The Legend of Zelda: A Pod to the Cast: Game Slop: Zelda Philips CD-i games with Eva Anderson

All right, so these circumstances are pretty unusual, but as you know, the partnership with Nintendo for the Philips CDI attachment has fallen apart.

We are going to make it still on our own, and as part of the settlement, Nintendo has given us the rights to the Zelda IP.

So we can make our own Legend of Zelda games.

They can be whatever we want them to be.

So let's just blue sky this thing.

This is, you know, this is a huge opportunity for us, obviously.

This is, you know, what we call in video games the big show this is the big time here we're making we're using nintendo ip so we can't we cannot mess this up all right so before i begin i would like to say that um

uh as part of my pitching contract and my in my employment clause that i negotiated this morning you have to take all of my ideas it's right here and i'm i'm looking at the contract it's it's written there yeah i'll need to get my reading glasses to review this but i'll just i'll just take this on blind faith for now thank you uh hi my name is doug Yet.

I was hired by Phillips this morning.

I expect to be packing my things by 1 p.m.

Okay.

I've got to say, not a great start.

It doesn't feel good.

So, what do we think of when we think of Zelda?

I'll tell you some things I think about.

Well, I thought that the steps taken in the second game in the franchise were pretty exciting.

I like a side-scrolling adventure for Zelda.

Would you guys say yes?

You know what?

It's a very popular genre.

People love a side-scroller, and I feel like that's completely on the table.

Why not?

Yeah, I know people didn't love it, but I don't think that's enough of a reason to not do it.

I think the Zelda, I think the Zelda characters could work in a side-scrolling way.

We can build upon this template that's been established.

Absolutely.

Okay, great.

So, instead of, you know, how Mario jumps with a button?

Yes.

That's confusing to me because why is he jumping with a button when the movement is all on the little stick, right?

So, I want to make it so that in order to jump with Zelda links, whatever the fuck his name is, that you gotta press up on the controller.

Because that's my that's the body, the stick is the body, which is why it looked like a little body.

Sure, I mean, I played some games like that, like kung fu on the NES uses up for jump, so you know, it's a that that's been established a little clunky, but it's a possibility.

Hey, look, I know that you said that you were expecting to pack your bag so far

two for two with like pretty interesting ideas very much.

Now, I want to demonstrate something here physically.

Now, whenever I want to get into my purse, I gotta squat, I got to squat down low.

Yeah, are you okay?

I got to squat down low so I can, because

I can't rummage when I'm standing at my full height.

So I need to drop my bag onto the ground and just like kind of squat over it like I'm using a Chinese toilet.

And then I'm going to

dig.

I'm going to dig in my bag.

So

I want to make sure that when Link digs in his purse, he's got to squat down.

He's got to squat down low.

Let's just, let's let we can at least prototype it, the idea of squatting to access your inventory.

The other thing I know about Legend of Zelda is nobody's talking.

So I've submitted myself doing all the voices on a script, and since I've negotiated my contract such a way, I would like all of these to be implemented into the game as is.

Okay, so you have some audio of you doing the...

That's what you're saying?

You recorded on a tape, some audio of you doing these lines?

Tape?

Yeah, like a tape deck.

Like the current technology, a tape deck.

Okay.

It's only the most current technology.

All right, sure.

Everyone's got a tape deck right now.

I brought in a wax cylinder.

Wow, how did you even press that?

What do you press?

I brought in a wax cylinder.

Here's, I took, so what I did last night is I poured a bunch of candles in my throat.

Jesus Christ.

A bunch of candles.

You know, I lit them first and I

let the wax collect.

I let the wax collect and then I sort of like dry gagged until the whole shape came out.

And then I've surrounded that with a

latex,

like a hot latex, so I could make a whistle.

So then I

so I massaged it so that I don't have to be in the room in order for you to hear my voice, is what I'm saying.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

can i can just ask like kind of a general question

okay

what the fuck is wrong with you look i'm willing to look past some of dugett't s quirks here yeah because the ideas that were presented here are pretty decent i just have one stipulation yeah

you have to animate the whole game by hand you're not gonna believe it but i'm one step ahead of you

this is my first job i'm not gonna get fired from this is great i hope the phillips is a huge success.

Great.

Yeah.

And just get cranking because this game comes out on Friday.

We have lemonade and try to cram it back into being lemons as we discuss the atrocious use of IP that is the Philips CDI Zelda games this week as a pod to the cast continues on Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger.

That's me, Nick Weiger, and I'm here with our third host, Matt Apodaka.

Hey, listen, everyone.

Hey, listen.

Oh, that's a little Mickey Mouse.

Ha, ha, hey, listen.

It's a little, yeah, it's not right.

What is this?

Kingdom Hearts?

This is the best thing that's ever happened.

We are in the midst of the Legend of Zelda pod to the cast.

And if you're listening to this, Tears of the Kingdom has been out since Friday.

You may want to hear our thoughts.

Unfortunately, we don't have them for you today because we're recording this on the Thursday.

So we'll have our thoughts on Tears of the Kingdom next week.

And we will also have a full episode about Tears of the Kingdom after we've played it at some length on Monday, May 29th, because it is this month's We Play, You Play.

Also, if you're a responsible gamer, you're probably not listening to this episode until June or like mid-July because you've been doing nothing but playing Tears of the Kingdom for the last month and a half.

And so we want to welcome you back to the podcast.

I hope you had a good time playing Zelda.

Yeah, I'm going to use that as a line in the office.

Like, why did the plate numbers dip?

Oh, yeah, I think it's because the new Zelda game came out, nobody's listening to the podcast anymore.

I think that's what happened.

Is uh, I've heard a lot of people, I've heard a lot of people, I don't do this, but there are a lot of people who just like have a podcast on in the background, turn off game audio, and they're just, and that's while they're playing something.

I know that they can't do that.

I know that for, say, my favorite game, Fortnite, that's part of the visual sound sound effects option is that if you need to play with low audio or if you're

like, if you, if you have an audio disadvantage, I don't know what the proper language is anymore.

Is that if you're

what?

I think hard of hearing is very good.

Hard of hearing?

Okay, great, great.

But that they've incorporated this, but I know that a lot of people use the visual sound effects in order to play with podcasts going.

It's like people on our Discord will say, yeah, I was, I was listening to the show while playing Fortnite the other day, and I'm like, I can't listen to anything except my own heartbeat when playing that game.

Truly,

I just like, I guess there are probably some games I could see myself doing that with if it's, if it's more of like a

mood thing or maybe like just like a like a builder, you know, or just something where I'm just kind of like like where there's not, but once I have some sort of task, I feel like I need the sound design.

I need the music to drive me towards it.

Like any sort of quest.

And he's, I don't know.

That's just me, though.

People do that.

I won't be playing Zelda without the music because as we, you know, talked over the last week, the music of Zelda is some of the best music in gaming.

And now they have saxophone, so it's even better.

They what?

They have saxophone.

They have saxophone.

You haven't, you, you famously did not watch the last trailer.

I've seen one commercial now.

Okay.

Which is the sad one.

We're going to talk about that.

We have to.

But first, let me introduce our guest, a writer who's written on some shows, but is now on strike.

Eva Anderson, back on the pod.

Hi, Eva.

Hey, guys.

I'm so happy to be back.

Thank you for having me back.

Great to have you.

It's good to have you.

It's so great.

This almost didn't happen.

Why?

And then the strike happened.

Oh.

And then it did.

I missed the production.

I was upset.

I was like, I want to do this so bad, but there's no way.

And then, you know.

Yeah, we're all in the studio together on a day when most of us probably couldn't, thanks to the strike.

Yes, which is on overlords, yeah,

for fucking up so bad.

Yeah,

we're all here.

Eva, I'm curious because we're talking about Zelda all month long.

This is the legend of Zelda pod of the cast.

Are you a Zelda fan?

In theory, what?

I've never finished a Zelda game, except for maybe the original.

I love Zelda.

I love like the worlds of Zelda.

I'm bad at Zelda.

So I always get to a point, like, for instance, I've played a ton ton of Breath of the Wild, but I'm stuck at all three noble beasts right now.

And I haven't been able to beat any of them.

Therefore, I'm just like stuck.

I'll play the new one.

I think they're cool and beautiful.

And I love the music and the guys.

I love all the guys.

I love making little snacks.

I love making snacks.

Yeah.

Yeah, sitting, like seeing.

him sit by the fire while you make like a disgusting little meal

but um but yeah zelda's like i I like, I also like games to be a little on rails, I guess.

I've realized about myself.

Like I'll play a Death Stranding or A Last of Us, like something with a really strong narrative.

But Zelda has almost too many choices for me of what I can do next.

And it stresses me out.

But

in theory, I love it.

That's interesting because I also like a more, a little bit more of a linear game.

I've come to realize.

Like, you know, Sekiro, which I've talked about at length on this podcast, is not like an open world game.

You can go lots of different places, but it's pretty linear in terms of its construction.

It almost feels level-based.

It's certainly not like an Elden Ring.

And yeah, The Last of Us, which you mentioned, like, I really like that those games, Resident Evil 4, which we just played.

Yep.

I like that it's just like...

Yeah, you just, it's sequential.

I don't know.

Like,

the open world formula has kind of gotten a little bit exhausting, but I make an exception for like an Elden Ring and a Breath of the Wild because they're just so well executed and the world building is so great.

Totally.

Yeah.

The thing that's great about Breath of the Wild, though, and probably Tears of the Kingdom, too, is that you can just kind of not do anything.

Like, it is kind of just like a vibes game, too.

You're just like, I'm just going to go over here today.

I'm just going to point, pick a direction, and just go that way and just see what I see.

And then have fun doing that.

And then maybe not advance the narrative at all or actually accomplish anything.

But I saw some cool stuff.

I saw some little guys.

That's great.

That's enough for me.

You can make it like a walking simulator if you don't care about winning at all.

Exactly.

Yeah.

100%.

Or like advancing your stamina meter or whatever and doing any of that stuff.

By the time this episode releases, we will know the answer to this question.

But since I've seen this one commercial and I understand that one of the core mechanics is building shit, I'm wondering if I can build a wall the size of the play area

and like lock half of the monsters away.

That's so fun.

Like I'm really excited to see what unintended consequences the building feature has.

Wait, are you talking about the commercial where the guy has the bad life?

Yeah, we should.

Let's just play it now.

I just say that.

There's not enough to, I mean, if you're listening to it, I don't know that you'll know what's happening.

Someone has to describe it.

Yeah, we can play it for our reference and then it can talk over it.

So, this is an Australian ad.

We've got a guy on a train,

and it's a man on a commuter train or a bus.

Size, Sigh 1.

It's kind of plaintive music is playing.

He's looking out the window.

Clouds.

And he just has clinical depression.

That's just what we're getting.

Like, this guy is very much bummed out by his life.

Gets home.

He gets.

Yeah, sighs again.

Wife comes over.

Their marriage is falling apart.

Taps his shoulder.

Psy three.

Yeah.

That's as much physical contact as this married couple engages in.

A tap on the shoulder at the end of a day's work.

And now he's playing the game, and he's playing it on his TV, and he is experiencing joy for the first time since childhood.

Is it joy that we're seeing or is this a man who's at the edge?

The disassociation.

Like he doesn't look happy.

He looks also, there's like a tear in his eyes and he's very quietly speaking to himself.

Yes.

Yeah,

he's building

clothes.

No, right, yes.

Somebody on Twitter pointed out that he gets a glass of tap tap water

and sits down without doing anything else.

My delicious dinner, my glass of water.

So now he's back on the train.

He's playing it in handheld mode.

He's having some fun.

He's engaged in some combat.

But he is.

He looks around nervously.

Here's a smile.

There's a half smile.

And he is alone.

Yes.

And that is so important.

Nobody gives him a nod like, hey, I'm playing too.

And now he looks out the window at what he looked at before.

And now he's got a Nintendo Switch.

Play connect.

Play connect.

That man connects with no.

Exactly.

That's the opposite of what happened in that.

So apparently, I read a little bit about this.

This was from a

Kotaku

piece on the backstory of this.

And apparently that

apparently this was based off of an actual

story from a gamer in Japan.

I'm trying to to find it right now because I added up earlier.

Okay, here we go.

I have the text here.

It turns out that the ad has a touching real-life inspiration.

As discovered by Kotaku Australia, the team that made the commercial based it on a Japanese Amazon review for Breath of the Wild.

Kotaku includes a rough Google translation of the review in which the author bemoans the ceaseless grind of his salary man existence, resenting the sight of mountains on his way to work.

He buys a Switch on Impulse, and the freedom of Breath of the Wild reminds him of his youth spent playing Super Mario 64 and Final Fantasy VII.

When the Amazon reviewer sees the mountains again on his commute, he thinks, I can climb it instead of feeling angry, and he is moved to tears.

God.

I saw like the idea that he'd be, I thought it would be his childhood climbing mountains.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

It's just his memories of playing Super Mario?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he liked playing video games as a kid, and now he realizes that could be an escape from his work life.

That's dark.

It's very grim.

Every aspect of it is so dark.

It's like the ending of like old boy.

He's just like, has this realization?

He's like, fuck!

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Have you seen the Mad World edit?

I did.

I think we should play the Mad World edit

because there's something about the

timing of the song which feels Pink Floyd Wizard of Oz to me, where the words synchronize to the commercial so perfectly that I want to believe their internal edit was to Mad World

and then was

reshaped with that like soft piano music.

Obviously, we can't, you'll just, if you're at home, you'll just hear it Mad World, so we can't play it for you, but I want to talk about it with these folks here.

It's so provocative.

This song was used in a Gears of War ad, too, like famously.

It could have been tap

getting like a there-there from your spouse.

Yeah.

Sorry, your life sucks.

Him sitting down

for going nowhere.

The first footage you see of Tears of the Kingdom is on the word tears.

He has no expression, and they keep cutting to him.

He drowns on drowning.

Like,

the first joke of the commercial is unfunny.

I think they edited it to...

I love it.

I love this theory.

Yeah, because it's kind of funny, kind of sad that he makes the sad raft that falls apart.

I love that the editor brought it to the

agency.

They're like, we're not using that.

But I was done.

Also, Mad World happens on your combat footage.

But I think it was edited internally to Mad World.

I think

the craftsman who made this fan edit masterpiece may also have massaged the timing a little bit.

But it's really good.

Really well done.

If that's the case, then

fuck my theory.

No, I buy it.

I think it's good.

I love it.

Anyway, it's going to make my life worth living.

I'm very excited for this game.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to my life no longer being bad.

So Eva, today we're going to be talking about the Philips CDI Zelda games,

and part of why we wanted to have you on is because we know that you owned a Philips CDI.

What was your,

can you recap for us your experience with a Philips CDI, how it came into your home?

Yeah, my dad just brought it home one day.

I don't even remember why or how.

But we had like, we had like a handful.

We have like 10 games

and uh we knew about it because they're the phil hartman commercials that would be on conference central where he played all the characters talking about how great it was going to be um

and so we had burn cycle which was the cyberpunk game which is actually pretty good it was like a full motion video game um we had a game called mystic midway we had an adult game called voyeur which my brother was not allowed to play We had the Austin Wonderland game, which was all like claymation models, which is actually for children, but was actually pretty in retrospect kind of cool.

And a a couple other games, but one game that we did have that we never played, but we just watched the first cutscene of incessantly was Link's Awakening.

I mean, Faces of Evil, the Faces of Evil.

So my brother and I knew about these cutscenes, the ones we could get to, because the game is so impossible to play.

So we only got to a few of the cutscenes ever.

But it was like an in-joke with my brother and I about how awful this game was.

Philip CDI is the perfect dad comes home with it and you don't know the backstory.

Like it's, it's, it's very much like my father was, my father was a Betamax guy.

And so he brought home a Betamax and we were like, what is this?

A VHS?

And he's like, it's Betamax.

It's going to be better.

And like, of course, it was not better.

And it feels like.

a dad seeing a demo of the Philips CDI in a, in a, in a store, in like a Circuit City or whatever, Sears, any of those old stores, he'd be like, Hmm, I know what's next, and it's the Philips CDI.

I want to say really quick that I pulled up a list of all the CDI games on Wikipedia.

Can I just say a couple of them?

Please.

Um, hold on.

Uh,

okay,

they have really good names.

Okay, um, the affair of the spaceship Beagle.

Great.

Yeah.

Um,

Cludo, the mysteries continue,

uh, Crime Patrol 2, Drug Drug Wars.

The Dark Fables of Aesop.

Do you remember the 60s?

Oh, no.

Effacer, Hangman from the 25th century.

Family Games 2, Junk Food Jive.

Flashback, The Quest for Identity.

Flashback was great.

That one's a great game.

Okay, good.

Okay.

There's a couple that I'm sure are real good games, but they're funny to just spin through.

There's a Monty Python game called

Monty Python's Invasion from the Planet Skyron.

More Dark Fables from Aesop.

That's one where I'm like, how did I never get access to that?

Mutant Revenge, Body Slam.

Yeah.

There's a lot of like little, there seems like there are a lot of little kid games.

Like,

yeah, I'll visit like Sesame Street Games,

Tim and Bear at the Hospital.

That seems like a kid's game, or it's something very weird.

And then there's all the games.

Tim and Bear was like a thing.

It was like a British TV show or something.

Yeah, maybe from other, yeah, from like other countries.

Who shot Johnny Rock?

All right.

So anyway, and then there's like a handful of ones that were never released.

And one of those was called

Urban Murder Files Episode 2, New Jersey.

So

I think it's important for our listeners, you know, a lot of whom may may have been born after the CDI was even in existence, to know a little bit of context and history here, which is that Nintendo originally,

as a connoisseur of the stranger game consoles, this was always

something I

like I think I've got this lore down, but if anybody knows any differently, then feel free to correct me.

But when Nintendo was exploring a CD attachment for the Super Nintendo, they partnered with Sony and they made, and there are demo prototype Sony PlayStation Super Famicoms in existence.

And they are like one of the golden goose holy grail type machines to own.

Right.

But Nintendo backs out of this partnership and they end up creating their CD add-on with Philips.

Sony then goes on to make the PlayStation, which was going to be the name of the attachment, into the PlayStation.

So in terms of like fuck-ups, like creating the Joker if you're Batman, like that's what Nintendo does when they say, yeah, Sony, this isn't for us.

And Sony's like, I guess we'll just make the PlayStation, right?

It's like a top five, top three what-if moment in gaming history.

Yeah.

If Nintendo and Sony had just merged.

Yes, yeah.

Because also, like as a Sony person, as a Sony fan, like the idea of Nintendo Sony Walkman, Nintendo-Sony PlayStation Vita, like all of the things that could have happened if that partnership hadn't dissolved.

But instead, Nintendo partners with Phillips to make the CD attachment.

And

when they see how poorly the Sega CD is selling, they're like, this is a fucking mistake.

Let's not do this.

And they back out of their deal with Phillips.

But Phillips is like, we've dedicated all of this time and resources to creating this add-on with you.

We need to get something out of the deal.

So Nintendo allowed them access to the characters of Link and Mario, even they said six characters overall.

Yeah, yeah, not games, characters, characters, and you can go off and develop your own standalone

games for your Philips now because Philips did the same thing.

They're like, Well, I guess we'll just use this tech to make our own video game console.

And they made the CDI.

Philips is a Dutch company.

A little bit of trivia.

I was the voice of Philips in Europe for a short while.

Oh, I love that.

But,

but yeah, they make the CDI and they make these third-party Zelda and Mario games, some of which we've covered here on the show before, Mario Hotel or Hotel Mario.

Fucking terrible.

But yeah, the CDI is also infamously hard to emulate.

So we can't, you can't just like load up in what?

Emu store?

What is it?

Yeah, Emu Deck or Emma.

There it is.

Emu Deck.

Any of that shit.

It doesn't have the Phillips CDI.

And also because there's not like as

niche as the 32X was, like, I, do you have the, can somebody pull up the

sales

record for the CDI and compare it to even the 32X?

Because I bet the 32X outsold the CDI.

Yeah, a complete, definitely a complete flop.

I was, and it was also super expensive, was part of it.

This was like a $700 console.

And

how

I have one more game title: Explorer One, Peter Gabriel's Secret World.

I'm glad you went back to that because when you mentioned the Monty Python one, I was like, how many Monty Python games are there?

Would you be surprised to learn there are seven?

There were a bunch because I had at least one of them.

But you said

Spaceship Titanic, maybe?

No,

I had one for the PC that was what the fuck was it?

It was an early CD-ROM game.

Starship Titanic.

Yeah.

It was a Terry Gilliam game.

I also want, before we dive into the actual Zelda CDI experience, to shout out

one one Philip CDI game soundtrack, which has become a little bit legendary in the vaporwave community,

which is Philip CDI Tetris.

It has an extraordinary soundtrack, and I hope we can play just a little bit of it here on the show before we dabble in anything else.

Very Phoenix Wright interrogating a witness right here.

It's really, really smooth, like vapor waves.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

One of my favorite playlists on YouTube for a while was something called like Corporate Dreams.

And it sounds like corporate dreams.

It also sounds like

Joel Esterhaw's erotica.

Like erotic.

Yeah.

Can you play one other track from this?

Yeah, of course.

Billy Baldwin is taking a shower alone.

Could also do.

This it's awesome

your seven-day forecast

partly cloudy

rain in the afternoon like the old weather channel oh yeah

that was awesome yeah

this is good yeah really great stuff good stuff

Real quick, the Monty Python game I had was Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time.

I played that.

That was a good game.

Yeah, it was one of those things where it was kind of like barely a game.

It was like the early days of CD-ROMs when they just like, here's just a bunch of mini games that are tossed in.

But this bit of context:

Mac user named Mac User magazine named Complete Waste of Time one of 1996's top 50 CD-ROMs.

Top 50.

That list is too long.

And Carta number one.

That's like such a good joke of a video game title.

Audio Python's complete waste.

Like, that's the only one of these that I'm reading that's like worth a damn as far as it being funny.

Yeah.

Well, look, we got to get in.

We got to talk more Phillips CDI.

We got to talk the Phillips CDI Zelda games specifically, but we should first ask, before we get into that, what are you playing?

Thanks, Link.

You know, short but sweet.

Short but sweet.

And I also, I gotta say, I gotta give us a little credit, a little gas.

We booked Link during Zelda month.

This is huge.

That's gonna ride him anytime.

Yeah.

It's pretty nice.

It's pretty nice that we got him.

And he's busy right now.

He's got a new game to promote.

Or has to save the world in his reality.

I'm not exactly sure what's going on here.

Okay.

No sweat.

Dismissive of that.

He does it all the time.

Yeah.

Thanks, Link.

Well, Eva, let's start with you.

What have you been playing lately?

Well, since the last time I was on here on your podcast for Hotel Mario,

I got a Steam Deck.

Wow.

And it changed my entire life.

I got to play all these games that are like PC, because I only have a Mac.

And I think my gaming interest aligns very closely with yours, Nick.

So I just kind of like go off whatever you say you're playing on the podcast.

Yeah.

Whatever boring book non-game.

Yes.

So a lot of reading.

Like literally when I was minimal interactivity.

Close to the last with Zane Carney.

I was like, there's a DLC for Case of the Golden Idol.

Like I ran and downloaded it.

I did that.

I did

the Beyond, is it Beyond the Sea?

The Miss.

I'm sorry.

I'm blinking on it.

It's like the puzzle game where you're like a woman looking for her husband.

I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, it's got a weird name.

It's something called Beyond the Sea.

Into the Sea or something like that.

But

I'm playing Citizen Sleeper right now.

Hell yeah.

And I love it.

I thought it would be much more of

a coffee talk kind of novel, but it's really interactive and the music is so cool.

And I just love it.

It's a really, it's also just like

one of those

really

like

thematically, it's just such a grim, like end, the end stages of late capitalism, like the idea of like, I'm actually going to sell my physical body to a corporation.

I'm going to put my soul inside of a machine so that I can, because that's the only way I can sustain myself.

And then just like having to muddle through trying to, you know, scrape together a living within those constraints.

Yeah,

I really like it a lot.

I really like the writing a lot.

I did not get around to playing.

That one also has DLC, which I never got around to playing.

I'm not quite sure why I didn't do that.

Yeah, and I just beat Pentiment, which was a little too much reading for me.

That was one I bounced off of.

You told me you'd beaten Pentament.

I was impressed by that.

But I was like, I beat Pentament.

That's how I felt.

I'm free.

No, really.

I was like,

okay, manage, delete.

You want to delete?

Yes.

Smash.

No, that was a beautiful game, and I'm really glad it exists.

That's it.

That's rad.

Heather, what have you been playing?

Well, as always, I've been playing a little bit of Fortnite.

There's the ongoing Star Wars event where you can get lightsabers from one of three different factions.

You can get Darth Maul to teach you some force powers.

You can get Obi-Wan to teach you some Force Powers.

Or you can get Anakin to teach you some Force Powers.

And you get a lightsaber from each of them.

Changes up the gameplay in the game.

As I said last week, very few things that are as hype as flying in on

Attack on Titan Gear to wield a lightsaber against fucking Iron Man.

It's great.

I've also dabbled a little bit in,

and also by the time this comes out, we will have had another Fortnite get played private event.

So if you're interested in doing those private events, you can get on our Discord and join the Fortnite channel.

And we have these private server events where it's only get played people fighting against other get played people.

It's a really robust.

fun-loving community.

And we had a good time this last Saturday, even though that's in the future from when we're recording.

I just know it's gonna happen.

Uh, I've been playing um Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

Uh, I have not been hooked on it as much as Apodaka has, but I'm also enjoying the game.

I just don't like, it's very hard for me to go through a place where it's like move a wall so that you can crawl on it.

Like, that's my least favorite kind of puzzle.

I just want to kill dudes.

And I know there's a lot of killing dudes.

I also like exploring.

Like, I'm a, I love exploring and I love killing dudes, but move wall to jump on it is

just, you've designed the level.

Just put the wall there.

I don't, I don't, why do I have to redesign the level?

That's bullshit.

So yeah, playing a little of that, playing a little Fortnite.

And I think that's all she wrote.

Same old, same old with me.

How about you, Apadaka?

Okay, because I was going to say, I have something I'd like to share about

Jedi Survivor.

One, I have all the stances, and

once you get the Kylo Ren

cross,

you'll never be the same again.

I know it.

I know it because it's such a heavy swing, and you can just like, it fucks people up so bad.

It's great.

It's really good.

But there's a character in Star Wars Jedi Survivor that I'm going to throw up on the screen because

Not a day goes by where I don't think of this character since meeting him.

His name is Turgle.

And if you think he has a funny voice, you're right.

He does.

He's such a little frog guy.

He's a little freak.

This game has a lot of good little freaks in it.

And

I think because

of like of baby Yoda or of Grogu and of Babu Frick from the from Rise of Skywalker,

the people making Star Wars have realized We don't really give a shit about

the broader stuff.

We like little freaks.

We love little guys.

And they gave us a really good one here.

He's a fucking coward.

He's a little wimp,

weasel dork.

And I love him.

I love him so much.

You meet him early on.

And then there's little things that there's other side missions that

come into play where he factors in.

You can find like data discs where he's like, no, don't stop.

He's just like crying for his life all the time.

He's really, really great.

I don't know.

I'm loving the game.

And I'm i'm just like

there is stuff like that where i'll be like looking around like god where the am i supposed to go it says i'm supposed to go that way but it doesn't make any sense and i'm just like missing that there's a crack in the wall i was like oh you know yeah what am i

if there was like a hole in the wall for me to walk through i would have gone that way but i gotta notice this crack yeah or like oh like ah i can't go that way i can't make this jump oh it's because to my right i'm missing that i can climb on this wall.

Like there's just stuff like that.

They make it pretty obvious, but even it's not obvious enough for me sometimes.

So sometimes I'll be playing in an area for like 20 minutes, like, God, what the fuck am I supposed to do?

And then I just find it and feels stupid.

But otherwise, I'm really loving it.

I'm really committed to the Kylo Ren

stance.

It's good.

You gotta, you gotta, it's,

it's crazy stuff.

And I like customizing Cal.

I didn't think I would like customizing Cal.

I've seen a lot of funny

TikToks of people making him look like a dirtbag.

And it's, it's pretty, like giving him like a thin mustache and like a mullet.

And like, it kind of rocks that he looks like a piece of shit um but it's also like they made such a big deal about him being um canon like you know he has to look this way sure he has to be this white guy we selected because he's canon to the story so like you can't just make him look however you want and now you can sort of make him look what like whatever white guy you want and that's like a little like okay like who cares then like you could have just given him uh you know an option to you know have a skin color or something but uh or an alien or something, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't actually matter, I guess.

But they've been using the guy a lot in promos and stuff.

And I wouldn't be surprised if he made the jump to live action at some point.

I, I wish that there was a Star Wars game where the lights, because one of my least,

as a, as a connoisseur of violence, uh,

I, I'm a little frustrated when you swing a light, that lightsaber in Star Wars Joda Survivor and you cut down a stormtrooper and it leaves like a glowing scar across their armor and I'm like no that dude should be in pieces

like and I wish that there was a Star Wars game that allowed the lightsaber the um horrifying effectiveness that it should like when Obi-Wan hits Darth Maul in Phantom Menace he cuts him in half sure and you decimate so like you you're taking out like

you know horse frog looking monsters and you're taking taking out stormtroopers, and all of them are just like, got these like glowing slashes on them.

And I'm like, no, they should be like

in a film Cube or Resident Evil when you see somebody get sliced by lasers and they fall apart in little chunks.

Yeah, but you know, the lightsaber, not to get into fake physics or whatever or fake science, it's cauterizing that wound right away.

So nothing's gooing out.

No, but

it's still, unless you're just like barely cutting the guy.

She just wants pieces.

She just needs pieces.

You can get a piece.

I'll get you a piece.

I don't need blood.

I don't want blood with a lightsaber, but I do want bodies to fall apart, ragdoll physics, in separate pieces.

And if I manage a combo on them, head one way, arm the other way, torso the other way.

I think that has to be, that will have to be an indie game that does not have the license and just sort of like, or a mod.

I think that's where that's going to have to be, because there's no way I could see, you know, Disney actually authorizing that.

But what I would say is.

They're the assholes who created the weapon, Lucasfilm.

Like, I didn't invent the weapon.

I'm look.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you.

I'm saying

I'm not saying you invented the weapon.

I know you're a connoisseur of violence.

I don't think you invented the weapon.

Like, I'm not going to be like, hey, here's the thing: we've invented the guillotine.

And when we use it in this video game, it just bumps you in the head.

I think someone did invent the guillotine, and I think that was his name.

Oh.

I think there was like a guy named like Guillaume or something like that.

Ron.

So, so the so what you were talking about, even within the Star Wars

canon, like the three trilogies, there is the theatrical canon.

It's like they vary that a lot.

Like in A New Hope, he slices an arm off in the cantina.

Hell yeah.

And there's a pool of blood it's in.

And, you know, you talked about Phantom Menace.

Like, yeah, he slices Darth Ball in half.

There is a little blood spray that you see at the bottom of the frame.

It's subtle, but it's there.

But in Return of the Jedi, when he's on Jabba's barge, that thing's a fucking baseball bat.

He's just swinging it around.

He's hitting guys.

He's hitting Gamerine guards, and they're just like,

yeah, they're just kind of falling over.

Like, nothing is, no one is being dismembered.

So they're kind of all over the place in terms of how PG they want to make it shit, given the context.

I agree with you.

I think it should be an extremely violent shit.

You didn't invent the weapon.

I didn't invent it.

I didn't purchase it from Lucasfilm and then make more movies with it.

Well, maybe you should have.

Yeah.

Did you ever think of that?

Yeah, why didn't you do that?

Yeah, why'd you do that?

I'll just join anybody's side who says something.

If you, let's say, we're a porg, it does explode.

No one's ever done it before, but I just had a dream about it.

Then it's true.

It's like Freddy rules.

Yeah.

Can you imagine how, I mean, we're so lucky that Elon Musk bought Twitter and not Star Wars

or the onion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All the things he was thinking about buying.

Yeah.

Aw, Elon.

Star Wars.

A little idiot.

I'm going to go real quick because, first off, I never updated everyone that I did.

We recorded the Resident Evil 4 episode a couple weeks ago.

I finished Resident Evil 4 that next weekend, immediately.

Congratulations.

I thought it was tremendous.

You know, it is a thing, and whatever.

There's a minor spoiler, but it's fucking, it's a, the game's, the game's so fucking old that I think it's fine.

It's not a minor spoiler.

It's an endgame spoiler.

Whatever.

I think it's fine.

Are you okay?

I had the same experience that when I re-watched Face Off of like, oh yeah, there's a fucking boat chase at the end.

Yeah.

The fucking end of this thing is a boat chase that's completely unrelated to everything else.

How do we end up in a boat chase?

Whatever.

And it's like, I will say, of the stuff in the game.

Yeah.

It's like, that's like the least fun part.

It really is.

It's the same thing with Face Off.

It's like, this is the least fun set piece of the movie, and this is the end.

You're like, I just took down this big thing and now I'm on a fucking boat.

This sucks.

Still, it's a great game, 10 out of 10 masterpiece.

But the other thing I've been messing around with, with, because I mentioned

a little bit ways back in the podcast that I was looking for kind of a game that's just sort of chill vibes, just to

come down at the end of the day.

And I came back to Pitcross, which was a game I used to play back on the Nintendo DS, and then it's just completely falling out of my brain.

But I was like, oh, yeah, they get a bunch of Pitcrosses on the Switch, and it plays great on the Switch.

Pitcross S I'm playing, but I guess they're up to like Pitcross S9 now.

They've got so many, they've released so many versions.

And yeah, if you're not familiar with it, it's basically like it's it's you know, it's it's akin to a crossword or akin to like a sudoku.

It's just like a

grid-based puzzle, except that you are using numbers to construct an image.

So it'll be like, oh, here's a, you know, here's a row, and there's one, we see a one here, that means that one dot goes in that row.

Here's another, this next row says eight.

So there's eight dots that go in this row, and like however many squares there are, you fill them in, and eventually that puts together an image for you, a little giraffe or whatever the fuck it is.

But it's very calming, it's very soothing, and

it's just like a thing that you could play for, you play one puzzle or play a bunch of puzzles.

So it's working great for me.

Have you heard of Murder by Numbers?

That's like a Pit Cross murder

investigation game.

My friend Brian Brown, who listens to the pod, he suggested it to me.

Wow.

What's up, Brian?

Thanks for listening.

Murder by Numbers?

Yeah, I think it's Pit Cross as like

Phoenix, right?

I'm looking this up right now.

Okay, here we go.

Murder by Numbers is a 2002 American psychological thriller starring Sandra Bullock.

That might be it.

That might be it.

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But hey, right now, we're going to be talking about...

I guess this is a game slop.

I guess that's the format we're

slop.

Let's go.

There's nothing redeemable.

This is a game slop of the Philips CDI Zelda games.

Heather gave all the context for how the Philips CDI and these particular games came about.

And so the games that we're going to be discussing are Link the Faces of Evil and Zelda the Wand of Gamelon.

They pulled a Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion here and released both games simultaneously on the same day.

What a miscalculation.

Oh my God.

October 10th, 1993.

In case you'd ever notice like a single difference, like

you just forget what the king looks like if there was like a year apart.

Yeah.

Hey, you know how you just stepped in dog shit?

What if your other shoe also had dog shit on it?

The developer was Animation Magic, who I'm sure was rushed and constrained.

And then the other game is Zelda's Adventure, which was developed by a different studio called Viridus, and that was released on June 5th, 1994.

So

the Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon are probably, I mean, I think both, all three of these games are most known for their really

pretty wretched,

but in hindsight, but at the time, technically impressive cutscenes.

And the first two, Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon, had these

animated scenes that were made by a Russian animation studio, where Zelda's Adventure had live-action FMV.

Well, yeah, we can blame literally like Perestroika for because

according to like the history of it, like the, it was because of the opening of Russia that like one of the friends of the developer was like, I can go over there really quick to St.

Petersburg and just get like an animation company going and they'll do all the animation animation for for cheap and they'll do it real quick and so that's why we ended up with this

it certainly looks cheap and quick it's it's it's one of those things where it looks kind of looks like it was like you know uh

like it was animated in ms paint it's like really it's it's it's really clunky which is i i i also want to say to the Soviet era animation studios in Russia,

there were incredible animated films in Soviet Russia that have almost been lost.

Like, Miyazaki talks a lot about being heavily influenced by one that was, I think, called the Ice Queen or something like that, which until recently was impossible to find.

Now, I think you can find it on YouTube because that's crazy.

Um, but it like it seems like a good plan on the surface to be like, oh, we can just go in and start an animation studio and they'll be able to make it.

And instead, what they animate is it's not just that it looks like it's MS Paint, it's that the characters also move to and from the camera constantly.

Right.

Like as they speak, they kind of close in on you and then they pull away and they close in.

It's it's disturbing, it's unsettling.

Uh-huh.

It's not just weird.

Yeah.

But before we get into this, can we can, Matt, can we play the Philip CDI startup sound?

Because this is this thing is another

little gem.

Before I play this, can I just say in Soviet Russia, film animates you?

Matt.

What?

Oh, yeah.

Honestly, kind of good.

It's fucking great.

I love it.

Loose the kind of.

You have no idea of what game you're about, like, how bad the game you're about to play.

It's when you hear that, you're like, oh, this is going to be great.

Yeah.

And then there's another one in here, it looks like, too.

There's, there's like three different versions, and I don't know if it was based off of BIOS updates or what, but yeah, they're the, I think, I think we get the sense from that one.

Do you guys want me to do that in the voice that I used for Phillips

in Europe?

Yeah, please.

Can you play it again and

I'll do what I would have done.

Phillips Interactive Media.

Wow.

Would have been just like that.

That's on our show for free.

That sounds very like calming and soothing, I'm sure, if you're just like a, you know, a Dutch consumer, but me knowing the subtext of you being a connoisseur of violence, it's really menacing.

Did you, was that when you were living in Amsterdam that you got that gig?

They contacted me and I was the voice of some Phillips flat screen TV.

So like all the commercials would add with or end with my like little vocal tag.

Yeah, I was that voice.

I was that voice!

Eating like a mayonnaise, hot dog.

Yeah, separately.

Mayonnaise and hot dog.

I looked up the sales figures for the Phillips CDI

in comparison to the 32X.

And in October 1994, Philips claimed an installed base of 1 million units.

However, in 1996, the Wall Street Journal reported that the total US sales two years later had only been 400,000 units.

And in the Netherlands, only 60,000 CDI players were sold.

Compare that to the installed base of the 32X, which is 800,000.

So the 32X, a garbage sales

catastrophe for Sega, sold almost twice as much as the Philips CDI.

That's that's rough.

And also an add-on for an existing console with its own install base.

So it's like it's a little bit less disastrous than like we're trying to launch a new platform.

Yeah.

The the the I guess we should talk about how these games play a little bit, which is the first two were both like kind of 2D side-scroller adventures, kind of based off of the way adventures of link plays um and then zelda's adventure is a uh it is a top-down like you know zelda one slash zelda link to the past which i guess was out by now although maybe the developers hadn't played it um

the the thing that i will say like i haven't played any of i haven't played any of these games but having watched footage of them the thing from zelda's adventure is you know when you like you're you're going a top-down Zelda and you get to the end of a the edge of this particular map screen and there's that very soothing sort of like pan moving to the new area.

Here, there is a notable hitch every time you do that because it has to load the next, like the CD has to spin up and load the next area.

So, you get to the end, and it's like you're waiting for it to pan over, but it just like

stalls for a second and then judders.

So, this thing that's extremely pleasing when you're playing it, you know, the mainline versions of it, it's just like this, it becomes this, this, this, uh, this, this interruption of your game flow.

I'm also pretty sure that, uh, given how loud the 90s CD systems were, that when you would pass from one area to another, like one screen to another, you would hear

I also read that Zelda's Adventure part of the problem was that it couldn't play music and sound effects at the same time.

Wow.

That's wild.

Because I watched some of it and it's just like Zelda walking around to just like backgrounds, but just like

crickets or whatever, like

or wind.

Yeah, I don't know what what the what what was what the capabilities were of the Phillips CDI technically.

I mean, I do know a lot of that the early uh CD games used like Redbook audio, which was basically just like the music would just be a track on the CD.

And you could take that gate, the CD-ROM game, and put it into a CD player.

And if you just skipped a track to and beyond, it was just the music tracks of the game.

So you just have the kind of the soundtrack built into it.

But I don't know if that affected that may very well have affected how I was able to play sound effects.

While we're talking about it, Matt, can we maybe play, we can work backwards.

Can we play a little bit of these Zelda's adventure cutscenes?

The live-action one, the budget was so low that they had to have

all the actors were people in the studio.

Yes.

No.

That felt like a common thing going back to the 90s, because I just remember this 90s PC CD-ROM game of like, clearly, this was just one of the developers, and they put a Halloween costume on them.

And, but, like, it's, and that has has its, there are times when that has its charms, but, like, it does not work in this context.

Oh, my gosh.

So, the thing I like

is the box within the screen, because, like, the resolution of the videos was so low.

Like, that I like aesthetically, that they have to have a smaller box within the TV frame.

This looks a lot like the footage from Return to Zork.

Hmm, sure.

Yeah, there were a lot.

Yeah, 100%.

Or even missed, honestly.

The scroll of Shermac, bearer of sad sad news these many years ago.

We're seeing a live-action man.

Hold up a

scroll,

which only has

three sentences in it, and it's taking him this long to read those three sentences.

And he's not reading it, he's just talking about what's on it, and he has kind of like a mop on his head.

We've got a shot of a crystal, he's waving his hand over it.

Yeah.

And then here's Zelda.

And this is like a series of still images

that are strung together in a montage.

I think that was because they had to use all this voiceover.

And so

they had to break it into stills in order to fill out the length of time that it took for the voiceover.

Right, production-wise, they didn't have the voiceover

when they shot this.

So they have like three seconds of footage and they needed to cover 15 seconds of speaking that makes sense there's got to be another way to do that yeah i mean sure

it looks like

it looks like a church made this yes it's like so like the the christian kids could have zelda too yeah

it's it's so like but this is the thing and congratulations zelda you have prevailed hurry now must travel to a place in festival rumor tells it is found in a great forest to the north okay so somebody's old or if there's like if he's wearing makeup i think he's got makeup and I think he's got a he clearly has a wig and a fake beard on.

So the thing is like so many of these are basically just bookending

quests.

They're either like here you finish this now go do this and so on.

But it's the kind of thing of like they had so much they had so little you know disc space that they had to be very careful about like keeping the runtime of all of these

these videos so short

but they they're not cinematically interesting.

They're almost all like because there is a thing of it's just like okay we've got we've got 15 seconds of video we got to do here.

Let's maybe shoot something cool and dynamic.

But instead, it's just like one locked off shot of just a, of just a dude in a wizard robe talking to camera.

He's also framed almost dead center of the frame.

Like he's not shot correctly where he's like, you know,

it's not a close-up.

It's not a wide.

It's shot like you put a cell phone on a table and we're like, that's good enough without lining up your shot and then just went and stood in front of your cell phone.

Like it's bonkered.

It's like week one of the pandemic when like the news anchor had to do their own setup from home and they like didn't know how to put it where to put a camera.

It really like it really looks like

I don't know.

Does it look shitty enough where it becomes charming again?

I don't think so.

No.

No, this is the one where I was watching the other ones and then I just like, I'll watch.

the third one.

And it like, I was like, oh, God.

And also, if you watch the gameplay, like, it's awful.

Like, it looks so clumsy and jittery and weird.

Yeah, the other games have some defenders among, among, you know, Twitch streamers who've subjected themselves to these games or YouTube creators who've played these games.

Who would ever do some content?

What a dumb idea for a show.

Those first two games have some defenders.

This one basically has no one saying it's worth playing.

To go back to that cutscene for a second, it's like they also only did one take and nobody gave him the note, like maybe

emphasize some of the words.

He's like, he's like, congratulations, Zelda, you came back from this.

Now you have to go on another course, go for it.

You can do it with the use of the power of your crystal.

And that's it.

To be fair, that's what our podcast sounds like.

I think no one, I think it's just a thing of they had this development team.

There's like, hey, and they, as part of their, you know,

their direction from the publisher, they were like, from Phillips, they were like, and we we want live-action cutscenes to take advantage of the CD technology.

And everyone looked around, was like, I don't know, okay, we'll figure it out.

My cousin has a camera, you know?

Let me do it.

Oh, no.

It's just so interesting because, like, obviously, like, at this point, how many Zelda games are out?

There's like three, like, three of like the Nintendo games.

Yeah, let's see.

There would have been Zelda one, Zelda one and two, Link's Awakening, and then maybe, I forget when Link to the Past came out.

So there's like four, but like, there's like enough there to like define like the style.

Obviously, the second one is a departure from the first one in that it's like a side-scrolling game, right?

It's so crazy to me how they could even see like

have an example to go off of and be like, we're just going to fuck this up so bad.

Like we're even going to do the side-scrolling one, but like worse.

It does remind me.

It has heavy like Star Wars holiday special vibes.

Brady Bunch variety hour vibes.

Like things are like, you know what this is.

And they're like, no,

you don't.

And you're like, well, you, but you do.

And they're like, it'll be fine.

Like, this will be disowned.

It's such a, yeah, it's such an odd miscalculation.

Obviously, something Nintendo would never do now.

They were, I mean, even just with this like Mario movie, they were so like hands-on with like and protective of what it actually was.

So it's just interesting that, I guess, in its, not even in its infancy, it'd been a company for like 50 years probably by that point, but like it's, it's odd that they were like, this is what you're going to do.

This was, yes, this was before companies and Nintendo in particular would be hyper protective of their IP.

And the idea of them, it's such a wild thing to think about happening today, the context that Heather gave us of them just being like, Phillips being like, well, we need to get something out of this.

Like, okay, make your own Mario game, make your own Zelda's game,

Zelda games, go nuts.

Like, we don't care.

It'd be funny to learn that they were like, well, they're going to fuck this up.

Just let them do it.

Yeah, it's not going to be good.

It's not going to be better than ours.

Yeah, nobody's going to play this.

We don't have to worry.

I found a quote from, this is from Destruct Doid.

I'll just read this passage.

The Legend of Zelda, speaking of Nintendo's take on this, The Legend of Zelda is regarded as one of the best franchises in gaming, but there are some black sheep in the family.

Specifically, the Phillips CDI titles are held as embarrassing black guys in the franchise as they are ridiculously terrible.

In fact, some people find it easier to disassociate Zelda from the CDI installments together.

One such altogether.

One such person is Legend of Zelda director AG Al Numa.

Speaking with MTV Multiplayer, Al Numa did his best to distance Nintendo and Zelda from these titles.

He remarked that Nintendo doesn't consider the CDI projects to be part of the Zelda canon and that, quote, they don't really fit in.

Which, coming, I feel like, from a, like,

coming from someone in Japan, I feel like that's the equivalent of like, you know, James Elroy saying that, like, you know, the adaptation of my novel is like complete shit.

Yeah.

They don't really fit in.

It feels like so, so harsh.

Oh, wait, I have a quote too, and this is from the guy that made these games.

Did you find this interview?

No.

Dale DeCharon, he was the developer.

And this is at the end of this interview that he did with Nintendo Life about the games.

I can understand that people were disappointed.

I guess they made comments about animation, but also in terms of gameplay and design.

Given the amount of time we had and what we were creating in terms of company infrastructure, I thought we did a good job.

You know, we weren't Nintendo.

And Nintendo makes fantastic games, which are exceptionally well-tuned in terms of gameplay.

They have amazing game designers.

I would imagine that anything was going to fall short of that in terms of the amount of time and energy that Nintendo puts into gameplay.

At the same time, Phillips was expecting graphics and production values in terms of music, visual, and animation.

So it was a lot of push there.

And you put effort into that, it doesn't go elsewhere.

I felt like, given the circumstances, developing two at once on a platform that was pretty limited, we did a good job.

It could have been better, of course.

It wasn't Nintendo.

That was his final quote.

My heart breaks for him, but I understand it because that's like every developer who's made a bad game.

You know, I've worked, I worked on some bad games, and it's always like the expectations are so high, our budget is so constrained, our timeline is so tight that there's only so much we can do.

And so, you they probably lean on this, like, what is the front-facing stuff?

What is the

stuff that people are going to pay attention to?

And that was

the bells and whistles, yeah, the cutscenes.

Um, let's watch some of the animated.

Give me a shot, put

Just put me in the dead center of the frame.

It's so funny in that quote that he was like, Yeah, I guess people didn't like the animation.

He also said that the gameplay was bad, that it looked ugly, that it sounded like shit.

Yeah.

I think we did a good job.

Yeah.

Can we, can we, Matt, can we play some from one of these games?

This is from The Faces of Evil.

Here we go.

Gee, it sure is boring around here.

My boy, this piece piece is what all true warriors strive for.

I just wonder what Gannon's up to.

This looks like if someone tried to make heavy metal in Mario game.

How can we?

It is written, only Link can defeat Ganon.

Great!

I'll grab my staff.

There is no time.

Your sword is enough.

How about a kiss for luck?

You've got to be kidding.

Squad a lot.

It's funny because, like, also the way they've written Link as a character

has no connection to anything that's established.

Yeah.

They invented this.

Like, he's horny and he's also very hungry.

That's another thing.

He just has a big appetite.

It's also like, it's like the Mario and Luigi from Hotel Mario.

It's like.

Oh, I love this guy.

This is one of the merchants, this guy.

Yeah.

Boil, rope, bombs, you want it?

It's yours, my friend, as long as you have enough rubies.

Do you see what I mean about them just coming in and away from the camera?

Yeah, constantly.

100%.

It's so horrible.

It's like, stop looking at me.

And the camera isn't moving.

They're just like,

they're just approaching it and interacting with it like they're.

You know,

Ernest talking to Vern.

It's also like the thing, the way the merchant talks, it's the same as in Hotel Mario, where it's like all these games assume you don't know how a game works.

You've never played a game.

He's letting you know you can buy things, but you need money.

Can we talk about that real quick?

And that brings me back to Zelda's adventure because I watched a lot of the gameplay of this, and the person doing the playthrough had the tutorial.

And the tutorial is the most granular tutorial I've ever seen.

It's like the idea of like,

I guess they probably were like assuming, okay, someone bought this as a piece of consumer electronics and has never played a video game before.

So it'll be like,

move your cursor over to the play game button and press button one to begin your game.

Now you can select either new game or go back.

If you select new game, then you can enter your name.

If you select go back, you'll return to the previous scene.

Like every single thing is broken down.

But also, the game has

like in order to interact with characters, you have to swing your sword at them, which is such a bizarre, like so unintuitive.

Like, every time you're about to go into a cutscene, the last thing you see on the gameplay screen is Link trying to murder that person.

Yes.

You also have to squat to open your inventory, which looks really stupid.

Yeah.

You have to squat to open inventory.

And the CDI controller was notoriously difficult to use.

Like, it was not the clicky, responsive, Nintendo-patented D-pad stuff.

It was like a little bit loose.

Yeah, what was even because there was a remote, right?

But then there also were controllers.

I think so, too.

Yeah, I think so.

And I think, yes, they were infrared.

I was reading.

I didn't remember that, but I guess they were or something.

But they were, yeah, they were, they didn't respond very well.

I think there's a reason we never could get very far in that game.

But yeah, you have to squat.

And then in the tutorial, which I watched last night, he goes, and then you can even duck walk.

And then he like walks around.

And he's he's like, you can buy things from merchants.

And then you watch that clip of the merchant in the tutorial who explains, it's yours, bombs, blah, blah, blah.

And then you just see that the second cutscene you see.

And then at the end of the tutorial, it says, help me.

Now let's go find Zelda.

Because Zelda gets kidnapped like halfway through the game, but she's just in that first scene in the palace.

Yeah.

And I also read the, I read the,

there is the manual, like the game manual online and in the manual it says you need to you need to save like zelda

it's like that's not how the game starts

it's it's like they were like okay we have to make zelda a zelda game from memory and we barely remember

we like heard about it one time maybe yeah It's like this, the play, Mr.

Burns.

Do you guys know about that play?

It's about people after the apocalypse who have just been describing the

sideshow Bob, Cape Fear, Mr.

Burns, like an episode to each other around a fire, and it eventually becomes like a religion.

This is my favorite scene in the movie Reign of Fire.

Also touches on a post-apocalyptic reenactment of our modern pop culture.

And they do Star Wars as a play with a kid who has a white bucket on his head and another kid who has a black bucket on his head.

Rain of Fire is so good.

It's so fucking good.

Nobody appreciates that.

It's like super ripped, Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey.

I'm a listener.

Pre-McConnaissance, just being awesome.

Cool dragons.

Yeah.

I love it.

It's fucking great.

So in Link the Face of Evil, you play Link and Zelda, the Wand of Gamelon.

You actually control Zelda.

And the same thing with Zelda's Adventure.

Those are, I guess, the only two Zelda games where Zelda is the player character.

I mean, it's a thing Nintendo has never actually done.

Good.

Look what happens when it finally they let her do it.

Yeah.

keep her out of it.

Yeah, no thanks.

It's also like this is this is the thing of

it's the weird thing of

when you're when you're doing something that's completely invented and like fantasy or sci-fi, I feel like so much of it is just something just looking or sounding cool.

And it's little things like for like they've changed rupees to rubies, which like I like, I don't know why rubies is so much less cool as a currency than rupees, but it just is.

It's because it's real.

Like it's like, it's just like they're a real thing.

So it's like, oh, they're not going to understand what a rupee is.

But a rupee's a real thing, too.

Yeah.

Did you guys read the interviews with the voices?

No.

Both the both the Zelda and Link interviewed recently.

Oh, wow.

That's awesome.

To talk about the experience.

And Zelda said that she

improvised most of it, which is crazy.

Yeah.

Once I found the voice,

I was only given direction regarding reaction to the situation.

Like, like both of them, well,

so Jeffrey Wrath, who was Link,

more openly is like, I had a script, but I basically recorded everything very, very quickly.

And I only did two takes of everything.

And I didn't know what Zelda was.

I only need one take.

Because there's a scene at the top of

Wand of Gamelon where he's like, I'm so hungry, I could eat an Octorok.

Yeah.

And he's like, they let me ask what that was.

But that was it.

Um, but yeah, and she said it was like mostly improv, that she did a lot of just making stuff up.

Oh, and her husband was Guonum, who I think is the woman who played Zelda.

Her husband, I think, was the wizard who's like, Only Link can defeat Genon.

Um, so that's kind of fun.

So, yeah, just some weird theater actors that got like caught in it.

What a weird time in when they're just the idea, like the novelty of having voiceover or video or an fully animated sequence, like that was considered to be enough.

Like it didn't have to be good.

It just had to be in there.

I want to say, though, to like,

to extend the idea of this IP not being extremely well protected, right?

There are things in our world which we wouldn't necessarily think, oh, in 50 years, this is going to be such a pillar of pop culture that we need to safeguard it now.

Like,

if there was a flappy bird sequel that was like fucking astonishing, uh-huh, then we might be like, holy shit, flappy bird.

And then, like, 20 years later, 30 years later, there'd be a full CGI

Dreamworks flappy bird movie.

But right now, the Flappy Bird person might be like, Yeah, you can develop a game.

Like, it's fine.

Like, I understand.

Crazy Frog doing our best.

Yeah, Crazy Frog.

What if in one day Crazy Frog is like very, very important to us?

What if?

That's all i got

was

which one was crazy frog he's like he's a ringtone oh yeah okay

yeah he's the one that's a ringtone yeah ringtone as opposed to the guy the frog on the unicycle that was a different thing no that's a different thing yeah yeah it's a different guy that's uh dat boy dat boy okay here's what i remember about dat boy what i remember about dat boy uh is that they

Dat Boy kind of oh who's the the NPC from

from the new the star wars jettison turgle turtle turgle he's very turgle-esque he's kind of got a turgle body proportion he's giving turgle

but put turgle in the dat boy dat boy meme that feels like a fun use of it dat dat boy's a meme yeah he was just here here come dat boy and it was the frog on the unicycle but the one i remember is that there was there were some libertarians at the time uh who were on who were like so doing social media for the campaign of gary johnson uh the libertarian candidate in like 20 when the fuck which election was that, 2012, 2016?

That was, yeah, 2016.

And they made a meme that was, here come dat Gary, and it was Gary Johnson on the unicycle.

I was like, that's a perfect meme.

And he didn't win?

He didn't win, no.

Oh, man.

Are you sure that wasn't Brad and Nick?

And yeah, his response.

to here come dat boy is oh shit what up oh shit what up that's of course oh shit what up yeah it's really funny.

I like it.

I think

it's a great meme.

Yeah.

But that's not crazy frog.

I mean, it's normal.

So that was a 2015 meme, which means that

Elon will be tweeting about it in two more years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I'll catch up.

But I get what you're saying, Ether.

It's just like this, this IP at the time was, it was also like a very different time for games.

Like games are still viewed as like toys.

Like these are things for kids.

So it's like a ViewMaster IP.

Like you'd be like, I don't know, sure.

You want to make something based?

You want to make your own ViewMaster shit?

Go ahead.

Viewmaster, it was like a 1950s product for children that allowed you to view still images in 3D.

Stereoscopic photography.

There it is.

Oh, I had one of these.

Yeah, they're cool.

I stayed an Airbnb once that had

a huge collection of Viewmasters.

That's cool.

And I was like,

what a thing to get into.

And they were all like, you know, it's not just 3D photography.

It's, it's also time traveling because it's like 1950s 3D photography.

So it was like, here is me and the family at Disneyland.

And there's like no crowd.

And

all of the mascot characters are terrifying.

Like they're like made of like real hair.

It's really, really great.

I stayed at an Airbnb in Vancouver that had a bookshelf that was just like a wall of Sonic the Hedgehog manga.

Did they know I was coming?

That happened.

That's like Fight Club, and you find out later it's your apartment.

I stayed at an Airbnb once, and there's a freaking barbarian in the basement.

Oh, no.

Oh, that's a thing.

Yeah.

Like a barbarian.

Okay.

Well, you're still with us, so.

Well, yeah, I got out.

It was me.

I don't know.

I mean, I guess that we should have tried to track down.

I was pricing on CDI on eBay, and I was like, I don't want to, I don't know about

you played it, guys.

You don't jump high enough to get anywhere.

You watch the gameplay, right?

Yeah.

It's hard to play.

It looks taxing to watch.

Yeah.

And as a person who loves these old niche systems, like it is not on my list of gets.

Like, I do not want a CDI.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, how could you even like,

you couldn't, you probably can't even plug it into anything, like to your TV.

There's no way.

It'd be, it'd be futile.

You can plug it into a Sony PVM if you have, you know, like a retro, retro CRT and an RGB converter.

What do you, what's that face?

I can.

Yeah.

I don't have that.

Oh, man.

So I guess this would be the the point in an old version of the show where we would review the game as a certain number of points out of a certain number of points.

And I do think that for the, you know, for the feeling of it, we should, we should touch on what we would rank this game.

And I do think that for the first two animated games, I would give them a one.

I would give them a one because I'd be like, you tried.

But for this, the live action CGI one or the live action footage one, I'd be like, this is zero.

Yeah,

you can bring your friends over and show them the animated one.

Yeah, they're like, oh, this is awesome.

Yeah, but this,

you can't show that other game to anyone.

No, if you're if your parents bought you that too and they spent like $80 on it and they walked in and you were playing it, they would like burst into tears.

Where did that money go?

They'd probably also shout, Where did you get this poor Nagro?

I was thinking about that because my dad

was very, very cheap when I was a kid, very thrifty, very responsible with money, is how I think of it as an adult.

And he would like, like, he enabled my video game habit,

the very expensive habit of playing video games, but with restrictions of like, like could play PC games because we already had a computer, and I got one system at a time.

So, like, you know, I had a Super Nintendo and I really wanted TurboGrafic 16.

He's like, no, you got the Super Nintendo, you don't get another system.

And I remember playing this game.

I played one of the Philip CDI Zelda games,

one of the 2D ones

at Fedco, which is a now-defunct big box store, club store.

And I was playing one on a kiosk, and I remember like really wanting it because I was like, oh, it's a Zelda game, and it's like a side-scroller, and it's on CD, and it's a new system or whatever.

And with how expensive this is and how cheap my dad was, if he'd bought this for me and I'd played it for like 20 minutes and was like, this sucks, he would have been so mad and so justifiably so.

Not to derail the show,

I got a text from our pal Zig that I have to read right now.

Okay, great.

All right.

Just met David Hayter on the picket line.

Holy shit.

More like Solidarity Snake.

Wow.

Is he the actor?

He's the voice of Solid Snake.

Yeah.

That's so cool.

And a fucking anti-accomplished screenwriter.

Yeah.

Also, is he, does Zig just bounce tweet drafts off of you?

What's the,

you know what?

He does.

I'll see it in my group chat, and then I'll see it on Twitter and I'll be like, he tested it with us.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

He's not the only one who does that.

You texted us the full draft of your Don Draper tweet.

I did do this yesterday.

Which is also one of the best and most classic tweets I've ever seen.

Wow, single.

Excellent work.

Excellent work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's this tweet.

It's about the fucking commercial we saw and it was Don Draper pitching it.

Yeah, yeah, because I was like, it's so bleak and it's like such like a like, you could just like hear him saying it.

I'll read the tweet.

Life is nothing but disappointments.

When you're a kid, you can't wait to grow up, only to learn that adult life is nothing but pain.

You work hard, you have nice things, you have no one to share it with.

You've neglected your personal life, but who's always been there?

Nintendo.

Fucking flawless.

Oh, it's so good.

Flawless victory.

But I didn't write that.

It actually came to me in a fugue state.

What?

Just because I don't want to.

I'm not a scab.

I didn't write it.

Oh, yeah.

Scabbing?

No.

No.

Okay.

You didn't do it for a struck company.

No.

Sirius struck?

No.

Twitter struck.

No.

Jesus Christ.

It better not be.

I'll tear your face down right now.

Oh, yes, we have to grade it.

I also forgot to bring up that YouTube video I texted you about.

Oh, we should do that right now.

Speaking of

the way that Link has been characterized in media, I'm mad I sent you that link.

Because also, I was thinking when Heather was, well, I'm sorry, when Link visited us earlier, that he doesn't talk anymore.

And maybe there's like a reason.

And it's this game and maybe this video.

Yeah, they took some big liberties with Link's personality back in the day.

Oh, this is from

this show has been featured on our podcast before.

Oh, it was Chapter N, the game master.

No, I think this was a separate Legend of Zelda cartoon.

Oh, my God.

Never mind.

I think so.

Holy shit.

Hey, excuse me, Princess.

Excuse

me, Princess.

Well, excuse me, Princess.

Also, just Steve Martin's bit.

I was going to say, like, yeah, I mean, he was like the most famous man on Earth for a while.

Excuse me.

Excuse me, princess.

Excuse me, princess.

Excuse me, princess.

Well, excuse me, princess.

This video is like a third over.

So long.

And I think it was only a one-season show.

Excuse me.

So he's singing like three times an episode.

Excuse me,

princess.

Well, excuse me again, Princess.

Oh, he's singing through it again.

Excuse me, Prince.

Back at it.

She can't take it anymore.

Excuse me.

This is,

I think we get the idea.

Yeah, yeah.

This is like,

this is

a mostly mute character.

So I think by default, this is his most famous catchphrase.

So funny.

Like, they took away Mario and Link's voices just immediately.

Like, they don't talk.

No, yeah.

They say almost nothing.

They just grunt and whimper.

Yeah.

I would hope that if Link does speak again, he says it.

That would be a fun, like, little Easter.

They got it.

Depending on the context.

I really wonder what they're going to do because it's, like, I kind of hope they just, like.

If they do make, if they do adapt Legend of Zelda, and I'm pretty sure they're going to at some point because it's, you know, it's their biggest IP.

I hope they, as much as I like Illumination, I hope Illumination doesn't go near it.

And I hope they give it to like Mappa or something.

Me and Zaki,

give it to like a, give it to like an anime studio and just like let them go nuts and, and just live in the beauty of it.

Yeah.

And make it, because the tone is completely different.

I agree.

I, I would watch a fully silent,

like silent protagonist adventure film featuring Link in like a full, like a full studio Ghibli style like epic.

Yeah.

It would be incredible.

Like give it to like UFO table, I think it's tablet, UFO Tablet, UFO Table.

Give it to the Demon Slayer studio.

It would be fucking sick.

Anyway, any other thoughts on this?

I guess

I give all these games zeros.

I mean, it's extremely funny that they exist.

I wish I'd actually played them.

I do kind of want to play them at some point, and maybe I'll go back to trying to get a Philip CDI emulator working as I did when we covered Hotel Mario.

But I just didn't have the energy for that.

We all downloaded so much dangerous stuff to our computers trying to play Hotel Mario.

I was like, what am I doing?

So, like, yeah, no, like, what I'll give these a 0-2 just because I don't,

there's nothing there.

There's not, I guess, I could give the animated ones like, yeah, like Heather's single one, because at least those are like funny.

Like, they're like kind of funny.

They at least have something happening.

Yeah.

Like, there's visual information happening on the screen.

No, that's a good point.

Yeah, but the

live action one is

the live action one looks like they're making up, making it up in front of you right now.

Yeah,

they're like you can really see like them packaging that CD and be like, What have we done?

The mad world play.

There's also an aesthetic in the live action one that has now been co-opted by TikTok people to only convey horror.

Yes, like when you see that like granulated, like choppy, low-frame animation live-action stuff, it almost exclusively means something bad is about to happen.

Yeah, I had this, this game as a kid, this PC RPG as a kid, Betrayal at Crondor, and it didn't have full motion video, but it had like digitized images that it used for like the character models and for the

the the the you know the portraits and so it it was like the cost the wardrobe was like on a similar level like it like it was kind of shitty it was kind of budget but it all it all was like kind of charming Um, you know, I could, like, I felt like it was fake as a kid, but like, you know, I was like, oh, it kind of has this sort of charming look to it.

And this,

these games have absolutely none of that.

I'm not quite sure what the distinction is.

Maybe it's because it's connected to

a better known IP.

I don't know.

Maybe it was me.

No, you did great.

You did so good.

You did amazing.

All right.

Shall we do a segment?

Let's do a segment.

It's time for a little VO theater.

wow I've prepared a a scene from

from the legend of Zelda the wand of gamelon it's actually the first scene in the in the in the cutscenes there there's not a lot there's the thing about pulling text from these yeah there's not a lot to any of it thank you so it's gonna seem a little short maybe all right but we got some paper scripts here how do you want to cast this out uh nick why don't you read for the king heather why don't you read uh zelda

or no uh heather why don't you read link actually

and eva why don't you read zelda and i'll be impaire okay

all right great so this is king regal uh i'm thinking chest voice all right here we go

zelda duke onkled is under attack by the evil forces of ganon i'm going to gamelon to aid him But father, what if something happens to you?

I'll take the Triforce of Courage to protect me.

If you don't hear from me in a month, send Link.

Impa!

Don't worry, Zelda.

The Triforce of Wisdom promises the king will return safely.

Enough.

My ship sails in the morning.

I wonder what's for dinner.

Oh boy, I'm so hungry I could eat an octorach.

One month later.

One month later.

A whole month gone and still no word.

I'm certain he's all right.

Yeah, that old Gannon's no match for the king.

Link, go to Gamela and find my father.

Great!

I can't wait to bomb some dodongos.

Later still.

Wake up, Impa.

We're going to Gamela.

All right, dear.

I'll get the Triforce of Wisdom.

And that's the scene.

Right.

That's how this game opens.

So much tension.

It wasn't until I tried to do Link's voice using my Link's voice, but with words, that I realized that

is Ash Ketchum.

Oh, sure.

Oh, yeah.

Hey, it's me, Ash Ketchum.

Huh?

It's like the same register.

But that's how you find voices.

You know, you use one voice to get into the next one sometimes.

That's just how it works.

And, you know, as an accomplished voice actor, I can say that with authority.

Let me just play the real clip.

Yeah, this is how it was supposed to go.

Duke Onklad is under attack by the evil forces of Ganon.

I'm going to Gamelon to aid him.

But, father, what if something happens to you?

I'll take the Triforce of Courage to protect me.

If you don't hear from me in a month, send Link.

Ampa, don't worry, Zelda.

The Triforce of Wisdom promises the king will safely return.

Enough.

My ship sails in the morning.

That Triforce of Wisdom thing kind of looks cool.

Yeah.

The perspective shifting as the Triforce is spinning.

So, yeah, this has some redeeming value.

A whole month gone, and still no word.

I'm certain he's all right.

Yeah, that old Gannon's no match for the king.

Go to Gamelon and find my father.

I can't wait to bomb some Dodongos.

God, he's so stupid.

And it's just like bad storytelling.

Why are you telling the part where he goes missing for a month?

Yeah.

I'll get the Triforce of wisdom.

Like, start here.

Yeah, you could start after the point he's been missing.

If you happen to be a listener who

hasn't seen footage of this game, just watch that scene.

Yeah.

Everybody can't stop moving.

Yeah.

Even if you're like just declaring something, your hand is like touching your head while your other hand like cradles your stomach and your eyes roll independently of one another.

Yeah.

It's like watching bath salts.

Animation is so time consuming.

Like, even today, with all the

new technology, like

the technological advancements in computer animation that can assist traditional animation, it's so, so time consuming and tedious.

It's like the longest workflow of anything.

And just looking at this structurally, like

the first scene, which must have been laborious to animate in 1992 or 1993, whenever they were doing this,

this all could have been like scrolling text just explaining that the king had disappeared.

Yes.

And that, you know, like a month has gone by since he left to get the Triforce of Courage, and we could save so much human labor.

The Emperor speaks.

Yeah.

Or is it Palpatine?

What did they actually say?

Palpatine.

The dead speak.

The dead speak.

You're saying you're thinking of somehow Palpatine survivors.

Yeah, that's right.

The dead speak.

Man, it sucks that we all know.

That we just all knew that.

Oh, man.

Yeah, you're right.

It could have been scrolling text, and then you could have cut to a much better

animated thing where it's like Zelda's like, where's the king?

And Link's like, you want me to go find him?

And Zelda's like, I guess you can.

Should I go with you?

And he's like, no, you stay here and stay safe.

But like, yeah, it's mattiness and then and also they animated a boat yeah yeah uh-huh which doesn't appear in the game and then the words one month later explode into dust and then fly away which is also like a lot of work looks kind of cool and it's in one month later still not contemporary time and it's later still

you wonder if any if like they they fought this at all or were like suggesting anything internally and phillips was just like no we need the king asking what's for dinner like that has to be in there.

Well, knowing that Phillips is a Dutch company, it would have been, no, we need the king needs to ask what is for dinner.

I think they worked backwards from, I can't wait to eat.

I was so hungry I can eat an octorach.

Yeah.

Knew that line's a fucking Cadillac.

So how do we get to rebuild this?

That was fun, Matt.

Thanks for putting that together.

It was great.

Hey, that's this week's Get Play.

Links to our social media in the episode description, including our Discord server, if you want to join our little Fortnite grouping.

And our engineering is by Alex Gonzalez, Dead Air Alex G on Twitter and Instagram.

Also, check out Get Anime, our other show, which is behind the paywall.

Heather, we're covering Star Wars Visions this week.

Star Wars Visions seasons one and two will be covered in our Get Animated podcast.

And after that, we're on to either a new series, a new movie.

You'll have to tune in to find out.

So check that out.

It's on patreon.com slash get played.

You get new episodes day and date.

Or if you're on Stitcher Premium, they're available a month later.

Eva Anderson has been our guest.

What a delight to have you in studio.

I can't believe this is like, this feels so wild to have all, like the three of us plus a guest all in studio with Alex.

It's just like, I don't know.

It's, I don't, I feel like kind of crazy that this is, that this thing that used to be normal is now like a, like, a unique experience.

It's the first time it's happened in like three.

It's in true.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it has not happened.

Well, I feel extremely privileged to be here, guys.

Thanks for having me.

What a guest for using me.

Thank you.

Eva, do you have anything you want to plug?

Yeah, I want to plug the Entertainment Community Fund.

You can donate to it.

It's for people who are going to, crew members who are going to lose their jobs because of the WGA strike.

They can take out grants and

yeah, donate to the Entertainment Community Fund.

Entertainment Community.org.

It's a great organization.

I'll put the link in the show notes.

Takes them there for you.

Well, there you go.

Because the studios and the conglomerates are fucking us all.

Yes.

It's true.

They're the worst.

But you know what?

We're showing our power.

We're withholding our labor.

We're out on the picket lines.

And we're letting the studios studios know that you got played.