Putting the Matter to Bed

A return to the scene of the crime.


How many times we got to teach you this lesson, old man?!

Perhaps I’m being too dramatic with that assertion; though I was pondering since yesterday about whether or not my approach in discussing the idea of a preview for the new Zelda game, Echoes of Wisdom was too harsh or perhaps…just too far out there in general. Before I went back and read the article in confirming my fears, the essence of the article swirled in my mind as if a betrayal of sorts, Zelda being so high on my list of preferred entities within the gaming realm, kind of a “look how I massacred my boy” (girl) moment in retrospection.


Like dunking on Link for BO related issues after he just saved
both your ass and Hyrules from utter destruction. The utter gall

In my moments initially thinking about it, the article was maybe too bitter, almost bitingly cynical, as if I needed a put a fucking muzzle on my very notions of the god damn thing being a danger to itself and others surrounding it. Not so however, as I kind of enjoyed my final approach in what I was throwing down. I think more my point was that everyone and their mother was going to preview Echoes of Wisdom, so my contribution of consequence added to that pile was put forth by my own volition within the context of radically doubting the worth of both my addition and to the worth of the pile itself. I will always put a seal of approval on the ideas of radical doubt and severe skepticism, as it brings into focus what is and is not. I’ve jokingly referred to it as the Weathered Silver Lining axiom when I’m riding my bike in the rain; I’m not attempting to focus on how much it is raining, I’m attempting to focus on how much it isn’t raining.


Very much in line with the Still World aesthetic Echoes of Wisdom
has to offer: not being able to see the void through the trees

Say what you will about the flaws involving Cartesian Dualism, at least it ignites a much better conversation on the matters of thought and reality at large, which I feel as if is a vital proponent of any question worth asking, no matter how inherently flawed from the get go it may be. I have considered all of this could very well be overthinking the matter, but I’ve also found upon further inspection what many refer to as overthinking is just regular amounts of thinking, the everyday individual rife with complacency.


Complacency is an unbroken pot

My “non-preview” of sorts with Echoes of Wisdom did…echo a write up I did on Portrait of Ruin, which was similarly structured, in that it was almost a windup proper instead of an actual piece laying out the bare essentials of what the title had to offer. With almost 20 years to consider matters involving the title, and at least half that time wishing for a re-release of the title, you’d think I would have jumped at the opportunity to wax philosophical about an underrated gem and cut my teeth on the gorgeous crystalline subject matter Portrait of Ruin so effortlessly shines with.


I like my games to rock, so to speak

I’ll rein myself in here for a second and offer an actual posit of thought in regards to Echoes of Wisdom, just to throw the dog a bone, as it were, and to curtail the obsessively excessive existentiality I have imbued with my thoughts on the matter. The Echo system feels like a fun approach, and most certainly feels like an attempt at emulating what Breath of the Wild was throwing down in terms of creativity being applied to the everyday situation in Hyrule. I’m wondering if the 2D space will have enough depth to maintain that higher level of improvisational satisfaction in the matter, as I feel as if one of the biggest contingencies of the playground like feelings of BoTW was the physics engine itself that holds the whole reality os possibility together. Don’t get me wrong, being able to solve most problems with beds in EoW is a laugh, and I’m very much enjoying sicking my flying shrub (Peehat) on the fools in Hyrule, I’m just worried about the lack of versatility that will carry the same weight with a 2D sensibility.


This is definitely as close as I ever *want* Nintendo to get in
allowing gamers to bed Zelda *shudders*

This critique is certainly not an attempt at an admonishment of Echoes, as the core essence of what is on offer does successfully breed playful interaction and creative solutions, far more so than just pushing a box or swinging a sword, as it were. At least one has to think fourth dimensionally in a sense, or at least if one is so amped up in tackling their issues with a pomp and circumstance worthy of a blue ribbon baby in the field of conceptual conquering, which is always a welcome offer at hand, regardless of game.


A much more refreshing approach than Link’s strong armed
approach of making every day a new rendition of
Sword Problem Solver Simulator 9001

And though this is purely anecdotal, one of the inherent problems with creating more conceptually challenging games is that, and keeping in mind the bar is low, if you make the puzzles or intellectual approaches to insurmountable, you risk immediately alienating a huge portion of a would be fanbase, a serious risk for any video game seeking audience, let alone a sweetheart from the Nintendo camp. There’s a reason games like Silent Hill helped create the standard of having customizable difficulty levels for the puzzles themselves without dumbing down any other portion of the title, and it’s because it’s a lot easier to just make a hole in a wall to get out of an escape room than to solve the mystery of actually just escaping one.


Echoes of Wisdom’s flex: can’t figure out a solution?
Just sleep on it, it will come to you.

My only other final thought on related matters, more so in regards to yesterday’s write up, was in reference to the semantics of what elements make up or help to subsist what a game preview is in it’s “-ishness” of existence, and I think the ultimate answer therein, while maybe not revelatory mind you, but certainly bears a mention, is the conveyance of fun to a yet decided audience.

Hopefully I did my job, though I have often found when you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.

~Pashford

The Abstract Limitations of Wisdom

Pushing through to the realm of the radical is often thwarted by the constrictive boundaries of realistic limitations.


Sometimes it’s just a freaking tornado

A lot of what happens on ATE acts within a grander consideration to gaming as a whole, my relation to it, etc. I’m always thinking about what that means, how to convey a message, entertain and or inform. A lot of me is always ponderous on just what constitutes value in that regard. In relation to my opening sentiment, it does bring into question how to cover everyday events in gaming, whether it be represented by a news story, a critique of the industry, or something like a preview of sorts. Maybe the delivery mechanism only matters to a certain point, and maybe the voice delivering it only matters in the same vein, dependent on time and place? Perhaps it’s a standard, this weirdly inherent quality that makes a video game a video game, and a write up of a video game just as much so if it possesses those kind of unspoken values that are part and parcel what make up the entity in question.


Insert obvious Ship of Theseus reference

This is all relative to the task at hand on a couple of levels, speaking to an approach of writing, to the kind of game Echoes of Wisdom is, to the idea of previews in relation to a recent look back at my article involving The Plucky Squire. It’s possible this all could be just me grappling with the very depths of morbid curiosity, or the wild throws of existential dread involving taking for granted the reality of knowledge acquired vs the mode of transfer and the transitive properties there after, or feeling just in general restless at the idea of writing a preview, inspite of liking the new Zelda game.


It is Zelda afterall…well within possession of that very “-ishness”
it should to claim such an inference

To wit; I did write a preview for The Plucky Squire, and it seemed to come out as one would expect for a video game preview. The article explains the mechanics, showcases visuals to get the vibe of the game in focus, provides some humor and insight to relay what could be considered obscured points of interest on some level. Though, it does beg the question: was there value inherent there? Did it serve a greater purpose than selfishness in it’s creation? Can a single preview move the needle that much based on it’s merits alone? The old adage “every drop fills the bucket” springs to mind, which bears relevancy, but in the horrifying regard of realizing that no single drop matters, but the volume of the container wouldn’t be the same without all of them, so there is some sense of deconstructionism involved with the value and purpose intertwined with individuality vs the majority.


How many Zeldas (or Links for that matter) are required to
make the composite idea of what that character represents?

There’s of course Echoes of Wisdom itself. It’s a traditional 2D Zelda game in most regards. Yes, you play as Zelda, and yes you utilize magic to duplicate objects and manipulate the terrain around you, which is out of the ordinary for traditional Zelda games which are mostly predicated on simplistic battling with the occasional puzzle thrown in, but could Echoes of Wisdom really buck the trend of the Zelda formula too much before it became unrecognizable? Very much like the “-ishness” I refer to when understanding the inherent qualities of what makes up a game preview, could Echoes of Wisdom truly be so derivative before being accused of not being Zelda at all? Where would be the line? How non-Zelda like could it be before it started to really lose fans, and how many Zelda fans would read a preview of the game without mostly having their minds made up on the issue of whether or not they were going to play it?


The divining line that marks the “-ishness” of Zelda
enough

Then of course there is the approach to writing. just how *much* information does the regular reader derive from a single article anymore, and how many read beyond the first three seconds of any given piece before making up their minds in general? Have the lot mostly moved on to content consumption equivalent to binging junk ala memes, shorter video based content, or just social media in general? If my preview of Echoes of Wisdom was a Tik Tok video of me making loud noises to some warped version of the Zelda theme while showing jarring footage of the game, would that somehow be more or less culturally relevant in my coverage then this article? Or if I made this whole thing a single line and said “Play Zelda” and gave it 10 sexy elves out of 10, would that generate more hype than any number of countless words that follow? Do we conflate informative shares with entertainment to the point of the idea that what’s boring isn’t relevant? In the court of public opinion, it’s usually a race to the bottom of the hole of irrationality, and the last one there is an unpopular rotten egg.


…or more like a “dubious food”, just to keep the metaphors
inline with the whole idea of maintaining Zelda “-ishness”

Much like I pointed out The Plucky Squire would be a rarity in being a preview for a video game on launch day on ATE, I suppose this is kind of the counter-point to the very idea of previews for Echoes of Wisdom, as I am left curious as to how radically different a Zelda game could be within those limitations. If a new Zelda game is out, how much do you really need to know about it to make up your mind? How much of a preview is genuine information for a title that is such a known known, and how much of a boundary breaker can a preview be in it’s own approach before it’s too befuddled with abstraction that it ceases being relevant?

I’m not quite sure.

~Pashford

Queen Creation

In the grand narrative of life, we should feel lucky to have the chance to echo wisdom wherever we can.


Don’t you just hate when you find yourself agreeing with the
genocider?

As what may come as a shock to absolutely no regular readers, I have reached the end of another day with few moments to spare. I’ve been meaning to attempt to restructure the way my schedule is handled, but alas, I can’t find time in my schedule to schedule in doing so. Tragic irony. With all of that said, I am regulated to once again write more of a quickie involving a thought of note than a full blown article, but that’s just the way it rolls sometimes.


We should all ever be so lucky for it to roll this kind of crazy

Over on Polygon, I was delightfully reminded of how awesome the new Zelda game, Echoes of Wisdom, is going to be, and one I’ve been reporting on and looking forward to for sometime. I attempt not to be a total one trick pony by writing about the same games over and over, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and I love me some of that turbulence the Triforce always seems to be throwing down.


When keeping it real in Termina goes wrong

In any case, the article pulls a choice quote from one of Nintendo’s always choice behind the scenes look at game development, in this instance, the devs talking about how Echoes of Wisdom was suppose to be a full blown dungeon creator, ala Mario Maker:

Terada: We were exploring a few different ways to play the game in parallel. In one approach, Link could copy and paste various objects, such as doors and candlesticks, to create original dungeons. During this exploration phase, this idea was called an “edit dungeon” because players could create their own Legend of Zelda gameplay.

Aonuma: They showed it to me and told me to give it a try. As I played, I started thinking that while it’s fun to create your own dungeon and let other people play it, it’s also not so bad to place items that can be copied and pasted in the game field, and create gameplay where they can be used to fight enemies. That was the beginning of gameplay using “echoes.” The gameplay was shifted from creating dungeons up until then to using copied-and-pasted items as tools to further your own adventure.


Zelda about to ctrl+c & ctrl v Hyrule out of existence…and back into it again?

I had mused myself whether or not we would get such a game (a Zeldaified version of Mario Maker) after spending an inordinate amount of time with the dungeon creator in the remake to Link’s Awakening, as the entire sub-system of creation ended up being quite engaging, and I felt as if Nintendo could probably get a lot of mileage out of the idea very much like Mario Maker in the process. I always figured it would have been a long shot idea, however, and knew that it would only ever work within the vein of a 2D setup anyways, for a myriad of reasons.


Being the maker of your own mischief always felt amusing

Internally speaking, I also figured that maybe on some level, the devs involved with the any of the Zelda titles would be overly protective of their property, as it were, and that making Zelda feel too cookie cutter might diminish some of the “magic” the series does seem to innately have in feeling like a powerfully unique property that should be handled with a certain level of finesse you wouldn’t see with other series, and perhaps in a read between the lines moment, that’s what ended up happening.


I very much look forward to the launch day of Echoes of Wisdom, which is a mere two days out. Get hyped.

~Pashford

Legendary Wisdom

Yesterday, we delved *briefly* into the world of Castlevania, as we continued to scratch the surface of what the everyday of Wallachia looks like when the Belmont’s take the day off.


Shenanigans, it turns out

Which is highly appropriate in many ways, more so speaking to how I riffed on the idea that my first article, which was totally suppose to be about Portrait of Ruin, was totally not about PoR. In that spirit, how else is one suppose to make a faithful follow up to such a fun concept through any other means than making the follow up as equally not about Portrait of Ruin, and having a laugh while doing so. In my defense, there were quite a few elements that at least alluded to my appeal of the grandeur that PoR effortlessly emanates, and I look forward to finalizing some thoughts on it in my ongoing series involving the Dominus Collection. However, just to spread things out a bit to avoid the idea I’m a one trick pony, I figured we could muse about Hyrule for a spell, and look at one of the most recent gameplay videos for Echoes of Wisdom.


Mario doesn’t have the copyright on the phrase, people.
Simmer down.

I’ve already horsed around briefly about how I am excited for Echoes of Wisdom, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to regular readers, as the Zelda franchise still stands as my favorite. DS games aside, the series has always found a way to reinvent itself, and influence the entire gaming industry while doing so. There are of course, times when you get the occasional side adventure or two which kind of brings everything back to basics, and Echoes of Wisdom looks to be more in that realm, as the title is a top down experience in the vein of Link’s Awakening, which Echoes looks to be borrowing the engine of as a basis for the adventure itself.


More like Zelda’s Awakening, am I right?

I was a bit late to the party on watching the most recent gameplay footage (one of the downsides to being so intimately entangled with Dracula related affairs), but we’ve got some good looking content to look forward to. As mentioned, EoW looks to borrow the engine for Link’s Awakenings remake, aesthetic and all, which I’m totally jazzed about. I thought the look the LA remake offered was charming as all hell, and the engine felt just as familiar as the best isometrically based Zelda game for the past, so it gets my thumbs up.


They’re even bringing back the side scrolling bits from Link’s
Awakening, which I’m totally vibing with

Zelda has never been big on story per-say, but the atmosphere, overall world and it’s inhabitants are usually the reasons to stay awhile to keep exploring your little Hylian face off. Both the King of Hyrule and Link have been shanghaied, in any case, so it’s up to Zelda to finally put foot to ass and take care of Hyrule herself this time. To all of you gamers out there who were asking yourselves the age old question “what if Zelda was a girl?”, your question will finally be answered.


I reached out to Nintendo for a comment on the rumors involving being able to play as Zelda transformed into a grill, they were unable to respond by the time this article was published.

The gameplay video emphasized a few major points to look forward to. The Still World is fairly par for the course in the land of Zelda, as it is this games version of the Dark World, Twilight Realm, Lorule etc, which are realms that usually take the place as a dimension adjacent to Hyrule itself in any given game, but where everything is popping off and where one generally you gets to discover what happens when keeping it real goes wrong.


Regardless of whether or not this is just a doppleganger or truly
Link just possessed, he is about to enter the “find out” phase of fucking around

The Still World is available via rifts in Hyrule through the overworld, and looks to be a bit harder to traverse, adding extra challenge to the navigation of the to and fro EoW will be providing. Both traversal and puzzle solving have been key elements running through the hype surrounding the lead up to the games launch, showcasing there are a number of ways to go about getting around. Not only does the gameplay showoff Zelda being able to replicate a number of objects at her disposal for regular every day use, but at one point it looks like she just nopes out of bounds, probably wondering to herself how Link even tolerates Hyrules bullshit mostly on foot most of the time.


Going by speedrunning logic, the answer is: he actually doesn’t
put up with Hyrule’s bullshit on foot most of the time, either.

The gameplay footage does emphasize that you will be able to acquire a Swordfighter Form at some point, reassuring fans that traditional combat will still be a regular part of the experience. I get why they went out of there way to underline this reality, as some Zelda fans are just old school sword swingers, if I’m granting a severely dubious side-eyeing benefit of the doubt as to the cries of push back of change, so the option to essentially play EoW as “Link in drag” does exist.


Which honestly, has been a very popular way to enjoy the series as of late

It is times like these where I do almost feel as if the reporting on these events almost writes themselves in terms of excitement levels, as Echoes of Wisdom easily checks all of my boxes in what the game has to offer, but I’ve been a fan of the series for a few decades at this point, so as long as I don’t see any trains kicking about, I’m likely to be head over heels excited for a new Zelda title. Nintendo is releasing a special edition console to celebrate the launch of the game, which I’m sure has already sold out in the pre-order phase as it is, so good luck finding one at all, let alone for a non-scalpers jacked up price.


You don’t need both kidneys to survive. I’m certain I read that somewhere.

Echoes of Wisdom launches on the Switch September 26th.
~Pashford

The Legend of Being Tired

There is a vague irony in my writing machinations, as one “quick post” turns into a hysterically long epic of disastrously drawn out proportions.

A visual representation of how I feel after just one “quick post”

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing and delivering ideas in bold fashion, but sometimes the clock is just working against me, effortlessly pissing directly into my bowl of meta-physical cheerios. With that in mind, (not the abstract golden shower for your dose of morning nutrients mind you), but the piece of piss one feels like when having very few minutes to deliver upon to you something worth while, I figured I would at least bring up the new trailer for the next Zelda game, as I have been really digging the drip feed of content involvin Echoes of Wisdom, which is suppose to be out this September (26th).

It behooves me to mention the horse in the trailer, for well…obvious reasons. As did Nintendo, as easy as it is to surmise. I think it’s there way of not so subtly saying “No really…this game is big! Big enough that you’ll even need a horse to get around kinds of big!” Which, is a fair point of contention they’re likely trying to combat in hyping the title. When the other two *major* Zelda games you’ve had on your system are Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom kinds of big, its understandable that the big N is worried gamers may not take Echoes quite as seriously. Personally myself, and this is more in reference to it cribbing the Link’s Awakening remake art style, if it really was only as big as that game turned out to be, I would be as happy as a pig in shit, as both the quality of the original and the remake there after was an ideal amount of game for one to feed on.


Here’s hoping Nintendo is going to let us get our cock on
in a Zelda game once again

Cause let’s be real…and I’m not trying to spit hot takes right now, but we can’t just have every iteration be another Breath of the Wild. It came, it saw, it conquered, it even got a follow up people seemed to enjoy. Echoes of Wisdom still looks to be borrowing from it in some ways, but I’m more than happy to see them go back to something a bit more bite size, which is an arena the Zelda games have always dominated in. I am now going to stop myself from riffing too much on this trailer, as the whole point of this write up was to be brief, and to actually get something out the door today instead of ranting and raving, thusly creating a bloated nightmare monstrosity of a piece that ends up being a waking terror to edit and format….

…the horror of which I speak of you may see tomorrow. May the three goddesses will it to be so.

~Pashford