Another Zelda Podcast

Kevin Goodwin joins David to discuss and reminisce about playing Zelda games throughout their lives.

HOST: David Geisler GUEST: Kevin Goodwin

Check out our website: anotherzeldapodcast.com

Find a bunch of great extras on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/anotherzeldapodcast

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WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY DAVID GEISLER | PRODUCED BY DAVID GEISLER AND CELESTE ROBERTS | EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: DAVID GEISLER | EDITOR: DAVID GEISLER | SOUND DESIGNER: DAVID GEISLER

This has been a production of Sixfive Media.

COPYRIGHT 2023 SIXFIVE MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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This has been a production of Sixfive Media.
COPYRIGHT 2025 SIXFIVE MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Creators and Guests

Host
David Geisler

What is Another Zelda Podcast?

It’s a secret to everybody. | Another Zelda Podcast is a show wherein we talk about all things regarding The Legend of Zelda series!

David Geisler:

Hello, and welcome to another Zelda podcast. I'm David, your host, and today, I am joined by one of our blog writers, Kevin. Kevin, how are you?

Kevin Goodwin:

Hi. I'm I'm good.

David Geisler:

I just jumped right into it there. Yeah. I like I went right into the intro.

Kevin Goodwin:

I'm good.

David Geisler:

I'm I'm very excited. We had an opportunity here where you were in the city for reasons. I think were you meeting up with some friends or something?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. It was kinda like a like a bachelor party type get together thing. Bunch of, like, high school and college friends. Well there are people who live here as well who I've never met. See.

Kevin Goodwin:

They all seem very nice, though.

David Geisler:

In one of our production meetings a couple months ago, you mentioned that you'd be in the city. And of course, I was like, well, then we got to get together and we got to do an episode because I really love all the things that you're doing over on our blog. I think you have some really wonderful articles. And we came up with a well, frankly, really I asked you and you pitched this idea and I think it's a wonderful topic today. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what we are talking about today?

David Geisler:

It's a little bit of a deep dive, I think.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah, it's like a deep dive into, are we calling it like Zelda through- Through

David Geisler:

the years.

Kevin Goodwin:

Through the years. Thinking back generationally of what it's like to play a game for, what, thirty years almost, twenty Yes. And just how you change and how the games change, I think, as you grow up with them. And then I also have a son who's now experiencing that as well. He's also starting to play video games.

Kevin Goodwin:

He's about six years old, so. Oh, that's I'm noticing, the like, connections between, like, what was it like when I started playing these things as opposed to now?

David Geisler:

And because another thing is was when we were playing them, maybe this I can save this for after listening to feedback, but I just realized as you were chatting or talking about that is that we when we played games as six year olds, we didn't have parents that had been playing for thirty years.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I have like a lot of thoughts on that.

David Geisler:

You know? Oh, well, hope we can dig into it and explore all

Kevin Goodwin:

that.

David Geisler:

That's great.

Kevin Goodwin:

With that idea of we're the first, I think, people in the realm of video to be experiencing that. People were like, we lived it, and now we have people who are, like, taking on stuff from us. Yeah. Of course, when we were growing up, was like, my parents were like, I don't know what this is.

David Geisler:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we'll we'll we'll save that for after the break when we talk about the well, because I have nieces and nephews that are playing Zelda now and stuff like that, and they've been on the show here and there.

David Geisler:

I think that's a wonderful point. I can't wait to explore that even more. I think and I also noticed, I was looking at our notes and we'll kind of go through a slightly chronologically through all of the different games here and kind of speak to our experiences with them. There's also one other thing I want to point out before I jump into listener feedback. One of my favorite, one of the things I'm so grateful for with making this show and now having this kind of team of people, you know, 10 or 12 of us or whatever, is that my conversations and relationships with each person that's involved in this EP is very different in that, for example, you know, we just had our we have a new cast member Katie Roberts who's joined the show and she was introduced to Zelda with Breath of the Wild, you know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. You know, five, six,

David Geisler:

seven years ago. And that's, you know, there's a whole group of people that are that only know Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, she's excited to play older games. There's some people that started with Wind Waker. You know what I mean? Mhmm.

David Geisler:

Anyways, you and I are very close to the same age and I think we experienced Zelda in very similar ways in that we kind of played them as we grew up.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yes. Yeah.

David Geisler:

So so I I I can't wait because I haven't been able to have this conversation with anybody yet, and I think we've had some similar experiences.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I think for me, it's just like the handheld ones are now kinda new to me because I didn't have those systems.

David Geisler:

Oh, that's a circle back.

Kevin Goodwin:

On the Switch, I can play like those. Yeah. So they'll pop in, like, different spots of time based on when they came out.

David Geisler:

I I have a few that I skipped and then ended up circling back to.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or or, like, Link's Awakening. Like, I knew of it, but I didn't really play it until it came out.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Really fascinating because Link's Awakening was my first one.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's your first one.

David Geisler:

As I've said. Yeah. Alright. Let's jump into some listener feedback, then we'll get into this. Alright.

David Geisler:

So here's the first one. We got five of them today. Some of them are a little bit shorter, so that's why we're doing a few more than normal. Over on Instagram, Cali j eighty eight, c a l l y j eighty eight, said to us back in May, really enjoying the podcast. It's getting me through my twelve hour weekend shifts at work.

David Geisler:

Really like the balance of more well known facts slash opinions against more obscure stuff. Just when I think I know everything Zelda related, I always learn something new listening to you guys, or you remind me of stuff that I had completely forgotten about. Keep up the great work and looking forward to more episodes. Cheers. Yeah.

David Geisler:

I love that. That's that is kind of one of the things that our whole goal with Another Zelda Podcast is that it's it's the it's you know, we're just trying to emulate or or just quite frankly duplicate or replicate the experience of friends just talking about a game series they like. And sometimes you get things right, wrong and all the rest, but it's really just about sharing ideas and sharing information about the games and I feel like that's what KellyJ88 here is speaking to. So thank you very much, Kelly Jay. Moving along.

David Geisler:

This is a oh, this is a review over on Apple Podcasts. I haven't said it in a while, I'll say it again. One of the greatest ways to help the show is by giving us a review on Apple Podcasts. It very much feeds the algorithm to have us be shared with more people. And over there, read readsicle?

David Geisler:

Reads Shell. I think it's Read Shell, r e e d c s c h e l l e, says the title of the review is great. And here we go. Oh, this is cute. I love this.

David Geisler:

Alright. I'm 13, and in 2020, I got COVID, and my uncle loaned my family his Wii U. And it came with Breath of the Wild, my siblings and I would fight over who got to play. And then in February 2021, I got long COVID, which basically means COVID never left me and my immune system's still fighting it, so my parents got me a Nintendo Switch. And once again, only played Zelda.

David Geisler:

And then when I tried to return to school, I had a lot of free time because I couldn't do my work, so I found this podcast, the LOZ Lorecast and Hello Hyrule, and it has helped my journey with health problems be a lot more tolerable. Well, reads Shell. I am so happy that we're able to be there Boy, for that's really sweet. The the Wii U COVID, long COVID, heard that that can get really, really tough.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. That's, like, no fun, but at least he's got

David Geisler:

Yeah. And then Hello, Hyrule, that's a wonderful show as well. And then the Lorecast, I know a little bit less about the Lorecast. Have you

Kevin Goodwin:

I think I've listened to them on a couple things.

David Geisler:

Couple things?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. They they, like, deep dive into just a series.

David Geisler:

Nice. Awesome. Fantastic. We're we're becoming pretty friendly with Hello Hyrule. Have a lot of behind the scenes interactions with them

Kevin Goodwin:

their stuff. Maybe maybe I have.

David Geisler:

Oh, yeah? It's a it's a it's a cool little concept. They're they're it's not so much about the story. They treat it like it's a travel log, and they really more explore

Kevin Goodwin:

I think I have heard.

David Geisler:

Each location as they move through the game. Interesting. As of this recording, most recently, actually, our AZP coproducer, Celeste Roberts, was a guest on their show, and they were doing Lawn Lawn Ranch from Ocarina of Time.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, fun.

David Geisler:

Yeah. It was a cool episode.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's an interesting idea.

David Geisler:

It's it's a cool little show. I think I think I think they're doing some great stuff over

Kevin Goodwin:

there. That.

David Geisler:

Alright. Reach out. Well, thank you so much for the review. It's so helpful. So happy that we're able

Kevin Goodwin:

to be there for you. Mhmm. I hope I hope I

David Geisler:

hope this was was also many months ago, I hope things are looking up for you from a health point of view and hopefully we can continue to keep you company. All right, let's see here. This one is, I think this review, it's a little hard to tell.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, oh, this is a so a lot of

David Geisler:

people don't know this but our listeners can actually go to our website anotherzealapodcast.com and essentially create an account Mhmm. Which allows them to leave comments and stuff on our blog episode posts and stuff like that. And every once in a while, we will get a comment. And this is one from the favorite vendors in Breath of the Wild episode. So this is a comment left by p b h seven four nine.

David Geisler:

I'm just gonna say it that way. Thank you, p b h seven four nine. They hearsay, so glad Kilton made the mentions. He just he just loves monsters. If you notice, his fangs are actually makeup or lipstick on his face and not actually fangs at all.

David Geisler:

What a great character. I wanna know more about him in Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah. What are your thoughts on Kilton?

Kevin Goodwin:

I thought it was it was fun, like, discovering it. Like, it's, like, kinda kinda comes out of nowhere. It's like, what is that over there? It's like a weird kind of balloon thing, and then there's this weird guy. And then it, like, introduces, like, a use for some of the things you're finding, I think, in the game.

Kevin Goodwin:

Because, right, you're trading him, like, is it, like, the parts

David Geisler:

Monster parts. Parts and stuff. That's what he wants. I think he can get elixirs and whatnot.

Kevin Goodwin:

And then he'll get give you those weird masks that you can wear around the enemies, which is fun.

David Geisler:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

David Geisler:

The enemy specific masks, which is also cool because when you wear those masks, my arm here my arm on my chair keeps coming up. Alright. There we are. Also, what's cool about those masks, I'm sure you've noticed this, but when when Link wears them, he adopts the animation of the anime

Kevin Goodwin:

style. Understands. Yes.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool.

Kevin Goodwin:

They're, like, funny looking. They're they're, like, patched together. They're, like, not it's not, like, just a face. It's, like, pieces of, like, cloth and, like

David Geisler:

Yeah. For me, my headcanon is that Kilton himself has made

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. He's, like, making those masks. Like, loves those, like, creatures so much.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. And, actually, I just realized that the the Patrick style of the mask is similar to the Patrick style of his entire booth and

Kevin Goodwin:

his balloon is, like, sewn together. Yeah. It's it's an interesting, concept. Then you don't know where he's going be either, which is Once kind

David Geisler:

you find him and trigger the first find a little bit like Hetsu, then he starts bouncing

Kevin Goodwin:

all I over the think there's locations where you could be like, He might be here, but it's not always. Yeah. It's not just because you went there, he's gonna come.

David Geisler:

Are you comfortable talking a little bit about Kilton in tears of the kingdom?

Kevin Goodwin:

I've only just met him and, like, his

David Geisler:

brother. Brother? Nice. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. And then similarly, you you you meet them, you talk to them, and then they just go away. Mhmm. I have not I have not refound them. What's the name what's the what's the name of his brother?

Kevin Goodwin:

I can't recall. I don't remember.

David Geisler:

The one that's obsessed with him and the Satori thing.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. He collects those little

David Geisler:

Meeples or Weebles or Meeples?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. They come out of the, like, glowing frog

David Geisler:

The glowing frogs. Creatures. Yes. That's a whole thing. That's a whole thing.

David Geisler:

At first, was a little bit weirded out by it. Was like, am I killing this thing? Am I destroying

Kevin Goodwin:

turns it back into one of like, bunny things

David Geisler:

Yep.

Kevin Goodwin:

And it, runs away. Because my son's the same way. He's like, don't he has, like, rules against some of the things in the game. Yes. Don't shoot that.

Kevin Goodwin:

But I'm like, no. Let's see. It's still alive. It's, like, leaving us a thing, and it's transformed as a little bunny, and it runs into the wall or whatever.

David Geisler:

Yep. I agree completely, and I think that is a sensitive subject when it comes to kids playing video games. In fact, I kind of slipped just a second ago and I actually said, you killed the thing. Even when I speak to my nieces and nephews, I try to use the words like

Kevin Goodwin:

defeat Yeah. Defeated.

David Geisler:

Stuff like that, you know.

Kevin Goodwin:

My wife has adopted that as like a thing when some like even in the real world. She's like, that person got defeated.

David Geisler:

I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, she's, like, adopted. She's like, oh, that's a great way to say that without being too harsh.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Because, you know, it's it's interesting with video games, the context is that you they're you're you're going oftentimes, you're going up against some kind of baddie and that's a challenge in the game that you're trying to overcome. Mhmm. I would like to think and I hope that most people aren't doing it for the pleasure of ceasing that individual's existence. You know what I And so I think that is why it can get a little tricky using the using the the kill word sometimes.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I'm I'm we're not allowed to hunt the foxes in the game. Mhmm. That's a rule from him. And I also have a friend who's playing it, and he's a vegan, so he's playing the game vegan.

Kevin Goodwin:

Love it. Love it. So

David Geisler:

That's awesome. With cooking and everything.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Anything. I mean, he was fighting the monsters and stuff, but he won't use any meat Yeah. Or or the milk or the eggs. So it's all

David Geisler:

actually really pretty wonderful.

Kevin Goodwin:

Plant plant based Zelda.

David Geisler:

Yeah. There was there was a I've said this story before on the show, but I think it was a couple years ago. One of my favorite experiences about Breath of the Wild was when my niece was playing it and she's about 12 now but back then she was you know eight or something like that. Old enough to be able to play it reasonably well and understand the context of a lot of things but she was watching me play one day and I was climbing a tree and there just happened to be a bird's nest with some eggs. And without thinking about it, was just like, okay, a a a bloop bloop bloop, Grabbed just three eggs and she looked at me shocked and appalled and she said, quote, you just took that mama's eggs And there's no mama in the game.

David Geisler:

Know, just she, like, built the context of, like, that's a that's a mother bird with a nest. She's obviously flown away right now, and I just stole eggs from her. And I realized, like, that's really special that this game can have that much subtext. You know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I think kids take that out because I think also my son, if I'm making stuff and it's like because, like, the meat looks like meat, but, like, the frog looks like a frog. Yeah. You know, literally, he's, like, throwing a frog into a pot. He's like, I don't know.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I know what you mean. She's like, I don't think I like that. I'm like, I kinda don't either.

David Geisler:

I'm I'm excited to to circle back to this when we get into our main topic. Okay. Well, thank you so much p b p b h seven four nine. I took a little bit of a of a roundabout there. I kinda went off on a tangent.

David Geisler:

But anyway, Over here on Twitter, we have oh, a while back, Celeste tweeted out on our another Zelda pod Twitter account. She said, what do you think Link's uncle was going to say in the in A Link to the Past when he says Link, you can do it. Save the princess. Zelda is your dot dot dot. So we Chrystalline Haim over over on Twitter said, in my head, I've always figured that Link's uncle was going to say Zelda is your destiny.

David Geisler:

Can't seem to shake that one. And that's the tweet. Simple tweet. Thank you so much. But that really took me by surprise because I never thought that word destiny, but it kinda lines up.

Kevin Goodwin:

I don't know. I wonder if I wonder if the developers even had an idea. Yeah. Not sure. Or, like, this is just dramatic.

David Geisler:

I mean, the star the Star Wars nerd in me is like, Zelda is your sister. Yeah. It's like what I always, like, figured he would say. Of course,

Kevin Goodwin:

I never thought that, but No. Destiny is interesting. I don't know.

David Geisler:

Zelda is

Kevin Goodwin:

What I think he would

David Geisler:

your destiny. Yeah. Not bad.

Kevin Goodwin:

I don't know what else really fits there because it's almost to me, it seems like it's just drama. Yeah. Yeah. Could be.

David Geisler:

And actually, that was an early part of the game, so they're coding the game up and like, won't this be great? Yeah. I'm sure we'll circle back and and figure out this out and maybe not so much.

Kevin Goodwin:

None of mine.

David Geisler:

Alright. Last but not least, over here on on it looks like this was a comment. This was a direct message to us, think, in Instagram, but I've I've picked it up through Facebook here.

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

And it has so the the framing is a little weird, I might have a hard time reading this, but here we go. This is from d underscore worst thirty eight, sent us a message that said, hey, Kate and David. I found AZP a couple months ago, and since then, I've started watching all the episodes from the beginning. Watching, so they must be watching it on YouTube. I just finished season two, and hearing your guys' love for Twilight Princess made me go out and play it for the first time myself.

David Geisler:

It really is a great game. You've also motivated me to play Link's Awakening, so I think that one is next. Thank you guys for such an awesome show and keep up the amazing work. Now here's where it gets interesting. That was back in June 2022.

David Geisler:

Oh, okay. No. No. June 22. Pardon me.

David Geisler:

June 22. It's been waiting a while. Basically a year ago. And then later, months later, in February, we got another DM from d underscore worst 38, and there's a follow-up. It says, hey, AZP team.

David Geisler:

I just recently beat Skyward Sword for the first time, and it made me want to make a rank list of all my favorite Zelda games. So far, my list is, in in descending order here, it would appear. Number one, Breath of the Wild, then Wind Waker, three, Link Between Worlds, super underrated game they put here in parentheses, four, Ocarina of Time, five, Twilight Princess, six, Skyward Sword, seven, Link to the Past, eight zelda one, nine zelda two, the adventure of link. I'm getting close to my goal of beating every mainline Zelda game, only a handful more to go. I it made me think though, have you guys ever considered doing an episode ranking every single Zelda game, every game that you have played?

David Geisler:

I know that would probably be a lot for one episode, but I thought it might be cool a cool idea. Keep up the great work. Love what you guys do. Well, d underscore worst thirty eight, thank you for the the follow-up and the other message. I'm so happy I was able to read both of them here.

David Geisler:

And so so Twilight Princess, I to I I mean, I I know that's a little bit of a divisive game. Some people really like it and some people don't so much. I don't know. For me, it worked, Twilight Princess. I really enjoyed that game.

Kevin Goodwin:

I liked it. I think we'll get more into that when we talk about Yeah. Wonderful. When that came out, what that was like with that system.

David Geisler:

So how do you feel? We got Breath of the Wild, Wind Waker, A Link Between Worlds, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess. I like this. My my favorite thing about this comment is that this commenter, I think we we can deduce that they played three games while, you know, as of listening to

Kevin Goodwin:

the The screen was sending the first one.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. Twilight Princess, A Link to the Past, The Skyward Sword. And if if this if this show does anything but inspire people to play more Zelda games, well then that's a job well done for the show in my opinion. Alright.

David Geisler:

Are you ready? Oh. Yeah. Maybe I should pull up my notes.

Kevin Goodwin:

I think I'm ready to jump in to our topic.

David Geisler:

Copy that. Well, let's do this. While I pull up my notes, could you tell me a little bit, Kevin, why you were when when we were chatting about what we could talk about, why are we inspired to have this be something that we could

Kevin Goodwin:

be Why talking the topic? Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Think to give some context, like, grew up with Zelda for most of my childhood and into adulthood.

Kevin Goodwin:

And then I also have a son who's now about six, and he's kind of also experiencing those video games, I'm making lots of connections between when I was growing up to now how he's growing up with this game. Because there's still games coming out, he's still experiencing them in a different order than I did, but

David Geisler:

Yes, that's an interesting thing. My nieces and nephews are

Kevin Goodwin:

doing that. Yep. Not so much a reverse order, but it's just he's taking it in a different way, or there's more for him to experience because all the games are available. And I think the age that I'm at, I think a lot about my childhood growing up. And I also teach, so I'm surrounded by children all the time.

Kevin Goodwin:

Of course. Yeah. And, like, constantly thinking about, oh, I used to do that, or, yeah, I used to play that way too. So I'm, like, I'm always thinking about those things. And so it's always in my mind of, like, what it like when I did this as a kid, whether for good or bad?

Kevin Goodwin:

I think I'm I think I'm a couple

David Geisler:

years older than you, but we basically kinda grew up through the same cultural generations, I think, is what I feel.

Kevin Goodwin:

I can kinda tell, like, from the stuff you have.

David Geisler:

The nurse stuff

Kevin Goodwin:

I have on the desk. Star wars.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. It's true. When I was looking at your notes, I was like I was like, oh, that game was high school for Kevin, but for me, it was it was like beginning of college. That means I've

Kevin Goodwin:

I've Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

David Geisler:

But I so if may I ask, Kevin, what I know we're gonna kinda go chronological, but could I just start off by asking what your first Zelda game was that you played?

Kevin Goodwin:

I think the first one I, like, owned and played that I've owned myself was Ocarina of Time. Okay. So there was, like, a like, I had an NES, but I didn't have a Super Nintendo. And so a lot of my, like, interactions with Zelda was at other people's houses. It wasn't until I got a Nintendo 64 and Ocarina of Time came out that I, like, owned a game.

David Geisler:

You know, I tell you what, my story is pretty similar to that. So I remember the, you know, kind of where we we're gonna structure this a little bit today, like us playing Zelda in our childhood, us playing as teenagers, us playing as adults. And so if we're kind of in the childhood phase right now

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

One thing is that so if we so in in my notes here, I have, you know, if we're gonna speak about the original Legend of Zelda, I did have a Nintendo. We didn't get it for the first couple years, and I for me, it was, as you said in your notes, the gold cartridge at the friend's It was that cool cartridge but you didn't really know what it out because

Kevin Goodwin:

it was gold.

David Geisler:

Absolutely. And I remember weirdly, more than my friends playing the Legend of Zelda, my friends parents would be playing The Legend of Zelda and I'm sure they were probably 30 or 40 when this game came out.

Kevin Goodwin:

Probably,

David Geisler:

yeah. I remember specifically being at one of my of my grade school friend's house, his name was Eric, and my dad came over to pick me up, know, because I was playing at his house and it was time to go home and his mom I don't remember her name anymore. Anyways, my dad and his mom were chatting a little bit and I think we were probably playing just Mario Brothers or something on the Nintendo. And they I remember I read this specific memory. I remember them talking about The Legend of Zelda, And I remember Eric's mom saying like, my gosh.

David Geisler:

I can't stop playing it. It's like you're transported into an entire world. I have a sit you know, because back then, like, the save system was a new thing in video And she was saying, it's it's just amazing. Blah blah blah. And I remember kind of hearing that thinking like, oh, oh, someday I wanna try that, but, you know, you're kid and you're playing Mario and whatever.

David Geisler:

So we would rent The Legend of Zelda once in a while. I think I've maybe rented it two or three times over the course of of a year or two as as as in in my childhood. We had a local video game store called four Star Video, not video game store, you know, movie Yeah. Rental

Kevin Goodwin:

We have one too. And this

David Geisler:

is back when, know, renting a video game cost a buck and a half or something like that back in the eighties. And so a lot of times on a special weekend, my dad would take us there and we'd be able to rent like three video games, you know, for $6 or

Kevin Goodwin:

whatever.

David Geisler:

And so I'd always try to, you know, it was like, my gosh, this is gonna be a weekend of luxury, right, with get to try three new games. And once in a while, I would pick The Legend of Zelda. I don't think I'm not making a joke here, I literally wrote this down. I don't think I ever got more than five screens away from the main screen every time I rented and played it. I would die immediately.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's funny.

David Geisler:

I just wasn't in the right place to be able to play that game at the time. My skills hadn't developed enough or something. And so for me, that was my experience with The Legend of Zelda, so much so that I don't even consider it the first Zelda game I ever played. Because it was, like, the first Zelda game I ever tasted.

Kevin Goodwin:

Something like that. That's how I I don't think I even I don't even have memories of seeing it being played.

David Geisler:

Oh, wow.

Kevin Goodwin:

I really only have memories of, like, this gold cartridge with, like, a sword on it and being, I wonder what that is. Yeah. But I don't have any memory of someone, like, putting it in. It's like, oh, I have that. And maybe that's maybe that's what maybe they maybe because they were all the same age as me.

Kevin Goodwin:

Maybe similarly, they probably played it and were like, this is hard.

David Geisler:

Right. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or something about it. Mhmm. And we would just play, yeah, Mario.

David Geisler:

I always wanted to love it. I was kind of vaguely aware of the cartoon and the cereal, and I've talked about that in blog posts, I know we'll talk about the cartoon a little bit later in the episode here. So I was aware of the, I guess, the maybe not the lore, it's really not what we were calling it back then, but like the the story, I guess. Uh-huh. I was aware of it vaguely, and I was intrigued, and I always wanted to like Zelda, the Legend of Zelda, and I just wasn't, you know, wasn't good enough at it.

David Geisler:

And so eventually I stopped renting it. But really, for me then, the next experience was probably like around fourth grade where Zelda two came out.

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay.

David Geisler:

And I had I had a friend, his name was Keith Keith Tolliver, who was very good at video games. And he and I were besties for a year or two, and I mean, was good at that original Turtles game. He was good at video games.

Kevin Goodwin:

I had that game.

David Geisler:

And so I a lot of times, would kind of vicariously play through him, am I saying that correctly? By just watching his Oh,

Kevin Goodwin:

You know? I did the same

David Geisler:

thing. And so for and then that's when Zelda two came out and there were multiple sleepovers at Keith's place where it would be him playing the adventure of Link and he was good at it. And so really, at the time, I have these kind of conflated memories where I've mixed The Legend of Zelda and Zelda two as a single experience.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

Like sometimes for many years as a in my in my teens, when I would think about The Legend of Zelda, I would actually think about Link in the towns. Like Yeah. Side You know?

Kevin Goodwin:

That's like your vision of Zelda.

David Geisler:

Right.

Kevin Goodwin:

And it's like that's not what any of rest of them are.

David Geisler:

No. And I had more exposure to The Adventure of Link, not playing it. I don't think I ever even rented it, but it was just watching Keith play it. So I have to ask, did you have any experience with Zelda two?

Kevin Goodwin:

Not until I was older.

David Geisler:

I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

Because I talk about that now or wait until we get to

David Geisler:

the time span. I I do remember that being in your notes about a little bit later, so we I think we can have a circle back conversation because honestly, the the Legend of Zelda and Zelda two, I had circle back moments as well. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's similar to what you're saying, though, where it's I didn't I didn't play it. I experienced it through other people. Yeah. We can talk more about that.

David Geisler:

Well, so then we then we kind of obviously, the next logical step here. I'm kind of going a little quicker through some of these earlier ones because I know we can kind of dig in deeper with some of these other games like once we hit Ocarina and stuff.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. My, like, the young when I was little, little, little, the game to me was like just that I didn't know what it was at all. Yeah.

David Geisler:

I see. Well, I did have it so for me, A Link to the Past was a game that I completely skipped.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

Like like whiffed above my head, didn't pay attention to it at all. I didn't have a Super Nintendo for the many years after the Super Nintendo came out. I would I would talk to my parents about it. I'd find magazine articles about the Super Nintendo, and I'd I'd talk to them about how cool it is and how it has 256 colors, and maybe I maybe I was fishing for it to be a gift here and there subconsciously. But So

Kevin Goodwin:

they made magazines out. They need to, like

David Geisler:

Well, every time we were at a toy store, I would be like, dad, look at this, and, you know, bring them to the the the Super Mario Brothers Super Mario World kiosk that was Mhmm. Know, that's the

Kevin Goodwin:

kiosks were great.

David Geisler:

Local shop co or or yeah. Targets back then. Anyways but A Link to the Past was a game that just was not on my radar at all. In fact, I finally got a Super Nintendo. They my folks gifted it to me.

David Geisler:

It was actually kind of a cool story. It was not for Christmas. It was not for a birthday. There was one day I was almost a teenager at this point. This is this is early nineties now.

David Geisler:

Like, this is kind of Jurassic Park one years. Jurassic Park wasn't out just yet, but pretty close. The Aladdin Capcom game had already been released. So, yeah, this is like early nineties, '93. One day my folks had gone to a furniture store or something to get, I don't know, an end table, I don't even remember but

Kevin Goodwin:

I was

David Geisler:

old enough to stay home alone Uh-huh. And it was, oh man I'm getting a little like choked up right now thinking about it but I remember them coming home, it was late at night, it was dark out, and my mom just kinda came in and just said, like, oh, Dave, can you help dad with the end table? Uh-huh. And I go out there, and there was a super they had bought a Super Nintendo and had it in the minivan

Kevin Goodwin:

That's amazing.

David Geisler:

Waiting for me for no reason. And I think they kinda found a say it was, like, on sale, and I was probably talking their ears off about it for two years.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, okay. Let's finally do this. It was the

David Geisler:

coolest thing ever. It was the coolest surprise ever, and I know that they were excited about it, and I really cherished my Super Nintendo. And I still have that same Super Nintendo. It's in this apartment right now Really? Packed up.

David Geisler:

It still works. I usually have it plugged in, ready to play. I don't know if you can see it over right now, but there's some silver cases underneath that pot over there. Uh-huh. That power pot

Kevin Goodwin:

Is it in there?

David Geisler:

Full of Super Nintendo case cartridges.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, nice.

David Geisler:

So I've, like, saved all the originals. I have a little h you know, RCA to HDMI adapter so I can keep playing the Super Nintendo. Oh, cool. I digress. Anyways, the reason so by then, I was renting things like Aladdin and Jurassic Park, and it was kind of that next, you know, a different wave of Super Nintendo games where, course, A Link to the Past was part of that first wave.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yes.

David Geisler:

So I have no A Link to the Past experiences. I really didn't even play the game until season two of making this show when we did the review episode.

Kevin Goodwin:

You talked about controlling it weird.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Controlling it weird.

Kevin Goodwin:

So Or feeling different or some yeah.

David Geisler:

I I've said this about The Legend of Zelda, the first one. You have to kinda let go and play the game the way it wants to be played. Yes. You can't walk out on diagonals. Have to, like, change your brain a little.

David Geisler:

Paths. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that that can also be said for A Link to the Past. You kinda have to play the game the way the game wants to be played, and then it works out really well.

David Geisler:

Mhmm. Do you have your Link's Awakening was also a circle back moment, think. Is that right? Because that's really I the next game in the

Kevin Goodwin:

also have stuff for A Link to the Past. Link to the Past. But it's like it's it's still, like, kinda growing my, like, I know what these are now. I feel like Link to the Past was the first one I saw played. I didn't own a Super Nintendo.

Kevin Goodwin:

I actually I had an NES and then it broke, and then my parents, instead of getting a Super Nintendo, got a top loader NES.

David Geisler:

Yes. The the version two thing.

Kevin Goodwin:

Which disappeared in college. I I think I know who took it.

David Geisler:

Oh, no.

Kevin Goodwin:

But it's, like, it's gone. Because I those are actually worth, like, a lot of money. Yes. But I instead of them buying me a new like, the new system, I was always, like, a generation behind. But I had friends who had Super Nintendos.

Kevin Goodwin:

So similarly, I would go to their house, and that's when I actually they were playing that game, though. It wasn't just, Oh, I have this gold cartridge, but I don't put it in. Yeah. And friends are over. And I memories from that game are kinda funny.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's like, I don't remember anyone ever playing like, I don't know I don't remember the plot. I don't know. I didn't know what was going on in the game. All we did was I think they would be in the village. Was it was it was it Kakariko in that game too?

Kevin Goodwin:

Kakariko. Yeah. It's called that. It's in the East. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

We would just go there and, like, hit chickens with the sword until they got attacked you. I'm like, just do that for, like, hours. Like, look at this game mechanic. You we didn't call it that, but it's like, look at this thing. You hit the chickens enough times.

Kevin Goodwin:

A bunch of chickens come attack you. And to us, like, that was

David Geisler:

Greatest game ever.

Kevin Goodwin:

The most like, this is amazing. I think it was like that and, like, him when you when you turn into, like, a bunny and Yep. You switch to the dark world, it was like, look at this, he's now a bunny. Then we just walk around as a bunny and sort of see what else changed. But again, we never planned to progress the story.

Kevin Goodwin:

It was like, look at this mechanic, and seemingly you'd go back to that person's house over and over, and you would just keep doing that same thing. Yeah. It wasn't even a one time, like, the chickens attacking you. It'd be like, next week, go over to Dan's house, let's fight the chickens again. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. And I see, like, can we, like, can you survive this? The kind of thing.

David Geisler:

That is fascinating.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. And that's how we played it. Like, I I don't think I ever saw the end.

David Geisler:

I have comments about how I've observed my nieces and nephew playing Zelda these days, And I'll save it for when we get to that part of the episode, but the exact experience you just described is very similar And to what I observed them it's interesting how at a certain age you're helping me realize right now this is just kinda off the cuff. When you're a certain age, maybe it is that 10 year old, eight year old range or something, it's not you're maybe not playing the game of like, what's the next plot point? What's the beat? You're just kinda going in there Yeah. And letting the game be the game.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. And think they have more time and things. I think as adults, you're like, I I have this hour to play this game. I need to, like, do something with it. I can't just hit chickens with my sword for the hour.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, I didn't do anything. It's true. That's a good point. Like, think it yeah. You're probably right around even older too.

Kevin Goodwin:

I remember being in high school and playing, like, wave race, and we wouldn't even race. We would just find, like, this one jump and just go off that. Yes. You can't even really do that many tricks in that.

David Geisler:

Right.

Kevin Goodwin:

But I remember my me and my friend, Tim, what seemed like probably for hours, would just go off the same, like, two jumps because you could, like, land in weird spots or, like, almost mess the game up a little bit. And to us, like, that was, like, the greatest thing ever. Yeah. Look at this thing you could do in this game. I also You know you can race in this game too, like, why I don't wanna do that.

David Geisler:

I think I spent more time in, what is it, Dolphin Park than anything in Wave Race, where that's the that was that open open ish area Kind of, that wasn't a race that was kinda letting you you could just ride around.

Kevin Goodwin:

Learn the the controls.

David Geisler:

It was for learning, but most of the time, my sisters and I would just go to that area and just hang out. It's like, it's it wasn't so much let's go race. It was let's go drive a jet ski around.

Kevin Goodwin:

Let's go play.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Exactly. Know what I mean? That's the whole point. That's also why if I may, I don't wanna get kind of preachy here, that's also why it's so important to me to have these episodes be in person with people because these little moments can happen then, you know, and and they happen less when it's like a Zoom call, if I may.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yes.

David Geisler:

Anyways, I don't I don't wanna get us off, but I think I I have similar memories with Ray Vase. I love it. You're absolutely right. And well well, anyway, so let's I'd like to get over to Ocarina of Time. However, I I personally have to speak a little bit about Link's Awakening, which is the

Kevin Goodwin:

We next really sort of have different times we experience that game, I think you because you're also I'm speaking about the remake in your

David Geisler:

Yeah. Right. Well, I'm so happy that remake exists. I really am truly happy that it exists. I think I think Grezzo and Nintendo knocked it out of the park.

David Geisler:

I think it's a wonderful remake. I think it keeps the core of the main game, but updates things that need to be updated. I think

Kevin Goodwin:

it's beautiful. But I didn't have a Game Boy or anything like that. So

David Geisler:

So I didn't so I'm realizing this as well, and this is going to be a theme as I continue forward. I very rarely ever got a Nintendo system, you know, on day one or whatever or even year one. Most of the time, I'd acquire a system. I think Nintendo 64 is the only system I ever, like, pre ordered and was very excited for. I pre ordered it at a a Toys R Us in a neighboring town, and that one that one was like a day one kind of thing.

David Geisler:

And GameCube now, I just realized that was a day one. But anyway, I I I'm getting off track here. I did not have a Game Boy for years and years and years and years and years as well. And almost around the Nintendo 64 time, like, think I even had that Nintendo 64, maybe it was just a year before, it doesn't really matter, I don't wanna get caught in the weeds here, But I remember saving up like like lawn mowing money. You know what I mean?

David Geisler:

Mhmm. I almost called it allowance because it wasn't even really a job. It was just Yeah. Cash that I was making here and there from odd jobs, mowing lawns and shoveling neighbors, you know, driveways and stuff like that, and saving up money because I I really wanted to get a Game Boy, and this is before the Play It Loud series. This is original brick

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

Beige Game Boy. So, yeah, I guess that's the early nineties as well. Anyways, I saved up money and another another weird parent memory here that I'm I'm pulling pulling up. I my I had saved up, like, my $80 or whatever, which is what the the game the the systems are going for at the time, you know, years in. And my dad brought me to a Shopko, which I don't are Shopko's like a national thing or is that more of a Midwest thing?

Kevin Goodwin:

Maybe Midwest. Don't think I've ever seen one. Definitely not like in Western New York where I was growing up at that time.

David Geisler:

Got it. Shopko's were very popular here in Wisconsin or well we're in Chicago right now but you know basically this area and they're basically like a Walmart or a Kmart.

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay yeah. Yeah we had like a thing called Hill's.

David Geisler:

Okay there we go. So anyway we go to the Shopko and I go to I'm so excited I've got my $80 cash in disparate bills, and and and the shop and the shop goes out of stock of the Game Boys. And so I go, okay. Well, my logic at the time was I guess I'll just save up a little more money, but what I'll do right now and maybe I just really I had spent so many months building that cash up that maybe I just didn't wanna go home empty.

Kevin Goodwin:

Was there nothing? You're like, I came all the way here.

David Geisler:

Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

I have the money.

David Geisler:

And so I bought We're Back A Dinosaur Story Game Boy.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, nice.

David Geisler:

It's like, oh, yeah. This is kind of around '93 because this is kinda Jurassic Park times.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. And then the movie

David Geisler:

Yeah. We're Back came out just before Jurassic Park, also, you know, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, blah blah blah blah. So I buy We're Back A Dinosaur Story Game Boy game. It's the first Game Boy game I ever owned. Just the game.

Kevin Goodwin:

Great first.

David Geisler:

Just the game. It was kind of a Sonic rip off, actually. It's kind of a weird little game.

Kevin Goodwin:

Interesting. I don't think I've ever even seen it.

David Geisler:

Yeah. You're playing as this huge T Rex, but you're actually, like, whipping down hills and going through, like, little loops and stuff. I don't know. I don't know. Anyways, the whole point is I I I get the game.

David Geisler:

My dad's supportive. He's like, okay. If that's what you wanna do, go for it. It's all good. He doesn't give me any gruff or anything.

David Geisler:

We get home. I'm taking too long to tell the story. We get home, my mom must have just been in a particular mood. I don't know if she was in a good mood or a bad mood mood, probably good mood because I get back and I've got and

Kevin Goodwin:

she was like, you able to get the Game Boy?

David Geisler:

And I said, no. They were out. No. What what was it? Oh, know what it was.

David Geisler:

They weren't out of stock. I had my $80, but I didn't have, like, enough for tax and whatever or maybe it was a little more than I thought it I still needed $10 or something like that. Right? And so I bought the game instead. Spent my, you know, 30 10 $20, $30 on the game.

David Geisler:

I said, oh, I didn't quite have enough cash for the Game Boy and I don't know if she must have just been in a in a in a in a giving mood because she almost demanded. This is why I say, like, I don't know if she's in a good mood or bad mood. She was like, what? That's ridiculous. Ron, take him back.

David Geisler:

Buy the buy the system. Buy the system. Yeah. You're like, you're not gonna just have

Kevin Goodwin:

a game, David. I said, no. It's okay. I can save

David Geisler:

up a little more money. He was like, no. No. No. So we turn right around.

David Geisler:

We go back to the shop, go, and my folks bought me the man, I have, like, really good folks bought me system memories.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like a thing. I've I've experienced that as a parent where you're like, you're almost excited to get the thing too. And so then when it doesn't you're like, oh, wait. They need more than they have. It's like, I'll throw.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my son gets an allowance too, it's like, if he doesn't quite have enough, I'm like, oh, I think we're gonna like this, though. So. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or like, I'm also gonna enjoy this, like, Lego. Like, usually it's with Lego with us. It's like, I'll throw an extra $10 at it because I'm gonna be the one building this. So like

David Geisler:

A shared experience.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. You're gonna play with it. I get to do the building part, so should I should I should put some of my budget into this.

David Geisler:

I I I I can I know you're helping me kinda see that point of view now? Anyways, the the whole Game Boy story there is to say that I got the system way late into the cycle. Link's Awakening had been out for years, so a little bit like A Link to the Past, it also kinda whiffed over my head and I wasn't paying any attention. But a few years later, I was starting to get excited about role playing games. I was playing Chrono Trigger on Super Nintendo.

David Geisler:

Was renting Chrono Trigger on Super Nintendo. I was playing a little bit of

Speaker 3:

I think it

David Geisler:

was called Luthia, Luthia two. A bit of that, I was renting those games for Super Nintendo and I thought, oh, for Christmas or my birthday or something, I think I'll ask for a role playing game for my Game Boy. And I did a little bit of research and found out about Final Fantasy Adventure.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Was in Final Fantasy.

David Geisler:

There was a few of them there.

Kevin Goodwin:

Maybe a Fire Emblem

David Geisler:

was that But I pivoted and I thought, you know what, I've never really played a Zelda game before, which I really never had. I said, think I'll ask for that Zelda game that's on Game Boy for my Christmas gift or birthday gift or whatever it was. And long story short, that's what that's what it was. So my so I got it. So my first Zelda game was this was was A Link to the Past or A Link's Awakening as a Game Boy cartridge on the Game Boy that I'd saved up to buy a year before or something.

David Geisler:

It was kind of this really kind of weird patchwork version of being introduced to this game, and I just ate it up. I loved it. I played it that day, and I was I was just that was, like, my Game Boy experience was was Link's Awakening. And I really, really loved it, and that brought me into Ocarina of Time.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. And then Nintendo 64.

David Geisler:

Yeah. The Nintendo 64.

Kevin Goodwin:

Which is, like, my first kind of owning a Zelda game.

David Geisler:

For me, I think my transition from we called it junior high back then, but middle school into high school, I think Link's Awakening on Game Boy, playing it super late years after it came out, authentically playing it for the first time is what brought me into my high school years. And then the Nintendo 64, I was already a senior when Ocarina of Time came out in high school, and so that was a very focused experience. It was a very I, you know, I ordered the Nintendo 64, stood it stood in line, so to speak, to get the Nintendo 64 from the Toys R Us. Day one, got Ocarina of Time, very excited about it. I was old enough to to play it in a in a way opposite of what you and I were kinda talking about earlier where I was playing for the next story lead.

David Geisler:

But

Kevin Goodwin:

we all wanna see what's next.

David Geisler:

With intent. Playing with intent. So what's what's so I think for both of us, that was so even though Link's Awakening was my first Zelda game, it kinda happened desperately. Ocarina of Time was my first Zelda game where I was like Like, now.

Kevin Goodwin:

Zelda. Let's do it.

David Geisler:

And I think it was the same

Kevin Goodwin:

for you. For me too. I'm actually you're making me remember that. I already had a Nintendo 64. Like, I remember going to the store and having my dad watch me play on the kiosk with Mario 64 within the game that you would get, me being like, I want this.

Kevin Goodwin:

And I still today just remember him being like, this costs a lot. It was like $200. I remember him saying, it's $200 And I remember a clerk being like, no, it's 199, like 95, whatever that you know, that and like, that has always stuck out to me. Whenever I see the, you know, it's this 99¢, like, that memory is always triggered by that.

David Geisler:

Like I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

Playing Mario and my dad being like, that's just $200. Like

David Geisler:

No. There's a one there.

Kevin Goodwin:

No. No. No. Don't worry. And I'm probably almost not that working on me being like, yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

See, it's not $200. It's no. It is.

David Geisler:

I think the system was $2.50 when it first

Kevin Goodwin:

came out. Maybe something like that. Whatever it was.

David Geisler:

But if well, they went down to 200 pretty quickly.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Whatever it was. I I got it for, like, Christmas of that year, so it might have already been out a little bit.

David Geisler:

Got it.

Kevin Goodwin:

And then I remember I would have been, I think, in eighth grade, but we would watch this news program every morning on this TV up on the wall, a big CRT TV. Yeah. And it was called Channel One News, and I think it existed around the country. Okay. So people probably have seen it.

Kevin Goodwin:

And it was just a news show for twenty minutes, but there would be ads. And one of the ads was the Legend of Ocarina of Time one. With Oh the weird medieval text that I remember it vividly. And I think it played every time. So my whole class was seeing that commercial constantly.

Kevin Goodwin:

Some of them knew about Zelda, but I think for a lot of us were like, What is this? And so it was more, I think, communal

David Geisler:

Oh my gosh.

Kevin Goodwin:

Than me just going to one person's house and playing it. It was like our entire eighth grade class, the 15 of us or however many were in that class, it wasn't very big. Actually And because the whole school was watching it, the high school, I think once, there was just talk of it. And so I remember pre ordering to get the gold cartridge. Yes.

Kevin Goodwin:

I think you had to pre order it to get the gold. Like, do you have? Yeah, like the one you have over there. The gold one. So I remember already, that was also my first experience doing that, like, preordering a thing that doesn't exist yet.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's like, I own this thing. Like, I remember going to the store and doing that and then going back and getting I think I might have gotten a t shirt too. Yeah? Yeah. Think it was that from, like, KB Toys.

David Geisler:

I'm realizing that it's not just even playing with intent. We were purchasing with intent.

Kevin Goodwin:

I was purchasing. I was like, I I want this. Yeah. Like, advertising got me. Whatever.

Kevin Goodwin:

But I mean, it's a good game too, but, like, I was like, I want this. I think I've been I think I I used my money the same way, like, random wad of fives and ones and tens. I love it. Yep. I love how money works, Beck.

Kevin Goodwin:

Seemingly, remember the counter seeming really big. It just seemed like a big moment. Everything seemed bigger. I'm preordering this thing. Then I remember going back.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, I think maybe they called or something or, like, it's out. Because, like, I don't think I had a concept of, like, when it was actually gonna come out. It's like, I'm preordering this, and I'll eventually have it.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Well, back then, it was kinda that way. I remember

Kevin Goodwin:

that and they I think they would call you or you call them. Mhmm. And they're like, it's in. Mhmm. It's like, oh, wow.

Kevin Goodwin:

And then similarly We have

David Geisler:

your copy of blah blah blah. Yep. Yes. This is a triggering memory for me as well.

Kevin Goodwin:

And being like, dad, you gotta, like, take me to get this. And then and then experiencing it. And similarly, I remember, like, because I think I had a few friends This may have been the first time as this happening too, where we all had the same game and we're playing it separately but talking about it. So there's a lot of talk of where are you at? Before basketball practice or something, people would be like, Oh, I'm stuck here, but what do I do?

Kevin Goodwin:

Or like, I'm stuck here, but don't tell me what to do. I want to figure it out, because that's the kind of game it is. So we were sort of playing, yeah, you can mess around with some stuff, like cutting the signs. I still remember doing that, being like, oh, you can cut the signs in different angles.

David Geisler:

Oh, But you weren't having the sleepover where all you did was

Kevin Goodwin:

Well, cutting we the did was that. Like, no, I did this. Okay, I should see what happens next in the story.

David Geisler:

Sure.

Kevin Goodwin:

And that game does sort of push you through it. Like Navi's like, hey, right? As she says, hey, listen. And you should go that way. And you could choose not to, but really, you're not going to be getting into too much trouble if you don't.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, you're like you can explore a little bit, but stuff is still closed to you.

David Geisler:

That's a good point. It's like it's like going down a wide hallway.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Like, I could walk that way in the field, but I can't get over, like, that fence.

David Geisler:

Mhmm.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or, like, this thing is still closed. So I I eventually have to just go back to where they wanted me to go. Yeah. Like, can maybe play, like, the archery game or something in the town. But, really, like, you you're you're playing through that game.

David Geisler:

So I'm hearing too that this is also you're experiencing this kind of social experience with the game which apparently was the case with the first Legend of Zelda and I'm also realizing that my dad and my friend's mom might have been a part of that experience without me even realizing it. They were talking about the game and she was talking about oh I go to this town, I go to that town, my dad had never played it but

Kevin Goodwin:

That makes you wonder those things. Right. I was doing this like were other people?

David Geisler:

Right. And so if we if hypothetically you and I, if we were in a conversation right now talking about let's just say Tears of the Kingdom and my six year old nephew was just in the room, He now will have those memories twenty years ago. Yes. Was like, oh yeah, they were like, remember them talking about a certain town or something.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep, it seems very weird to me, but now I know what this is. Yeah. Yeah, like it'll continue to grow, think.

David Geisler:

Absolutely. So I mean, Ocarina was also that for me. People in high school were playing it. In fact, very I can't believe that this was allowed. I remember bringing my it was like one of the last days of school in high school.

David Geisler:

Brought the Nintendo 64 into school and in not in class but in our I was I did a lot of theater in high school and so there was a my school we were lucky enough to not just have the stage and all that kind of stuff, but there were, like, rehearsal rooms

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

And, like, side offices and lounges that the theater kids could hang out in. And so in one of these, I'll call it a lounge, but it's kind of like a glorified office. Yeah. There was a, you know, a television in there. I remember bringing in my Nintendo 64 because people wanted to see the end of Legend of Zelda.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, interesting.

David Geisler:

They wanted to see, like, the Ganon battle and then all the credits.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's awesome.

David Geisler:

And so we brought it in, and I and I beat Ganon real quick just and, like, you know, 10 people were just wanting to see, like, all the cut scenes and stuff and how this game ended. Mhmm. It was all

Kevin Goodwin:

it was so epic. That's awesome.

David Geisler:

And it's that was definitely, like, a communal experience there. Now for me, Majora's Mask, which obviously is the next release order game, I had already transitioned into going to college. Okay. And so I was very I mean, I I don't think I pre ordered Majora's Mask unless maybe I did because I do have the the the weird little hologram version of it. But I might have like pre ordered it from a Toys R Us downtown here in Chicago back when there was one in downtown.

David Geisler:

Anyways, I was very much an adult, I guess, adult at that point. I was, you know, 19 or 20 or whatever, and I was playing it more, was for me that was a tipping point. So Ocarina to Majora, even though it was only a year difference, I'm realizing maybe I was only 19, maybe saying adult is a bit much but I was starting to live an adult life not so much a teenage life, right? So that was my experience with Majora's Mask. I played it pretty much alone, like my roommate in college watched me play.

Kevin Goodwin:

Uh-huh.

David Geisler:

But it was a solitary experience. The kind of everyone talking about it thing wasn't happening like it was in high school and Ocarina for me, and the Internet hadn't developed enough yet. I mean, this is pre doc this was still dial up days.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. So you dial up.

David Geisler:

It was definitely web point, you know, one point o, definitely just going to websites and reading things, the whole blogs and Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

That didn't really exist. Yeah. The two

David Geisler:

way communication wasn't happening yet. What was Majora's Mask like for you? Were you still in high school?

Kevin Goodwin:

I was still in high school. So there was more of I think still people were, like, excited for the next one because it also came out so quickly that, like, there's already another one. Like, this is awesome. And I remember I think did IGN dot com it might have existed at the time, but that website's been around for a long time.

David Geisler:

Ign.com did exist because

Kevin Goodwin:

And it's back when it was the black and red, like, the like, not well designed. Yeah. Like, it was, like, black like, red text on black background. Like, what? Who?

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay.

David Geisler:

This is also around the time where the nintendo.com website

Kevin Goodwin:

There was a Nintendo

David Geisler:

You'd you'd get four stories that would load, and that was about it. And you were lucky. You'd watch the images slowly load, and you'd be like, is one of them gonna be a Zelda story?

Kevin Goodwin:

I think that's my memory of that game, is like almost finding out about it. It's like mechanics on the Internet. Like people, like, kind of previewing and be like, this this game's different. Yeah. Like, I feel like I knew, like, it was gonna be, kind of like it's you you're gonna get these masks.

Kevin Goodwin:

You're gonna there's a time there's, like people, like, were, like, already reporting on that. Yeah. Which to me, like, Ocarina of Time, I don't remember that all.

David Geisler:

No. There wasn't. Ocarina of Time, at best, this is fascinating.

Kevin Goodwin:

You're This is kind of power making.

David Geisler:

This is a turning point in gaming history

Kevin Goodwin:

And like, journalists for it

David Geisler:

now. In journalism. You're absolutely right. Ocarina of Time was you'd go to the toy store or or a Target and you'd go to the magazine section

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

And you'd try to find like an an entertainment expo, you know, or a or an IG was IGN a I don't know if they were a magazine.

Kevin Goodwin:

No. It was always just a website with those guys.

David Geisler:

Electronic Gaming Monthly, that was one that I always EGM. Check

Kevin Goodwin:

EGM and there was

David Geisler:

mean, was always a Nintendo powers and stuff like that. But really, that's all it was. You'd maybe get an article with maybe two screen grabs

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

Of Ocarina of Time, and by calling them screen grabs is gracious because, really, it was just a camera taking a picture of a screen

Kevin Goodwin:

Of the TV.

David Geisler:

At Space World or something like that.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, here's this thing.

David Geisler:

And and you're right. So Majora's Mask was a point where we could start to actually know a little bit more about the game and games before they came out.

Kevin Goodwin:

Before you buy it. Like, you're like, oh, I know what's what I'm getting into. Like, I remember that.

David Geisler:

Twenty years later, I feel like we might go to break after this, by way. I feel like it's a good time. Mhmm. But now twenty years later, we have we have YouTube channels reporting on Easter eggs, in trailers of document of of, you know, like patent documents of note figuring out the game before it even comes out. And, boy, boy, has that really taken off.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. Whereas it was probably for Majora's Mask, probably one preview by somebody being like, yeah, you put on masks Mhmm. You change, and you go back in time.

David Geisler:

And our minds would be blown. We were like, I cannot wait.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah, like, oh, this is awesome. Know this much about it. And I remember playing it similarly, I think, Dodger and the Timer. I have friends who are also playing it and talking about this it actually is probably harder to talk about that, though, because you could pick things to do in almost a different order. Like, I'm doing this Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Weird side quest thing, and whereas someone else might be going through, like, the dungeons.

David Geisler:

The dungeons were roughly sequential, but you're absolutely right. What you could because it was all the side quests, it was it's the first was hinting at open world stuff, wasn't it?

Kevin Goodwin:

A little bit. You have some choice in, like, what happens.

David Geisler:

I also I also wanna note, and I've I've mentioned this in the show before, but not maybe in this way, that, you know, Eiichi Aonuma was a a dungeon designer for Ocarina of Time, but he was given the producer role or the director role for Majora's Mask, which then also leads into some of the open worldliness from Wind Waker, the open ish worldliness with Skyward, of course it brings us into Breath of the Wild which I'm just setting that

Kevin Goodwin:

trajectory And you can see it

David Geisler:

I think you can see those seeds starting in Majora's Mask and it also changes what I'm trying to circle back to here is when the game can be played if with Ocarina it was you said just a few minutes ago that your friends would like, I'm stuck at this point, what did you do or don't tell me, But when you play Ocarina, you're stuck at that point. Yep. With Majora's Mask, it could be like, well, maybe I go talk to the shopkeeper or maybe I go follow the postman for a while

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

And which which and then, you know, times a million is what type of tiers of kingdom is now for

Kevin Goodwin:

all of Let me let me go there are distractions in Majora's Mask. Yeah. But the side quests, like, some of them are more important, right, but others, it's like, yeah, you're just following someone. Mhmm. And I think about that too when I think about that game.

Kevin Goodwin:

I think I was still at an age where like, I I just recently tried I started up on on the Switch, Majora's Mask, so my son could see it. Yeah. And I found it's harder to play now because, again, my time is a little more limited. I feel like when I was in high school, lot of that game is waiting around. If you want to do the side quest, you're like, okay, that person is going to be here in whatever time through the game, but I I have to sit here by these steps.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, I think it's that one where the guy is, like, stealing stuff. Yes. You kind of have to just sit around and wait in that one. Mhmm. And, like, in high school, I'm like, that's fine.

Kevin Goodwin:

I can sit around and wait. Like, I got nothing else going on. I can, literally in this game world, sit here for fifteen minutes and just watch Link go through his idle animations. I feel like in that game, he has more because maybe they also knew. I feel like when they're developing that they know people are going be waiting in this game.

Kevin Goodwin:

They're just going be waiting. Let's give them a way to speed up time. But I think they still want you to wait a I little

David Geisler:

think you're onto something there.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or not, and then you miss a thing and you have to go back and wait again. It's like that lesson of waiting, you should have just kept waiting. But you're like, I'll just go do this, and I'll come back, maybe the thief will still be walking his, like, little path.

David Geisler:

Sure.

Kevin Goodwin:

I was like, I missed it. Yep. Crap. Now I have to go back Yeah. Totally.

Kevin Goodwin:

And start it all over again.

David Geisler:

So I feel oh, man. That's this is interesting. So all of a sudden, we have games that are starting they're microscopically starting to change how they're played. It's it's how how they are played is just tight just starting, and how people speak about video games is starting to change because because the way that they're able to speak about video games, hence the Internet and all of that implies. I'm I I didn't even I don't have any of that in my notes.

David Geisler:

Didn't even think about that, but that's really kind of where some of this started and I guess that was kind of the early two thousands. Wasn't Majora no. It was even earlier. Majora Majora might have been 2000.

Kevin Goodwin:

It was around that time. I was in high school from like '98 to 2002.

David Geisler:

Okay. I graduated high school '99.

Kevin Goodwin:

So it came out in that span. I'm not sure when, but

David Geisler:

Early 2000s. I think I yeah. Yeah. Anyways, well, let's let's go to break here. This has been awesome.

Kevin Goodwin:

And I can't wait to

David Geisler:

to to keep talking about all this, and I'll see you on the other side. Sound good?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. Cool.

Speaker 3:

Hey. This is TC. And this is Jim

Speaker 4:

from The Studio Demands It.

Speaker 3:

A biweekly screenwriting podcast where every episode we conceptualize and craft an entire screenplay based on the demands of one of our listeners acting as a studio.

Speaker 4:

From hypothetical sequels of popular franchises

Speaker 3:

To reboots or reimaginings of films that deserve a fresh chance.

Speaker 4:

To hypothetical films that simply must be brought into existence.

Speaker 3:

Join the creative process over at studiodemandsit.com. Hope to see you there. See.

David Geisler:

Well, I can't see us.

Speaker 4:

Hope to hear them there?

Speaker 3:

Hope to hear us there.

David Geisler:

Yep. It's the first day of school and I'm walking around Downtown Chicago with hundreds of other students. Everyone's getting back from summer break and you can tell that they're happy to see each other after a couple months. For me, however, it's been a little longer. Hi.

David Geisler:

I'm David and I wanna introduce you to Returning Student, a documentary podcast that I've been making about my return to a college that I left twenty years ago. I'm back in the same city, at the same school, the same student ID number. Everything else feels completely different. My fellow classmates are literally half my age. My professors work in my industry.

David Geisler:

Sometimes I wonder why I've come back at all. But then I get the opportunity to sit down with one of my professors and have a conversation with them, which usually yields a little bit of wisdom. You can find the show on all major podcast providers as well as our website returningstudentpodcastpodcast.com. A lot has changed over the past two decades. Hello there, listeners.

David Geisler:

David here. You know, the whole team at Another Zelda Podcast appreciates every bit of support our listeners give. And if you'd like to enjoy some extra content, we invite you to consider becoming a patron through our Patreon page. Sword members get a thank you on our website as well as monthly digital wallpapers for all your devices and the opportunity to participate in an annual meetup on Discord with the AZP team. Whitesword members will get everything the sword tier gets, and also they'll get access to episodes a week early as well as bonus episodes that we record specifically for Patreon.

David Geisler:

A new thing we're doing is monthly Discord meetups where we'll play trivia and hang out with you as well. Lastly, and this is our most popular tier actually, the magical sword level, which includes of course everything from the previous two levels, but also gives supporters access to behind the scenes videos that we produce and behind the scenes extended video versions of every episode. Thank you so much for your time. Let's get back to the show. And if you're already on Patreon, we are so grateful that you're helping us keep another Zelda podcast vibrant.

David Geisler:

Okay. We are back. Kevin, I'm at I'm having the time of my life. I'm loving this conversation. This is great.

David Geisler:

Thank you so much for making time Yeah. With your trip here in Chicago to to get together and record.

Kevin Goodwin:

No problem. This is, like, always fascinating to me to talk about these kind of things.

David Geisler:

I love it. I love it. And so I think I think we I think technically Wind Waker might be the next game for us to speak about, but I'd like to just note real quick that for me before Wind Waker came out, in my later college years, I think by the time I was a junior, the Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Season games came out for Game Boy Color.

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay.

David Geisler:

And I did it wasn't one of these day one things, but I remember walking to a Best Buy here in Chicago when I lived here twenty years ago and choosing Oracle of Ages and I was excited to play it and it was kind of hot off of the Ocarina Majora's Mask, you know, vibes. And one thing that was really exciting for me about Oracle of Ages is that all of a sudden the I'll just say Ocarina of Time characters were being realized in Game Boy. So there's Gorons and Zoras and things like that. Yep. And the way the text because it was a color, it was it was a those games use a version of the Link's Awakening engine that's kinda souped

Kevin Goodwin:

up. Mhmm.

David Geisler:

But all of a sudden, like, the text colors, the things that would be red or blue in the text was exactly the same logic as the things that were red or blue in Majora's Mask and Ocarina. Yep. And so in many ways, I did feel like I was bringing an Ocarina of Time experience onto a handheld experience.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

And I was very excited to play that. But that was also a very solitary gaming experience as Which was on own. I was just playing on my own.

Kevin Goodwin:

How did you know which one to pick?

David Geisler:

I didn't Always

Kevin Goodwin:

wonder that with those games.

David Geisler:

I know. I know. I didn't. And I picked Oracle of Ages first because in general, I often enjoy time travel puzzles. Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

I thought, okay. Maybe I'll I'll have fun changing something in the past that affects, you know, the future and and all of that. In in the seasons one, I've since played seasons, and I think it's fantastic. You know, you're changing force different states essentially, and then

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay. States allow you do different events. Never even interact with them in any way other than seeing video, I guess, in that.

David Geisler:

If there's ever a remake or when they do come out

Kevin Goodwin:

Well, they're they're

David Geisler:

coming out on I so I encourage you to

Kevin Goodwin:

try them out. They're they're quality. Those might be the next ones I play

David Geisler:

Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

When they come out.

David Geisler:

You still have the unfortunate massive hot swapping items because even even on the Switch, it's still only gonna be Yeah. As

Kevin Goodwin:

as those buttons.

David Geisler:

So you're constantly

Kevin Goodwin:

fixing that, but that's fine.

David Geisler:

Yeah. You're in one room and you're pausing three times because you have to use five items. But that's part of it. Yeah. Anyways, so so Oracle of Ages for me was I I wasn't part of the I didn't have a cultural dialogue about about that game either.

David Geisler:

It was a very solitary experience. And I was just exiting college and by the time I was out of school by the time Wind Waker came out. So I was then working here I was working for the POPA show here in Chicago when Wind Waker came out, and I remember speaking that one was a little bit the Internet had developed enough that you were kind of now watching videos and things of the games, and I'm sure you had this experience too. Mhmm. And I remember my friend, it was you know, GameCube was coming out.

David Geisler:

I I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that actually when I was living here in Chicago and work and working for the Oprah show, my cat's being pretty weird right now but I hope He's it's not too having his own Sometimes. He's just trying to get through any door. Look at this. All the doors, any door, he's just scraping at right now. Schrodinger?

David Geisler:

Schrodinger? We're gonna not do that? Okay. Thank you. We're recording a show.

David Geisler:

Alright. Alright. I'll I'll keep this in but we'll keep moving here. He scrapes we'll just push through. Yep.

David Geisler:

He's literally trying every door in the apartment, I don't know what he thinks he needs to do. Anyways, I remember speaking to a friend about Wind Waker, and at the time, he was like, what's going on? Nintendo's officially announced that via Super Mario Sunshine that they're trying to make Mario a little bit more mature and that they were, like, actually rendering his clothes and stuff like that, and they're trying to make Zelda more cartoony. What's going on here? But, you know, but but also the reason my friend was able to have that opinion was because that this information was out there on the Internet.

Kevin Goodwin:

That opinion already existed. Yeah. I I remember those first kind of previews of being like, this is what it looks like.

David Geisler:

Like to ask, yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

But we were not I remember trying to find that original video of That was just a little demo thing of a mature looking Link and Ganondorf sword fighting at the Yes. Space I remember that existing on the internet, and then I remember the reactions of, Here's the game that looks nothing like that, and people calling it Zelda with the C E L. The cel shaded. But I remember that not changing my mind about it. I was still, I think, excited.

Kevin Goodwin:

How's And I that was what you were talking earlier about, that reacting and then being like, wait, let's give this a chance. Yeah. And I think the world is sort of giving Wind Waker. People are realizing more and more, there's a reason why they picked that art style.

David Geisler:

Mhmm.

Kevin Goodwin:

It wasn't just like they threw a dart at a board and said, oh, let's make it look like that.

David Geisler:

Right.

Kevin Goodwin:

I think they knew if this looks this way, it'll be playable for a long time.

David Geisler:

Well, I I agree with you completely. The the the two main features that I've heard about Wind Waker is that they they they didn't the GameCube was a strong system. Yeah. But if they were gonna render miles of ocean, instead of making it look photoreal Yeah. Basically, I mean, there's plenty of times where that ocean really is just a big block of blue.

David Geisler:

Blue. Yeah. And it's easy to render that kind of stuff. And then secondly, Miyamoto has said in interviews that he was very excited about the new facial animation and awareness system that they've created

Kevin Goodwin:

for us. Yeah. Because he can kinda look at things.

David Geisler:

He notices things and looks at things. You're absolutely right. And so then Miyamoto allegedly was kinda like, well, let's let's just make his face really big so that people can see this cool thing we made. Of And course, that that technology has continued through Twilight and into, you

Kevin Goodwin:

know, even through the Yeah. Thing. Doesn't it? Yeah. And that's much more you can you see his eyes going towards things Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Saying, like, oh, I should be looking over there too with a camera.

David Geisler:

You're absolutely right. Yep. So from a from a gaming through the years experience, what was Wind Waker like for you?

Kevin Goodwin:

This was another one. I owned a GameCube, but I didn't I never owned Wind Waker. I only played it vicariously through other people who had it at

David Geisler:

their houses.

Kevin Goodwin:

Wow. So I either borrowed it. So I remember playing it. I don't remember I feel like I was older and had moved to Pittsburgh and was living with people when I actually played it fully through, because I still had the GameCube and someone had the game, so it sort of came together. But I never purchased it.

Kevin Goodwin:

So I owned Ocarina of Time Majora's Mask, and I had a GameCube, I just never For some reason, there's some of these games that were on that I just never bought. Mean, games were expensive, and so I think I had like because I didn't have Mario Sunshine either.

David Geisler:

I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

I had Stranger Games on the GameCube. Yeah, well, I had the Rogue Squadron game, but I think that's when I started finding yeah, they had the Resident Evil remakes.

David Geisler:

Mhmm. Those are big.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, that that weird Killer seven game

David Geisler:

Yes.

Kevin Goodwin:

By Suda fifty one.

David Geisler:

Like That was all part

Kevin Goodwin:

of the was part

David Geisler:

of the Capcom five. Remember that?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I remember that, like, being excited for that, and then just sort of the Nintendo stuff kinda went off to the side.

David Geisler:

Interesting. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, I didn't get Pikmin. I didn't I didn't have Smash Brothers. I had or Double Dash. Didn't have any Nintendo made games

David Geisler:

Fascinating.

Kevin Goodwin:

On that. I had all the other things, the third party stuff.

David Geisler:

I wonder if because the one of the famous things about the GameCube years is that in many ways, that's when Nintendo experimented with a lot of their franchises. Yeah. You know, they switched up Metroid, they switched up Zelda, they switched up Mario, they switched up almost everything.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. They're like, let's just try something new for all these games.

David Geisler:

In fact, almost the only thing they didn't switch up was f zero, but they gave it to Sega to make. Yep. Anyways, I wonder if that informed your experience a little bit. Maybe so, maybe not.

Kevin Goodwin:

It might have also been the age that I was too. Yeah. That sort of thing. But yeah, I did I experienced Wind Waker, but like in a very long form of like When you

David Geisler:

were on break off mic or off camera, you mentioned that Wind Waker was one of your favorites. And maybe that that develop later?

Kevin Goodwin:

Maybe it's become my favorite because it took so long to, like, experience, and it it is my favorite of them. Yeah. I mean, I like them all. Mhmm. But that one has it's weird that it's my favorite, but I don't own Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Right? Yeah. I don't own it. Well I haven't played in forever.

David Geisler:

When and if when Waker HD comes to Switch, I'm sure

Kevin Goodwin:

you'll Oh, it. Yeah. I will buy it the day. Yeah. Day one?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Definitely.

David Geisler:

I'll stand in line to download the

Kevin Goodwin:

my son has even seen it. He's like he's like, that game looks really cool.

David Geisler:

Oh, there's that timeless graphic style there.

Kevin Goodwin:

So he's like, I like that that one with the boat.

David Geisler:

My since if we are gonna be talking about nieces, nephews, and sons, the my niece that I mentioned with the bird egg story earlier, she's she's like, know, you know, 12 now, but back then, in the early days of the Wii U when when when Wind Waker HD came out

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

I gave her the game to play. Okay. And all she did was just run around was it Outset Island or Windfall Island? No. No.

David Geisler:

Outset is the first one.

Kevin Goodwin:

Outset is like the one you start at.

David Geisler:

You start at. And she just kinda micro open world that area and she would just walk around and she got grossed out by the kid with the booger hanging out of his nose and that's all it was. She just kinda walked around and she spent, you know, an hour doing that and she thought that was the whole game.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's funny.

David Geisler:

And it reminds me of your stories of Kakariko Village with the chickens and stuff like that.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I I almost almost bought when that came out, though, the HD one, almost bought a Wii U. That was almost my, like, selling point. Like, I remember, like, looking at, like like, this seems like a cool this seems like a reason to buy this thing. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Because there weren't very many reasons.

David Geisler:

For a

Kevin Goodwin:

week. And then at that point, I think as I was making the decision, the rumors of the next thing, with the Switch were happening, and I was like, I'll just wait.

David Geisler:

I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

So I came very close to buying Wind Waker

David Geisler:

I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

The HD remake.

David Geisler:

Yeah. I bought a I bought a Wii U tremendously late. I bought it seven or eight months after Breath of the Wild came out, so the Switch was already out. I just didn't have a Switch, and I ended up there were some games on Wii U that I wanted to play, like like Wind Waker HD and a few other things that the library had built up enough Yeah. And I and I ended up buying it off of a very nice person, but off Facebook marketplace.

David Geisler:

I just bought it used.

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay.

David Geisler:

You know? And then and then pretty much immediately put Breath of the Wild on there, and so most of my Breath of the Wild experience was actually on the Wii U, not on the Switch, which actually I feel I just realized is kind of a nice transition point into my Twilight Princess story. So I you know, when the Wii when the Wii came out, of course, there was that those in that insane three or four first years where

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah.

David Geisler:

No one could get one. Or rather, people could get it but for those first three or four Christmases, it absolutely meant physically waiting in front of a store Mhmm. And getting it, which is finally how we got a Wii. My my little sister and I did camp out in front of a different Toys R Us, a Toys R Us in a different town and got a Wii, fine. The deal was we made a deal with our folks, actually.

David Geisler:

We we said, like, we'll do the camping if you pay for it. Oh, nice. I don't know where and I don't you know, they could have just said, like, yeah, or none of that, but they're getting out of it, but we thought we were really onto something.

Kevin Goodwin:

We'll do the labor part. Yeah.

David Geisler:

And we actually did we a quick little story about waiting for that. We my sister it was myself, my sister, and then two of our friends who we just kinda convinced to hang out with us, and it was during the winter, it was a Christmas Mhmm. It was a snowstorm and everything.

Kevin Goodwin:

Have a story. What's that? I have a similar story.

David Geisler:

Oh, can't wait to hear it. We we it was we were out on like little folding chairs in front of a Toys R Us. It was very cold and what we did was every fifteen minutes, one person would rotate. Mhmm. And so it meant that every person would be out in the cold for half an hour and then be in the car warming up for half

Kevin Goodwin:

an Uh-huh.

David Geisler:

And we did this for six or seven hours. You know we got in line at like whatever it was, eleven at night or something, and then the store opens at six the next morning, and we just kept rotating. Though I do I do remember at the end there, the guy, friend, and I kinda put in the final hour. My sister and her friend were getting a little Oh, that's little cold.

Kevin Goodwin:

We just

David Geisler:

kinda pushed through. But anyway, so we got a Wii super late. That is not what I'm talking about right now. What I'm talking about is I didn't have a Wii for many years, and I really wanted to play Twilight Princess. And so pretty quickly when Twilight Princess came out, maybe I only waited half a year, I absolutely got it on the GameCube.

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay.

David Geisler:

And so my experience with Twilight Princess in full complete form, and to this day, I've still never really played the Wii version. I had a friend lend it to me. I played, you know

Kevin Goodwin:

Does it see kind of

David Geisler:

the controls? Kinda got to Forest Temple and I was like, I'm good. I personally love the GameCube version. I've said it before in this show that I feel like that's actually the definitive version of Twilight Princess.

Kevin Goodwin:

Because he's left handed.

David Geisler:

He's left handed. That's the part that's that's the diversion that got ported to Twilight Princess HD and all of that.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

But anyway, so for me, Twilight Princess, I was definitely I was I was definitely in my adult years at this point. I was I was 25 or something like that, 24, 25. I was running a little art gallery in my life at the time and I was paying rent, living an adult life ish, I young for being an adult but I was And an so for me Twilight Princess was the experience of go to work during the day, come home, look forward to playing for an hour or two, It was so so the years that those years of those teenage years of like what we were talking about like just waiting in Majora's Mask or something like that were definitely gone for me.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah I know, I only have this time to play. Yeah. So I gotta get stuff done.

David Geisler:

Absolutely. And at that point podcasts had did exist and YouTube YouTube was coming around Mhmm. And so I was watching show like the one up show was a podcast that I really liked. It was a video game show out in San Francisco that in the infancy of podcasts, they were video podcasts, but there weren't many of them back then. They And would talk about Twilight Princess a lot, and so I was able to pull I was taking information in about Twilight Princess, but I wasn't really part of a community conversation yet.

David Geisler:

And so for me, Twilight Princess was just like reading a good book for two months, and I just kinda came home from work and I play it and the gal I was seeing at the time, she liked to watch me play. We both enjoyed the realistic graphics. I'm not a graphics not I don't care if graphics are good, bad, or otherwise. If the game's good, I think that's great. But I will confess, it was fun to have Zelda kind of aesthetically be a little scary again, kind of you know, the way I remember the scary moments in Ocarina of Time were also literally kinda scary in Twilight Princess aesthetically.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Like, they're making it look a little more mature in

David Geisler:

a Yeah. Like, the spiders looked like spiders. You know what I mean? So that's what my experience was with Twilight Princess. What was it for you?

Kevin Goodwin:

Mine's similar to your story with Game Boy, where I not as quickly, but because Wii's were hard to get, I was like, I want this. I knew all about it. I was like, this seems like a cool system. I think at that point, I might not have had my Game Boy anymore. I might have, like, sold it or it might have been broken.

Kevin Goodwin:

I don't remember what happened to that. I think I had to sell it

David Geisler:

Okay.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or to get something.

David Geisler:

Sure.

Kevin Goodwin:

Some PC game, I think. I don't even know what, maybe Half Life or something. Yeah. And then so I knew about the Wii, but I also knew, like, you know, and the people in the news, it's like, this is gonna be hard to get. People are waiting in line.

Kevin Goodwin:

So I remember, you know, I want this and going to, I think, to me, Kmart and, like, seeing the game was already out. So I bought the game I bought Twilight Princess before even having a Wii.

David Geisler:

Wii Twilight Princess. Yeah. Is the gameboy experience.

Kevin Goodwin:

I had it. I remember opening it, like, can't wait to play this. I don't know when I'll play it because it wasn't like yours where you got to go back and just the Game Boy existed to get

David Geisler:

Well, yeah. I was more

Kevin Goodwin:

like, I'm buying this, and I might not play it for, like,

David Geisler:

a year. Right. I was young enough that I had the magic wand of having parents that would just go buy the system. But, yeah, this is fascinating. Yeah.

David Geisler:

I I would have support you buying the game without the system.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. I I remember being like, I'm just I want this that badly. Yeah. And I want I'm gonna get the system. I I had just, I think, graduated college.

Kevin Goodwin:

And

David Geisler:

so Yeah. Sure.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or somewhere around that. Like, maybe I was my senior year. I bought the game. And then similar, I had to wait in line. We had to wait in line inside our mall.

Kevin Goodwin:

And the way I did it, I was working for the AmeriCorps. So I was at a high school, but I didn't have to be there till a certain time. So my mom, she also taught at a community college, our schedule somehow just worked out where I had to be teaching at a certain point in the day and she had to teach at another point. I waited in line and she actually came and took over. My mom waited in line for me, then I think I came back and got it.

Kevin Goodwin:

We somehow knew that the store was going to get them and have a stock, and they're like, If you wait, you'll probably get one. We were maybe second in line. Behind similarly other people's It was a bunch of, not so much maybe even friends of mine, their parents waiting in line. Like, it was interesting. Like, it wasn't a bunch of kids waiting Right.

Kevin Goodwin:

Or teenagers or college kids. It was all adults. So I think my mom actually enjoyed it because she knew like, people in line, she knew. They weren't like strangers. It was like, oh, well, I'll just talk to this person for two hours

David Geisler:

I can I

Kevin Goodwin:

can About what they're up to?

David Geisler:

I can add to that real quick. When I when we were waiting at our Toys R Us, there was a a married couple right, I guess, behind us, like one slot behind us in the line. And we were chatting, getting to each other's, you know, spending hours. And their story was that they were in line waiting, they were adults, not kids, waiting in line because their kid had asked for the Wii for Christmas.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay. They had to get it. And it

David Geisler:

was like, we can't not. Yeah. We're going to wait in line. And so I think there was a lot of, like, parents, because it was the hot item for years to get for the family. Yep.

David Geisler:

And I think that's why it's parents in line. You know what mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Think people probably have a lot of people probably have that similar story. Yeah. Yeah. I remember me and my mom switching Mhmm.

Kevin Goodwin:

Spots because of the way our kind of work schedule was, like, when we had a teacher class.

David Geisler:

So who was the one that actually walked into the store?

Kevin Goodwin:

I think we both were there for that part.

David Geisler:

I see. I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

So we both got it. And then and I already had a game for it, which was great.

David Geisler:

Like, I

Kevin Goodwin:

got to bring it home. Like, I have this game Mhmm. That I've been waiting to play. I probably only waited maybe a month.

David Geisler:

Oh, that's interesting. I think

Kevin Goodwin:

I bought the game in, like, maybe November. Like, was like, this could maybe be a birthday present

David Geisler:

Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Type of thing. And then I waited I got the Wii more towards, like, Christmas.

David Geisler:

So that would line up, I think. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. So I I had it for, a month of this game just sort of sitting that I couldn't do anything with. And then I I actually had a pretty good shared experience, though, because I was the only person in my friend group who had a Wii. So I remember, like, bringing my Wii to, like, their apartment to play Twilight Princess. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Of course. And they're all pretty big Zelda fans, we kinda played it together. Mhmm. I would then take it home and progress through it, but I did play it with

David Geisler:

People watching. Yep. I think that is something that's cool about almost all Zelda games is that they are they they are audience compatible. You know what I mean? Yeah.

David Geisler:

There there's plenty of times where my sisters just wanted to watch me play or I'm happy to watch someone play. I don't know why it is. I I think my I think if I may, I think the experience is that even though it's a single player game, all of them or whatever, give or take, the storytelling and the macro puzzle solving can still be a community experience. Think that's why you can have the person sitting next to you saying like, wait, what about that thing over there? Even if one person's got their hands on the wheel, so to speak

Kevin Goodwin:

They can then go do that.

David Geisler:

It kind of can be a community thing sometimes. Yep.

Kevin Goodwin:

And then I think with it being on the Wii, there's still also that gimmick of like, we would do the fishing a lot, and that's a way for people to experience. Like, I remember one friend, the first time he hooked a fish, almost like smacking the back of the wall, I think, with the Wii remote, because he didn't know how to react to this thing that he had never done in a video game before, where you actually pulling back. And he's like, I think he actually fished too, so he's like, You have to do it really hard. He's like, Actually, just have to go that.

David Geisler:

A little tap.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's the same it's same input. Yeah. And it doesn't need to be

David Geisler:

You just gotta spike that accelerometer. You would

Kevin Goodwin:

start you'd you'd swing the sword more and more, then as you play, you're like, I'm just doing I'm just doing this.

David Geisler:

Yeah. It's true.

Kevin Goodwin:

The aiming and stuff with the arrows is cool. I like that. I mean, I feel like they they used the controls well in that game. It wasn't too much.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it was adapted well. That kind of brings to Skyward Sword, but in between, I do wanna bring up some of the handhelds. For me, after Twilight Princess, just a year or two after, I did not well, the Minish Cap came out and I didn't play it right away when it came out or anything like that.

David Geisler:

In fact, I didn't even pick it up until Phantom Hourglass was announced

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, okay.

David Geisler:

For the DS, and I ended up finding Minish Cap just at a used video game store, bought it, and played it on my DS with the Game Boy slot. You know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

So you could fit the cartridges.

David Geisler:

Yeah. And so so

Kevin Goodwin:

I played all of Minish Cap up on up on

David Geisler:

that upper screen of, like, my DS Lite or whatever it was, and I loved it, I loved Minish Cap and that was my experience there. You know, kind of for one summer I dip in every couple days and continue to play Minish Cap and then that led to, by that time I had moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin which I spent almost ten years in Milwaukee, I had a job at SC Johnson, which super weird detail. My boss at SCJ was brothers with Kate's now husband. Oh, interesting. That was just wacky kinda like thread

Kevin Goodwin:

there. Anyways,

David Geisler:

so I was living in Milwaukee when Skyward Sword came out and I remember being excited about the the concept of I remember I had not experienced the motion controls for Twilight Princess because I had it on GameCube.

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

I had I was I was pro Wii. I was pro motion controls. I was pro trying things out and letting companies explore how it could or couldn't work. And when motion controls worked well in some of those Wii games, I loved it. Yep.

David Geisler:

So I wasn't against motion controls, and I was theoretically excited about a Zelda game that was built from the ground up with motion controls. However, maybe I was just too busy at work. This is kind of there's a little bit of a gradient here that we're I'm realizing

Kevin Goodwin:

we're discussing in life and Yeah.

David Geisler:

Life life joins

Kevin Goodwin:

Zelda as much as you want.

David Geisler:

That's it exactly. Well, actually, to that point, yeah, if I may, a little behind the curtain here, in in a day or two, Katie Roberts and I are gonna go participate in the Zelda Dungeon marathon. And while we were discussing with Allie and Andy of the Zelda cast about what our topic would be, Andy was like, let's do a tears of the kingdom spoiler cast. And I said, hey. I love it.

David Geisler:

I'm okay getting spoiled on some things, but I'm only thirty hours in. You know what I mean? I have enough time in my life right now. David Geisler right now presently has enough time to play video games for maybe an hour every other day. Yeah.

David Geisler:

You know what I mean? And and then That's how I

Kevin Goodwin:

am too.

David Geisler:

And Allie were like, oh my gosh. Well, oh, sorry. We're like, you know, two hundred hours, three hundred hours in on this game. Even Katie's like a hundred and thirty hours in on the game. And it's just I kinda felt a little weird.

David Geisler:

I was like, oh, I I don't know. Maybe it's you know, I guess sometimes life just gets well, for me, it's all the podcast making has taken a lot of Yeah. Which I love. But anyway, I digress. So I was definitely working during the day, completely skipped Skyward Sword for years, maybe a year or two.

David Geisler:

And then I one day just found it at a used video game store kinda like Minish Cap. And I was

Kevin Goodwin:

I almost thought out of response, out of obligation.

David Geisler:

I was like, well, I'll buy it

Kevin Goodwin:

Just to have it. And I'll play it when I wanna play it.

David Geisler:

And and I kinda had a motion plus controller that I actually, I think I technically got it

Kevin Goodwin:

for, like, Monster Hunter or some weird thing like that.

David Geisler:

And so then I started picking up Skyward Sword and I played it super slowly on my own, not really conversing with anyone about it. And I'm realizing also a trend here at Gradient is that as these games, as I continue to play, even though the Internet was becoming more communicative in nature, these experiences are starting to become more of a solo experience for me. Yep. And I think it was probably more just because I was playing the games late. I was playing Skyward Sword years after it had come out, nobody was YouTubing about it, nobody was.

David Geisler:

No.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. You know what I missed whenever that

David Geisler:

Bubble happened. Yeah. Exactly. So what was Skyward Sword like for you?

Kevin Goodwin:

I think mine's kinda similar. I remember I remember being excited like this is gonna be a Zelda for the Wii. So I had owned the Wii, I had lots of games for it, and I kind of knew about what it was going to be like. It's like, it's going to look this way. It looked really cool.

Kevin Goodwin:

The controls seemed to work. I know there's still some stuff where, you know, like, I remember them showing it one the it was an E3 maybe, where it didn't really work.

David Geisler:

They malfunctioned, yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

But I don't know, I'm like a Nintendo person. I'm like, that's like a one off. I bet you they'll still make this sort of work, and it did, But kind it's weird, though. I remember getting it and playing it. I think it was more me on my own playing it

David Geisler:

Okay.

Kevin Goodwin:

And not really sharing it in person with anybody. And I actually never ended up beating it. Like, they when I originally when it originally came out. Like, I played it almost up to the end, and you had to do certain things in it to get almost, like, leveled up enough. Mhmm.

Kevin Goodwin:

Right? You had to do, like, some of that boss stuff. Yeah. And that was just, like, hard to do with those controls.

David Geisler:

I agree completely. That's

Kevin Goodwin:

why Yep. I I got to the last bot like, not not demise, but, like, gearing him before that and couldn't couldn't beat him. Because, like, I did my, like, some something. And to me and I've I kinda just was like, I don't have enough time to spend getting strong enough to see the end of this game. So I think I saw the end maybe just on YouTube.

David Geisler:

Right. And now we're also talking about if we're talking about gaming through the generations, like, now there is this point where people sometimes just YouTube cutscenes of games.

Kevin Goodwin:

You just watch it.

David Geisler:

Yeah. You just watch it.

Kevin Goodwin:

You can do And I've done that because I only had these Nintendo systems. So there's some things that maybe exist on PlayStation Yeah. Or Xbox. I'm like, I'll just kinda watch this.

David Geisler:

I've had that experience too.

Kevin Goodwin:

Now I have a my friend gave me a PlayStation four, so I can experience some of those big narrative driven games. But a lot of them, I'm like, I kind of know what's going to happen. I still want to play it, but some of them might know the ending. Like, it's because it's so late in it that it's just if you watch things, people are like, the game's been out for ten years. I'm going to say how it is.

Kevin Goodwin:

Right. It's true. Yeah. I'm not I'm not going to not do it. I think

David Geisler:

for me, I had a bit of a turning point, if unless you still have some things you'd to say about Skyward Sword.

Kevin Goodwin:

I mean, I think I'll come back to it when we get to more adult because I did eventually beat it

David Geisler:

Okay.

Kevin Goodwin:

But it's not when it was on the Wii.

David Geisler:

If if this timeline works for you, I think I'm going into Breath of the Wild here next for me.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. You switch into switch into the switch. Yeah. Well But for you, it's not. Are you

David Geisler:

Yeah. No. It wasn't. Yeah. You're right.

David Geisler:

So the for me, it was I was making podcasts at the time. I was making an art gallery podcast and a technology podcast. And I remember the technology podcast was called like Technophiles podcast. We did a spin off show with a different cast called I think it was called the Technophiles Games Cast. It was supposed to feel like a spin off.

David Geisler:

Yeah. And so they just talked about video games, and sometimes I I wasn't a host on that show, but I produced it, so sometimes I'd come on as a guest host or a guest. And basically, I wasn't I didn't I I was always I've always been a Zelda fan to a certain degree in my life, not to the level of which I am now in these past five years because of this making this show. I mean Mhmm. Look at

Kevin Goodwin:

my Yeah.

David Geisler:

Look at where I live right now. Like, this was not the case.

Kevin Goodwin:

Zelda socks.

David Geisler:

Fifteen years ago. Yeah. Zelda socks, Zelda wallets, Zelda everything. Zelda wallpapers on the phones, Zelda okay. Anyways, but I guess as I've said this before, like, I think around those times, if someone asked me what's your favorite video game series, I'd you know, Zelda was up there, if not, my favorite.

David Geisler:

This is even kind of in those wee days, you know. Skyward Sword for me was not as exciting to play as for me Twilight Princess was. I really enjoyed Twilight Princess and I was a little Skyward Sword left a little something to be desired for me. I also didn't finish it, almost almost at the Gyriehim fight, just like Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

I wonder if a lot of people experience that.

David Geisler:

I didn't actually finish Skyward Sword until playing the HD version when we did our Skyward Sword Oh, okay. Is when I actually finally got through all the De My stuff. Anyways, but because but for me then, if, you know, we're kind of not only are we exploring how these games were evolving and changing and how we experience them, but we're also kind of laterally or in parallel exploring how culture was changing and talking about Yeah,

Kevin Goodwin:

when something is out for this long, goes through these cycles.

David Geisler:

Yeah. And so now I realized that even though so I was at a point where I was able to maybe I wasn't speaking about Skyward Sword, but through these podcasts, I was able to start having a voice and being part of a conversation about whatever the next Zelda would be. Mhmm. This predates AZP. And back then, was the Zelda that was gonna be on the Wii U.

David Geisler:

Yeah. You know, the Wii U Zelda. And I remember reading articles about the first dungeon's going to be as large as all of Ocarina of Time. Mhmm. And, of course, translated now, that's the Great Plateau Great Plateau.

David Geisler:

Which is bigger than all of Ocarina of Time.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's crazy to think about. It's just think well, when you're younger, things do seem bigger. Yeah. But, yeah, I just was, like, flying over that in Tears of the Kingdom and being like, that's how big Ocarina of Time was?

David Geisler:

I know. It seems so much bigger. And also when you think about Ocarina of Time, how much time you spend really just kind of running from the castle to the mountain to the Zora area, which is just that little corner. But anyways Yep. So for me, that started to change, and that, I think, for me, the beginning of my story about playing Zelda the way I experienced Zelda now and have experienced for the past five or six years, where I did start becoming part of the not becoming, but engaging in the larger conversation.

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

I felt like for me, Zelda, as much as I enjoyed Twilight Princess and and enjoyed Skyward Sword to a degree, it was getting a little rinse and repeat for me, those games. Mhmm. I was excited about having the format get mixed up a little bit and I was excited about it possibly being open world as we were starting to hear these things about Breath of the Wild. And I didn't have a Wii U or anything, I figured actually I used to joke on the Technophiles games cast. I used to say, like, yeah, I'll get a Wii someday.

David Geisler:

I'll get a Wii or a Wii U someday. I'll get a Wii U someday. When the Zelda game comes out, I'll get a Wii U. And I'm realizing right

Kevin Goodwin:

now the final

David Geisler:

that's actually what I did. Yeah. When Breath of the Wild came out, I got it on the

Kevin Goodwin:

Wii U. The way I got Twilight Princess so both Breath of the Wild

David Geisler:

and Twilight Princess, I played on their, quote, unquote, original

Kevin Goodwin:

system. Yep.

David Geisler:

Not the not the new one.

Kevin Goodwin:

Even though they're sort of the end of that era Yeah. Or that system.

David Geisler:

Both of them were part of that thing. So That's right. Would you like where would you like to go with this? At this point, I think we're kind of entering an area that you're interested in exploring as far as, like, us gaming fully as adults in adult lives.

Kevin Goodwin:

I think, and then and then sharing that with a younger generation.

David Geisler:

When I started playing Breath of the Wild, my nieces and nephews would watch and did want to start to play. You know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

So me coming into Breath of the Wild is actually when, like, my son was born. Okay. And, like, just a couple months later, like miraculously got a Switch day one. Like walked into a, like a, like a Best Buy maybe.

David Geisler:

And he was sitting there.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. I remember my wife driving me around and like him in his little back seat, and we were kind of going like down. I think we checked Target. And I was like, Well, I'll go into Best Buy. We'll just see what happens.

Kevin Goodwin:

And I was like, Do you guys have any? And the guy was like, Yeah, I got one. I was like, Oh, it But it's probably reserved. He was like, Yeah, for you. I was like, Cool.

David Geisler:

I got it.

Kevin Goodwin:

Remember coming back home. Like, I got this. And the I, you know, immediately went home and downloaded Breath of the Wild. Like, I was getting it for that. I'm like, I want this.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's a new Nintendo system. I I also had skipped the Wii U, so I was kind of excited. I actually haven't played video games for a while, and this is coming back into it. Yep. And I like and I do like that they mixed it up.

Kevin Goodwin:

Was like my life was getting mixed up because I didn't have a child. That's a big transition, and Nintendo's kind of messing with their stuff and making this amazing game. And so I experienced the Breath of the Wild during nap times and stuff like that. And having it be handheld is great. You have this little baby, maybe by the size of a cat here, in your arm sleeping and you're playing playing Zelda.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah.

David Geisler:

I'm playing Zelda.

Kevin Goodwin:

So that was my so that has big memories for me.

David Geisler:

Yeah, I see.

Kevin Goodwin:

And then realizing, I think, oh, this kid's going to get to experience this stuff. And I played that game long enough that he was I was probably still playing it when he was two. And so he was like, what is that? I'm just,

David Geisler:

yeah, old enough to kind of see what's going

Kevin Goodwin:

on. Said, is a thing. I know what Zelda is. And then the Switch has been good too because it puts more of them on there. So he's been able to experience a lot just on that one system.

David Geisler:

There are a fair amount

Kevin Goodwin:

of that don't really have to go too far to find

David Geisler:

So

Kevin Goodwin:

that's where Breath of the Wild comes in. And then him getting older, I think the next one, maybe it was Skyward Sword. That's when I finally got to beat him.

David Geisler:

Skyward Sword HD.

Kevin Goodwin:

Came out, and he was now, I think, maybe four. Right. And he was excited. And I was excited too because I'm like, I want to go back in this game and play it with you. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

And let's go through it. And let's beat it. So we actually him getting to see the ending was me also the first time beating it. Aw, that's And coming back to it. And I remember him even getting to try the controls, but there was something about that, getting to play a game with him.

Kevin Goodwin:

And I'm like, woah, this is Again, if we go back into our memories, I don't have that memory. Because my parents they're like, here's the video game. Here's the system, but you play it. It's for kids.

David Geisler:

And maybe they'd watch a little, but it was really maybe you had a similar experience. My memories are it was really us trying to explain to Yes. Oh, this is I did today. It was so cool because I went to this dungeon or this whatever, and they're like, that's great.

Kevin Goodwin:

But that that, like, those words don't exist

David Geisler:

Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

To them. They're like, I don't know what that I don't know what that is. Yeah.

David Geisler:

And now as adults, we're like, well, would we like to do gyro controls or we wanna go with the stick?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. Like, he's he's very I I think we played that and the Link's Awakening remake, kind of similar at the same time. So he'd be at the playground telling kids about the wind fish and stuff. I don't think this other kid knows about this, but their parent would. There was an interesting way of about that.

Kevin Goodwin:

He was able to have these conversations, but not with other kids, but with their parents being like, I know what that is. Why do you know that? Why does this four year old know about the wind fish?

David Geisler:

Because the four year old has a dad who knows about the

Kevin Goodwin:

wind Exactly. He's experienced it. It was it's just cool. I didn't like, it's hard to put words to it. Like, just cool Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

To see. Like, it's cool to experience these things with him, and, like, Zelda seems like a perfect kinda game for that.

David Geisler:

I think it is.

Kevin Goodwin:

Because it has so much history, but I'm also, like I had played Skyward Sword before, but playing it with him is a whole different thing. Like it's just a different experience.

David Geisler:

Wow. That is you know, you're you're making me realize something about my I'll I'll speak specifically about my nephew right now. He's he's seven years old, six years old, and oh, he's the same age as your son, isn't he?

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm. Yeah. My son's like six and a half.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Six and a half. And my nephew is actively playing did start, you know, year two started picking up Breath of the Wild and and is was playing it and is playing Tears of the Kingdom right now, but but playing in quotes because I'll get to that in a second. A little bit like my niece on Outset Island Mhmm. With Wind Waker, you know, sometimes just

Kevin Goodwin:

Like really playing.

David Geisler:

Yeah. You know, my niece to this day, well, she's little older now, but a few years ago, she would play Breath of the Wild and she would just go to Laurel And Village and just walk around. And she would say, this is my house. She would play dollhouse but in the game. You know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

Love it.

David Geisler:

And and absolutely no, you know, story beats being accomplished or anything, and I actually think that that's wonderful. Okay. Okay. So anyway, one thing I'm realizing though is, like, you know, Shane is has a daughter who's starting to get introduced to games, and there's this experience. I don't obviously, I don't have any children and it's pretty likely that I probably won't.

David Geisler:

Think kids are great and everything and I love being around them and I love whenever I have an opportunity. You you actually are a teacher. I had a couple years where I was able to be an art teacher at a school in Milwaukee and I I just loved it.

Kevin Goodwin:

Oh, fun.

David Geisler:

Yeah. It was very cool. Anytime I get to interface with kids, I actually really, really enjoy it. Anyways, with that all that said, jealous is not the right word, but I'm realizing you have something really special. Because with my nephew, okay, fine, he's playing, but I see him once a month.

Kevin Goodwin:

Okay.

David Geisler:

So we're we're we're kinda checking in with each other. Yeah. Oh, you got to that area. I got to this area. We maybe we play together.

David Geisler:

I watch him play for an hour or two in a car ride or something, and that's all very special. But truly experiencing a game with new eyes, with a kid Yeah. Is that's gotta be amazing.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's super interesting. Mean, it's a little sometimes it's frustrating too, though, where, like, he wants to like, because when he was little bit younger, he couldn't quite control things, so you have to sit there and kind of walk off the Actually, just the other day, he launched himself up in Tears of the Kingdom, he still doesn't quite know how to get the paraglider out and put it back. He still has to sort of look at the buttons. He doesn't have that. And I I actually never know where they are on the controller.

Kevin Goodwin:

I'm like, push the the one at the top. Yeah. Like, I don't know if it's x or y. I can never know if it's x or y, like, one is where on that on that controller. I just my brain just like, nope.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's not something you're gonna

David Geisler:

half the time remember. Holding them sideways from Mario Kart

Kevin Goodwin:

and so that all changes anyway. And he just boom. Like, just died. Yeah. And to him, he's like, oh, no.

Kevin Goodwin:

I'm like, well, it comes back. It's not that big of a deal, but still.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. I had to that was one thing that was maybe you experienced this with my nephew. We we had to spend maybe a half an hour. He didn't realize this is what was happening, but we had

Kevin Goodwin:

to spend about a half

David Geisler:

an hour kinda teaching him how to manage his emotions when he does Oh.

Kevin Goodwin:

Die or or you know what

David Geisler:

I mean? And that it is about when he's defeated, when he perishes, that that it'll come back and it's okay. And if the same monster defeats Link two or three times in a row, it's alright. Maybe you can just make another choice and, you know, it's not failure or anything like that. And that was a whole journey of only a few months ago, honestly, because Tears of the Kingdom doesn't start off easy.

Kevin Goodwin:

No. It doesn't.

David Geisler:

You know?

Kevin Goodwin:

And so we're we are we are playing that. We did play Nintendo's been good too. We were talking about how they have access to the games. Like, we also played Minish Cap together. Oh.

Kevin Goodwin:

So and it is fun to say, like, we're gonna we're playing this together. And I almost sometimes feel bad about

David Geisler:

mean? Does it mean he's copiloting and just kind of or

Kevin Goodwin:

He's kinda watching, like how you're saying that that Zelda is a good game to sort of watch. Yeah. And it's funny too because I I I will sometimes if I have time, we'll keep playing it and he'll be Wait, what happened though? How did you get to hear it? I'm like, Oh, I'll just tell you explain to you.

David Geisler:

Oh, sorry. Did an hour without you?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Because it's still times where he's into it, but he doesn't mind if I play when he's not watching. Yes. Sure. He'll he'll wanna know.

Kevin Goodwin:

Like, with Tears of the Kingdom, he's like, what did you do? Yeah. I'm like, oh, I did this and this. Can I can I see that? I'm have to go back.

Kevin Goodwin:

He's like, that sounds cool. Can we, like, find that again?

David Geisler:

I'm like,

Kevin Goodwin:

I don't even know where that was. Time on

David Geisler:

Tears of the Kingdom.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Like, I've probably put a lot of hours into Tears of Kingdom, but actually progressed in no way because of my son. Like, spent once we got down Mhmm. To go on and you could do the building Yeah. That's just like he loves Legos, that's, I think, a similar like, I can tell his mind is working the same way.

Kevin Goodwin:

When he looks at all those pieces, he's like, oh, we should build whatever, whatever, whatever. Put that there, put that there. And it'll actually solve some things. I'm like, oh, they really developed this game in mind of, like, letting people play, but, like, knowing, like, we put this thing right here. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Even a six year old is like, that's probably supposed to go on that wheel. Right?

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

And he has no

David Geisler:

It's all very well designed.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Like, he would not have seen a video or heard on a pod. Like, people maybe mention that about, but he's not watching that stuff. Mhmm. So in my mind, like, wow.

Kevin Goodwin:

This game is something else. Yeah. If people can just kinda wander through it. Yes. And he gets we both get distracted by things.

David Geisler:

Mhmm.

Kevin Goodwin:

We're like, can you go that way? I'm but there's something over that way. We're supposed to be going this way.

David Geisler:

But we'd even argue.

Kevin Goodwin:

So I

David Geisler:

because because part of that is you're supposed to be going the way that whatever the social experience brings you to. So the same way that if you and he were walking through the actual woods. Like, it's still an experience.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's very much like that. It is like like I was saying, it is like playing. They're letting you play in the game however you want. Like, definitely built, like, a little fan car when we first got down and the game was really starting, and just rolled that around probably for an hour or maybe two.

David Geisler:

Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

I think in my brain, I'm like, I want to go see other stuff, but he is really enjoying watching this, riding this thing across this field, which I think they also drop you into almost a peaceful little field, if you decide to jump down that way. But you can just roll around back and forth. The kids, I feel like we were talking too, they seemingly have more time than us. But it's good to have someone remind you, I'm like, I think I have that time too. I will roll around on this little car we built in Tears of the Kingdom.

Kevin Goodwin:

And I have noticed that the way I play that game is more like a little kid now.

David Geisler:

I just had a little epiphany, and I I actually, almost a second one just off of what you just said. I think that's really important. Playing Tears of Kingdom almost like a little kid, I concur, and I agree. I think I am as well. I'm playing I wanna make this other point but I wanna say this first because I was really actually, for me, pretty moving that you made that realization because or mentioned because I never realized this.

David Geisler:

With Breath of the Wild I was kind of somewhere in the middle. I was kind of like, yeah I kind of feel like I'm supposed to go talk to the Zoras so I guess I'll go do that and okay on to the next beast which one shall I go to? There was still a little bit of that classic mindset. With Tears, right now, I mean I did like one of the dungeons. I'm halfway through the water dungeon but I just kind of jumped off two weeks ago and I'm doing other things now, and I'm playing the game maybe quantifiably super slowly, one might say, right?

David Geisler:

And I'm very happy to be doing that because on, you know, on a meta level, we all know that this is the Zelda we're gonna be playing for the next five years, so why rush?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Yeah. Know what I mean? There's not gonna be new one coming out.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Not a new

Kevin Goodwin:

one. Anytime soon.

David Geisler:

Right. Yeah. Probably at earliest five years.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's like who knows even when the new system's coming out? Like it's Right.

David Geisler:

Yeah. I know. And a lot

Kevin Goodwin:

people So we enjoy what we have.

David Geisler:

And I agree completely. And so I'm I'm there are a couple times where well, actually, no. I wanna return to the little microscopic epiphany that I had while you were speaking there about what you guys are doing in Tears of the Kingdom and you said you know we were talking about like kids have more time but I think there's another thing there too what I realized is that as adults as we go through the decades literally and we go through jobs and life and school and all the things but there's nothing wrong with any of that, We we have that little ticking clock in our brain all the time now, don't we? Know that it's all What happens at four? What am I you know what I mean?

David Geisler:

It's always going. Whereas with a kid, they can push a cart around in a field for two hours and maybe it was five minutes, maybe it was two hours, who cares? It was the thing they were doing. It was fun. Yeah.

David Geisler:

It's the way a kid can get lost with playing with their Hot Wheels and wooden blocks or something, you know what I mean? I think that's great and I think in many ways what I'm now realizing in this conversation something I'm grateful for is that when I go into Tears of the Kingdom, yeah fine maybe I kind of keep a little timer going, only want I know I'm only gonna play for an hour, I'm only gonna play for an hour and a half, Maybe I can't keep track of that, but I'm not that ticking clock of what will I do next or whatever isn't happening. And I think I'm also kind of playing Tears of the Kingdom quote unquote by by the rules that we've kind of set up here like a kid. And I think it's wonderful.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. And I think the game is almost designed in that way. Yeah. And I I don't know. Maybe they might know that their audience, like, they they probably do have some sense of, like, if these people were playing the original Zelda when they were kids, they are now this age, what do they want?

Kevin Goodwin:

I'm sure I always think that too when I watch things, you can kind of tell these people have kids the way they're writing these kids in the show. So I'm wondering too of these Nintendo sort of knows. Maybe they don't,

David Geisler:

but the way

Kevin Goodwin:

the game is going, I'm like, this seems like it's very set up to to mess around, and anyone can do it. But I think I'm messing around in it like was I'm eight years old. Yeah. Yeah.

David Geisler:

And we could also posit that the designers themselves have children now and stuff like that too, which we know some of them didn't back like in the Ocarina days.

Kevin Goodwin:

Probably not when they were starting, no. No. When they were kind of just starting out with their job and like, it's interesting to think about. And things pop into your head that I know if I didn't have a son and was playing this game, it would be different. It would have to be.

Kevin Goodwin:

I don't think it would be a similar experience.

David Geisler:

I think what you're experiencing, seeing it from kind of an outside perspective, my closest analog is having nieces and nephews, it kind of feels like you got something really special going on there.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Honestly. It makes the game really special. Yeah. Mean, it's a good game.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Technically, it's a good video game. Might be one like, in my mind though, I I think I'm getting something more out of it. Almost don't wanna I almost don't wanna and maybe that's why I'm also playing it slowly is I don't want it

David Geisler:

to end. Like, to end? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

David Geisler:

I kinda oh, that's kinda where I'm at too. It's not so much. Yeah. Yeah. It's said a different way.

David Geisler:

I I know that it doesn't need to end for quite a while. You know what I mean? Like, can just keep going. Keep going and and keep playing.

Kevin Goodwin:

I know that I'm experiencing with this other person who's my son. Like, maybe I don't want that to go too fast.

David Geisler:

That's the

Kevin Goodwin:

psychological thing going on there.

David Geisler:

Well, it's like when you're I remember some some kind of some video game memories with my dad. I remember playing doctor Mario with him on the Nintendo, and those ended up becoming very special memories. But my dad would do a thing for me as a kid where anytime there was a home, not renovation, but anything broke in our house, my dad is not a macho guy at all, but pretty much he was an engineer and he would pretty much try to fix it first, know, before we call someone.

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

And it kind of became maybe a motto or a philosophy in life anyway. It's like, well, know, maybe cook your food before someone cooks it for you, before you order from flipping DoorDash and spend $90 just

Kevin Goodwin:

to have

David Geisler:

a sandwich delivered that you could have made. Yeah. Okay. I I'm even becoming a grouchy old man, but I digress.

Kevin Goodwin:

I'm I'm, let's say, Mattel.

David Geisler:

So I one of the things that I'm really grateful for is anytime that the sink would break or anytime our tub would break or an outlet had to get changed or fixed, my dad, I'm so grateful for this, I didn't realize it at the time, would just kind be like, oh hey Dave Dave, come here, look what's going on here, look at how this works. He would like find me, like, look at this really interesting, look at how the water plug works in this, you know, valve. Isn't this neat? And then, and I would, yes, yes, is neat. And so my experiences of, you know, I kind of like if the analog is like building a, I remember building a swing set with my dad, you know, maybe some others build a shed in the backyard with their dad or something.

David Geisler:

I didn't I didn't play sports at all. I'm actually really bad at sports. And there were a few times where my dad would try to throw a ball back and forth at me and I was just horrible at it.

Kevin Goodwin:

Why am I doing this?

David Geisler:

So we had we had to bond in other ways and it was usually more like home renovation and construction projects. Making. Which is probably why I love those things these days. But anyway, I'm realizing that in a different in a similar way, you and your son are building things right now. You're even necessarily literally, maybe a little bit in the game and stuff, but like you're on your own shared adventure together

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah.

David Geisler:

Building these memories. Yep. And that's what I'm hearing from you and what I'm inferring is that that's got to be a pretty cool thing.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah, it's super special. And then, like I said, it makes you go back and think about what you were like and what and it's fun to be able to go back and say, like, this game existed then too. And so I can landmark things with a game. I can do it with other things as well.

David Geisler:

People people ask me all the time when they hear that I when they first hear that I make a Zelda podcast. They say, what? You're wait. You're in season six? How do you

Kevin Goodwin:

There's a

David Geisler:

lot don't you run out of stuff to talk about? And I say you there's we have a list of 50 episodes that we still haven't even done. We are never gonna run out of stuff to talk about when it comes to Legend of Zelda. But usually the second thing I say is, but in many ways, talking about The Legend of Zelda, which you and I have done exactly in this episode, talking about The Legend of Zelda isn't it's it's also talking about lore and games and storylines, but it's really a really nice path to explore video game history.

Kevin Goodwin:

Mhmm.

David Geisler:

Because it really was one of the early ones. You know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yep. And it actually marks generations usually either ending or starting. Absolutely. They're saying that you bought you could buy it on an older system or the next one. Which one do you

David Geisler:

pick? Absolutely. Sort of thing. I think it's great. So I think we're I think we're pretty much out time.

David Geisler:

This was a longer episode, but I had so much fun talking about all this. This is great.

Kevin Goodwin:

Do have any kind of final thoughts or comments? And if not, that's fine. Final thoughts?

David Geisler:

Anything that

Kevin Goodwin:

I mean, I don't I think just that we said that idea, like, when you have something like Zelda that spans so much time, it's interesting to go back and think about where were you at in these moments, and then having a son who's starting that journey now and hoping when he's older and can then think back and know that, like, I'm part of that starting of it

David Geisler:

Yeah.

Kevin Goodwin:

Is super special.

David Geisler:

Like, you know, when when he's 20, will he try the original, the Legend of Zelda, just to see what it's like? Yeah. You know what I mean?

Kevin Goodwin:

It'll be like the remake of Ocarina of Time will be that. Yeah. Like, I'm gonna revisit these things.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Well, this was this was an absolute treat for me.

David Geisler:

Thank you so much for coming up with this idea, and thank you

Kevin Goodwin:

for No problem.

David Geisler:

Like I said already, thank you for taking the time and joining me here in my apartment. It's, like, that's in chaos right now because I'm moving in a couple days.

Kevin Goodwin:

It's pretty organized.

David Geisler:

Oh, really?

Kevin Goodwin:

I mean, you have everything in bins. Well, yeah.

David Geisler:

Oh, I learned that trick a long time ago. I've moved enough times where it's like uniformly sized bins. Yep. So I go to the hardware store for, like, $11. You can buy one of these.

David Geisler:

I honestly have probably 20 of them, and then you just put the bricks together, put stuff in the bricks and put the bricks together and it's all good. But anyway, well, hope you have so what are you doing?

Kevin Goodwin:

Are you

David Geisler:

are you flying back

Kevin Goodwin:

to Flying back to Pittsburgh, yeah, tonight. I noticed you

David Geisler:

had luggage with you when you got here. Are you literally going to O'Hare after this? Yeah. On the Blue Line?

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. Gonna get on the Blue Line and fly back or ride back to O'Hare and fly back to Pittsburgh.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Have you been on the Blue Line yet? Have you taken any of the

Kevin Goodwin:

public transportation? Have not done that yet.

David Geisler:

It's My

Kevin Goodwin:

first time to ride, it'll be fun. Yeah. It'll be easy.

David Geisler:

It is. It is. And you'll notice that in many ways, actually the the train goes faster than the cars.

Kevin Goodwin:

I would imagine because it's not stopping. Not it's kinda just like I'm going

David Geisler:

Mhmm. Here. And and also the blue line has a really nice it actually stop it ends inside the airport.

Kevin Goodwin:

That's why I figured. Was like, I think this just goes to airport and, like, that you just get off at the end.

David Geisler:

Yeah. It's great. It's well designed. I love living on the Blue Line because when people fly in, they can just kinda come out Anyways, of the that was great. Well, Kevin, this was awesome.

David Geisler:

Thank you so much. If people I mean, obviously you write a bunch of blogs for us on our site, but are there a few other things that you'd like to to promote that people could find you at or anything like that?

Kevin Goodwin:

I don't really have a presence on Well, we think on Instagram or I I don't use any of that.

David Geisler:

By the way, just recently I referenced in the beginning of this episode the Hello Hyrule episode that Celeste was on. The hosts of Hello Hyrule specifically called out one of your blogs. Don't know if they knew that it was I don't know if they spoke to you as the writer, but they were talking about how how some of the articles are really heartfelt and it's about like raising children while you're playing video games and I know Shane had a few in there like that. Yeah. But I just wanted to mention that there that's

Kevin Goodwin:

like

David Geisler:

like the the blog and those types of stories that we're telling there even got a shout out over on that show.

Kevin Goodwin:

Yeah. It's cool and stuff you do, you know that people are actually seeing it.

David Geisler:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm grateful for your contributions there and and and for your time here. And anytime you're in Chicago again, obviously, we just gotta stay in touch and do more episodes.

Kevin Goodwin:

Definitely. Cool, dude. This is a lot of fun.

David Geisler:

Alright. Well, people can find me on on Twitter and Instagram, which is hysterical because I actually I was looking at my Instagram just the other day, and I think I put, like, a picture on there once every three months. It's I was

Kevin Goodwin:

I scrolling through don't I it's not even on my phone that often.

David Geisler:

Yeah. And I think I don't even well, anyways, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at raptor paint. You can find the show another Zelda pod on Twitter and another Zelda podcast on Instagram or just go to our website anotherzeldapodcast.com where you can find all of our great blog articles and of course, you know, all of our other episodes and we've we've got merch options there and Patreon options. The magical sword people are watching us right now. Hi, guys.

David Geisler:

How you doing? And and I did not silence my computer. It's dinged a few times this episode. I'm so unprofessional. But, anyways You got

Kevin Goodwin:

cat scratches we got.

David Geisler:

There was a lot of there was a lot of behind the scenes activity with this episode. Thank you for being so professional. He's asleep now. Yeah. Well, now he's sad.

David Geisler:

He's like, can't go anywhere. Guess I'll just sleep on the desk.

Kevin Goodwin:

He knows he's sleeping on on Zelda stuff, though. So

David Geisler:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's literally using a a Nintendo Switch as his pillow right Alright. That's fine. Cool.

David Geisler:

Well, thank you so much, and everybody, we'll see we'll see you on the next episode. Kevin, thank you.

Kevin Goodwin:

Thanks again.