The Legend of Zelda: A Pod to the Cast: Music Theory of Zelda with Zane Carney

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Hey, dudes, so

I mean, Heather, you know this.

This has been your whole world.

It's my world too.

There's a writer's strike right now.

The WGA is on strike.

Solidarity, man.

Union Strong.

Solidarity.

The thing is, like, we normally open the show with a tightly scripted

intro sketch, you know, that we write out ahead of time.

Oh, my God, you're right.

We can't do that.

We're not fucking scabs.

I'm not a scab.

No, we're not going to scab.

I'm not going to scab on my own pot.

No way.

It's not those flawlessly executed scripts.

The hours that we spend writing and rewriting and rewriting until it's word perfect.

Every um, uh,

and awkward silence.

It's all written.

And, you know, I have a script from last week's episode, and uh, it's uh version 11B.

Yeah.

Well, because, you know, writing is rewriting.

Writing is rewriting, yeah.

So, yeah, unfortunately, we can't, we just can't do it this week.

I think, I think we went to 300 drafts on Crazy Bus.

Like, I think that was the 300th draft.

I was actually thinking about this recently because I remembered draft one and just like how different.

Yeah.

Crazy bus wasn't even in it.

Yeah.

Which is something you think about as the, you know, when listeners hear this can be like, wow, crazy bus didn't happen until probably somewhere in like the 250s, honestly, we got to crazy bus.

That's when I remember it was 253 when crazy bus, those two words got put together.

And then like the next 40 drafts were like just heavily revising that.

And then the draft after that, we went back to number 253 and started again.

And then we went back to the first draft and just kind of inserted crazy bus into our original concept.

So it's an iterative process.

And you know, we're still trying to, like, you know, we, and we go back, the way you don't know is that like there's a lot of dynamic insertion in

podcasting.

Like we're able to go back and like we're revising intros constantly.

So like if you go back to any of the episodes we've done and you listen to an intro, it might be a little different than the last time you heard it because we're like just always punching up because as I said, writing is rewriting.

Like I, it's like George Lucas with the special editions.

Like the every every Blu-ray release, there's like a new, a a little new scene lit.

Yeah, there's like an unintelligible musical number added to some of them as well with no subtitles.

But people like it.

People are really into it.

But we can't do that this week.

No,

the only thing we could discuss before this is the concept for the intro, which is the three of us just being full of shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, that's even getting a little, you know, that's, that's getting pretty close to talking about writing, right?

Like, you know, not talking about writing.

We're talking about writing right now, but that sounds close to talking about doing the act of writing, right?

Because we're talking about the concept.

Sure.

And I, you know, as somebody who's not in the WGA, I know that if I scab, I'll never get in.

So if you guys are trying to trap me somehow, I can't, I will not.

I can't scab and you won't trick me.

Nice try.

Okay.

Well.

Heather the honey trap failed.

Forget to report back to union leadership.

He's still trying.

We didn't get him.

We.

And dunno.

As we continue a pod to the cast with the music theory of Zelda this week 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.

Wow, that's really good.

It's good.

See, that's the sort of that's the

fucking,

that's that spice we were missing from the recipe, babe.

Listen, hey, hey, listen.

We had some passable meals.

We had some great apps in the last two weeks.

Fantastic guests.

Fantastic guests that gave us their time

and had a lot of fun with us.

But nothing beats the original recipe, baby.

I will never listen to those episodes because

I hate that you guys released episodes without me.

Okay.

Feel it breaks.

No, I'm kidding.

I hear they went really well, but I also won't listen to them.

Hey, that's you got a lot.

There's a lot going on.

You don't got time to make a lot of people.

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot going on in our industry, our personal lives.

Exactly.

I'm married.

I'm officially.

Congratulations.

Let's go.

I just got back from Japan.

It was great.

It's like,

you know, you wait your whole life for this,

for

having a wedding, going on a honeymoon, and getting right back behind the desk in your windowless garage.

Yeah, that is you probably like, I can't wait to get back to doing this.

This is great.

I'm really having the time of my life on this honeymoon.

I can't wait to get back with my boys.

That's right.

Well, I did miss my boys.

Oh, we missed you too, Harry.

And our listeners missed you too, and everyone's happy that you're back.

It is, maybe missed you a little too much, I think, but they missed you.

Yeah, calm down a little bit.

Crying.

She's not here.

I'm crying.

The Legend of Zelda pod to the cast is continuing all month long.

And this month's We Play, You Play will be the Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, which is coming out next week.

And we're going to be talking about it

in depth on Monday.

Friday

episodes release.

Friday of this week.

I apologize.

Yes, next week as of this record.

And we should mention, we should touch on real quick, Heather, that there is a WGA strike that commenced this week.

That is, we don't don't need to go into the details here.

But, you know, you can find out more at WGAContract2023.org.

Heather and I are both WGA members.

We are both walking the picket lines, getting sunburned and dehydrated because the fucking studios won't pay the writers what they deserve.

And so, you know,

hopefully we appreciate everyone's support and solidarity and solidarity with all the working people out there.

Hell yeah.

There was a quote at this big meeting we had

about how the goal of the studios was,

you know, they foresee a future where it's just going to be a showrunner, a writer, and a machine.

Yeah.

And in my head, I was like, okay, but you don't have to make it sound awesome and kind of cool.

That's kind of the, that's kind of the get-played host dynamic, I think.

But yeah, we're, we're on strike.

And

for those of you who play Fortnite, that means I will be appearing more frequently during the day.

I was thinking about this because last week we joked.

You won't listen to this, Heather, so you won't know that we said this.

That I committed us to having completed Tears of the Kingdom for the We Play You Play just as a joke.

But now that the strike's happening, it's more possible.

It's in play.

It could happen.

Well,

I think, you know, the truth is that we are we are actively picketing yes

i had like positioned this in my head as like you know a time of like some real fastidiousness like cut down on expenses and maybe get like a little private writing done or like maybe a little painting or something and no i'm i put in

I was walking from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep in Japan and I got exactly the same mileage for the last two days on the picket line.

And And I was like, well,

yeah, that's

that's some, that's a eight to eight to 12 mile walk every day.

Uh, the, yeah, I was talking to, because, cause part of what's great about being the picket line is that so many people come out and support you from other industries and from elsewhere within the entertainment industry.

So, you know, we're having SAG AFTRA actors are out there in force.

IATSI crew members are out there in force.

You know, we had a prop master who is out there,

a lighting tech who is out there.

And then today I was talking with a costumer who was supporting us and was like, Man, yeah, it's crazy, like 20,000 steps yesterday.

She was like, Yeah, that's like my job.

Like, I'm just like on my feet all day, like, fucking walking around.

It's like, oh, yeah.

I guess our profession is a little bit more sedentary.

But it is like, this is, I said,

we didn't need to get into it.

Now I'm rambling about it.

So I apologize.

WGA contract2023.org.

Find all the details.

I just brought that up to say that this is affecting, you know, DGA has a contract that's up in a matter of days.

SAGAFTRA AFTRA has a contract that's the actors union that's up at the end of June.

IATSI renegotiated contract recently.

You know, the Teamsters have their own contract.

All these different unions that make the

TV shows and films that people enjoy and those that people don't enjoy, but sometimes those can still be profitable.

They like...

They are all being squeezed just as fucking tightly as they possibly can, just being squeezed for each drop of labor and being barely compensated, unfairly compensated for that.

So that's why this has all come to a head.

And I mean, you said we're not getting into it, and we'll probably move on after this.

The writers aren't asking for a lot.

It's like it's

like, what are they?

It's like 3% or something.

It's like not even 2%.

It's 2%.

It's 2% of all.

Of all.

Which also is funny because

if you see a movie,

your thought isn't, I don't think, only 2% of this was the story.

No.

That 2% fucking worked for me.

But also, like,

I think,

without

pontificating too

psychologically here, I do think it is representative of how writers view themselves, maybe that it's like, yeah, we demand more.

2%.

I'm low-fat milk.

Hey, I think of the milks, of the regular milks,

it's goaded.

It's pretty good milks.

Regular milks.

Speaking of goaded, one of our favorite guests is returning to the show.

Very, very excited to have him here.

Cool.

A musician, artist, and streamer from twitch.tv/slash Zane Carney.

Zane Carney is back.

Hi, Zane.

Hey, everyone.

How you doing?

Oh, hell yeah.

Am I really a favorite guest?

We love having you on the show.

One of the best ones we got, dude.

Right.

No way, that's true, but that's awesome.

Nice to see you.

Zane, we're going to be talking about Zelda this episode and all month long.

And I just wanted to open things generally.

Like, are you a Zelda fan?

Do you have a history with a franchise?

Oh, man.

Yeah.

I was writing this down before the episode.

Yeah, this is, like most people, my favorite video game series of all time.

Wow.

Wow.

So, yeah, I've 100%ed six or seven of the games.

So, yeah, Zelda 1.

Link to the Past, Link's Awakening DX.

I still have my cartridge.

Was playing it in my analog pocket recently.

Oh, wow.

Ocarina of Time, Ajora's Mask, Twilight Princess, and then I'm really close to finishing Breath of the Wild.

I'm like five years late, but I'm going to get it done before this Friday.

Hallelujah.

Do you have a favorite in the series?

I do.

Yeah, I think it would be LinkedIn to the Past.

Yeah, I think that...

I'm sorry, please go.

Go on.

Well, no, just because I played that when I was like seven with my brother, and I beat it in a Sportsman's Lodge, which I don't know if that's still a hotel anymore, but I was like staying there as a kid.

I'm not going to explain any detail on that.

So, yeah, you're on a business trip or something?

Yeah, I was on a business trip.

I wore a really large oversized trench coat, just like had watches and selling one.

No, I,

yeah, but yeah, I beat with my brother, and I couldn't believe it when the dark world started.

It's like, oh, what is what?

It's the coolest.

But Ocarine of Time is, I mean, it's like one A and one B for me because that was just insanely magical when I put in that game.

So one of those two.

We did our tier list last week, and I like, you know, for me, it was, if I'm talking about my personal personal favorite it probably is linked to the past it could be majora's mask i think it's it's probably one of those uh but i think we kind of our consensus kind of came that i i think breath of the wild has now supplanted them as like the definitive zelda game i mean just i think just maybe that's just recency bias but that's interesting yeah i mean i i feel like not to be too contrarian, but F that.

No.

Oh, shit.

Oh, man.

I'm crazy like that.

No, I think, for some reason, Ocarine of Time feels, for me, like the main one, only because Breath of the Wild introduced that open world thing that maybe had been right from GTA and all that.

But then again, Zelda 1 was very open world.

So I can see why I would say that.

Yeah.

But I don't know, Ocarine of Time, I had been waiting my whole childhood for like a mature link who has like a long sword and is like a real adult.

And so when Ocarine of Time came out, I was like, oh my gosh, we finally have 3D graphic,

proper link.

And I don't know, that something about that made it feel

definitive.

I don't know.

That doesn't make any sense.

I mean, Breath of the Wild truly is going to go down, I think, in five or 10 years is like the main one.

I was going to say the Ocaring of Time, I have

a memory attached to because...

My friend had pre-ordered it at a GameStop that was, or maybe it was an EB Games that was like weirdly far away.

I don't know if for some reason he did it from a different mall.

So he like had a two-hour bus ride just to like pick up his pre-order and then got it back and we're like, holy shit, this is transcendent.

But Link Link to the Past, I similarly have a measure, a memory, like strong memories of not playing it at my house.

I took my Super Nintendo with Link to the Past to my grandma's and grandpa's place.

And a lot of my hours spent with that game

were there.

And yeah, that one I just have, I have such fondness for,

you know, aesthetically including the music.

Heather,

you were out the past couple of weeks, and I want to get your thoughts on the Zelda franchise as well.

Like, where do you stand?

And do you have any favorites?

so, um,

I got two favorites, uh, but they're, it's primarily because of having played them.

And those two favorites are Breath of the Wild and Wind Waker.

Uh, the rest of the Zelda franchise, I've kind of always been on the outside of.

Uh, like, I didn't play Link to the Past when

when it came out, though, um, I do.

I mean, like,

here, hold on one sec.

Heather is standing up.

She just got back, and she's already gone.

I mean, I do have this

pristine

box copy of a link to the past right here in my hands.

Uh,

so, you know, I have, I have played it since, but like, did I, was I a kid who was playing Zelda?

No, I was fucking playing Sonic.

Right.

Um,

so

it wasn't until GameCube that I really put time into a Zelda game, and I was like, ooh, ooh, this is good.

And then I played Twilight Princess for

coverage for video game reviews, and I fucking hated it.

I was like, ugh, this game, this is not for me.

Like, why is it so different from that?

Really, like, I was in a Saturday morning adventure cartoon.

Yeah.

And now I'm like

in between

Batman and

like

Dungeons and Dragons, like some like threading the needle like tonally in between those two things.

And it kind of was like, yuck.

I also didn't really like the art style in Twilight Princess.

I really hated all the fetch quests.

Yes.

I played Phantom Hourglass and I played

Minish Cap.

Oh, yeah.

So, you know, I dabbled, but the only ones that really sunk their hook into me is Breath of the Wild, which, you know, I fucking completed that game.

And then Wind Waker, which is just a work of art.

It is so gorgeous.

We've said this on the podcast before.

We maybe even said it last week, but it's like there was a backlash to that game, to the art style, and it has aged so well.

And Twilight Princess, a lot of the fandom was like, it's back on track.

It's like, you know,

it's got this more,

realistic is the wrong term to use, but it's this more conventional art style like the other 3D games of the era.

But the formula had gotten kind of, the Zelda formula had gotten kind of tired by that point.

And then also that art style has aged so much worse, you know, because it's just, it's, it's, it's not as, it's not as distinct.

Yeah, Wind Waker, Wind Waker fucking rocks.

That was one that we ranked really highly.

I think, I believe our engineer, Alex Gonzalez, mentioned after we recorded that his wife's favorite game is Wind Waker.

She can't get enough of that.

Yeah.

I still haven't played that game or beaten it.

Oh, man.

Like one hour of it.

I need to play that.

They got to release that.

They got to re-release that on Switch because the Wii,

was it fucking Wii U where they did the HD remaster?

Yeah.

And that was great, but I was just like, I'm not going to bring out my Wii U again.

The thing's never coming out of storage.

Yeah.

I have my Wii U hooked up

because you can play

Wii games in HDMI.

So if I'm going to occupy a retro slot, it counts as two consoles.

That's smart.

There might also be a jailbreak to play GameCube on it.

I know on the Wii you can play GameCube, but yeah, I've been looking into maybe modding that so I can get the whole gamut as well.

Yeah.

Yep.

It's a it's a it's a it's a rad game.

I have to ask you for a Mario tennis update, Zane.

Oh, I mean, that's,

yeah, I popped it on like a month ago because I'm a glutton for punishment and wanted to hurt my index finger again.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's uh, I haven't been playing it.

When you don't play it for a few months, you go back down to D tier.

Right.

So I think I might have gotten a little drunk and just demolished like 18 people in a row.

And I never drink, so I combined some odd things together.

And then Raj came in.

Anyone who listens to this podcast who plays Mario Tennis Aces, they know that Raj is like the overpowered number one North American player now since Energy's off.

And they're into booping, which is this technique where you charge up your slice so much that when you hit it to someone like me who's not as good as you, it spins me out so much and I'm out of all my charge that instead of hitting it back to me, you just hit me in the head because I can't slow down time enough to get out of the way.

Wow.

And it used to infuriate me on stream.

I would, oh, I had, I come off as calm usually, and I got pretty, pretty feisty when he'd do that.

But But yeah, I haven't played it much.

I've been playing other stuff recently.

Wow, that leads me to my next question, which is,

what are you playing?

Wow.

Wait, is that is that Link?

Link, it's nice to see you.

It seems like

you're still non-verbal, famously.

Non-verbal, but you like under you, you get what you get, yeah.

You understand what we're saying, yeah.

Just kind of communicating in a series of um

noises, for lack of a better term, yeah,

just mouth sounds.

What are you doing?

Are you are you trying to catch something with a net?

What are you playing?

Wow,

I speak link

That's pretty neat.

I like that little Link.

Link's good.

He was cute.

He's really trying.

I mean, like, he's.

And of the people that introduced the segment,

economical.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He looked kind of stressed out, but you got what he was trying to do.

Yeah, you can't come in and do that job and not be stressed.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's a hard part of the show.

It is.

It is.

So I guess, Link, is it okay

if I toss to Nick?

Nick, what are you playing?

Here's the thing.

This writer's strike started.

I have not played shit because I've been out on the picket lines.

I've actually been busier than I expected.

I will touch on a couple of things.

One is that the Golden Idol DLC release, that's one of my favorite games of last year,

the...

The case of the Golden Idol, which is a super duper fun and, you know, detecting game.

There's some DLC out called the Golden Idol Mysteries, The Spider of Lanka, that I'm very excited to crack into, but I haven't started playing it yet.

But yeah, if you did like that game or if you missed out on its original run, check it out.

It is really cool.

It is

basically like, you know, I think I talked about it at the show at length, but I'll recap.

It's just, you're looking at a tableau, a moment frozen in time, and you are going through and making a bunch of inferences to determine what crime took place, who the culprit was, and to basically fill out a workbook that explains all the information?

It ends up being like a really awesome

trick for narrative storytelling.

Like it just, you know,

you're learning so many things in pieces, and then it puts together this larger arc, which is super duper satisfying.

So I highly recommend it if you like that sort of,

you know, kind of

leisurely sort of puzzle game, the kind of game that Heather hates.

And

it also has a great, an art style that's like really aggressive.

Like it's extremely kind of off-putting, but I find it really, really engaging.

The other thing I want to mention is that, and this perhaps ties in with Heather's recent experience visiting Japan, I've been trying to learn a little bit of the Japanese language.

And I learned that there is a kind of a newer philosophy in

language acquisition that is called comprehensible input, where basically the idea is you're just listening a lot to language, kind of like just like here, like brain soaking is another term I've heard, which I really like.

So, like just soaking your brain by listening to stuff that you can understand, and if you can even partially understand it over time, your brain will start to,

your brain, which is a pattern recognition machine, will start to piece together more and more of it until eventually your comprehension level improves and your speaking level improves.

So, I've been listening to the IGN Japan podcast.

This is IGN's podcast in Japanese, and it is honestly a fascinating listen.

I can comprehend about 10% of it,

but it does have, you know, it will be things like, you know,

you know, you hear like, ano Bokua, Star Wars Fallen Order, uh, Suki Desu, you know, like it'll be like, like, it'll be something that he's like, just a Western title that will be, that will sneak in there.

Um, and uh, I don't know.

I'm, I'm, I'm just, just engaged with that process.

Uh, and uh, so I guess that's what I'm playing.

That's what I'm playing on my podcast app.

I can't, I can't find my brain is fucking fried.

I was funny, I was fucking in the sun all day.

It's okay, it's okay, making any sense here.

No, you are.

You said,

uh, um,

uh,

Jedi Fall of Water.

I like it.

Yeah, I heard all of it.

In Japanese.

So you did it.

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Heather, how about you?

What are you planning?

Well,

I went to Japan and I didn't set foot in a single arcade.

Wow, wow.

Which

I think it certainly is not because of being there on a honeymoon.

It was because of lack of interest.

I found myself on this trip really avoiding tourist-heavy areas.

And my first trip to Japan, you know, 15 years ago, my first stop was Akihabara.

And like, my second stop in Akihabara was an arcade.

Like, I was like, fuck, I cannot fucking wait.

But walking through Akihabara now is just,

I might as well not be in Japan almost.

Like, it's so many

tourists.

So, so yeah, I I didn't go to an arcade.

I did go to a little store in Kyoto called Edit Mode,

which is a video game collaboration space.

They have like really cool t-shirts, but unfortunately, they're only open like two weeks out of the month, and I was not there during one of those weeks.

So, I took a photo in front of the store with a thumbs up, and that was as far as I got.

But when I arrived home,

Star Wars Jedi Survivor, or whatever the fuck it's called, Survivor Survivor

had

arrived.

And so I dropped that into my PS5,

and I played the first 30 minutes.

And I was like, yep, this is great.

Good job, guys.

You really

fucking made a Star Wars game again, and it's a lot of fun.

And then I dropped back into Fortnite to see what had changed.

And

Fortnite is also having a Star Wars event

here at the beginning of May for, you know, May May the 4th be with you.

And

Anakin, Padme, and the clone troopers, and Darth Maul have all been added to the game.

Everyone is here.

Everyone is there.

And there's

new

powers.

So you can

think about.

I know when we talk about Fortnite, we talk about the mashup of IP, but when you think about the mechanics of the mashup, it's kind of fascinating.

So I can talk to Darth Maul,

learn how to use the force, because now you can force blast people as well as wielding a lightsaber.

And you can also equip ODM gear from Attack on Titan.

So you can fly in as LeBron James on ODM gear from Attack on Titan, draw out your lightsaber, force push somebody, and then stab them.

It's what a

game.

What a lucky thing that it exists.

Yeah.

Because you would not, I don't think if it, if you had set out to create Fortnite as the design document, if you'd been like, what we see is Dragon Ball powers interacting with Star Wars powers, that both of those IP companies would have been like, no fucking way.

So instead, they made a game.

And then as IP started to come into that game, it got to merge, remix, and meld with one another.

So that's, that's, I'm playing Star Wars on Star Wars game, and I'm playing Star Wars in Fortnite.

It's a, it's a big Star Wars time here in the Campbell Laws household.

What is the,

what is the, uh, what was that fighting game that's like that freeware fighting game that was just like broke every IP law?

Like that Mugen?

Was that Mugen?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, and it would be, so it'd be like, you know,

there was no, they had no rights to anything and it was just freeware.

So it'd be like, you know, Peter Griffin versus Sailor Mars.

And it was just like the most, uh, most crazy, incoherent mashups of, uh, within a fighting game engine.

Um, completely unbalanced.

Some of it, some of the characters are barely playable, but it's cool to like mess around with.

But like, Fortnite is that, but it's just like they cleared all the legal hurdles.

Yep.

Yep.

That's, I mean, that's it.

Although Moogan would also have like.

Oh, do you say Moogan?

I call it Moogen.

I don't know how you say it.

Who the fuck?

I've never heard a person, a real human in my life talk about that game.

No.

Me neither.

And that's considering that you were just talking about it.

I'm talking to a real human being.

Never heard it.

But yeah, you could be like Frasier versus the front end of an Acura in Moogan.

Niles.

That's his finisher.

He comes in.

Zane, what are you playing?

Oh, man.

I have some exciting updates.

I don't remember if the last record, like last year, if I had my Pac-Man machine yet, the arcade one-up one behind me, I'm not sure.

I don't remember.

I don't remember either.

So my mom got that for me for my birthday.

Surprise thing.

And I was like, oh my God, how did you even think of this?

This is so awesome.

So I had it in my music studio where I'm recording from here.

And then I recently changed pianos to an upright.

And I thought, you know what?

Let me get the arcade out of this music room and just make it purely music.

So I put it in my patio.

And then my actual, like this year's birthday came up.

Why did I say actual?

Like as though I have a fake one.

My real one came up.

What do you a U.S.

president?

Zane's birthday observed.

Yeah, I'm going to need to see

your birth certificate.

Yeah, we've been arguing real hard.

I've been trying to get December 25th.

I'm getting a lot of pushback.

So, yeah, April 29th had my birthday.

And I was like, man, this arcade machine looks great in my patio.

Should I get another machine?

And so now I have four.

So why couldn't?

So I got Simpsons, and then I modified it to play TMNT, TMNT, Turtles in Time.

It also comes with like some random beat-em-ups like Vendetta and Metamorphic Force, and then like a really not so good version of NBA Jam called Punk Shot.

And then I was like, well, let me just get NBA Jam.

So then I found a cabinet that was already pre-built in Pasadena.

It's really cheap, brought that over.

And then I had my birthday party.

It was like an arcade hang.

And then I I just recently bought Street Fighter 35th Anniversary, that cabinet.

Wow.

Wow.

So I'm going to have four cabinets playing like, I don't know, each system has two to five games.

And then the Capcom one that's coming has 14, including like some vertical and horizontal shooters and three versions of Street Fighter.

I'm really excited about it.

It's

crazy walking into my music studio from my house and being like, oh, I have an arcade.

Oh, man, this is awesome.

It's that's that's been really fun.

That's rad.

And congrats.

i will say i have a friend uh who was you could there was an arc you could kind of follow over a couple of years where he got really into cabinets and was just like filled up his arcade his garage with cabinets basically had like a functional arcade there and then like a year later started being like uh hey i'm trying to to sell this cabinet if you know anyone who's interested yeah that's already on its way

all that youtube serves me is gaming content because it knows what i like it knows what i need to do and so uh yeah most most of the arcade 1-up stuff I'm getting is why I left Arcade 1-Up.

Why is it not good?

Right.

And I already can see it.

I mean, the build quality, it's a little bit rocky and, you know, the feeling of the triggers and the handles, whatever the arcade names are for it.

Not to mention the fact that, as you guys may remember, I'm really into non-emulative retro experiences, which obviously had a big time is into too.

So yeah, my analog stuff is all set up.

I have my GameCube with the DVI output, and I'm really into non-software emulation.

I will dabble in hardware emulation like the FPGA stuff does, but no latency, zero lag, controller plugged in, no wireless.

Like I'm really into that.

So to go into an arcade cabinet that's purely software emulation,

there's a bit of me that's like, ah, 10 milliseconds of latency is going to be rough on Street Fighter.

There's that.

It is.

Yeah.

And there's that.

And then

there are a couple other reasons why it might not work out well for me.

But the reason I think I might keep them is because most arcade things I see online when people are hating on them, and totally understandably, they've made like a little basement cave where it's no sunlight to keep the

B-rays away.

For me, this is like in my patio.

I have no...

Problems with them getting worn out.

That's kind of musically what I'm into, like analog

broken apart, you know, mid-range is missing.

I like that musically, so put in mind that in the cabinet.

Plus, they're so small that it's more of just like a conversation piece thing.

But I'm going to get rid of them probably.

Do you have a dream cabinet?

Do you have one you've always had your eye on?

That's a good question.

I mean, Simpsons kind of was it because that, like, Carolina blue is a, is a color for guitar amps.

It's like a phrase, Carolina blue and seafoam green.

And it's very close to Carolina Blue.

So yeah, like I have a 50s strat that's in that color.

I'm like, I really wanted that cabinet.

It's a nice blue.

It's really nice.

But also the original TMNT, like there's no reason reason to get it because Simpsons is a four-player cab.

And I think they're going to continue releasing APKs where you can have other four-player games.

So I don't really feel the need to have that.

But I will say this, like the second or third day of getting the Simpsons cabinet, I walked into my studio and I was like, ah.

Do I really want that?

So I'm already having buyer's remorse, but I don't know.

We'll see.

You know, I'm a curial.

I go back and forth.

So we'll see what happens.

Wow.

The fact that it's on the patio, too, it's got to be nice to be like, you know what?

I could use a little outside time real quick.

Also, my friend, and I have a pool, so my friend was like, dude, this is great.

When we step out of the pool, we can just go in the patio and play a game real quick and go back in the pool.

Like, that does sound like a nice summer afternoon.

I'm into that.

Yeah, but you have the blank check house.

Yeah, I really do.

I really do.

But

that's great.

But

there was one candidate started this, and it was I saw T2 was on sale, and it was like $1.99.

Exactly.

Like, I didn't want Arnold Schwarzenegger's face just in my house, but I was like, man, but light gun games, that would be fun.

House of the Dead and all that.

That'd be fucking sick.

Yeah, but they make it really hard to mod them.

And I mean, I could buy the cabinet with the face and structure I don't really want.

And then I could take away the LCD and then like change the send in light guns and then get a Raspberry Pi.

And now I'm spending two grand to get like, what is happening?

So

I'm holding off until they have a time crisis or House of the Dead.

And then maybe

I'll do it.

Time crisis would be so sick with a pedal, forget about it,

yeah.

I love

me too, but there is other stuff I'm playing, too.

I'm sorry, I wrote a little list on it because I'm in gaming mode these days.

Um, so I pulled out my 3DS, yes, I got caught up in the eShop, you know, mainly.

Wow, so I spent like 200 bucks on games, even though it's apparently easy to play the games elsewhere.

Elsewise, that's not a word, anyway.

Um, so I've been playing Mario and Luigi Dream Team because.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So because Super Mario RPG was my entrance into RPGs, and then that turned into Pokemon and Golden Sun, the Lost Age, and all that.

So,

yeah, I'm playing that.

And I've actually been playing through the Treasure Trove, like the non-Shovel Knight games that I had never played.

Playing 2D platformers in 3D is, oh man, that is the way they're supposed to be played, in my opinion, now.

So I've been doing that.

And then I've put 38 hours so far into Octopath Traveler 2.

Wow.

And I only have five characters.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm an 100 to 200 hour RPG player because I like every single conversation to make sure I can get that axe before it costs me 55 grand.

And yeah, I'm really detailed.

I love this.

That's amazing.

That's my life right now.

What's your take?

First off, did you play Octopath Traveler 1?

Yeah, 120 hours in that or 120 hours.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

And I've heard this one is like, even if if you didn't connect with the first one, part two, they've really figured it out.

Yeah, it's incredible.

I don't know, has it been out long enough where I could give a spoiler?

It's not a story spoiler, but there is a mechanic that I think is awesome that wasn't in number one.

I think you're fair to talk about it.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, so here's the end of the game.

So, um, yeah, so they have the thing where you can have different classes and you can choose once you unlock the other players' classes, you can say, okay, I'm a scholar, but I'm also now an apothecary or whatever classes you want to combine.

And there's this thing called, oh man, I'm so into gameplay that I don't always read the actual words, but is it like latch power or something where you hit X and it's like a new power that's been awesome.

I really like that mechanic.

And I also initially was not that into the fact that I'm like, oh, it's the same classes.

I thought they'd give like eight brand new classes you never heard of, but I chose the same class as I chose Noctopath traveler one which was scholar because they have magic very powerful you know attacks so um i'm like oh i'm a scholar again oh i just picked up a a thief oh okay that was in number one too oh there aren't any new classes so there might be one or two i haven't unlocked all them but uh yeah i was surprised by that um

but yeah to me i'm having more fun than i did in octopath traveler one and octopath traveler one for me is like a top seven or eight game of all time wow yeah for what I'm into.

Wow.

So, and I will say my friends and family, when I try to get them into RPGs, they're so they're so bored by them.

But I'm like, yeah, they're awesome.

They say, why would you be into this?

You're so high energy.

Wouldn't you want like a fighting game or a combat game?

And I think because I'm so high energy in the rest of life, I really like to like have a battle be 20 minutes and really think through the best way to play it.

So yeah, Octopath really is a top seven or eight because of that.

Wow.

Wow.

I think latent powers is perhaps the mechanic you're going to be.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I said latch, and that is not right.

Latent powers.

They're awesome because one of them might be, all right, my latent power is to focus all of my energy that would have been on eight characters, like a magic attack.

It'll just be on one person now.

So it's like almost eight times as powerful.

Oh, wow.

But then you unlock another character, and I was like, oh, I'm ready for this latent power.

It's like, no, no, this person's latent power is even if this person you're fighting isn't weak to anything you have,

whatever you hit them with right now, it's going to break them down.

So you break down their shield points.

So like if they're only weak to axe attacks and all you have is a staff, you put on that latent power and you hit four times with your staff and it actually breaks them down.

It's like everyone has their own latent power and I love that mechanic.

I gotta check this out.

I'm sure it'd be extremely my shit.

Yeah.

I love

octopath.

I have the second one.

I loaded it up on my Switch to be able to play it on the plane on the way to and from japan didn't fucking play a drop of switch i fell asleep for like 10 hours and i was so tired

uh matt what are you playing uh i mean heather touched on it a little bit so i don't have a ton more to say about it but i am playing um

star wars jedi survivor and i love it i love it so much uh if you remember in

when i talked about um

jedi fallen order my biggest complaint about the game was the the map.

They fixed the map.

They fixed the map.

They fixed the map.

Wow.

And here's the thing about it: that I really cannot figure out how,

because the map is somehow also exactly the same.

But they fixed it.

It's like they did something.

It's like, it's the same type of map, that same type of like Metroid Prime map.

That's

like 3D

that you can sort of look at from every angle or whatever.

But I think what they added, if I'm not mistaken, is there is like a little yellow line that makes more sense.

That's like, oh, and there's also markers throughout the map that are like navigation like markers that are like, you should be going this way.

The main event is over here.

Here's a little marker.

You know, for, you know, halfway up, basically, that's like showing you where to go.

So like, if you get lost or whatever, it's like, well, here's the hint, go this way, which is, I don't know if that's a a setting I have turned on that maybe could be turned off,

but there's a lot to do also in the game.

It's not just like,

I don't know how much

I'm sure there was like a ton of, I missed in Fallen Order,

but this game feels more full.

Like it has, there's just so much going on.

Like

I'm only at like the third planet, I think, or something.

And it feels

gigantic.

There's so much to do.

You can get mounts now.

So like, there's different things you can do with that.

Um, there are like rumors that you can follow as like side quests and be like, oh, like, I yeah, I heard that there was um, these uh um prospectors that went missing in this mine.

Uh, why don't you go check that out for me?

Uh, and then you go, and yeah, you see all these dead prospectors like scattered throughout the mine, and you get to why, and it's the fucking Rancor, and you got to take down a rancor, uh, and it, it rips, it's so fun.

It's so good.

The performances are great.

And the new thing that I love that they added is there are new lightsaber stances.

So, like in the first one, you only had a single blade or the double blade.

Those are still there.

But now you have like a dual-wield stance where you can have one in each hand, and that has a different sort of combat energy to it.

And then there's the one that I just unlocked right now is the blaster stance where you have one

lightsaber and a blaster.

So you can be like one-handing people with the with the lightsaber and then from your hip be like pew, pew, pew with your blaster and it rules.

And there's a there's a Kylo Ren

lightsaber stance that you can get that is like a heavy sword.

So it's like you're you're two-handing this fucker and like really doing some heavy like slashes with it.

And I can't wait to get that one.

That's going to be so sick.

Um,

and I know that people say to modify the buttons, um, because

your attacks are on the face buttons, right?

So, you're, um, right, your force like heavy attack is triangle, and you're if you're playing on PlayStation, like I am, and your regular attack is square, but people say to switch to the

R1 and R2 buttons.

Yes, right, because you gotta elden ring it.

Yes, yeah, so derived from the Soulsborn games that you should match the controls to it.

I've heard the same.

And I want to do it, but I know that there are other things you can do that

having,

I just have to

maybe search for what the optimal button remap is because there's like force powers that you can do that it would be a pain in the ass to press like square and circle at the same time, for example.

Right.

But I'm sure there's a way.

There's not like a, all games should just have like a like if you want to do it this way, do it this way.

If you want to do it, there's like just built-in configurations that you could pick from.

But

yeah, yeah, go on.

I'm sorry.

No, like that's, I mean, it's, I'm also just in a Star Wars mood right now, too.

Like, um, I saw Return of the Jedi in the big screen for the first time.

Like, I'd never seen it in theaters.

Um, and it fucking ruled.

It was so awesome.

I, I, that's a good movie.

I, it's a great movie.

Uh, it was so fun to see it on the big screen.

Um, they're all so hot, they're all so, so hot.

It was so crazy.

Like I know this,

but like seeing it on the big screen, I was like, Jesus Christ, all three of them are so hot.

Unbelievable.

And I had recently gone to,

I was back at Disneyland at Galaxy's Edge, and I was like,

I love Star Wars.

I just fucking love it.

It's great.

It's so good.

And then playing this game,

I dusted off one of the

High Republic novels that I've been meaning to to read and i'm wow tearing through that i'm in a i'm in a i'm in a bit of a bit of a star wars zone right now so that's that's me i love it yeah we we just because they had the return of the jedi theatrical release and they also had uh the what what what we went and saw which was the uh the 40th anniversary release of flash dance wow uh which i saw in the theater and just had the we had the time of our lives and uh hasn't aged well like perfectly but it's still it's still super fun but the crowd was all like people like between 40 and 70 years old yeah and after it finished i just realized like i like i'm now someone who's like they don't make them like that anymore

it's great that's happening to me too the other day i said wow they really did a great job repaving the street

Actually, that kind of pairs well into one thing I forgot to mention that I'm playing.

I'm really experiencing a gaming renaissance right now.

I've been doing Halo 2 LAN parties.

Wow.

Yes.

You guys are invited.

But yeah,

I have two Xbox 360s.

So I was doing them that way.

But then for my birthday party, this whole like arcade friends come and play games.

I thought, well, screw it.

I have an old Xbox One X that I keep in one room.

And I got the Series X and just kept the 1X.

And it turns out you can do on the Master Chief Collection two player, not four player on each screen, but it's like up-res, you know, 1080p to 4K visuals.

So two players in one room, two players in the other.

So, yeah, it's they don't make it like they used to.

Like,

why, why can you only do co-op online these days?

Like, they got to bring back two to four player.

Yeah, it's so much more fun.

Um, and I, while I'm on the Xbox real quick, there's another game I've been playing, which is it takes two with my friend online.

Wow, finally playing that game.

That game is, oh man, it's, it's a, it's a tear jerker.

It takes you on a little bit of a journey.

But sorry, I'm just fitting in everything I've been playing because this is a gaming podcast.

and I've got to be able to do it.

You got to touch it.

This is great.

Well, where else can I?

I play music and no one really gives a crap.

I can't really be on stage

between songs being like, can you guys play?

It takes two.

Well, I will say one of the things.

Well, I'll get to that later.

But yeah, there is a musical connection with

one of these pieces we might talk about later.

But yeah.

I mean, I try to, you know, show my family and friends like, yeah, we're watching, you know, My Life and Gaming right now.

And we're watching Game Sack.

I'm watching Console Wars and Metal Jesus Rocks and Spawn Wave.

And it's just all gaming stuff that I watch online.

And my family gets bored, friends get bored 10 seconds in.

So anyway, it's just nice to kind of be able to be myself.

Am I right?

Hell yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You also make me feel cool because you're like, you're cool and you're talking about video games.

I was like, me too.

Hey, we're the same.

We're the same kind of guy.

We are.

No, we are, though.

Yeah.

My mom put hair gel in my hair when I was five years old.

So I was like that kid in class who had hair gel.

And it's like, yeah, but I wasn't cool his whole life.

Yeah, but I wasn't cool, I was just like, But I'm not cool.

Once I opened my mouth, no one wanted to talk to me.

But initially, yeah, no, never mind, everybody, his mom put it in, yeah, God, it's not me, but no, I just love gaming.

God, it's so I don't know what it is about it, I just love it.

Yeah, it's the best, it's the fucking best.

This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

following somebody around in the city and having a good time.

And then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

That's a true story.

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I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

That brings us to our topic this week.

This is, we're doing another episode of our music theory of gaming format, Zane, which is a thing that you pitched, and I know a thing that you've streamed about.

We're talking about the Zelda franchise, some all-time great soundtracks across these myriad games.

And another thing, and I wanted to mention this before we get into our picks, and Zane, I know you've got a few you want to talk about specifically, but great stingers.

Oh, yeah.

Like, just like, you know, like the item acquisition or finding a secret, and those are things that were established in Zelda 1 on NES and have been, you know, endlessly remixed over the course of the series.

But they're just these great little, like, you know, like two-second snippets of music that you never get tired of hearing.

Yeah, and you're reminding me now.

I forgot to analyze that.

I forgot to figure out what that is, but it's something weird.

But

yeah, there's some great stuff.

Even just

the chromatic, like

that salt, man.

Yeah, they're incredible.

I don't, I wonder who, I'm guessing Koji Kondo even wrote those stingers, not just the song.

So he just like hit it out of the park with everything.

That was always my assumption, yeah, but I honestly don't know.

Yeah.

Before I was in the middle of the day.

Also, a lot of times,

a lot of times, yeah, it would be.

I mean, I also, I'm not sure if back in the day, because

there was really a one-man band era of development where, you know,

someone would program and design and do the art and do the sound design.

Eventually, these roles got more and more specialized as team size grew, but I think there probably was an era where the composer was also doing sound design.

Right.

So I don't know what bucket that would fall into

composition or sound design, but it's possible that whatever it was,

it was done by the same person.

But I have to think it was Koji Kondo.

Yeah, I think so too.

All right,

let's get into it.

Zane, why don't you kick things off?

What's one of the tracks you want to talk about?

Yeah, man, we're starting off hot, baby.

So, my favorite piece of all time in Zelda gaming, it's funny because it's not on anyone's list.

Like, top 25 of all time, top 50.

I don't know how this isn't in people's lists.

This is the fairy theme.

Wow.

I freaking love this so much.

Yeah, and there are a lot of elements.

Just kind of diving, I guess, into the music theory aspect.

So these are actually kind of jazz chords, like the four chord going to a 2-5,

flat 9, flat 5, to another 2-5.

So there's a lot of 2-5 chord progressions, which you hear like in Miles Davis music, believe it or not.

But having it played on a harp with the arpeggios is beautiful.

And then having these melody notes that are like not from the key, like this,

that's not in the key.

That note's not in the key either.

So it gives this like saccharin.

I don't even know what it is, like sour, but in a good way feeling.

And so, I don't know, I just love this piece.

And I've actually performed this live on stage sometimes with my friends.

It's just such a great piece to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot of, you know, harmonic extensions.

Also, the intro to that thing, this like, it's like a dominant nine chord that keeps inverting.

So it becomes like a half-diminished chord and a minor six chord.

This thing,

I just love that.

I love that entrance because that's a very unusual chord that you don't hear in like pretty much any genre of music that's not jazz or like dvorjak i guess um

so uh yeah so i just feel like it's a really pleasing thing and uh yeah there's also like a through line through all these zelda songs which i'll maybe get to later there's like a specific quote-unquote mode that koji kando uses throughout the the uh pieces but anyway this is this is by far my favorite um i was on stage in 2007 or eight playing these jazz gigs in la i used to do and a friend of mine who's really into like anime and video games he's a bass player he came up on stage, he's like, Fairy theme.

I was like, What do you, how do you know that?

He's like, You know, I know that.

I'm like, Oh, okay.

So, we did a jazz rendition of fairy theme

at like 2 a.m., yeah.

And we, and you can really like, I said I might play guitar on this, but you can rip over these changes because they are jazz changes.

So, like, if I can give a sort of demonstration, like,

wow,

you know,

yeah,

Whatever.

Whatever.

You get the idea.

You can really.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I could do that.

I could do that.

No, yeah.

Yeah.

I always think the fairy theme sounds like if I got a burrito and it was too big for me to eat and I walked it over to the trash, the part that I couldn't eat,

and was about to throw it away.

And then I look down at my dog.

That's the sound of my dog looking up at me.

It's melancholy,

longing, like hopeful.

What the fuck are you doing?

What are you doing?

That's mine.

I love that.

I know what you mean.

Yeah.

And I mean, not to get too nerdy, but I guess that is the whole point, at least in my life, just how I live it.

But yeah, that like those chromatic notes that are not in the key, it does feel melancholy and sort of sad.

And then it keeps resolving, sort of.

Yeah.

It's just big-eyed dog, ears back.

Please give me a burrito.

It's amazing.

I love it.

So, yeah, that's my first choice.

I don't know if you guys wanted to give any choices now or

which order to do this in.

I think we just kind of round robin it.

I think that's a that's a great pick, and that's a great one to start us off.

Also, like, it's it's so tranquil and calming, and then in Ocarina of Time, it's paired with the great fairy appearing and going, ah,

exactly.

There is,

I know

my rhythm is not good here to say one more thing after you already made that great point and joke, but there also is one chord in this that, like, it's rare to have that harp intro, those half-diminished G minor six chords, but there's a chord in this song that's a flat nine, flat five.

You will only hear that.

I promise you, like, in an advanced avant-garde classical piece or a jazz piece, it sounds like this.

That's in the song.

It's just like

whatever that whole thing is.

Wow.

So that flat nine flat five is like, okay, that's in a video game.

And I have to think it might have been part of the reason I loved the game as a kid because it was just so special.

I didn't know I loved jazz yet when I was seven or eight.

I just knew that those frequencies meant something to me.

And it wasn't until I learned the language I was like, oh, that's why I loved Mariah Carey's whatever song or, you know, Jordan Knight's Give It To You, which is literally the chord changes to

Autumn Leaves.

I was like, oh, I had this jazz thing in my soul that I didn't realize I had.

So that flat nine, flat five, watch out for that.

That'll get you.

Right.

I'll get you real good.

And then it'll heal you

if you have a bottle.

All right, Matt, you're sharing sound.

Do you have a pick?

Yeah.

Let's go.

This is the,

I got to Zelda late in life.

My first Zelda was, I guess not late in my life, but late in Zelda.

Late in your life hasn't happened yet.

I don't know.

The way things are going, it doesn't.

It feels like it could be any day.

That's not true.

I feel fine.

My first Zelda was for the DS, the Phantom Hourglass.

No, that's your first one.

That was my very first one.

Wow.

And I loved it.

I thought it was a great game, really fun.

But this theme sticks out to me as I was going back through what that game sounded like.

The Dark Memories theme.

Here we go.

This is on a DS.

Ooh.

So dissonant.

The DS is really good.

So now you're going to notice, now that I'm going after Zane, you're going to just really notice the difference in how we speak about these things.

Because like one of us speaks with such authority and knowledge about about the subject, and then the other one is Zane.

So,

I mean, I've never heard this, but I could step in if at any point you want to hear the theory of what's happening.

It's great.

Tell me, tell me what's going on.

I can also compare it to a moment with my dog.

So, you go ahead, Zane, and then I'll say what this is with my dog.

Basically, this melody.

I've never heard this, but this melody wiki is in.

Yeah.

Okay, so basically, that was me.

I did that.

Yeah.

He's Dancing around.

This is insane.

There's a lot of distance, but the melody, there's like so much happening as I'm talking.

There's like trash can cymbals.

But anyway, the flat five is being hit a lot, which is a thing that happens in music to make us feel sort of like devilish.

I can't...

I don't know what key ring, but that flat five note.

And then it goes to the flat six.

And basically, normally when you want to settle on harmony, you want to be on the one, three, or five.

And this is neither of those.

Like, flat five, is that note?

Cause we're on this key.

Whatever.

So there's there's that, there's a flat six, there's a major seventh.

So they're dancing around every stable note.

Which is that note?

Yeah.

Oh, that note too.

That's the half step above.

Where

this is the note that you'd want to hit,

but they're dancing around the note you want to hit.

So it feels very tense because of that.

What's the context this is played in this game?

I think it's when you're talking to somebody about some dark memories.

I see this as

I've gone out to dinner and my dog hates it when I go out to dinner.

And so she is eyeing the place on the carpet where she is going to have an accident on purpose.

So that'll lead me again.

What a great format where I explain the notes and then you explain it as it relates to your dog.

It's fantastic.

This is great.

Like I'm going to listen back to this episode for fun.

So that's my first pick.

Great.

Heather, why don't you play one?

Great.

I didn't bring in a ton because I knew that I had the least brains about music in the room.

So I only wanted to bring a couple.

But my first one is from Breath of the Wild.

And it's basically the overworld theme, if there is one, in Breath of the Wild.

This is

my dog has had breakfast,

and she has found the spot in the house with the sunlight patch.

And she slowly lays down in the sunlight, and her eyes close,

and she's really happy.

But other than that, I don't know anything about this fucking song.

I mean, it's like

it's got good piano

bits.

And like, it's that stripped out minimal thing that I like about Breath of the Wild.

Yeah.

Yeah, it really lingers in the rests.

Like, it has periods where it's just like, you know,

you're just waiting for the next thing to happen, which i guess kind of speaks to the sense of exploration that you have in the game at large yeah yeah yeah yeah it's i hadn't heard that yet i mean i guess i heard it when i played the game but yeah that um it's in direct contrast to what matches played with like being in a minor key and

and dancing around all these weird notes this is like it was like this suspended thing whatever it was I don't know what it was.

And then the major seven, which is like totally quote unquote consonant, like it's part of the key.

So every melody note like was meant to work with the suspended guitar, or I'm sorry, piano things underneath.

And it's interesting how harmony can do that.

If you add a little bit of dissonance, it feels, you know, anticipatory or scary.

And if you add,

it's suddenly pretty just because of the order of the notes.

So I really, that, that was very arresting for me.

I took a, a deep breath.

That was beautiful.

It's incredible.

All right.

I'm going to take things way back to the NES era, and I have a pick from look, a game that is perhaps a little of

a dark horse entry, a black sheep in the franchise,

but it still is a cool game that has its charms, and it added some elements to the Zelda mythos and canon and aesthetic.

And one of those things is the dungeon theme from Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link.

This is the thing, right now you're like, okay, this is about as big as this is going to get.

But wait, there's a crazy RC show coming up.

Alright, I see where this is going.

I know all the the dungeon theme has to offer by this point.

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

Yeah, baby.

What the fuck?

I thought I knew it was.

I just

come out, arm off.

I'm a fucking idiot.

I didn't know anything.

I'm so glad you picked this.

This is one of the ones I was going to pick, but I.

Oh, that's right.

Can we?

I want to hear you talk about it, but first, before you do, I want to play a little bit of the Smash Melee remix.

Yeah, hell yeah.

Which is a little bit more orchestrated.

And I think this is probably how most people know this song.

Totally.

So, Zane, what are your thoughts on this from a music theory standpoint?

First thing is, I've asked people on my stream, I was playing this last night on stream and I was transcribing stuff, and I was like, what movie are you guys thinking of when you hear this?

And surprisingly, no one said it, but James Bond, these are the exact

chords to James Bond, that chromatic walk up from the five to the flat six to the natural six on a minor chord.

So, that first thing was like, ooh, this guy was probably came right out of GoldenEye to write this piece or whatever, right?

James Bond was out then.

But I love that fast arpeggio moment.

It's so awesome.

And it's this moment.

It's coming up in a little bit.

But when those arpeggios start where it goes like G minor, F minor, E minor, that's a specific device that film score people use, like Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, others.

It's coming up right here.

This.

Down.

Down a whole step.

Parallel.

Down a half step.

Parallel.

Ooh.

So that, that parallel minor triad movement, it's kind of coming back in popularity now with artists like Thundercat or even Kamasi, where you just take a triad and just move it, don't care about what key you're in.

To me, that creates a real journey moment, what we're hearing right now.

But yeah, on the original Zelda 2 Links Awakening,

I played a little bit of that as a kid.

I didn't beat it.

But when this palace theme, whatever it's called, dungeon theme came up, That hit me hard.

There's a lot of other stuff happening, but mostly this minor minor triad James Bondi movement and the arpeggios

being parallel in nature, which is unlikely.

It's unusual, I should say, in video game music.

I would

play just the NES version for just a moment, for a split second, so I can tell you what my dog is doing

when this is playing.

Dog has grabbed my sock.

I'm trying to get my sock back because I got to go to work.

And it's running through the house.

And I'm like, no, no, no, come back, come on, come on, come on.

And she thinks it's a game.

So she hides under the couch

and I can't get to her.

And then she hides the bed and I can't get to her.

And when the arpeggios start playing, that's when she's like clocked up speed.

And now she's like dashing in the house.

That's what's happening.

Fantastic.

Dude, I want to compose a film one day and have you.

Help me compose it by using these analogies.

Because that's it.

You're painting a picture.

Also, that arpeggio

is really hard to play on the guitar, which I learned last night.

It's really hard.

It's easier on.

Wow.

Holy Lord.

But one day I'll learn it.

I don't have my guitar within reach or I'd show you how easy it is.

Yeah, thanks.

Do you ever want a lesson or something?

No, but there's also one thing that's so fun as a guitarist loving these pieces.

I mean, when you guys asked me to do this episode, I freaked out.

Like I, you know, when you tell someone, when you get like a really cool job, you tell your friends and family, you're not going to believe it.

This person's hiring me or I'm writing for this thing.

I told my friends and family, I'm like, this is very, this is like top-tier excitement for me.

It's not going to be career or whatever.

You might not get as excited as I am, but I get to talk about the music of basically my favorite video game series of all time, whose, whose songs I know.

I could easily have sung 50 of these without having to research online.

So it's, it's really cool.

But one fun thing about being a guitar player listening to these pieces is clearly, I mean, I'm guessing actually, but it seems clear to me koji writes on the piano because a lot of these voicings are very easy to play on the piano and almost impossible on the guitar like that fairy theme that i was talking about is like this weird

that chord's possible but

that's not possible like you can't play these voicings on guitar so they're really exciting for someone like me because i'm like that's a new sound i i had never played that right

yeah uh well uh well hey you're excited to talk about Zelda music let's keep it going so what's another pick you got all right Link's Awakening baby, let's go.

Towel Tal Heights, come on!

I don't know why I announced it like a DJ.

So it's a modification of the main theme.

Ba but

That's the melody.

And then this is not.

This is an exposition on it.

Bam.

There's like this mombo-y salsa moment.

There are so many things I love about this.

I'm going to list them really quickly.

Slowly enough to make sense of them.

Here it changes keys, by the way.

And it's a different tonality, like a thicker tonality on the instrument.

So, this is sort of like the dark worlds from LinkedIn to the past, but sort of reimagined.

There's that.

Two, there are many advanced cadences in this song.

So like in college, you learn about the Neapolitan to a 5-7,

which is coming up right here.

It's coming up in a moment.

Here's the Neapolitan.

Those two chords back to back, not heard very often outside of classical music.

Also, there's like this half-diminished chord that walks down.

That's like a very Jeff Buckley thing.

There's just so much,

there's so many nutrients in this for me, so I get really excited listening to it

that top end pitch is kind of ear hurting, but it's fine.

Okay, so then

There's this Lydian thing going on.

I want to I want to touch on this so Lydian happens a lot that mode happens a lot in the Zelda music So the Lydian moment is coming up in like eight bars

this

That sound it's very ethereal very sort of mysterious that happens in almost like half of the Zelda songs.

So I love that that's in here

It feels almost like an overture for a musical.

It gives me like everything the game's going to show me eventually.

And then that's pretty much it.

I'm going to pause it now.

I forgot Matt's not playing it.

So yeah, I mean, also, one thing that came to mind is, have you ever heard the RoboCop theme for the Game Boy?

Okay, I should have pulled it up because I didn't, but it's incredible.

And part of the reason I think that's so incredible is because of the limitations of the hardware.

And so, you know, and the limitation on this is there wasn't much polyphony, like, you know, as much

like that.

They had to arpeggiate.

So, yeah, you can only, you can't play more than you can only play so many notes at the same time.

The sound chip is only capable of, you know, like two to four different simultaneous sounds.

So you can't really play chords.

You have to break them up.

Exactly.

So that arpeggiation, I think, makes this so exciting and there's so much momentum to it versus actually having triads playing with a melody.

So I love that.

But yeah, I just, I think this piece is amazing.

I think it happens closer to the end of the game.

Maybe it's even the title credits at the end.

But I don't know, this just gets me amped.

And I love hearing Game Boy music, so I wanted to share it.

I'm pretty sure that song plays when my dog sees a squirrel.

She's like, I got this.

I know that we're doing

Zelda, but I pulled up the RoboCop.

It's the title theme for the Game Boy.

Oh, it's the best song maybe ever on an Ape it.

Yeah, here we go.

Whatever it is.

The number one comment underneath this on YouTube is it was whatever the composer's name was.

They're like, hey man, you just broke up with your girlfriend.

Can you write us a song?

He's like, yeah, I got you.

Here's the melody.

It's great also because RoboCop the movie has such like a well-known main theme that they could have just

used as the title theme here, but they're like, nah, I'm going to go in a different direction.

Also, fun fact,

Eva, you know, Eva Anderson, her brother, Dash, who's one of my best friends, he showed me that.

He's like, you got to do music theory of this one day.

So I did because it's so good.

Yeah.

That rocks.

So

what you were saying earlier, Zane, about like you kind of like back-ending into the types of music that you like via hearing it in video games i i'm kind of realizing that that kind of happened to me too because a lot of the what you're saying like these these super fast runs these arpeggiated like uh you know uh um

uh like like impossibly fast like chiptune songs i i think is probably what what led me to like really like like speed metal and then like like bebop like you know charlie parker you know like

yeah i really oh yeah man oh awesome yeah the period was early into i mean i still listened to it but like, yeah, like, you know, that the Charlie Bebop, like you mentioned, or Charlie Bebop, Charlie, that was my name.

Charlie Parker.

Yeah, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, like you mentioned, you know, so later than that, like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins.

But like, yeah, that, that sort of like that core, uh, uh, that core bop era, I was like really into that stuff.

Oh, yeah.

I just, I just really love speed, you know, yeah, man.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I think you're right.

And I wonder if it was that listening to this music

influenced me and that I liked that later in life, or if it was was revealing what I would eventually discover.

Like, I'm just in.

Yeah.

It's yeah.

Um, which I gravitated towards.

Yeah, you're right.

A lot of NES games did have some crazy arpeggios, like Ninja Gaiden, we've talked about briefly, but that's insane.

That whole score.

I love that.

It's all, it just feels like every, like, so many of those songs are just in a rush.

They're just in a hurry.

Right.

Um, all right.

So, uh, I'm, I, I, I'm going to go a little out of order here just because you mentioned the dark world theme and how it's kind of, and that's one of my picks.

Uh, Uh, so uh, Matt, let's go ahead and play that.

That's from the uh, the Legend of Zelda Linked to the Past, uh, and I think this is one of the most well-known Zelda songs, and I feel like kind of has to be included here.

That's so good.

So good.

Fucking rips.

It's also one of those things where you're not hearing this until you're into a good chunk of the game.

Like you like, like

you've played a meaty chunk before you get into this theme.

And so when it hits, it fucking hits.

Yeah, it's like 75 or 80 in yeah yeah yeah yeah

yeah i love this piece there's one chord in this piece that for me this is getting very analytical and nerdy but there's an a flat major seven in this song and to me that is the piece for me so it's coming up right here

here is the chord right here

that chord i love that because it feels like uh Well,

you have the key that you're in.

You have the C minor triad, but over A flat.

And there's like a beautiful tension, that right there.

So, I love that.

When I heard that as a kid, I was like, This is so hip, man.

Um, I don't know, there's a lot of journeying going on here.

Here's the chord again, there's A major seven again.

Um, and I love that it was minor because it's major in the main theme.

So, I love that they did that, yeah, 100%, yeah,

and there's a bunch of diminished stuff, and

there's so much momentum to it.

I love that, yeah.

It's not, it's not a perfect um

comparison, but it's kind of like the, you know, Anakin's theme and Star Wars Episode 1, the Phantom Menace, is like an inversion of, you know, the Imperial March from the original trilogy.

And it's the same sort of thing where it's not like just like, here, we're just going to take the song and then replay it in a minor key.

We're going to kind of like just figure out how to invert it fully.

Yeah.

And that's the same sort of thing with the Dark World theme and the main theme of Zelda.

Totally.

Yeah, I love that chat.

I love that.

I can see that happening in a jazz solo, actually, because

space,

space,

and this being

it's like I could see if I was in a jazz setting, fourth or fifth chorus in, being like, how can I stretch this melody anymore?

And I might do exactly this.

Keep the rhythmic cadence, but completely change the melody notes.

So it's funny because people say the sound, it makes them feel like the main theme, theme, even though it doesn't share really any melody notes.

And I think it's because of that.

This was the UPS guy has shown up for a delivery, and my dog thinks she's got to protect the house.

So she's barking at the door, and then she looks really proud, and then she barks some more.

That's that sound.

That's what's going on with my dog during that song.

It's fantastic.

All right, Matt, let's get another one of your picks.

Okay.

So this part, I mean, this one, I'm going back to Breath of the Wild because that was probably the next Zelda that I played.

I didn't play a lot of Zelda.

And this is a song.

It's barely a song.

It's more of a sting, kind of.

But, you know, it's music.

And it's during a part

of Breath of the Wild that would scare me every time it happened.

Because it would be just long enough where I'd forget it was part of it.

And then it would happen.

So this is the omen of the bloody moon

and they're all coming back to life and stuff they're like oh you fucked us up earlier now i'm ugly and and and alive again fuck you

And I just think it's good contrast because obviously there's a lot of dark stuff in Zelda games, but I feel like for the most part, a lot of the music is pretty,

like, pretty happy and pretty, um, like, pretty upbeat.

So, I think

Blood Moon is fucking terrible.

Yeah, when that happens, it's so scary every time it happens.

It's scared, that's scary when it happens.

And when you're talking to what you think is a normal NPC and it turns out to be one of those, like, ninjas, fuck that.

Oh, yeah, I hated that.

That song's the vet for my dog.

Yeah, sushi just ate a nickel on an accident.

That, I don't remember at all the music from Metroid Dread, which I did 100% because I love that game.

But whenever those E something or others,

yeah, that freaked me out, man.

So I have to go back and listen to those, those, that piece and see what it was that scared me about that.

But this one is literally the devil's interval, they call it.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I hadn't heard this piece before, but Nick probably knows the tritone.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

It's like, remember that black Sava song?

Like, that interval is a tritone.

So it was going like this D thing down to A flat, then it went like B flat to E.

And so that tritone is very unsettling

for plethora of reasons.

Most times people, when they hear this, they want it to resolve,

you know?

Yeah.

But it doesn't in this one.

So it's like,

it's so unsettling and unresolved.

Classic vet situation.

Sorry.

You're so good, though.

You're so dead on, Heather, with these analogies.

Seriously.

Cool.

The music's communicating that.

It's because of my dog.

I'm not not doing that.

It's just because it's true.

It's because it's what happens when any of these things happen with my dog.

That's great.

The second song I have from the email I sent you, Matt, the second song I have is not actually from a Legend of Zelda game.

It is from my favorite

video game-inspired lo-fi musician, A.

L.

E.

X.

I've given this performer a shout-out before on the show with Sonic remixes.

And And

this is, I think, Fairy Lullaby from A L E X, which is just a lo-fi remix of a Zelda song.

I simply must

read the top comment on this YouTube.

Okay.

Man,

this got me thinking about childhood.

Man, sometimes I miss being a kid.

In a way, it kept me from seeing how unforgiving and how cold the world really was.

this is my dog looking out the window when it's raining.

Nice.

This, this is, this is the ocarine of time, like when you start the NCC4 game mix.

It's incredible.

Yeah, this

again has that open ethereal thing.

I don't know if it feels that way to you guys.

Like, anything's possible, and who knows what'll happen.

And that was something that I thought was really exciting when I put on this game when I was 11 or 12.

Oh, wait, my agent's listening.

I was eight.

I was not born yet in the womb.

I don't have an agent.

All right, well, I kind of do.

It's a long story.

So anyway,

the first game, you know, Zelda 1, is very strong.

It's a major melody and very sort of almost like regal.

And this is the opposite.

It felt like, oh, wow, what's happened to Link?

Like, before I had played the game, I'm like, oh, what's about to happen?

I don't know.

And that Lydian thing, which shows up in like Song of Healing, it shows up in Lost Woods.

It shows up in this.

It showed up in two or three of the songs we've already played.

That's really a theme in this game.

And I wonder if part of it's to make the player feel like, yeah, it's you're in charge.

You're Link.

Link doesn't even really have a voice.

Like, you're a link.

Anything's possible here.

Sure.

Because that mode, like, if you're, you know,

if you're in like F, which is this song's in C major, it's like

that feeling is kind of open.

That's the Lydian.

Versus, if I were to be like

That sounds minor and very different very deliberate whereas the Lydian's

a little less deliberate

You know, so anyway that Lydian thing being throughout the Zelda games for me It's always felt like so I think Minna's lament might be in Lydian So this is a common thing

But yeah, it's really uncertain.

I love that intro.

I sometimes would just like sit and let the intro play for two minutes three minutes when I was a kid That was my feeling of that game for the first time.

And I'm older than you are, but we would like just have that attract mode on, just have like that, that title screen and have that theme playing.

It was actually years later when I heard a Blood, Sweat, and Tears album that covers the variations on a theme by Eric Satier, which is a song that is very close to, like, clearly Koji Kondo had this in his head when he composed this,

but it evokes the same sort of mood.

What a great reference you just brought up.

I actually did not think about that when I was listening to this, but you're totally right.

Yeah, Sati, yeah, it has that to it.

There's also like a Debussy Revelle feeling to a lot of his pieces.

This whole

chord, he's really into straight-up extensions, and I love that.

I don't know.

I mean, I feel like as much as I love Mega Man or Shovel Knight or Ninja Gai Den or Sonic or so many great freaking video game songs out there, I do love extended harmony, I think, because of my jazz background.

And so when you have like 13ths and sevenths, which is basically just adding layers to a cake, like, oh,

strawberry, vanilla, love it.

I'm like, well, what if you had chocolate and banana on top?

I like that extra variety on top of my quote-unquote harmonic cake.

Right.

I don't know how I'm saying this with a straight face because that's hilarious sentence.

My harmonic cake.

But yeah, I do, I do love that.

And also, I love the chromaticism.

I love that.

So beautiful, man.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite ones.

You guys have picked a lot that I had to nix.

It's like, oh, I only get three.

So thank you for picking some of my favorites.

Well, let's make sure you get to at least get to the uh get to your third here because we're we're we're coming up against the time the clock.

What's what was your third one?

My third one I think is a bit unusual because there are so many great pieces from Ocarine of Time, and it was between this and the main theme, Heather, that you just chose.

I love Song of Storms.

I picked the same one, yeah, okay, yeah.

It's that change right there that does it for me.

Nice.

Yeah, okay, I get that.

That makes sense.

Yeah, going back to the actual minor key.

I just love this melody.

And so I was messing around on stream when I was analyzing this, and I was like, this could straight up be a jazz song.

This is all like.

Anyway, that movement that you like, the B flat major to the A dominant seven, that leads us back to to the D minor in a very...

It's like a...

Not classical.

I don't know.

It's a slightly uncommon cadence to get us back to one.

But you hear it a lot in like soulful rock music, like this.

You also hear it kind of in like French music.

But anyway, I love that progression.

But my main thing is the melody.

And I normally like majestic, lush songs like the Ocarnet Time opening or Fairy Fountain.

I love Song of Healing.

I love a lot of them.

But this one, the melody is just too good.

The whole like,

I mean, it gives me a little bit of like Willy Wonka in pure imagination.

It has that kind of vibe.

There's not much for me to say on this other than I love that melody so much.

There is one thing that I was going to do as a joke here, but I guess I'll do it, which is if you're like me and you play sax, you sing piano, whatever, I would recommend you use two scales if you you want to solo over this song.

Because I oftentimes do that.

I'll loop a jazz or a music piece from a video game and I'll just improvise over it.

And what you'd do is you'd start with Dorian in the beginning.

So

that's the Dorian mode.

And then when it comes to that favorite part of the Nick has,

you do

harmonic minor.

So you go between D, Dorian, D harmonic minor.

Go have fun.

Kids enjoy improvising over this.

Can we just step back for a second?

And I just want to,

you know,

in case anyone is a little unclear on some of the terms you're using, and maybe we could have done, maybe I should have done this earlier, but the, like, like when you're talking about different modes, you're basically talking about a sequence of notes, right?

And you can, you're, you're playing from within.

This is like kind of your pool of notes, and you can pick from that.

Correct.

And that's generally like an eight-note sequence out of the 12 possible notes.

Yeah, you'll do generally seven unique pitches, but the octave makes it eight, you know, the same note up an octave.

Exactly.

And the analogy I use sometimes for modes is this.

So literally, it's seven notes played in an order.

That would be the Dorian mode.

Whereas this,

that's the Lydian mode.

That's our major scale, our Ionian mode.

But the analogy I like to use is they're all coming from the same set of notes.

So like if I'm in C major, I have seven modes available to me because there are seven notes in C major.

So I can start on the first note and I'm in C major.

But if I start on the second note of C major,

now I'm in D Dorian.

Same notes, exact same notes, just with a different context.

And so anyway,

the point here is the analogy I use is it's like saying a line in a scene.

You're acting and your line might be, I'm so thirsty.

Well, if you say, I'm so thirsty and the green screen behind you turns into like dead, you know, like vultures like eating dead animals and your parts and your face is red.

Well, I'm so thirsty is a very scary thing, you know?

That's this scale played over this chord.

Sounds kind of like a different feeling.

Yeah, sure.

But what if the I'm so thirsty was like you have jugs of water around you, and you're not thirsty, and it's some weird joke.

That's not a good joke.

That's why you guys are funny and I'm not.

But, you know, you go

over this.

Same notes, they feel so different.

So a mode is just...

like a point of relativity.

So same seven notes, but with a different relative place.

That's what a mode is.

And what happens here is

they're jumping between different modes, and it just, yeah, it's a different.

It's, you know, one more way of putting it.

Sorry if I'm going too far on this, but no way.

You know, you can say I love you with words, or you can say it by giving someone roses.

These are different modes of communication, different love languages, if you will.

Sure.

Same sentiment.

So that's what a mode is.

You take those seven notes and you give it a different foundation, essentially.

One real quick thing on this piece, and part of the reason it was on my list is, in addition to it being like a great, like just melody, like you were saying, it's also a good piece of scoring and contextually in the game because you're encountering that

at the windmill.

And

it has like a very mechanical, repetitive, perpetual motion sort of feel to it.

Yeah, for sure.

And so

it's really evocative in that moment.

Heather, do you have

a dog take on this piece?

Can you play it again just a little bit?

Yep.

Yep.

This is: if you give my dog too many scratches, she'll be on her back and she just does this with her paws.

And then she doesn't, she'd make a face where her mouth is open.

Like, she'll just bat the air with her and she'll go.

So that's the

sound that's happening here.

That's fantastic.

Yep.

I love it.

She becomes scratch crazy.

Zane, did you have any, did you have maybe a near miss or a last-minute cut you wanted to play as well?

There was.

It's tricky, though, because it's kind of long, but I could...

I thought maybe it would be interesting to talk about the Tears of the Kingdom final trailer because a lot of us who watched that were like, oh, fucking, yeah, let's go.

I'm so excited about this game now.

And there are a couple elements in here.

So that's the Dorian mode, by the way, but that opening is just sort of open-ended.

But long story short, there are a lot of film score tricks in this.

Going to the four chord, not the one chord.

We're not resolved yet.

It's right away your middle story.

It's like starting a story halfway through.

And then now it changes keys right when it says Zelda.

So that's like an exciting way to burst that to make people excited about what they're looking at.

To do an immediate key change with no warning.

So that happens.

I'm going to fast forward a bit because this is a bit of a long piece, but

this minor thing, this huge oh, oh, and this melody, major seven, which happens in the orc things in uh in Lord of the Rings, really dark, tense, because you're playing notes that aren't in the chord you're playing.

Hmm, I love that.

A lot of chromaticism is leading up.

That is so freaking sick, dude.

That break, and there's no reverb and this.

Um,

so all this build is amazing, And then it doesn't resolve.

It goes.

And you think it's going to go there, but it doesn't.

It just stops.

So that's great.

And then the part that I think

this is great.

Building up, building up.

The part everyone talks about, though, is right here.

This.

And the melody's back.

That

happens in so many movies where you go to the secondary dominant, like five of five seven, whatever.

Yeah.

You're our final hope.

Ooh, and then fun Easter egg.

Someone in my Twitch chat told me this.

I wasn't listening.

I wasn't paying attention.

It ends with Zelda's lullaby.

Right here.

She talks.

Wow.

Right here.

This is Zelda's lullaby from Ocarina.

Wow.

So it ends with that.

But yeah, that dude, when the freaking bum,

that whole thing is like that is straight up what howard shore would have done or even hans zimmer um

and uh that's a common device i think when you're rearranging a song um

thinking of voicings like this

all these like inversions just a slight inversion will make it uh lift and open up so much so yeah this sounds like a feature film composition to me and there were so many easter eggs uh referencing the past game.

So,

part of the reason this trailer got me hyped up, it was amazing to see the gameplay, but it was just music for me.

For me, it was just like, and I think that's all, those are all great points and great analysis.

But I like, like, to me, the one thing was just like the wailing sacks, like, just like, just like busting out, like, fucking Clarence from the East Street band, just fucking wailing over this symphony orchestra.

To me, it was just like, let's go.

yeah I love that yeah yeah

so yeah that was my bonus one just because I'm so excited about the game coming out this Friday hell yeah it's coming out I cannot wait

I haven't watched any of the trailers oh isn't that a fucking like I can't that's a miracle I've pulled that off

did you do that that

must have been purposeful you're trying to stay in the dark I was busy and uh also

I didn't when whenever I would see one I'd be be like, oh, I got to watch this later.

And then I wouldn't watch it.

So I've managed to make it all the way to the release week without having seen a single fucking trailer for this game.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, we'll all find out what it's all about on this Friday.

And hey, maybe it sucks.

That would sure be a surprise.

If it was bad and we dedicated a whole month to it, I'd be so mad.

It'd be funny, though.

Fucking whiffed on this.

Yeah.

This is like a rise of skywalking.

Yeah, like

he talks now?

He talks now.

Hey, I'm Link.

It hurts.

My urine meter is full.

Find a bathroom.

It's like, what?

Why did I add that?

Hail to the king, baby.

Oh, no.

No, not Duke Nukem.

I got to take a piss.

Zane, I appreciate all this so much.

Is there any other closing thoughts on the music side of things before we move on to some questions?

You know, I think the only thing I could think of is Koji Kondo, it's like incredible to have a string of games that are this iconic musically.

Because, yeah, I mean, he did Zelda 1, Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, Ocarine of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess.

That's crazy.

I mean, there are like 10 to 15 incredible pieces on each game, in my opinion.

So I'm just really in awe of his skills.

That's a true composer right there, and it's just beautiful work.

Yeah, that's a great point.

And also, just like the progression of technology that he's worked, you know, as the medium has evolved.

Right.

By the way, not to take away the other two composers I was researching, Akito Nakatsuka and Hajimi Wakai.

I hope I'm pronouncing those right.

But Wakai did Breath of the Wild, which is incredible as well.

Kind of gave me like Peter McConnell vibes.

He did Psychonauts, Psychonauts 2.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then that piece you chose from Zelda 2 is a freaking incredible piece.

But yeah, it's really wild that Nintendo's able to do this.

I mean, between Mario and Zelda, for every game to be this amazing, and then the music is also as amazing.

Yeah, props to the composers.

Since you mentioned

Peter McConnell, did you play any of Return to Monkey Island?

Not yet.

I played Day the Tentacle, where you can go between in the remaster, between the new visuals and old, but I got to get into Monkey Island.

The Return to Monkey Island, it's a new game.

It's kind of wrapping up the series, but it's

Peter McConnell came back to do the score along with Michael Land and Clint Bajakian.

So they've all worked on the franchise, and it's some pretty great music.

I'm going to be getting that.

All right, let's,

Matt, it's time for the question block.

All right, this first one is from Sean Taylor from our

discord.

Hi, Sean.

What's your favorite gibberish based language in video games?

I really like Banjo-Kazooie.

I feel like they did it really well.

I feel like the just, you know, and then there's also, there's one character in Banjo-Kazooie who it's fucking gross, but it kind of works, who talks through gibberish burps.

It's just fucking nasty, but

I don't know.

I think that that particular gibberish kind of really appeals to me.

You know what?

Also, one more, I'll shout out another Nintendo franchise.

I think

punch-out character boxes between rounds, that's some pretty good gibberish.

I was thinking about this, and

obviously, I love the speech in Animal Crossing.

Yeah, that's really good.

But I recently saw a video of

it came across my TikTok.

It was of Katy Perry recording one of her songs in Simlish Simlish for

a Sims

for a Sims game.

I'm not sure which one,

but I have it here.

And let me play it for you guys because

it's crazy.

It's like Vin Diesel doing I'm Groot.

Like, he shouldn't have to do it.

Like,

it's dumb that it's like a famous person, but like, she came in and did it.

But it's a phroobian nope.

But it's a phroobian nope.

Last Friday night by KPX, Wara, Ufa, Moonorex, Rimpy Ferber, Purbidex, Wara, Ufa, Mooner X, Rimpy Ferber, Purbidex, Wara, Ufa, Mooner X,

Yarmy Denzel, Table Doop, Keep it, and the camera.

This is letting her

pay her mortgage on the convent sheets.

Yeah, that she kicked the nuns out of,

yeah.

And allowing her to support Rick Caruso.

Look, just because I think it's cool, she did this doesn't mean she's stuck.

No, it's it's I think that's cool.

I think it's cool as hell.

It's just like that's that's fucking busy.

It's very strange, and my new prank that I want to do is replace

someone's real version with it, with that, and make them think they're going insane.

Heather favorite gibberish in games?

I mean, Animal Crossing.

I don't, like, I can't even think of one that isn't Animal Crossing.

Anytime I'm like,

maybe, I'm just thinking of Animal Crossing.

It's got a great, a great sound for a gibberish.

When Blathers gets going.

Oh, don't get me stuck.

I'm not good enough.

It's great work.

Zane, any favorite gibberish from a video game character?

The only one I could have thought of was the Simlish, even though I don't like it.

I was just like, oh, yeah, I've heard of that one.

But when you said Banjo Kazooie, I thought, oh, man, that would have been my choice.

Yeah, because Grendel.

Yeah.

Good lord.

I guess there's also the original Star Fox guys.

Oh, my God.

Good luck.

Message a good one, y'all.

It's a great choice.

Yeah.

Let's go on to the next question.

This one's from Comrade Lou.

Hey, y'all.

Hi, Lou.

Every time a game has a character creator, I always spend a ludicrous amount of time tweaking and adjusting my character until I'm happy, but always blank on what name to give them.

What are your go-to naming conventions?

Your own name, something funny, or does it depend on the game?

Hmm.

Good question.

If it's not important to the story,

I'll do my own name, right?

Like if it's like, if I'm playing Pokemon or something, that's that's me all the time right that's i'm in it i'm doing that but if it's something like

you know

zelda or something it's going to be link like i have to make my save i'm always linked i have to put my save file as link i'm not having interesting i can't do it um or like even in um

i think in dragon quest 11 i did put matt because they don't vocalize the name but then he doesn't have a canonical name anyway i think i think it's just hero um

but i wish i would have just kept that because that matt doesn't feel right my name

matt is too um

modern of a name for that vibe you know what i mean maybe that's why i always do zane because i mean link's always been zane i'm like that kind of sounds like some weird elvish eared person it's not entirely out of place sure right

do you do you go with zane if you're naming a character in a game i do but it's changed as i've gotten older because as a kid it was like really fun to put Zane instead of Ness.

Like, I'm Zane, I'm in the game.

Yeah.

Right.

But as I get older, I do like transporting to a different place.

And so it is fun to see some weird name.

But yeah, my most recent,

well, I guess those were old Saints because I'm going through my old games.

Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past, and Links Awakening DX, Rawl Zane.

Yeah, I think I mostly put my name in.

I know, I mostly do,

I mostly do, like, like try to stick to whatever if there's a default name I don't change it yes um I think I may have talked before on the podcast like you know because you can you can rename characters in uh some of the Final Fantasies some of the Super Nintendo Final Fantasies and I had a friend at school who like renamed all of his Final Fantasy 2 slash four uh party members and so he was just always like uh you know like I'd I'd be asked I'd be talking about Cecil and he'd be like oh you mean Gary

but but I like, like, I will go, if I'm going to use my own name, I'll do like Nick or more commonly, Wigs, because I kind of feel like that's kind of my nickname.

And I feel like that just usually feels a little bit more video gamey.

In Persona 5 Royal, like, you have to have a first and a last name.

And I was like, I'm not going to put Nick Weiger in here.

That feels weird.

So I was, I was Nicola Weigs.

I modified my first name after Nicola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets.

But the

but yeah, typically I think Wigs is my go-to.

Although I'll say, if I'm playing a game like a, you know, like a like a Diablo game, I'll just fucking use that name randomizer and commit to something.

I do that too.

I'll roll that a few times and just have that be my character that I'm going to play for 40 hours.

Yeah, roll it until you get one that you're like, I like that.

That sounds good.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

I'll do the same.

What about you, Heather?

I like both

doing the

game dependent.

you know, always name link link.

Can't name link anything else.

But recently I've gotten in the habit of sort of one of my favorite things about gundam is that the names are not quite names that you recognize but sound vaguely english so i like naming like a couple letters off of a name that could be a name

so like

you know you would name your persona character

grants prebs

and it's like that almost sounds like a, almost sounds like a name, you know?

Is that the RNC chair?

You'd name, like, you'd name, I don't know, it's hard to improvise these, but like, uh,

shut

shuz.

I'm sorry.

Huh?

What?

Well, I was wondering if we have anyone that names their Pokemon something different.

Matt, you don't do that, do you?

I'm not a Pokemon renamer.

No, I don't.

It's always Pokemon Matt.

Every Pokemon.

Every Pokemon.

Every single one.

Yeah.

No, every single name in the game is Matt, and it becomes very confusing at a certain point.

I just wonder who does that because the fans of the game want to know that they have a Flareon or a Sylveon.

So if you just call it Gary, like you said, funny.

Yeah, I don't know.

Some people do do it.

I'd like to meet them.

I mean, the option is there.

They definitely don't.

I want to debate with you.

No, I'm kidding.

No, it's great.

I like that.

Yeah, why did you call your Jigglypuff fluffy?

What's the matter with you?

Chico

Streggs.

This next one's from Quinn Quatro.

Hi, Quinn.

What's up, Quinn?

What have y'all been interested in food-wise lately?

We hear so much about the games, TV shows, and other content y'all consume, but never anything about what you eat.

I'm so glad to have a place to talk about food on a podcast.

you know, I've gotten really into just like a full breakfast.

I found that just like I make myself, I just, I'll, I'll, I'll get up usually first thing, I will go for a, just a, just a 20-minute walk in the neighborhood with a cup of coffee and, um, you know, just kind of like get some sunlight first thing.

I've read a lot about like the benefits of like early exposure to sunlight, just in terms of maintaining your, uh, you know, your, your sleep cycle.

And then after that, I'll like, I'll, I'll, you know, like three scrambled eggs, um, some salad greens.

Maybe if I've got like, you know, some nice bread, I'll have a piece of toast.

Maybe I'll have a scoop of cottage cheese.

Or maybe, you know, if I've got some berries, berries are in season, maybe instead of the salad greens, I'll have some strawberries.

But yeah, just like a big full plate of breakfast.

Just like, like

feed myself like I'm going to go, you know.

like like work a blue collar job for a little bit or something.

It's, it's just, I find that so satisfying.

And it's so like making breakfast a treat and having just like a modicum of effort involved in order to fuel myself for my day, like just starts me off on such a great note, as opposed to having like, you know, I'm just going to have like a sad bowl of oatmeal or like some yogurt in a cup.

Like, I just say, I'll put a little bit of work into this and I'll start my day off with something tasty.

I'm in a,

I'm in a, um, I had birria for the first time a couple months ago.

I never had it.

I didn't grow up eating it.

Um,

and

was this a was this goat or a beer?

It was goat.

And hell yeah.

I think I texted you this.

I never had goat before.

And everywhere else in the world, it's like the number one meat, right?

It's so good.

Very good.

It's great meat.

I think it should be number one here, too.

I think, you know, we'd ruin it and then there'd be no more

based on how we do things here.

But it's trying to think of what Jack in the Box would do with a goat as a protein.

Oh my god, yeah.

A goat Euro or something.

Like,

honestly, you know what?

Time me up.

But the thing about it is it is never not far from my mind now.

I had never had it before.

Now it's like, I think that's one of my favorite foods.

It's so good.

And now any chance I can get to have it, if like a place has it and I don't order it,

I fucked up because it's like, okay, well, like, they have it.

It's my number one.

I got to get it.

There's a birria truck that parks at the end of my block where my apartment is like, you know, four days a week.

And I just like, I like, I cannot go here.

I just have to stay away from this part of town.

Yeah.

If you know it's there, but I've like this.

Yeah, but

it's so, so good if you get a good execution on it.

Non-stop Japanese food for the last two weeks.

And then I came here and I have not stopped having Japanese food.

We've been cooking uran at the house.

We've been making ramen from scratch.

we've been eating onigiri non-stop japanese food it's been great wow uh can i can i just say follow up on that real quick which is that and this is uh this matt you're involved in this when we're recording in studio which matt have i have been and i have been doing for the most part we were not doing that today uh but we usually have a pre-show meal where we go to sprouts the the nearby grocery store and usually get their pre-packaged sushi and you know what for grocery store sushi could do a lot worse the best of the best i think in that yeah in that field yeah on unimpeachable it's always great

do they have heather do they have in in in like a conbini in a in in japan do they have like just pre-packaged sushi that you can get yeah they have pre-packaged bento boxes uh and the shit is all like fucking high grade the best wow like Mary and I were lamenting how we can't just go to a 7-Eleven or a Family Mart,

Family Mart gang, rise up,

and get delicious,

instant, delicious food, which I know is like a trope of TikTok.

It's like, oh, here's what I ate at 7-Eleven today.

But the reason it's a trope is that you can fucking go to a Family Mart or a 7-Eleven and get one of the best sandwiches of your life

right away.

You can get a bento box with like a fucking eel and rice and soup.

like

incredible

yeah and those sushi places to the on the conveyor belt or whatever that's called

that's some of the best sushi i've ever had in my life that's yeah that's yeah it's incredible

wow

uh zane any any food you've been having lately yes i was hoping i could avoid it because it's so boring for me right now i'm doing this dumb vain eating healthy crap I don't know why I'm doing it.

I'm trying to be healthy or something.

Maybe because you look like a million dollars.

No, I'm trying to.

No, I'm trying.

I'm like, man, I had a moment a year ago where I was like, I'm going to get into shape because my whole life I've been on tour and you just sleep in a tour bus for 17 hours or whatever a day.

And so I would, you know, wear clothing that looked form fitting, but I wasn't in shape.

My heart was not healthy and I was not lifting weights or any of that stuff.

And my doctor, I like, it hurt my back.

He's like, you really got to move.

You got to.

So I started really slowly.

And then maybe like eight months ago, I was like, oh, I'm going to start lifting heavy weights.

Oh, I'm doing it four to six days a week.

Oh, God, I'm really tired.

I need to eat more protein.

So suddenly I'm doing this whole like egg whites in the morning with salmon and avocado and, you know, putting some chalula on it.

So it tastes good, but I'm not adding this sort of sodium.

Yeah, I'm really into the boring health stuff right now.

I got to come back to center.

Although.

For my birthday, my mom did something really cute because it was the arcade and the Halo 2 land party and all that stuff.

And she bought me like, or the whole party, like sour patch straws and crybaby cum and air ped, like sour ropes.

And so I went in the ham on that night.

But you got it.

Yeah.

I'm learning a lot about eating healthier because I, in my life, like when I was on tour, I thought, oh, yeah, sandwiches are healthy, but it turns out they're sometimes not.

Like, I didn't know about vegetables and all that.

So trying to learn how to make that delicious.

Here's the thing about vegetables.

I think the reason so many people dislike them is because I feel like in a lot of, at least in a lot of American households, a lot of white American households, they were prepared with like no seasoning and like just like steamed or boiled.

And it's just like, look, you take some Brussels sprouts, you toss them in some olive oil, you put some salt and garlic and pepper on it, and you fucking roast it.

Then that'll have some real flavor and some real texture to it.

My mom, even in New York, because she's been so supportive.

She's so sweet.

I was like, yeah, I'm exercising.

And she'll say to my friends, like, or her friends, like, Look, Zane has muscles.

It's crazy.

I'm like, All right, what the heck before?

All right, huh.

She's like, It's weird, it's crazy.

I've never seen him like this.

But in New York, she's like, Let's throw some asparagus in there.

And she did what you said: olive oil, a little bit of spices.

It's like, I can just do this in eight minutes, add to my egg whites, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna start doing that.

Yeah, get some baking chicken.

Although, I still like watching a Lakers game and playing octopath travel and having a beer.

I mean, that's a nice

video games and beer, I do like, or video games and like something unhealthy, pizza or soda.

I still like that.

Hell yeah.

That's what that's what life is all about.

And hey, that's this week's Get Played.

Links to our social media are in the episode description.

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

Also, we got our paywalled show, Get Anime, where we are wrapping up Blue Lock.

Yeah, it's the final two episodes of Blue Lock,

an anime that we have loved heart and soul all the way through.

It's a soccer anime that is also a sports anime that's also a fighting anime.

Good times

for the great taste of McDonald's.

That's on Stitcher Premium, or you can get it day and date on release at patreon.com slash get played.

Zane Carney, what a delight to have you here.

Thank you for giving us so much of your time and lending us your brain and your talents.

Anything you would like to plug at this time?

I think this week that the podcast comes out, I think on Wednesday and Thursday at 4 p.m.

PST, I'll be doing a music theory of songs we didn't get to.

So I thought that would be cool.

I had like 10 other songs that I'm nerding out on.

So maybe I'll see you guys on twitch.tv/slash Zane Carney.

And I'm sure the VOD will stay up.

So maybe you'll see it later.

But thank you so much for having me.

I love doing this.

Really appreciate it.

We love having you.

That was an absolute delight,

which makes it so painful to tell you that you got clicked.

Oh, no, Nick.

Wow.

Gotta, you can't do that.

Wow.

I'm Tig Notaro.

I'm Mae Martin.

And I'm Fortune Themester.

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So if you're looking for a positive, joyful show guaranteed to make you giggle, check out Handsome.

Jump right in with whatever episode tiggles your fancy or start from the very first episode.

Listen to Handsome on your favorite podcast app or watch full video episodes on YouTube.

New episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

And don't forget, keep it.

Keep it handsome.

Hi, I'm Alana Hope Levinson.

And I'm Dan O'Sullivan.

And this is The Outfit, the new podcast from Higher Ground and Head Gum.

You know, we're two journalists who are slightly obsessed with the mob and organized crime and other nefarious stuff like that.

Every week, we're going to bring you a story about a mobster.

Some you've heard of, some you definitely haven't.

But all of them are going to help explain why America is like this.

See, the mob explains all sorts of things: from milk expiration dates to why we got into Cuba to Las Vegas, gay bars, who knew?

Who knew?

The mob's involved.

All that and more.

Subscribe to the outfit wherever you get your podcasts and watch video episodes on YouTube.

New episodes every Thursday.