The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom | Fully Ramblomatic

[Music] [Applause] is it may or does Zelda Echoes of wisdom sound like a dig as in we had a look in Zelda's ear but all we found was some Echoes of wisdom oh come on is that any way to mark this occasion after all these years finally a Legend of Zelda game that's actually named after the character you play as although calling it Legend of Link would have been only fair if you ask me all those times link pushed himself to his last heart container saving the kingdom only for some Mooney tart who spent most of the time sitting around scoffing French fancies to take all the credit competence would only get you so far if you're not willing to advocate for yourself link mate You' get eaten alive in the tech industry but anyway yes echos of wisdom as a top down Zelda game with the art style of the links Awakening remake where everything looks like it came out of a Kinder surprise in which we play as Zelda battling the requisite evil Cosmic darkness that has Afflicted High rule because Link's busy off screen 100 pering the fishing mini game or whatever and it's uh well frankly it's not very good in fact I might go as far to say that it's bad which is [ __ ] awkward now I have to counter accusations of being both a Nintendo hater and a misogynist uh my daughter likes Mario and the other day she said I love you Daddy thank you for not being a misogynist the plot is big purple cracks are appearing across Hyrule with evil designs in mind purple being the standard color for evil thanks to its association with the Green Goblins Underpants people are being sucked in and evil clones are being spat out the king gets evil cloned and Zelda has to go on the Run cunningly disguising herself by putting up her Hood not taking her crown off and introducing herself as Zelda to everyone she meets she must travel across the lands solving each community's problems which usually center around a dirty great purple crack running through the chief's house Zelda has to go in and complete a dungeon with the help of a bunch of holidaying Lumas from Super Mario Galaxy pretty standard Zelda Arrangement you've got the volcano where the gorons live you've got the ocean where the Zora live there's a snowy bit there's a jungle bit there's a couple of side activities helmed by NPCs with an enthusiasm for that activity which can only be described as sexually charged the central gimmick is the echo system Zelda has the ability to copy things and spawn her own versions of them I read somewhere that some of the core superpowers in tears of the Kingdom started out as debugging tools and that's exactly what this feels like as well like Princess Zelda figured out how to hack the level editor especially when I'm constructing a suspension bridge out of beds cuz I can't be asked to deal with a platforming puzzle or mandatory stealth section you can also copy and spawn monsters to Aid you in combat and by Aid I mean do all the combat for you while you sit around doing your dailies Zelda can't do combat herself well she can use magic to transform into link with a little musical jingle with the same energy as the popey the Sailor Man theme but it doesn't last long and the Magic's hard to come by so most of the time you'll rely on spawning in bigger monsters I think the point of severely limiting Zelda's ability to fight directly is to emphasize her status as an avatar of wisdom who solves problems in clever indirect ways but most of the time you only display as much wisdom as the British military did during the first world war because I'd mostly just spawn a shield moblin shove them into no man's land to enjoy their fleeting 3 seconds of Consciousness before something kills them and then immediately spawn in a replacement at zero cost this all culminates in a final level in which the game forces Zelda to give up her ability to turn into link so link can have his sword back oh sure be my guest mate I certainly don't resent all the side questing and resources I used up upgrading my magic bar and sword damage now knock yourself out out then link literally fights the final boss for you all you have to do is spawn monsters in to help him out and Dodge the attacks and how is one to interpret this other than the game saying okay you've had your fun pretending to be the hero now go sit over there and try to avoid breaking a nail while the men take care of things and having to [ __ ] subcontract the combat wouldn't be so ging if the monsters you spawn could keep their head in the game but if you're lucky they'll get one hit in and then forget what they were supposed to be doing cuz they've got the AI of the drummer from chumba wber to say nothing of the fact that giving life to an endless stream of living beings so that they can immediately die to remove a mild inconvenience from the path of a privileged rich white lady is not something the game ever interrogates from an ethical perspective I mean Zelda would be in real trouble if the octar roox ever thought a [ __ ] unionize it was the final boss thing that fully soured me to the game I think but I had a pretty good pucker going already it was a lot of little things like the way the menu for selecting Echo is a horizontal strip which is fine until you've unlocked hundreds of the [ __ ] and scrolling around looking for the one you want is like working in a zipper testing facility but the broadest issue for me is that the game's economy is Zimbabwean in its fuckness which I guess makes sense in a game where I can shoot unlimited free out of my armpit every time I'd find a hidden chest or complete a side mission and get rewarded with rupes I'd go well what the [ __ ] am I supposed to spend this on my main use for rupes was buying more accessory Slots of the Great Fairy Fountain and it wasn't long before I had as many slots as accessories that I'd found the other thing chests like rewarding you with is smoothie ingredients this is the cooking mechanic you combine two ingredients to make a smoothie that restores health and affords other Buffs fine but the very first Smoothies Out of the very first ingredients I scraped out of a bin behind the starting Castle all restored like 10 15 hearts when I still only had a maximum of three so for most of the game I was lugging around enough protein shakes to fully immerse Arnold Schwarzenegger and the funniest part was I didn't even need them because if you spawn one of those infinite free beds and lie on it for 3 minutes Zelda gets all her health back anyway again hard not to read this as going easy on the little dainty Wy girly world but I'm not going to get mad at arguable misogyny when I can get much more turgidly mad at core game design that just doesn't bloody work the ability to shoot free ladders out of your training bra suggests a game based around exploration but a [ __ ] economy means nothing has value and there's nothing that can reward the exploration I only found out you can ride horses after I'd already beaten the game cuz the Stables aren't on the critical path you have to do a side quest to unlock it and even when you do the world isn't big enough nor the horses fast enough to make it worth the bother to spawn a carrot and wait for the prissy [ __ ] to show up when you could be halfway there on another bed bridge by now or just fast travel that's even easier till we teach the moblins how to hold up a sedan chair Buck your ideas up Dobbin if I can't find a use for your lazy ass I know some low rent British supermarkets that can and not for rounding up the [ __ ] trolley remember the last time you played a tabletop RPG and your friend cast The Fireball spell killing all the enemies and exploding your whole adventuring party I know they say that living well is the best revenge well how about you play as a living Fireball spell and let Revenge be the best revenge with battle Zoo ancestries year of Titans once a month for the next year you'll receive a unique playable species you won't find anywhere else for your D and D fifth edition or Pathfinder 2E games now you can play as a living spell a skillful Cyclops a wicked troll or even a Mighty Kraken and those are just the ones I can pronounce an hair jar it's pronounced an haar say tires it's satas okay I think I got this one dual hand douah hand it's a Headless Horseman from Irish folklore you gigantic tick every month you'll receive a new PDF or Foundry VT module along with handmade battle maps tokens for your virtual tabletop both static and animated and detailed in World lore entries allowing you to easily add these unique species to your next tabletop session all this and more for less than a monthly Egg McMuffin delicious head on over to the link in the description to learn more because if you sign up for the kickstarter you'll get a bonus species a year early the mighty Titan that's 13 unique species throughout 2025 to amaze your friends and family now if you'll excuse me I have to call my dungeon master and tell them that I'm going to be playing as Godzilla from now on Godzilla [Music] [Music] m [Music] [Applause] [Applause]