!' in Thee Dumbest Old Man Voice a 16 year old can conjure, and we ended up basing their entire dynamic for our comic on it, haha.

[invaders-gaming]

Thinkin about the zelda games I've played and I think my favorite is minish cap I really like how that game looks

Tbh I never finished it though think I got stuck in the palace of winds hdjdjjd

I've always loved how twilight princess looks too but didn't get that game until last year I'd love for it to get a switch remake

And phantom hourglass being my first zelda game has a special place in my heart absolutely love linebeck Also never beat that game though I don't remember where I got stuck

And of course botw I wasn't sure I was going to like it and waited awhile after it came out to get it but it ended up being one of my favorites the gameplay is great and I actually finished that game jfjfjfj totk is so far ok but it doesn't really reach the heights of botw for me if that makes sense

Skyward sword is not fun to play but I absolutely love groose hdhdjfj i have oracle of seasonsand the links awakening remake too but haven't played a lot of those they're cute but I get lost in links awakening easy

Oh I have the ocarina of time remake on 3ds I never beat because I got scared of it XD that was in elementary school and I have link between worlds I didn't finish cause I got stuck got a big Ole poster for that game in my room the villain really struck me when I was little and I made an oc based off his design lol

Windwakers neat I never finished it though don't remember why, i had the wii u version of it I like Ganondorf a lot in that game and I enjoy tetra but I don't like when she turns into zelda and the last one I can think of is 4 sword adventures which I played in middle school on the ds every morning before school started with a group of friends that was fun I really enjoyed that

Adding on age of calamity and hyrule warriors were really fun I like those style of games playing as the other characters in the series was great

[zachsgamejournal]

COMPLETED: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Best Zelda ever? For me, it's going to be hard to play anything else.

BEST OF THE BEST

Ocarina of Time is my favorite Zelda. I haven't played them all, but I doubt this one will be replaced. Mostly because it feels like the original fo the 3D adventures, not just for Zelda, but also all 3D action-adventure games (though my replay of Mario 64 showed that many bosses and ideas in OoT were first explored in Mario). I've played a little of Twilight Princess and Windwaker. Those games have obviously made improvements but it still feels OoT inspired. Of course, playing Link to the Past and the original Legend of Zelda, I can see that many of the gameplay mechanics and themes were presente early on, if not from the beginning. So OoT's higher ranking is likely due to my preference for 3D adventures and the fact it was the first Zelda game I truly played through and beat.

Before playing through Breath of the Wild, I had become much more exposed to classic Zelda titles. I hadn't yet played Skyward Sword. I remember texting a friend that Breath of the Wild felt like a mix of Skyrim (which I love) and Metal Gear solid 5 (which I also love). While I totally think Breath of the Wild was the logical next step and fulfillment of the promises previous Zelda games had made, it still didn't feel like it was a unique Zelda. The names and locations were all there, as well as familiar gameplay items like bombs. But it didn't feel unique to the other open-world games around it. It didn't feel uniquely Zelda. It was the right move, and a great game (my second favorite Zelda at the time).

But as much as Breath of the Wild was fully embracing the open-world spirit of previous entries, Tears of the Kingdom does the same while embracing the Zelda-ness of the series. This makes Breath of the Wild look like an extremely polished prototype for Tears of the Kingdom. It'll be hard for me to ever admit Ocarina of Time's defeat--but I think I have to consider Tears of the Kingdom the best Zelda game ever made (that I've played).

SKYWARD SWORD

My wife loves Skyward Sword. I don't. I enjoy the early areas in the town, but the combat is annoyingly cumbersome due to the motion controls. The story wasn't very impressive. Zelda needs rescuing, blah, blah, blah. There's a great evil, blah, blah, blah. Link is the only one that can save us, blah, blah, blah. I was really annoyed that this game was meant to be the "beginning" of the timeline, but it also references older civilizations and mysteries that are never revealed. I guess it's hard to have a Zelda game without ancient ruins...so whatever.

The reason this matters is because Tears of the Kingdom seems to directly reference Skyward Sword in many ways. Which will get to. But obviously, floating islands. But all the references (story, themes, gameplay) interested my wife (way more than Breath of the Wild ever could) while giving meaning to those things that left me unsatisfied in my Skyward Sword playthroughs.

STARTING A NEW ADVENTURE

I wasn't super excited to play Tears of the Kingdom, as it looked like more Breath of the Wild with floating islands, but I'm glad we got it. It was way more than what I was expecting and after dozens of hours, I constantly felt like I was discovering something new.

The game starts with h Link and Zelda discovering a creepy mummy under Hyrule castle. I wasn't sure who this was at first because it didn't seem related to the Ganon of Breath of the Wild. It seems Calamity Ganon of BotW was just leaking essence from the true Ganon (Ganondorf) held captive under the castle. Zelda falls and is warped back in time while Link finds himself on a floating island. This is the Upheaval. A bunch of floating islands appear while huge chasms appear on the surface. I'm not quite sure where the islands came from, but it's clear that they are the ruins of a long lost civilization.

From what I remember of Breath of the Wild, Zelda is a passive character trapped in the castle. I guess her essence is keeping Ganon at bay. But what we see of her is through flashbacks. Flashbacks that made the past storyline of the Age of Calamity 100 times more interesting than the Breath of the Wild story/plot. Since Zelda is in the past, much of her part of the story is still told through flashbacks. But unlike BotW, Zelda's actions in the past are very active. And as we learn, she directly impacts the present time. BotW just showed us how hard Zelda worked and her doubts before failing. Sadly, no Zelda has brought us OoT Zelda who is both active throughout the game and a total badass. Tears gets close though. Very close.

Being on the opening flying island felt very Skyward Sword. It was also impressive to see how they were able to render all the floating islands while showing a lot of detail in the ground-level world. I mean, we're on the PS5 and the Switch is more comparable to the PS3, so to see it handle huge world is impressive. Clearly, they've worked hard to optimize the tech. And the game looks better than BotW

NEW ABILITIES

BotW gave the player some interesting abilities. Not super interesting, but kinda interesting. Two of those abilities were just bombs. Handy, but unexciting for the most part. and then there was a magnetic manipulation of objects that I mostly used to find treasure chests. Then there was stasis, which allowed people to cheat in interesting ways, and the ice ability. They were used in some interesting ways, but I didn't feel inspired to explore them very much.

At first, when I learned we wouldn't be getting these abilities back, I felt annoyed. But then I learned that these abilities are better, and the game had plenty of tricks to not just make up for lost abilities, but to go beyond their limitations.

The first ability is fuse. You can fuse almost any item. These means putting apples on a word, mushrooms on a shield, or moblin guts on an arrow. (You can also throw almost any item from your inventory.) At first I didn't think too much about fusing. Mostly I just fused rocks to swords so I could mine and break down barriers. But then I learned I could fuse materials and robot parts to make powerful weapons. This fixes the WORST part of BotW, weapons breaking. Even though weapons still break in TotK, but since you can pick up almost any garbage weapon and fuse it to a powerful material, it's really easy to replace your powerful weapons. In BotW, I rarely used my strongest weapons cause I wanted to save them for when I "needed" them, but I didn't have that anxiety (as much) in TotK cause I could keep making replacements. also consider the hammer: good for mining but not fighitng, yet it wasted inventory space. Now I can make any weapon a mining hammer when needed, and then switch it back later.

Next, is the Superhand ability, or something, I don't know. It first replaces the magnetic hand of BotW. But instead of being limited to metal objects, you can pick up almost anything--including tree trunks, wooden boxes, bombs, and various other things. While this makes that BotW skill more useful, it's true purpose is to allow the fusing of objects together. You can fuse tree trunks together to make a bridge. Or wagon wheels to a wooden plank to make a weapon.

But this really breaks out when you start building Zonai devices. See, there was an ancient culture known as Zonai that developed advanced technology. They seem separate from the Shiekah, who are also advanced, and they supposedly descended from the sky. BotW supposedly referenced them. At first you get basic things, like putting a fan on minecart to make it move. But then you can start building rocket ships and offroad vehicles. The game lets you collect these as items to be used whenever, but they also provide pieces just lying around.

It's through these devices that the game started to feel like a Zelda game. You're encouraged to be creative and make wild creations. And the wild creations that people have made are very inspired. I even saw someone make a functioning Metal Gear Rex. I have spent hours exploring different ways to make crazy contractions and solve puzzles in unconventional ways. Never once did I feel bored.

There's also a rewind ability. I think there's a few puzzles it's meant to solve, but mostly if just fixes mistakes. And there's the ascend ability. This mostly helps the player get to the top of structures and mountains without too much fuss. You can explore an underground cavern, and instead of looking for the way out, just ascend to the surface. It's useful but not as exciting as fusing objects.

The bomb and ice abilities are gone. But you can easily amass bomb-flowers that grow in the caves. You can throw these or attach to arrows for powerful attacks or strip mining. You can also attach fire fruit to arrows to make fire arrows or throw them to burn away thorns. Also, you can throw frost-fruits into the water to make ice platforms. Then you can meld those together to make ice bridges. There's so many cool ways to use items you pick up, either for exploring, puzzle solving, battling, or just to entertain yourself.

Being able to throw and fuse items brings a creative wackiness to the game that felt missing from Breath of the Wild, and makes Tears of the Kingdom feel much more Zelda-like and unique from other open-world action adventures (like Skyrim).

This is taking a long time to write and I need to move on with my life.

The point is: I love this game. It would be my favorite Zelda if Ocarina wasn't so important to me.

[timbrrwolfe]

Just a little mainline Zelda game tier list. Figured I'd make it now for posterity as I intend to (eventually, at some point) play through more of the series, and I wanted to have a record of where stuff stood in my mind before playing. TL;DR I have a bias for both 2D zeldas and newer games in general. Longer explanations under the cut for anybody who wants to read my ramblings

The Oracles games are my favorites, with Ages being one of the first games I ever beat, especially without cheating (though I did use a game guide. Miss those things, honestly. Online walkthroughs just aren't the same). Breath of the Wild does a lot of things right but there are some things that very much annoy me (weapon degradation being the main issue that some of the other issues kind of have their roots in), but overall it's a pretty good time. Ignore that I'm technically about halfway through it and still want to finish it before Tears of the Kingdom comes out even though I don't expect to get that right away (because money). Link to the Past is the only other one I've actually played at length, and despite never finishing it, it was a pretty good time. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that I played the GBA port. Just not quite as good as the others, though it's been a few years since I played it so maybe I'll replay it before I redo the tier list. TotK does look interesting, and while it still keeps the weapon degradation it's got some stuff to mitigate that (hopefully), so I'm definitely interested in getting it. Link Between Worlds is very much on my radar but that's gonna require me to pick up (ideally) a New 3DS/XL(LL) since my own 3DS XL broke years back and I missed it at the time. Minish Cap has been on my list for a while, and I even played a little bit of it but got distracted and haven't gone back to it. Still, I expect if I give it a proper chance I'll enjoy it, and I intend to do that some point soon. Link to the Past I also wanna get to, though I'm not sure which version I'll do. Maybe I'll get the Switch version and play through the OG first to see how it compares.

Windwaker honestly probably should be in the middle haven't played tier, on further reflection. I haven't played it but honestly I've seen a lot of it played so I don't think it would hold my attention to play through it myself. Also it seems like a refinement of OoT and MM which is both good and bad. Twilight Princess through Spirit Tracks I don't know a ton about but what I've seen of gameplay or heard about them haven't really appealed much to me. The Four Swords Adventures games I basically know nothing about, and Triforce Quest I know even less about.

It's a bit disingenuous to say I haven't played some of the games in the final tier, but I definitely haven't put much time into them. I gave OoT something like 20 minutes years after it's initial release but I think I missed the boat on how stunning it was to have huge 3D environments after years of smaller 2D games. So without that aspect of spectacle the gameplay didn't grab me much in the short time I spent with it. Maybe if I had played it alongside, for instance, Banjo Tooie, I'd feel differently about it (since I enjoy Banjo Tooie a lot despite being similar games outside of the tones and details) Majora's Mask is basically just more of Ocarina of Time, with a more sinister atmosphere. So, similar issues, with the added obstacle for me in that it's a game with a countdown, which give me hives. I've also seen at least parts of these games played so it's not like I have 0 idea what they're like. Having said that I'm not completely closed off to the idea of playing certain versions of the games. (Unofficial PC port of OoT, 3DS remakes of both) Zelda 2 I gave about 10 minutes, had no idea what i was supposed to be doing, and never went back to it. The OG is a similar story. Plus, as I said, I am very biased against older games in general. I don't play games to overcome difficulty (if it's fun I'll push through a challenge until I beat it but a lot of older games are hard without being fun. So.)

Just my personal thoughts on the series. I like certain kinds of things and not other things.

[dailyfrogs]

hey so it seems that a lot of you guys are going to move on to twitter due to recent events? i’ll still be here (i think, unless tumblr decides to pull the plug on this blog), so if you ever want to see some frogs feel free to stop in! i will miss my fellow frog lovers and enthusiasts

[fabcreature]

i'm so stressed over my fear of covid that my throat feels like it's closing up, conveniently making me feel like i have covid

[cloudninetonine]

You know what? I'm gonna do my 'Ganondorf isn't a bad king, just misguided and influenced by Demise.' Rant now.

I will admit, this entire theory is based on speculation and not likely to be canon compliant as it is my theory from mixing and matching other theories I've heard, and I have not played all the games and only fully played through two of them.

Okay so, in the start of Ocarina of Time, the 100 year war is mentioned. It is the civil war that broke out in Hyrule and drove Link's (Time's) mother to flee and run into the Lost Woods, before begging the Deku tree to take care of her son (and I could go into another theory about how Time isn't fully human because his mother, if she was human, would have gotten lost in the Lost Woods. But not now.)

However, while the 100 year war, or the Hyrulian civil war, is mentioned, it is never explained why it occured. I would like to purpose a theory that it was because of the Gerudo.

If you look at the Gerudo in Ocarina of Time, they were a tribe that had a reputation as thieves, however it's members, mainly Nabooru, Ganondorf's second in command, is against Ganondorf's encouraged behavior, the thievery and such.

However I believe Nabooru isn't exactly being unrealistic, she and Ganondorf are very different. Ganondorf was simply too proud as the only other way the Gerudo people would have survived was with the help and assistance of the Hylians.

I believe the 100 year war was of Gerudo armies attempting to claim Hylian land as theirs so that the Gerudo could care for their own people.

I also believe that the reason Ganondorf is forced to pledge fealty to the king in the beginning of Ocarina of Time is because they had lost the war.

Ganondorf honestly strikes me as a prideful man but he also wants the Gerudo people to thrive, he is their king after all, so he finally accepts for the Gerudo to be under Hylian rule and swears fealty to the king.

I think this explains one reason why the royal family was so quick to believe Time when he returns in the child timeline, because Ganondorf had betrayed the crown once before.

In Windwaker, Ganondorf is recorded as saying quote "My country lay within a vast desert. When the sun rose into the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes. No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... Death. But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin. I coveted that wind, I suppose."

In my opinion, that is evidence for Ganondorf truly caring for his people. If you look at Ganondorf, as a human being, he was told from a young age that he was special, that he would help the Gerudo rise. The women who raised him were obsessed with him in a near (if not throughly) creepy way. Bringing him back over and over again, willing to fight to the death in his name.

He was told he would help his people and he was willing to do it by any means necessary.

Moving on from the Ganondorf portion of this, time to move on to Ganon. I consider Ganondorf and Ganon to be separate, as Ganon seems to be what he is called as 'Demon Beast Ganon', much like how Demise was referred to as 'The Demon King, Demise.'

I consider this to be a representation of him becoming more and more like Demise.

I believe as he is revived again and again, he begins to lose his humanity. It's visible in how he appears after being continuously revived, but also he how he acts. He becomes more animalistic. His desire to take over Hyrule turns into a desire to destroy it.

I think as he is revived, he becomes more like Demise and less like Ganondorf. Shown by becoming more of a scheming monster than a proud Gerudo warrior like he was at first.

My theory is that Ganondorf is as much a puppet on a string as Link or Zelda, a little boy who grew up with so much hatred inside turning into a grown man with nothing to lose, turned into a puppet on a stage, serving a entity trying to beat someone he'll never be able to beat, and forced to suffer because of it.

Anyway! That's long. Once again, thank you for listening and I absolutely love reading your thoughts on my rambling, so thank you so much.

Disclaimer, this rant likely stems from my mental thing of not likely the idea of senseless violence and wanting a dramatic story behind it. Can't guarantee how much makes sense.

-Fruit Anon

Honestly one of my favourite theories is that Ganondorf isn't evil he's just a King who fell to darkness because of his own desperation. I think it adds more depth to his character and as you said Fruit, The Heroes and Princesses are being strung about by the Godesses why would it be such a reach for Ganondorf to be facing the same?

Also your point about the reincarnations of Ganondorf falling deeper into the Demise's control is also a great point! In the fallen timeline he becomes more monster/animal because he falls into greed, in the child timeline (which most people say Wild follows after Twilight) he's a literal eldritch abomination.

I honestly think that the main three will one day just say screw it and form an alliance to stop this cycle because it's not fair just to them but to everyone.

(I remember reading a post also about how the Gerudo has a lot of racist undertones, (how their features are heavily attributed to racist caricatures of Middle Eastern/South Asian women, their sexualisation, the Ganon-Pig connection) and I think Ganon deserves to be more than just the 'foreign man different so he's evil'. ALSO, WHY IS HE FUCKING GREEN, LIKE WHAT??)

[lucky-clover-gazette]

not gonna lie, the amount of hype surrounding windwaker compared to like. playing it. is not what i expected (i'm halfway through hd)

it just feels kind of empty? and i really really REALLY dislike what happens to tetra. it's genuinely hard carrying on with the adventure and just leaving her in the castle. there's never been another time in a zelda game where i've thought "god i wish i wasn't playing as link right now," which sucks? and the king of red lions is such a waste of a companion character. i like FI more, somehow. the combat is kind of oversimplified with the onscreen commands for "parrying" so victories feel unearned. the great sea is nothing compared to botw hyrule and some of the sfx, especially link's noises, grates on me.

i sit down to play windwaker and always end up wanting to play botw instead, which is the weird part of coming at the series without nostalgia goggles. i played botw first. playing twilight princess was fantastic bc it's SUCH a unique experience compared to botw and felt more compelling and streamlined than the controls and story in ocarina of time. skyward sword hd was good to me partially bc my expectations were abysmally low. i had pretty high expectations for windwaker and honestly so far i can find things to love (link's expressions and the art style, dragon roost island music) but in general it just feels a lot more hollow than a lot of video essayists express.

and yeah i know the story is special to a lot of people and a meta commentary on the success of the franchise or whatever but just like with skyward sword, i find it still pretty basic despite it being unique compared to the other games? again i'm guessing it's a nostalgia thing, but it's not like i had nostalgia for twilight princess, which ironically has my favorite story and makes its subversions in really subtle self-aware ways, and seems to really CARE about each and every character. god, i hate what they did to tetra in windwaker lol.

i also think i can kinda pinpoint why the open world in windwaker feels like a repetitive chore and i've spent like 1500 hours in the botw open world, storytelling is so much more possible and encouraged in botw. it's about the journey more than the destination. windwaker has repetitive locations that almost always have things to help link on his quest. botw world is just like, yeah there's a shrine, but just EXPLORE for the hell of it! learn about the world, tell your story! find 900 koroks and in that process become intimately familiar with every inch of the map! you don't need a fish to fill out your chart and tell you about the one (1) Thing to Do in the area. the game teaches you how to observe, how to innovate based on what you know of nature and the physics engine, and doesn't make 95% of what you're doing NECESSARY, which imo makes it all the more special to do.

link's character in botw has this profound feeling of wonder and experiences healing through nature after trauma. he grapples with identity and purpose in a way other links haven't, even if that's up to the player to observe in flashbacks and realize with the kind of gameplay that's encouraged. windwaker link is more of a coming of age story and just feels less meaningful so far to me personally, and it's even more annoying bc the main female character is both sidelined (and whitewashed which what the FUCK needs to mentioned more bc that's bullshit) in favor of link's story. maybe the second half of the game will change my mind, i hope so!

[toasttbutt]

I've only been to a couple of your streams but I always love your music playlist! I haven't heard some of the songs on there for a long time until today so thanks for that! ♥ Also your Luigi you drew today was super cute! ♥♥♥

Oh thank you you’re such a sweetie!!! <333

A lot of people tell me that and It makes me happy!! Bc a lot of the music I listen to is obscure (i have this weird talent of finding good music purely through floating about youtube). The playlist is on youtube so if you just type in “Toasttbutt streaming playlist” you can find it!!x3c <3

Im glad some of my musical tastes made ur day! .v.c <3

Oh and thank you (i gotta post that lol)! Luigi’s such a sweet heart and has a very special place in my heart bc he was a character I grew up with as a kid!! When i was around 4 (when my little sister was born), my dad bought us all a gamecube!! One of the first games we bought was Mario Sunshine (and LoZ Windwaker which is also special to me), which opened the door to other mario games, like Luigis Mansion which j still love to this day. I have so many fond memories with that game. One of them was my mom picking my twin and I from preschool, and my dad on fridays would go to Family Video to rent a game and movie! In this memory I remeber us excitedly squealing for luigis mansion bc it was a “scary” game and we were “big kids” (we were like 5 at the time lol). Funny thing is tho we never played it till we got a little older, so we always watched dad play. Idk i have a lot of fond memories with the game. <3

[eddiethehunted]

all ur legend of zelda posting makes me want to get Into It, but i've never looked at an loz in my life i don't know how

a good place to start is either by playing ocarina of time or watching a playthrough of it... a lot of the lore is explained in ocarina of time. it’s also a relatively easy game to beat, while still being fun and challenging enough that you don’t get bored. skyward sword or windwaker are also pretty good games to start with because they’re on the easier side and both have a lot of lore explanations too

breath of the wild is really fun and one of my fav games ever but i’d recommend trying one of the older games if you’re just getting started cuz botw is kinda all over the place with its lore and doesn’t fit on any timeline and its waaayyyyyy less story-oriented than the other zelda games BUT if you dont wanna get into it That Deep botw is nice to just kinda dick around in and it still has that zelda feel just slightly less so. it also opens up the opportunity to learn more if u decide u like the botw world and wanna know more abt other games

you could also dm me and id be SUPER HAPPY to talk to you about it and you can ask me whatever you want :D there’s a Lot to talk about and i’d be happy to talk about it literally whenever lol

IM SORRY once i start talking i cant stop oops but YEAH dm me if you want to!!! i’d love to talk