Forest Dungeons

David and Kate explore the many interpretations of forest-themed dungeons across the Zelda series. From the eerie Forest Temple in Ocarina of Time to the leafy depths of Wind Waker’s Forbidden Woods, they share memories, design insights, and what makes these dungeons so iconic. Plus, early listener feedback, a few laughs, and some light Zelda lore debates!

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Creators and Guests

Host

David Geisler

KM

Host

Kate May

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: 00:00

This week on another Zelda podcast, we talk about the series different interpretations of the forest dungeon. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another Zelda podcast. I am one of your hosts, David Geiser. I'm here with my cohost, Kate Fisher.

David Geisler: 00:25

Kate, how are you?

Kate May: 00:26

I'm good. How are you?

David Geisler: 00:28

I'm well. I'm kind of well. I'm so sorry about my voice. I think I might be losing it just a little bit. I've recorded four podcasts in twenty four hours, which is kind of an anomaly.

David Geisler: 00:41

Was just getting over a cold a few days ago, so I can already tell right now. I think I might be losing my voice a little bit.

Kate May: 00:45

I believe in you. You can do it.

David Geisler: 00:47

Oh, I'm definitely going to keep talking. I'm just saying to our listeners who have to listen to my frog throat, I already apologize. But Kate, you've been well since our last episode?

Kate May: 00:57

Yeah, I have been starting to play Link's Awakening a little bit, which I have not played before, so I'm starting to do that. I've been playing more Breath of the Wild, kind of going back and forth between the two.

David Geisler: 01:09

I think we'll do a little bonus Breath of the Wild episode after our next episode, because I have a lot of questions to ask you. Maybe we'll just replay like a fifteen minute bonus episode after episode three. Sound good?

Kate May: 01:19

Sounds good.

David Geisler: 01:20

I'll kind of pull the curtain back here. Today we are going to be recording our first and second episodes all at once because of schedules. And it's actually like a Saturday morning right now that we're recording these two episodes, which is not our normal intended schedule, it's going to work out. I'm a lot of fun for it. I'm in the mood for it.

David Geisler: 01:39

Kate, you had a wonderful New Year's Eve party about a week ago.

Kate May: 01:43

I tried. I think it was pretty fun.

David Geisler: 01:45

Which I attended and I had a great time. It happened since, I think our first episode was just about a week before that. It was great times. Thank you for throwing a great party.

Kate May: 01:54

Of course.

David Geisler: 01:55

I don't think I got sick from that party, but I definitely got sick around the time of that party. So today we're going be talking about Forest Dungeons. I'm really, really excited about this. It's going to be kind of a new thing for us. When you think about doing a Zelda podcast, you think about, Oh, well, we'll review all the games.

David Geisler: 02:11

Right. And actually I was thinking, what if the first game that we full on actually review is Link's Awakening? Because I know that I gave you that cartridge at your New Year's Eve party

Kate May: 02:20

in Yeah, it'll be fresh in my mind.

David Geisler: 02:22

You're playing it on a legit Game Boy Advance

Kate May: 02:26

right It is.

David Geisler: 02:26

Not even a Game Boy SP. I think you don't even have the front light or anything.

Kate May: 02:30

Do forgot how difficult that can be sometimes.

David Geisler: 02:34

Feel for have to

Kate May: 02:35

sit in front the lamp every time.

David Geisler: 02:36

I will lend you my Game Boy Player if you need it, if you need to play it on the TV if it gets too I

Kate May: 02:40

used to have the little curly q purple light guy for my Game Boy Advance, but that, I don't know, fell by the wayside at some point in time.

David Geisler: 02:48

Well, as they so often do, think I had a yellow one for mine. But then once I got my SP, to this day I still play on the SP. It's wonderful. So yeah, we're talking about Forest Dungeons today. We are not reviewing a specific game.

David Geisler: 03:00

I do have a couple We did get a couple comments from our last episode, a little bit of listener feedback, and I just want to go over those real quick. So in our previous episode, even though our audience is welcome to listen to these things out of order, we can't help it. We record these in order because of time and the world and physics and the universe. We had one comment by TC DeWitt, who actually, this is a coincidence, he messaged this before, but I was on his show last night. He hosts a show called The Rewatch Men.

David Geisler: 03:28

And they re review old movies and we re reviewed King Kong. And we also re reviewed Batman 1983, '19 '80 nine's Batman, the first Tim Burton one. It was a lot of fun, but I'm paying the price this morning for talking for hours and hours and TC actually, he commented to us on our Facebook page kind of organically here. We were talking about the games that we have played and he said that he played Ocarina of Time, Ocarina of Time. I'm going get this right now.

David Geisler: 03:53

I got harassed a little bit for

Kate May: 03:55

the whole Oh really?

David Geisler: 03:56

I get it. I think I was legitimately saying it wrong. It's an Ocarina. I played Ocarina of Time several times and Majora's Mask twice. I played the original Nez two but could never beat it.

David Geisler: 04:10

And did you say that you were never able to beat it either? I think he might be responding to that.

Kate May: 04:13

I have tried to play it and I could not get very far without just failing miserably. It's so much harder, I think.

David Geisler: 04:22

I wasn't, yeah. Any game

Kate May: 04:24

that you start off with so little, so few hearts or so little amount of life,

David Geisler: 04:28

it's

David Geisler: 04:29

just

Kate May: 04:28

It

David Geisler: 04:28

can be up in the beginning. Once you finally get like an upgraded sword, once you finally get the double, the half damage tunic and stuff like that, it finally starts coming around. But boy, that is kind of similar to the Breath of the Wild.

Kate May: 04:39

Oh no, I was going to say, had the same exact problem with Breath of the Wild where now I'm running around and I'm like, Everything is fine. I can beat anybody, whatever, la la la. And I first started I was getting so frustrated with it.

David Geisler: 04:49

I don't think I've died in Breath of the Wild in real world months. And when I first, you know, that first two hours that you play you die 10 times

Kate May: 04:56

in

David Geisler: 04:57

Breath of the

Kate May: 04:57

Wild.

David Geisler: 04:57

Because you're still learning how everything works.

Kate May: 04:59

It's exponentially, not easier, but just, I don't know, you can deal with it.

David Geisler: 05:03

Everyone accidentally jumps off a cliff in that first hour, I'm Oh yeah. Everyone can't believe that their stick broke super early, I'm sure, as they're fighting up a goblin. So I looked this up after last week's episode. They're spelled, and everyone on the internet's saying Bokeblin when they're talking about the goblins in Breath of the I really interpret it as Bokeblin, but maybe I was just thinking it was supposed to sound like goblin. But everybody says bokoblin.

Kate May: 05:28

I don't try to pronounce it at all. I just say scary, squeaky sounding angry guys.

David Geisler: 05:36

I did notice that the keys, which are the bats in they're called keys in the original.

Kate May: 05:41

Yeah, those have been around for a long, long time.

David Geisler: 05:44

I think there was a time there where they might have actually been called bats, maybe Wind Waker or something, I could be wrong. But anyway, yeah, so we heard from him and then I actually had another piece of listener content that I wanted to comment about. Oh, yeah. Mark Rikers, on our Facebook page here. He, he commented on our Facebook page, which you can find by just searching another Zelda pod.

David Geisler: 06:06

On the post of our first episode, he said, Majora's Mask, Zelda two, Wind Waker, as in, obviously those were not our three favorites. We talked about our three Do you have anything to say about that?

Kate May: 06:18

I actually liked Wind Waker a lot. I'm not sure why that one didn't come into my mind. Yeah. But I do, maybe just because I haven't played it in a little while so it wasn't fresh in my mind and it didn't, I don't know, affect me as viscerally as Ocarina of Time did because that was like the first one that I really connected with. No, I love Wind Waker.

Kate May: 06:37

Majora's Mask just drives me crazy because that's a personal thing where I don't like time limits. The can't do, you only have so much time to do this. And there are pieces of that to like each Zelda game in a smaller kind of element. Yeah, no, like a challenge. You have to carry this certain thing that will get cold or expires or something like that in a certain amount of time.

Kate May: 07:00

And that alone makes me go, I

David Geisler: 07:03

can't do that. Some of the spirit realm stuff in Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess was always kind of anxiety ridden for me. I did not enjoy those segments oftentimes. Because it's like, you gotta find these things for no reason, but we made up a reason. And by the way, it's gonna be hard and the things are gonna be looking for you, do it.

David Geisler: 07:18

You're like, this isn't even a puzzle. Mean, sometimes it's a puzzle, but

Kate May: 07:22

My thing is time limits. Can't do it. That's my And I have friends who are very passionately enthusiastic about Majora's Mask, but I'm not one of them.

David Geisler: 07:32

That's cool. I know that Mark Rikers has the capability to create podcasts because he's made a few in the past, and so I invited him to maybe join us on one of the episodes where we review one of these games. Cool. Maybe Zelda two.

Kate May: 07:44

Cool.

David Geisler: 07:45

Don't you think? Technically, what is that? Links? Adventure Links? No, no.

David Geisler: 07:50

What is the actual title for Zelda two?

Kate May: 07:52

I don't know. I'm a bad Zelda fan. I'm a bad Zelda fan.

David Geisler: 07:56

Welcome to another Zelda podcast.

Kate May: 07:58

We know nothing about But

David Geisler: 08:02

we really like it.

Kate May: 08:03

I really like what I played.

David Geisler: 08:05

The Adventures of Link.

Kate May: 08:06

That's what I

David Geisler: 08:07

think it's just The Adventures of Link. That's it. It's when they first started because then it became subtitles after that. So I invited Mark to come on and be a guest on one of our early He'll

Kate May: 08:15

be much more knowledgeable than you or me, obviously, about that one. Yeah,

David Geisler: 08:19

absolutely. In fact, I also heard back from Brian Tyson. He got in touch with us and said that he commented to us on our Facebook page. We're getting a lot of feedback on the Facebook page, is And Mr. Brian Tyson was talking about He messaged it on the wall, I'm just going to say it.

David Geisler: 08:36

He said, I'm glad that you share my opinion that a link to the past, is a little overrated, which is the Super Nintendo one.

Kate May: 08:44

Gotcha.

David Geisler: 08:44

And I was like, Oh, Brian, you feel me, brother. So I invited him to maybe join us for an episode as well. Awesome. Everybody, you can talk to us about the things we're about to speak about and the things we have spoken about by tweeting at us anotherzeldapod or finding us on Facebook, which is really you can just search another Zelda podcast. We also have links to our Facebook and Twitter page and our YouTube page.

David Geisler: 09:06

You're welcome to if you're listening to us on YouTube, you can put stuff down in the comments. We're on YouTube just by searching another Zelda podcast. Our website is another Zelda podcast. I'm like trying not to die over here. Website is another

David Geisler: 09:18

Zeldapodcast. And that has links to all of these things as well. Kate,

Kate May: 09:25

David.

David Geisler: 09:25

Forest temples. Let's do it. I have a bunch of notes here. Cool. It's kind of fun.

David Geisler: 09:31

When I think about forest temples, I made a list here. We kind of, we used a Google drive here and we put together a bit of a list. Some of these forest temples that we're going be And you know what? I should really be a little bit more specific, forest dungeons. So I did a little bit of research since last week's episode or whatever, two weeks ago when the episode came out.

David Geisler: 09:50

And there is a slight difference between a temple and a dungeon. Every single dungeons exist in all Zelda games. Uh-huh. And sometimes dungeons are called temples.

Kate May: 10:01

Yes.

David Geisler: 10:02

I make the mistake of us often calling them temples. So we're going be talking about forest dungeons today. And obviously the first one that comes to mind is the forest Temple from Ocarina, but I think we're going to save that towards maybe the second half of this show. There's a couple others that, you know, Woodfall Temple in Majora's Mask. We have the Forest Temple in Twilight Princess, which again is kind of the spiritual reimagining of Ocarina.

David Geisler: 10:26

Wind Waker has the Forbidden Woods and I'm actually So since our last episode, I went ahead and downloaded Wind Waker HD on my Wii U. Okay. And I've been playing it and I've made sure to get through the Forbidden Woods for this episode. In fact, I just played the Forbidden Woods Forest Temple like two days ago. Cool.

David Geisler: 10:44

So I'll be excited to talk about that. There's a couple other little honorable mentions. We have Spirit Tracks has a Forest Temple and Skyward Sword has the Skyview Temple and it's in like the Faron Woods area.

Kate May: 10:55

Right, it might as well be

David Geisler: 10:56

a forest my opinion it has all the makings of a forest temple. It has vines that you have to climb, it has some ropes you have to climb, some hookshot type of situations, and we'll talk about that as well. There was a few temples that I chose not to include. There are some temples out there that get sometimes there's a gray line between a forest temple and a wind temple.

Kate May: 11:17

Yes, lots of connections in every game kind of with that, but some more than others.

David Geisler: 11:22

A lot of times wind is used in forest temples, sometimes there's wind temples that have a forest aesthetic, but I chose to save those for another day.

Kate May: 11:28

Sometimes they couldn't make up their mind which theme they wanted to focus more on of the two because they've always been somewhat connected.

David Geisler: 11:35

It's true because how do you express a forest? I mean, vines I guess, wood, logs, trees.

Kate May: 11:42

Force isn't really an element, so to speak, like the fire and water

David Geisler: 11:45

ones are, but

Kate May: 11:46

wind would be

David Geisler: 11:47

And then there is that one, there's a temple in Oh, I can't remember exactly, but there's specifically a wind temple that is not forest themed, up in the air. Oh, Twilight Princess has that one.

Kate May: 11:59

Yes, yes, With

David Geisler: 12:01

the little lady chickens.

Kate May: 12:03

The ookoos? How do you say that? I don't know.

David Geisler: 12:05

I'll get it wrong. Don't know. I guarantee I'll get

Kate May: 12:07

it wrong. It's spelled like ookoo, but I don't know if that's actually correct.

David Geisler: 12:11

You know what, I think I'm gonna switch it up here. Why don't we start by talking about the Ocarina Forest Temple?

Kate May: 12:16

Okay.

David Geisler: 12:17

I was gonna save it for the end, but let's just dive right into the meat here.

Kate May: 12:20

Is like because that's like my OG Forest Temple.

David Geisler: 12:23

Well, it is many people's. I was looking very hard into Link to the Past to try to see if I could suss out the equivalent of a forest temple, in my opinion, I could not. I am trying to I know that I'm not in love with A Link to the Past, but I am replaying it right now and I am trying to find the good in it. I think the reason people loved it so much is that when you compare it to Legend of Zelda and Link's Adventures, think it probably did shine back when those were the only three games. But for me, the cartoon aesthetic and I don't know, it just didn't work, but that's okay.

David Geisler: 12:56

So, Forest Temple, Ocarina, I see you have some notes. I'm going to hand this over to you for a second. What was it like for you the first time you approached it? Because oh, there is some trends with forest temples. They're often one of the first temples you play in a game.

David Geisler: 13:09

Yes. If not the first.

Kate May: 13:10

That's kind of why I like them a whole lot. It's almost like a tutorial of sorts or at least it gets you acclimated to what you will be doing for the rest of the game. And they're usually not mind numbingly difficult, so that is also why I like them. They're manageable.

David Geisler: 13:24

Now the Forest Temple in Ocarina is maybe the first temple, but it's actually the fourth kind of real temple you're in because you do have those three previous pseudo temples, you know, when you're a kid. And some might argue that the Daegu tree would be classified as a forest Kind of is. And it kind of is. But it's not

Kate May: 13:42

And you get a good weapon in that one too.

David Geisler: 13:45

I would say it's a dungeon, not a temple. But let's talk about the Forest Temple. I loved the Forest Temple in Ocarina. Me too. It was the first moment in Ocarina where I legitimately started getting kind of stuck.

David Geisler: 13:58

You know,

Kate May: 13:59

when you were a kid Oh yeah, I got so stuck in there the first time I tried to find it.

David Geisler: 14:02

For the most part, Deku Tree, maybe it takes some time to figure out, Oh, got to break through the big old spider web. Do you even learn that that's a mechanic that can happen?

Kate May: 14:10

Yes. It's not necessarily intuitive.

David Geisler: 14:13

I agree. First come

Kate May: 14:13

upon it.

David Geisler: 14:14

Then you've got the Goron stuff and some of that Zora stuff. That's all well and good, that's fine. You have your three gems and you travel to Old Link. But that was the first time, the Forest Temple for me, was the first time where I was like, Oh dang, I'm in like, Oh this is a game. Yep.

David Geisler: 14:28

There was many reasons why it felt that way, but I want to ask you what some of those reasons were for you as I take a sip of water.

Kate May: 14:35

There are just a lot of elements to it that I really liked. I really like the music for one thing which was kind of

David Geisler: 14:41

Oh that's so funny we got a comment about that.

Kate May: 14:44

Creepy and odd and like the little woodwind instrument. I don't know I just remember those little I don't know, tune or noises. I don't know what it would be more classified as, but those get kind of stuck in my head.

David Geisler: 14:55

You're right, absolutely. I reached out on Twitter through our Twitter account. Reached out to Joe Heiser who goes by juicebox 343, he's one of the co hosts of a podcast, a Zelda podcast called Tandem Legends. Cool. It's a cool little show.

David Geisler: 15:10

They only started it about six months ago, but I've been really having fun with it. It's a very different format than our show, so I really want to be friends with them because they're super cool. What they're doing is it's him and this other gal and they're basically playing through every Zelda game in chronological order according to the Hyrule Historia timeline.

Kate May: 15:27

Yeah.

David Geisler: 15:28

So they're 17 episodes in and they just finished playing Skyward Sword.

Kate May: 15:32

Okay. They're gonna have to play like three games at once.

David Geisler: 15:35

Don't know

Kate May: 15:36

what they're gonna do.

David Geisler: 15:36

I looked on their website, have it kind of I think they're gonna kind of go left to right when it splits into three different timelines.

Kate May: 15:41

Gotcha.

David Geisler: 15:42

Or maybe right to left, actually, now that I think about it, it doesn't really matter. The next game they're gonna start up is obviously Minish Cap, and then I think Ocarina comes after that. So it's kind of fun. Play a couple hours of gameplay and discuss it every week. So I reached out to him and I said, Hey, we're doing a Forest Temple episode.

David Geisler: 15:57

Do you have any favorites? Because also one of the gimmicks of Tandem Legends is that Joe has played many Zelda games. The gal whose name I'm so sorry, I can't remember right now, but she goes by modernMoxie, I think she has played no Zelda games. Oh. So there's a lot of cool conversations and I'm having a of fun listening to that So he said, Oh, hey, awesome.

David Geisler: 16:19

A discussion idea. For myself, I got to say nothing can beat the atmosphere in Ocarina's Forest Temple.

Kate May: 16:25

Mhmm.

David Geisler: 16:25

I was like 10 when I first entered that dungeon, and to this day that music still sends shivers up my spine. Yep. He also said, And that room with the wall master. Terrifying. We'll get to that in a moment.

David Geisler: 16:36

So the music so it's so funny because the music doesn't stand out for me. I don't remember it very much, but please speak to that a little bit more.

Kate May: 16:43

Well, maybe that's just because it fits so well in the temple that you wouldn't think about it. I don't know, but

David Geisler: 16:50

it I do recall it feeling very atmospheric.

Kate May: 16:52

Yeah. Very atmospheric, a little bit creepy, which that whole temple is a little bit creepy. Some elements definitely

David Geisler: 16:57

more It's lot creepier than you expect it to Yes. You are. You build the forest temple. But it gets it gets spirity quick.

Kate May: 17:04

Yes. I don't know. Just that music, I can remember better than others except for, you know, the the specific songs that you learn. But out of the temple soundtracks, if you will, that is the one that sticks out to me the most and I just I don't know. I just really liked it.

Kate May: 17:23

I I will never get tired of running through that temple.

David Geisler: 17:27

Fair enough. I do recall, like, you know, even as you approach it, it's the first time where you kinda don't even know how to get into the temple Yeah. If I remember correctly.

Kate May: 17:34

They're usually, like, weird somewhat inaccessible, and you need something to get into

David Geisler: 17:39

it. And you use the hook shot. Correct? Isn't that for this one? I am currently replaying the master quest for Ocarina.

David Geisler: 17:46

I'm kind of like playing a lot of because we started this podcast now, I'm diving into many. I'll kind of jump over and do an hour in Link to the Past. I'll jump over and do a temple in Wind Waker HD.

Kate May: 17:57

Mhmm.

David Geisler: 17:58

I was I picked up Oracle of Ages again and I'm about a temple or two into that, a dungeon or two into that. And I am slowly going through Master Quest. However, with that said, I think it's been about ten years since I have personally played the Forest Temple in Ocarina. Oh wow. So it's been a while.

David Geisler: 18:14

But if I remember correctly, you do have to use the hookshot to hook up on some branches. Yep. And again, it's one of those moments where you're like, Oh, this is a thing I can do? Because it's not expressed totally that you can hookshot into all of the things that are wood. And you start to

Kate May: 18:28

learn Right, yep. If we can go away from the music just for a second. No. I also Okay. That's so cool.

Kate May: 18:36

Other parts of it that I really enjoy, which I wanted to mention, is the twisting hallway. That's like

David Geisler: 18:42

So the twisting hallway is where I fell in love with that temple.

Kate May: 18:44

Yeah, because it's not just, Oh this looks cool. Like you have to use it. It's a mechanic in the game. You can only access certain places when it's a straight shot hallway. You can only access a different place when it's a twisty hallway.

Kate May: 18:56

And I loved that. I was like,

David Geisler: 18:57

Oh, this

Kate May: 18:59

so cool. Yeah, it did.

David Geisler: 18:59

It was another one of those moments where I was like, This is real. Yeah. This is a real puzzle. Yeah. So when you first get in there, if I remember correctly, you kind of see the four Poe sisters.

David Geisler: 19:08

Am mistaken? Oh yeah. They jump off into their little is that the second room of the

Kate May: 19:14

had to deal with some wolves, if I remember correctly in the very first question?

David Geisler: 19:19

So you're absolutely right. You hookshot up into the main door, then you go into that little pre room. Yep. You're right, you're right. And there's two There's

Kate May: 19:26

key to get in there too.

David Geisler: 19:26

Which I do remember in the Master Quest, those wolves aren't there and they actually are in the temple later. Oh. It gets real. I really want you to

Kate May: 19:32

play Master Quest so so sorry, I really want to play that.

David Geisler: 19:35

Maybe in a couple months we'll do a Master Quest review episode. It'll be after you have time to play it as well. Awesome. And honestly, if I need to, I'll just dive in deep on that one. I'm having a lot of fun with Wind Waker HD right now.

David Geisler: 19:44

I'm loving it. Maybe I'll dive in deep on Master Quest. We'll decide later. Yeah, so yeah, you do fight the wolves. You go in and you find some pose.

David Geisler: 19:52

Four of them.

Kate May: 19:52

Four.

David Geisler: 19:53

And they all book in their respective directions. Yep. And essentially you realize pretty quickly, Oh, I have to relight these candles. And you do it by bringing the pose spirits back to the candles. Don't you use Do you use a bottle to do that?

David Geisler: 20:04

No. What is it? Again, it's been about ten years

Kate May: 20:08

for me. I believe so after you defeat them using the arrows into the paintings and then you actually kind of battle with them, if you will, I think you just go back into the room and they appear there?

David Geisler: 20:23

You know what, think after you defeat them, you're right.

Kate May: 20:26

Don't use a bottle.

David Geisler: 20:27

Know that No, think you're absolutely right. I'm confusing that with other times where you pick up spirits with bottles. But you're right, I think that flame, their spirit flame or whatever kind of

Kate May: 20:35

just jumps comes back.

David Geisler: 20:36

Yeah. And eventually you get back And that opens up the second half of the temple where you start getting these massive, kind of like almost courtyard feeling rooms with the rivers and the bridges and you're reentering those rooms from above and below. And it was cool because all of sudden you're in this spot where it's not just tight little rooms, it's a big open area. And I think that's where the twisty hallway comes into play. Isn't that right?

Kate May: 21:03

I'm not sure I remember.

David Geisler: 21:04

I think so. I think it's as you travel from one of the courtyards to the other.

Kate May: 21:07

I just remember, I believe one of the rooms where that horrible thing comes out of the ceiling is connected to one of the, is right after one of the hallways.

David Geisler: 21:15

Horrible thing that comes out of the ceiling, what is

Kate May: 21:17

Oh yeah, when you're standing there and it says, Oh beware of monsters on the ceiling. And Kid Me went, Oh my God, what?

David Geisler: 21:23

Is that the hands that

Kate May: 21:24

come The hands that come down

David Geisler: 21:25

with Oh for sure, sure,

Kate May: 21:26

I think my least favorite part just because they still freak me out to this day, it makes me anxious because the shadow's coming down and I try to get out of there as quickly as humanly possible.

David Geisler: 21:36

And pull you back to the front of the temple, think, right?

Kate May: 21:38

I think so, yeah.

David Geisler: 21:40

Which is exactly what the hands did in the original Legend of Zelda. They pull you back to the front of the temple.

Kate May: 21:44

Keep those hands.

David Geisler: 21:45

And by the way, even though we'll talk about this a little bit later, the spirit tracks Forest Temple has a play on those hands, which I'll talk about when we get to the spirit. Yeah those hands are the worst. They are always the worst enemy.

Kate May: 21:55

They're scary because you can't see them and then they come out of nowhere and I just don't like it.

David Geisler: 21:59

Well you technically can see what those shadows are. I it, I get it.

Kate May: 22:02

It gives me anxiety, surprisingly enough. But a lot of the monsters in this dungeon are creepy and weird and terrible.

David Geisler: 22:10

So one of the other things that I remember about Yeah, you're right. I mean this is definitely cool atmosphere. It's funny because other forest temples aren't as creepy. They tend to become a little lighter. Certainly the Forbidden Woods in Wind Waker is significantly less creepy.

Kate May: 22:24

I don't remember Skyward Swords being

David Geisler: 22:27

No, that was more just kind of like, it almost felt jungle y. It was more just like a bunch of branches and it's more puzzle stuff, we'll talk about that in a minute. But yeah, this one definitely gets dark fast and it gets foggy fast. And I remember also, this is the first template you have as adult link, so you are missing your slingshot. I remember missing it a big way.

David Geisler: 22:49

Being disappointed that I couldn't

Kate May: 22:50

have a Yeah, I remember that too, when you go through your weapons inventory and you're like, Aw, I can't use that

David Geisler: 22:57

anymore. My favorite. Can't that for a slingshot?

Kate May: 22:59

That was my favorite weapon.

David Geisler: 23:00

So of course that's rectified in this temple by giving you the bow.

Kate May: 23:03

Which also awesome. Some of these other temples you don't get the best weapon as like your big, this is your gift. The fairy bow is, just like bows throughout all the games. That's probably my second favorite thing to use. The first favorite would

David Geisler: 23:22

be Is your sword?

Kate May: 23:23

No, the hookshot. I mean the sword is just kind of like a given to me. I don't see it as like a special-

David Geisler: 23:29

I agree.

Kate May: 23:30

I guess it's just like part of your sword and shield, just part of the basic package to me I guess. So I guess the bonus weapons.

David Geisler: 23:37

Man, those double hook shots in Twilight, I was like, I'm Spider Man.

Kate May: 23:41

Yeah. I love the hook shot, but the bows, I mean, I love using the bow in Breath of the Wild and the fairy bow in Ocarina is just awesome. I love it.

David Geisler: 23:51

It's cool. And then of course in typical dungeon fashion, you use the bow on the final boss. Yep. I was captivated with this main boss for this dungeon. In fact, it's interesting because this entire dungeon has kind of a picture theme to it.

David Geisler: 24:06

The pose are stuck in pictures.

Kate May: 24:07

Mhmm.

David Geisler: 24:07

You

Kate May: 24:07

have to get

David Geisler: 24:08

them out of the pictures. Our final boss is Ganon going from picture to And I think that's interesting because when Miyamoto was designing what was called Zelda 64 back in the olden days, which became Ocarina, they were designing it, weren't sure how much memory they were going to have. For a while, he seriously thought that they might have to make all of that game happen just in Ganon's castle. And he thought this might have to be kind of like Mario 64 where we have a hub world and then we load up our other worlds. Didn't know how much video

Kate May: 24:42

Via pictures.

David Geisler: 24:43

Yeah, well, via pictures. And so this picture theme in the forest temple I have read is emblematic of that and definitely an artifact of that design process. So it's very picture intensive for that reason. Apparently the forest temple was around very early on in the design of this game. So Ganon jumping from picture to picture is cool.

David Geisler: 25:03

They do a little bit of a perspective trick because those pictures are two d, but they shrink the three d model of Ganon as he rides into the So when you are standing in the middle of the room, the perspective lines up. And I remember legitimately being scared by Phantom Ganon jumping from thing to thing.

Kate May: 25:19

It was challenging for me. Like that's not an easy first big boss to come across. To this day, I'm like a little have a little trouble with it just because he keeps turning around or you don't know exactly where he's coming from. Often

David Geisler: 25:35

Oh, that's right. He'll fake you out sometimes. Yeah.

Kate May: 25:37

And then he'll go by so fast sometimes that you don't have a chance to get him with the arrow.

David Geisler: 25:41

I'm now having a hard time remembering. You hit him with the arrow and then does he fall and you hit him with the sword? Or is it really just the arrow?

Kate May: 25:46

I think he falls, you hit him with the sword, but then there's some shield action back and forth

David Geisler: 25:52

to Well, they're prepping you for the final battle. Exactly. Which also that repeats the Wind Yep. The whole volleying back and forth thing is a common theme in many Zelda games, which is So

Kate May: 26:02

this is like a big boss for your first Absolutely.

David Geisler: 26:06

I'm just imagining this. I wonder if there were elements of this that were going be the final Ganon fight when the game was in really, really early development. Because I know that many parts of this temple continued to live. They started building this temple before they really knew what the game was going to be. I know that for a fact.

David Geisler: 26:24

And so that's kind of interesting. Let's see, so let's talk about some other aspects of this. You're getting beeps and boops over there on your phone. Sorry. Oh, it's okay.

Kate May: 26:33

Don't mind. I'm very popular.

David Geisler: 26:37

Any other standout things about the Ocarina Forest Temple?

Kate May: 26:41

I think that's basically all I had written down for the time being. It was just

David Geisler: 26:47

It was a very effective temple. It was a definitive temple.

Kate May: 26:50

It trained you well in many ways.

David Geisler: 26:53

It was definitely the first temple that I died in a couple times where I truly was trying to figure out real puzzles, not just kind of going along with it.

Kate May: 27:02

Forest temples are, like I said, I think I said before, always my favorite just because they're kind of one of the first things you come upon. You kind of really learn how to play this game with forest temples.

David Geisler: 27:12

This forest temple does not have a wind mechanic in it, later becomes a bit of a No,

Kate May: 27:17

that's true. Maybe that's why I like this one so much too, because the wind mechanics, I don't think I'm a huge fan of.

David Geisler: 27:25

Let's turn Twilight Princess. Wasn't really sure what we were going to go to next, but let's talk about the Wind Waker wind mechanic then in the Forbidden Woods. I'll just do an honorable mention of the Woodfall Temple in Majora's Mask. It's in the Deku, it's the most foresty area of Majora's Mask in my opinion. It's more of a swamp, might recall.

David Geisler: 27:49

That first kind of area you go with all the Deku scrubs and stuff like that. It's a bit more swampy, but once you open up that dungeon, it's the closest to a forest temple. So we won't talk about that one too much. So in Wind Waker, I personally just played the Forbidden Woods, like I said, almost forty eight hours ago. And I played it on Wind Waker HD.

David Geisler: 28:09

So this is what happened. After last two weeks I'll just say last week's episode. These come out every other week, but whatever. In our last episode, that's the right way to say it. In our last episode after that, I went home and I was like, Man, I'm jonesing for some Wind Waker.

Kate May: 28:21

Must play Zelda.

David Geisler: 28:23

Yeah. And so I took out my old GameCube and I plugged it in through one of those RCA to HDMI adapters and then brought it in through my system. Then I loaded it up and I started playing it with my GameCube controller. And I also remember in our last episode, you and I talking a little bit about really enjoying the GameCube controls in Twilight Princess and in Wind Waker. And immediately I was like, Oh yeah, this feels good again.

Kate May: 28:45

It feels intuitive.

David Geisler: 28:46

Yeah. And it was really blurry and it was fine, I liked it, but there was something that blew my mind. The control stick and the C stick in GameCube Wind Waker are inverted. For camera controls and looking are inverted.

Kate May: 29:03

Oh, would trip me out at first.

David Geisler: 29:04

So back in the day, that was a very common thing. Back the day, that was exactly how those sticks worked. Because was a relic from the C buttons on the 64 controller. So when you use buttons, pushing down for up and pushing up for down feels intuitive because it feels like you're kind of moving the joystick of the camera on the tripod. But once the controllers switched over to the C stick on the GameCube, people started That invert carried over, but after Halo and after many other things, just the community of gaming, people started preferring non inverted things.

David Geisler: 29:44

So in Breath of the Wild it's not inverted. These days they'll give you the option to go back to invert if you need, which is fine. And I think they did that in Twilight as well. They do not do that in Wind Waker on GameCube.

Kate May: 29:53

I feel like I remember being confused by that in Wind Waker.

David Geisler: 29:57

It's definitely pushed the C stick down to look up and whatever. And back in the day, I was perfectly happy with inverted controls, but this time around it was hard. And I was trying to be cool about it. I played up to the first temple on GameCube, which is not the Forbidden Woods. It's the dungeon bait.

David Geisler: 30:14

It's the volcano. With the dragon. So you get your of your hook shot, but it's actually the grappling hook. So I played up to that part on

Kate May: 30:22

the Is

David Geisler: 30:23

an island? Well, they're all islands.

Kate May: 30:25

Oh, boy. So I guess I meant the first

David Geisler: 30:30

one where you

Kate May: 30:31

get

Kate May: 30:31

there

Kate May: 30:31

by

David Geisler: 30:30

It's weird that

Kate May: 30:31

first time

David Geisler: 30:32

that you meet the Rito

Kate May: 30:34

ever. Oh, okay. I'm thinking of something else. So you don't consider the place where you get to via canon as the first dungeon since

David Geisler: 30:40

Technically, technically, yeah, where you're sneaking around.

Kate May: 30:43

A hill?

David Geisler: 30:44

That's like the Deku Tree for me. It's like a warm up dungeon. But you're right. Anyway. It is considered a dungeon.

David Geisler: 30:48

You're 100 You're

Kate May: 30:49

Highland, she says. Carry on.

David Geisler: 30:52

So the Forbidden Woods, that right, that is the third dungeon in Wind Waker.

Kate May: 30:57

Gotcha.

David Geisler: 30:57

So anyway, I was playing on the GameCube and I was like, Oh my God, I want to replay this game so bad! I almost can't right now. I wasn't losing my temper, but it was like every time I cranked on those sticks, it was going the wrong way. Every time I tried to aim my arrow, my camera, everything, it was bad. I was like, don't know what to do.

David Geisler: 31:16

I don't know what to do. And then I did a little bit of research and found out that the Wind Waker Wind Waker HD on Wii U are not inverted. I don't think that They

Kate May: 31:27

just like to mess with you.

David Geisler: 31:28

Of the standards, the way the camera system works, they had changed it by then.

Kate May: 31:32

Gotcha.

David Geisler: 31:33

So I went into the Wii U store and I saw that the game was only $20 and I was like, Oh boy, that is fine. I don't know. Because I really wanted to play it anyway. I know that it's not just aesthetic with Wind Waker HD. I know that there are some tweaks to the gameplay that they did.

Kate May: 31:47

Oh, okay. I haven't played HD, the HD version.

David Geisler: 31:50

I got to tell you, I'm loving it right now. I am absolutely loving it. And it's intuitively obvious that they were testing out some of the lighting for Breath of the Wild in that engine. It's intuitively obvious that they were testing out the camera system in Wind Waker HD for Breath of the Wild.

Kate May: 32:05

Some of

David Geisler: 32:05

the way the shadows are rendered, it's very clear. Some of the way things are loading in, the way that they're blurring things and not blurring things, which is making it feel like it's focus. Pardon me. Wow, I almost can't talk right now.

Kate May: 32:22

Unfortunately for you, you're the one that played this one most recently, so you'd have the most to say.

David Geisler: 32:25

I know. Let me ask you this just while I take a drink of water. Do you recall much about Forbidden Woods? I'll give you a hint. It was the first time that we got a Deku leaf, which later became things like the paraglider and the sailcloth.

Kate May: 32:37

I guess I do remember that part, but other than that, not so much. I should look up pictures

David Geisler: 33:44

of It's very vertical temple. I remember getting in there and immediately you to jump into those Deku bulbs that throw you up into the air. You to fly around big huge thrashing, you know, piranha plant vines kind of things flipping all over the place. A tremendous amount of choo choos in that temple in the beginning.

Kate May: 34:06

I'm gonna look up some images so it can

David Geisler: 34:08

of the doors are

Kate May: 34:09

Remind me, but

David Geisler: 34:10

Many of the doors are locked, so to speak, by the weird eyeballs that close when you get close.

Kate May: 34:14

Oh, yeah. So have figure out puzzles of like

David Geisler: 34:16

throwing nuts at them, throwing bombs at them, which of course halfway through the temple in typical Zelda fashion is rectified because you get the boomerang and then you can boomerang those eyeballs.

Kate May: 34:26

Boomerang those eyeballs.

David Geisler: 34:27

Mhmm. Very important. So in Wind Waker HD, am in love with the controls. They even let you use some of the gyroscope stuff. So it's like I mapped my boomerang to my R button and I just hold down R and I gyro to aim and it feels just like Breath of the Wild and it's awesome.

Kate May: 34:43

Cool. I see looking at all these pictures on Google which is what I'm doing right now to jog

David Geisler: 34:48

my memory

Kate May: 34:49

is making me want to play it again.

David Geisler: 34:50

It's wonderful. The boss is that big huge plant bulb thing. Yep. You might recall. The mid boss was just like that bug that spits all of its little babies out of its rear end.

Kate May: 35:03

Yeah. There's that seems to be a theme, by the way, is is that that shoot their babies at you or eggs or there's a lot of spiders.

David Geisler: 35:12

I think from a game design point of view, think it's a smart thing. From a logistics point of view, it's kinda gross.

Kate May: 35:17

It's it's very gross.

David Geisler: 35:19

So they they introduce you to those weird little spiky bulbs with eyes on them that attach to you.

Kate May: 35:25

Uh-huh. Oh yeah.

David Geisler: 35:26

They slow you down, you can't jump and stuff like that. Yep. And you later learn that they're coming from a big butterfly bug and that's the mid boss that gives you the the

Kate May: 35:33

Oh yeah. Boomerang.

David Geisler: 35:34

Yep. And then you go back through the dungeon and it was shockingly larger than I recall. It was much more involved than I recall. There's a little bit of a wind mechanic. So you're using the Deku leaf not just to fly Mhmm.

David Geisler: 35:46

Like a sailcloth, but you're also using it to blow I

Kate May: 35:49

was gonna say you

David Geisler: 35:50

shoot air, Which comes back in Twilight Princess. So maybe we transition to Twilight Princess right now.

Kate May: 35:56

Okay.

David Geisler: 35:57

Which I'm going give to you. I do have a couple notes about Twilight Princess for its temple. One of the things I remember is really loving the look of it.

Kate May: 36:06

Yes. Thought it I thought that's a theme for Twilight Princess for me, but yeah.

David Geisler: 36:09

And realistic. Yep. And dirty. And it felt cool. I'm gonna hand it over to you.

Kate May: 36:15

That one, I do not have the same fondness for from Ocarina of Time just because of the I don't love the Gale boomerang. I don't find it useful for very much. So Which I actually found out it's useful for grabbing bugs, which I did not do.

David Geisler: 36:34

Did you replay?

Kate May: 36:35

I replayed before our last episode where so I was able to kind of talk more about it. But yeah, the first few times I had played Twilight Princess, I didn't even care about the bugs. Was whatever. I'm not one to get heavily invested in side quests if there's no like real, really good payoff for it.

David Geisler: 36:55

Like the collectathon stuff?

Kate May: 36:56

Yeah. The one in Ocarina of Time I do like that side quest to get like the sword.

David Geisler: 37:02

Now I do want to point out, in my opinion, is a bit of a difference between a collect chain where it's like collect this thing to get that thing to get that thing to get that thing to get that thing to get one big thing at the end. And like a collectathon, which maybe this is just

Kate May: 37:15

stupid Oh I see what

David Geisler: 37:16

you're saying. Where it's like get the 50 spiders to get the bigger bag. Know what I mean?

Kate May: 37:19

Yeah, those I don't The latter I don't really care much about. But this time

David Geisler: 37:23

I was like I'm very passive with them. I'm kind of like if I get enough. Like in Breath of the Wild it's like if I find a Deku nut or a

Kate May: 37:29

curry Then they'll bring it to that Yeah. Oh yeah.

David Geisler: 37:32

That's Yeah, the little guys that are in Wind Waker. By the way, Wind Waker HD, polygon for polygon, those little Kakiri kids are the same in Breath of the Wild. I It is the exact same model.

Kate May: 37:44

I was going to ask, sorry to go back to Wind Waker, but I was going to ask, is that the first time you see the Koroks as

David Geisler: 37:50

Korok, thank you. I said Kakiri, which is actually the human form of them in Ocarina. Yeah,

Kate May: 37:54

exactly. But is that the first time you see them in Wind Waker?

David Geisler: 37:57

Wind Waker is the first time you see them expressed as those weird little branchy things.

Kate May: 38:01

That's what I thought. And then they kind of just

David Geisler: 38:03

are that kind of stay that way. Order of a game release, canonically in the timeline, they kind of go back and forth a little bit.

Kate May: 38:14

Gotcha. Because because

David Geisler: 38:15

they're humans in Ocarina.

Kate May: 38:17

Yes, because that's where you start out.

David Geisler: 38:19

And technically, if you really are getting weird about it, technically they actually evolve back into the little critters, but anyway.

Kate May: 38:25

How odd.

David Geisler: 38:27

Well, it's more of a lot of retconning, honestly. It's a lot of retconning the canon to like, Wow, then they turned into this, and then like, Oh, then the Zoras did this. Technically the Rito came from the Zorro, which I don't know if I can subscribe to that. But That

Kate May: 38:40

doesn't make sense. Okay, so going back to Twilight Princess.

David Geisler: 38:46

Well, may I say one thing about the It was very clear that in Wind Waker the boomerang is more of a cutting You use it to cut things. You often use it on Deku plants. You can use them to chop their little necks off. You can use them on ropes. You use it on everything.

David Geisler: 39:00

Clearly in Twilight Princess it's more of a wind machine.

Kate May: 39:03

Yeah, and that's why I don't like it as much. It's just I did not end up using it very much throughout that game. So when you get

David Geisler: 39:10

that as like the tornado tool than it is the

Kate May: 39:12

Yeah. And when you get that out as a prize, you're just like, oh, yay. At least in my view. And also, I hate the monkeys.

David Geisler: 39:19

The monkeys are unfortunate. The monkeys first appear in the game you are right playing right now in Game Boy. Link's Awakening, the first time you you encounter a couple monkeys of that same art style and everything.

Kate May: 39:32

Oh, interesting.

David Geisler: 39:33

And then they reappear in Oracle of Ages and Seasons in a a good way, in a cool way, in a fun way. And then I remember playing Twilight and being like, oh, it's the monkeys from Oracle of Ages. And then I was like, oh, I'm just

Kate May: 39:44

Oh, they basically do nothing. Like, I mean, they carry you across the gaps. And at the end, like, toward the end of the dungeon, they're obviously more useful when you have to get to the boss.

David Geisler: 39:52

I will acknowledge and will acknowledge and applaud that Nintendo was trying to mask keys and maybe give their a bit of a narrative thread where the monkeys introduced as a character before the temple. Sure. The monkeys get lost in the temple. The monkeys help you at the end of the temple.

Kate May: 40:11

Right.

David Geisler: 40:12

Like, I I'm glad that it's not just like enter the temple, do the thing. They try to, like, give a little bit of storyline through it. I'm just not a fan of the monkeys but I will give them credit for Yeah.

Kate May: 40:21

I don't know. It's not my favorite mechanic to get me through a dungeon.

David Geisler: 40:26

I think because you can kind of see through the scenes. It's like they really are just keys to a door. Yeah. They're a little annoying. Yeah.

David Geisler: 40:31

Sound a little annoying and it's like whatever.

Kate May: 40:33

Right.

David Geisler: 40:33

I remember in the forest temple in Twilight Princess, legitimately, and I'm a little embarrassed to say this, legitimately taking a little bit of time to realize that I needed to roll and crack myself into that totem to get one of the monkeys down. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was like doing everything. Was sword hitting, was like looking around the room, I'm like, Okay, there's a boulder.

David Geisler: 40:51

I need something. I need to swipe a vine and make a log fall. I need to do something. And then I finally just accidentally rolled into it. I was like, That's what I needed to do?

Kate May: 40:57

I just got to hit my noggin on

David Geisler: 40:59

a pole. I hit my noggin on this totem?

Kate May: 41:02

Uh-huh. At least they do tell you, like they give you the map and they tell you where the monkeys are and they do tell you once you get to the big open room like how many you need to find which is helpful.

David Geisler: 41:12

Yeah. That's

Kate May: 41:13

true. That's something. But I don't know. In general, I'm always kind of relieved when I'm done with that.

David Geisler: 41:19

Let's talk about the main boss in the Forest Temple for Twilight. It was a fun one. The big old plant? Yeah. Yep.

David Geisler: 41:24

Yep. Always it's always a big old plant. This one was kind of a reimagining of the Wind Waker plant in my opinion. Wind Waker plant's a big bulby thing and you definitely use the boomerang to chop down the stuff above it.

Kate May: 41:34

Well, Audrey two action.

David Geisler: 41:36

One is a bit more Audrey two. This one has actual mouths and things that snap at you, which lines up. It's really more of like a mutant version of like the Deku plants. They're called the Deku plants. Yep.

David Geisler: 41:49

Yep. I'm I am totally willing for our listeners, I am willing and prepared to not know exactly what I'm talking about sometimes on this show. Just blow myself to someone.

Kate May: 41:56

Me too.

David Geisler: 41:57

Like if I don't remember exactly the name, I'm sorry. We'll try to do as much research as possible before these things, but anyway.

Kate May: 42:02

And so this is the boss that comes back like three times. Right? Think it's dead, and it comes back, and you think it's dead, and it comes back, and then you think it's dead, and it comes

David Geisler: 42:09

back again. Then you have

Kate May: 42:10

to get the if I'm right, you have to use the boomerang to grab the bomb from the monkeys going back

David Geisler: 42:18

into the I think you're right.

Kate May: 42:20

Yeah. And then get that into the plant. I yeah. I'm not I don't know. I'm not as much of a fan of the bosses that you have to fight from a distance.

Kate May: 42:29

I like to be able to like get all in there. Ones that you have to use certain things to get other things to shoot it at the third thing.

David Geisler: 42:38

I think that's gonna be our promotional tweet for this episode. Kate Fisher likes to get all up in there.

Kate May: 42:42

I like to get all up in there and just hack away with the sword.

David Geisler: 42:45

That's fair. I mean, and usually the mechanic from most Zelda

Kate May: 42:49

Is doing that.

David Geisler: 42:49

Yeah. Things like you do a puzzle y thing with your item to get into a sweet spot and then hack away. Yep. And get all up in there.

Kate May: 42:55

And this one is not at all like that. But that's okay. It's a different kind of challenge.

David Geisler: 42:58

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I don't know if I have So yeah, you're right. Even the Wind Waker one, it was use the boomerang and then get up to that little guy and hack away.

Kate May: 43:08

So maybe people would actually like this boss because it's different. I don't know.

David Geisler: 43:11

It was little more puzzly. Cause the monkeys, they're throwing the bombs back and forth up above, if I remember correctly.

Kate May: 43:15

They're sliding from one end to another on like a rope. And you have to grab the bomb as they're going past. So yeah, it's a little bit of a challenge.

David Geisler: 43:22

Let's talk a little bit about kind of So in Breath of the Wild, we have an actual physics engine running, a legitimate physics engine running that Nintendo bought. It's the Havoc physics engine, I think, actually, is what's running in Breath the Wild. For Twilight Princess, and there was one other game, I thought there was a little bit of that. Ocarina does not have real physics. Wind Waker has some physics to my surprise.

David Geisler: 43:51

There were some legitimate, like throw a bomb in a middle of a bottle and that bomb bounced kind of realistically and stuff while I was in the Forest But one thing in my opinion where the wind, where it is not, the physics are not realistic, is the wind mechanic in the Wind Waker Forest Temple and the Twilight Princess Forest Temple. It's very clearly just kind of like a gun. It's like the wind gun. Yeah, it's a switch. Let's talk about that a little bit.

David Geisler: 44:16

So it sounds, if I am guessing correctly based on what you were saying earlier, it sounds like you found that to be a little frustrating. You have to shoot your wind gun at the twisty thing and then it moves a thing or it doesn't move a thing.

Kate May: 44:28

I just wasn't that intrigued by it.

David Geisler: 44:30

So Wind Waker, you use it to move almost like those little gondola carts across. They'll be on ropes and you blow the fan at the thing and then it'll move them. I found it incredibly frustrating because the physics weren't consistent. Sometimes you have to blow to the left or the right of one, sometimes you just blow at one. And it felt it was very frustrating, to be honest.

David Geisler: 44:50

And I remember similar things in Twilight Princess. In Twilight Princess, I think you're using the Gale boomerang to literally spin the

Kate May: 44:57

platforms and stuff, Rotate platforms.

David Geisler: 45:00

You frustrated by that?

Kate May: 45:01

Was it just wasn't interested by it. It's like, okay, I'm just hitting something on something else to turn something. It's just flipping That's what made the boomerang not that interesting to me. Because yeah, it's just flipping a switch.

David Geisler: 45:14

Flipping a switch, very interesting. I remember aesthetically very much enjoying the in the Twilight Princess Forest Temple. All of sudden I was like, Oh, I'm outside now. Oh, it's so windy. Oh, it's this and that.

David Geisler: 45:25

That

Kate May: 45:25

was

David Geisler: 45:25

Do

Kate May: 45:25

need my boots?

David Geisler: 45:26

There was a lot more particles. Literally particle effects and things flying through the air. And Link's hair and pieces of fabric legitimately flying in the wind, which had a little bit of an implied physics thing. There's a little bit of that in Wind Waker as well. Link's hair will do things.

Kate May: 45:43

Oh

David Geisler: 45:43

yeah. And so I think they were kind of building that engine when they did Twilight. Oh, I'd like to do some research. I wonder if the Twilight engine is the same as the Wind Waker engine, at its core. Yeah.

David Geisler: 45:54

You know? I'll do a little bit of research on that. That's interesting. Well, let's talk about some other things. We have the Skyview Temple in Skyward Sword, which now if you're playing it in order of release, this is now the next kind of forest temple.

David Geisler: 46:11

Certainly in the timeline though, it's the first time we experience a forest temple. Would you like to speak about it at all? There's a few things that stick out for me.

Kate May: 46:20

Yep, this one I think I'm kind of middle of the road about. I know you get the beetle in this one as like your tool, your prize, not a huge fan of the beetle either. I thought

David Geisler: 46:33

it was okay.

Kate May: 46:34

It's okay. And that one, this one actually you can use to cut ropes ropes and stuff. It's like more useful than a gale boomerang in Yeah. Maybe. But I don't know.

Kate May: 46:47

The beetle, I'm kind of meh, but you use the beetle throughout that entire game Yeah. Yeah. Like the whole game. You're not just using the Gale boomerang in the forest area and then not much after that you don't have to.

David Geisler: 46:58

That beetle definitely comes back.

Kate May: 46:59

That beetle comes back throughout the entire game for various reasons. So in that way, it's good because it's actually useful and an important part of the game. And then this one

David Geisler: 47:10

I remember oh, I'm so sorry. Was taking a sip of water, I wanted to say, I remember kind of like the one of the problems with Skyward Sword in my opinion is that it was so this is a this is a bit this is more of like a meta thing. In game, it's never spoken about. But outside of the game, so much of the promotion of Skyward Sword was, hey, remember when you'd swing Link's sword with your Wiimote and it wasn't one to one? It's finally one to one.

David Geisler: 47:33

Finally, exactly how you move is exactly how Link moves. And so when I got the beetle and you have to hold your controller and kind of paper airplane your controller to move the beetle, man, every single mechanic in Skyward Sword, it was kind of like, alright, Nintendo. This is cool, question mark, but it really feels like this is just a really fancy version of WarioWare or something like that.

Kate May: 47:56

Like,

David Geisler: 47:56

Oh, you're just taking every single stinking way that you can use new Wemotion To use the thing yet.

Kate May: 48:01

Look at this only thing you can do.

David Geisler: 48:02

And it's executed with that said, it's executed well. The beetle works well, all things considered flying it around.

Kate May: 48:08

Until you hit a wall butcher.

David Geisler: 48:09

Well, hitting the wall is the That's the goal.

Kate May: 48:10

It was

David Geisler: 48:11

a little fun having to squeeze it into those little passages in the big bottle room in the Yes. In that forest temple.

Kate May: 48:17

Oh, that big bottle room.

David Geisler: 48:18

It was okay. It was fine. That big bottle room reminded me a little bit of water temple from Ocarina.

Kate May: 48:23

It does. It does do exactly that.

David Geisler: 48:26

So I also remember in the Skyview Temple in Skyward Sword, the opening area was reminiscent in a little bit. It was stylistically reminiscent of Ocarina for me in that you're kind of to even get there in the first place, you're climbing trees and you're jumping on ropes and you're, you know, the way to get there, you see it, but you can't get there. You have to go up and around and over and stuff just to get through, which is fun. And I actually did enjoy that about that part of the temple.

Kate May: 48:54

And you have to play it twice by the way, this temple. You have to play it twice. Well that's

David Geisler: 48:59

just Skyward Sword's fault. Whole game like playing everything two, times. We made three areas. No, no, no, that's okay. It's cool.

David Geisler: 49:06

It's like nine areas. You go back to everyone three times.

Kate May: 49:08

So that's a little different about this one is that you do have to do it twice and it's a little different the second time through.

David Geisler: 49:15

First time through, boss is the actual dude, the pseudo bad guy.

Kate May: 49:25

Yeah, he's fun.

David Geisler: 49:27

The adrongeous kind of fellow.

Kate May: 49:29

Gerahim, if I correctly.

David Geisler: 49:32

Yeah, think it is. Gerahim, something like that. I was less than inspired by his characterization, but the battle's okay. Remember how he's holding his hand out and he blocks for different sword hits and Oh, yes.

Kate May: 49:43

One I still have trouble with because I'm trying not to, you know, telescope what I'm trying to do. But I fail at it like every time. As much as I'm thinking I'm gonna succeed at what I'm trying to Yeah. I don't know, it's probably the controller itself. I can't really tell, but I feel like I'm doing the right thing and he catches my sword every dang time.

David Geisler: 50:06

It's hard to talk about this game without talking about the controller mechanics. Yes. Know what I mean? And I actually try very hard not to be a hater of motion controls. When the original Wii first came out, I was a supporter.

David Geisler: 50:17

I was like, Yeah, get off the couch, you lazy bum. That's cool. Let's play games while we're moving You know what I mean? But at the end of the day, many of these control interfaces weren't accurate enough. And I think Skyward Sword falls victim to that often.

David Geisler: 50:32

And I think that's exemplified in this boss battle.

Kate May: 50:34

Yeah, yeah. It's just the idea is cool that you don't want to have him predict what you're going to do. Like the concept is cool, the execution is not awesome, not optimal.

David Geisler: 50:45

I agree. Him as a character, it's fine.

Kate May: 50:49

It's kind of like the Ocarina in that he's the big bad final boss, you have to not the final boss, but you know he's one of the main baddies in the game and you're encountering him fairly early on just like when you're fighting Phantom Ganon and

David Geisler: 51:04

That is an excellent observation. Yeah, you're right. I didn't even think about that. I always considered him to be more of like a Zant type character.

Kate May: 51:10

Oh, shit.

David Geisler: 51:11

Where it's like, Hi, I'm the bad guy. But at the end, it's like

Kate May: 51:13

He's like the puppet?

David Geisler: 51:14

Yeah. Actually Ganon knew it.

Kate May: 51:15

Bad guy.

David Geisler: 51:16

Ganon has been doing it the whole time.

Kate May: 51:17

Yeah. They need to bring him in somehow, right? It's bad It'd be weird if he wasn't part of the game.

David Geisler: 51:22

Fox falls victim to that once in a while too. It's like, hey, we have all these bad guys. Actually, was Andross the whole time. So that's cool. So anyway, maybe just a quick honorable mention is the Forest Templin Spirit Tracks.

David Geisler: 51:35

I have not played Spirit Tracks, so I actually watched a let's play of this game.

Kate May: 51:38

Okay.

David Geisler: 51:38

Spirit Tracks, A Link Between Worlds, and the second half of Oracle of Seasons are the three Zelda games that I have not played. Every other game I think I've pretty much played.

Kate May: 51:47

Gotcha.

David Geisler: 51:48

Which is sometimes a problem because sometimes they blur for me a little bit. Oh yeah. I've been playing every game over the last twenty years.

Kate May: 51:53

Well, I mean, Zelda is a little formulaic, which everyone knows. Kind of

David Geisler: 51:59

follow

Kate May: 52:00

the same until Breath of the Wild, of course. Then that kind of breaks.

David Geisler: 52:04

Yeah, guess you're right. Then it's funny because it's literally homaging things, the mechanics are so different.

Kate May: 52:08

Yeah, same cast of characters, but a different way to go about getting places and whatnot.

David Geisler: 52:15

Well, Spirit Tracks, basically, there's a quick one. I think there's also a So you get a mechanic in that one where it's another one of these like, let's play on what the gimmick of the device is. You get the Gael Windblower or something like that.

Kate May: 52:28

Of course you do.

David Geisler: 52:29

And so there's a wind mechanic in this forest temple again and your mid dungeon, you know, thing is basically the Deku leaf blower thing.

Kate May: 52:40

And

David Geisler: 52:42

wait a second, in Twilight Princess you get the blower, the Gale boomerang, but you get a literal blower later on like in

Kate May: 52:49

next sand Oh yeah, it's like the reverse vacuum? Mhmm.

David Geisler: 52:51

The reverse vacuum. Well this is basically a reverse vacuum and you use it to blow dust away and dirt and poisonous gas and stuff, but the way you execute it is you hold L and you literally blow into the DS because you know how Nintendo's all excited about how if you blow into the microphone into a DS, you peak the audio levels and they can trigger that as an execution. Oh wait, you've never played either of the DS Zelda games?

Kate May: 53:18

I have not. I have not.

David Geisler: 53:20

Yeah, they always get a little too clever in those games where it's like the puzzle is that you have to blow out a candle, but it's like, oh wait, I have to in the real world blow on the DS to blow out that candle in the game. Once you know that it's fun, but it's sometimes not super projected that that's the case.

Kate May: 53:35

By the way, think the reverse vacuum is in Skyward Sword. Did we talk about Twilight Princess?

David Geisler: 53:40

It's absolutely in Skyward Sword. You're 100% right because again you use your Wiimote to aim it and blow it around. I had less of a problem with that one but we'll talk about that in another episode. We kind of have to wrap this one up. Temple seems perfectly fine.

David Geisler: 53:54

Will be fully honest, I did just watch a playthrough of it and you get another wind thing, you're blowing poisonous gas away. That temple though does have the hands return that pull you out. Oh joy. But what they do is they don't pull you out of the whole temple, they just pull you back. There's a secret path you need to take that you learn about.

David Geisler: 54:12

Then if you don't take that path, they pull you back to the front of that path. It's a little bit And you can stun them with your blower, you know?

Kate May: 54:21

Okay.

David Geisler: 54:21

Which means there are times where in that game, you're literally like, getting

Kate May: 54:25

Someone's watching a kid playing this like, what

David Geisler: 54:27

is wrong with Why is that little kid's screen full of spit speckles? Ew. I mean let's face it, it's a little kid. They spit everywhere. I don't know, I have a nephew

Kate May: 54:37

and like there's so much Maybe that should be our tagline. Little kids, they spit everywhere. Not related to Zelda at all.

David Geisler: 54:43

So many boogers and spit come out of that kid's face. He's one years old and that's like all that happened.

Kate May: 54:49

Speaking of wind, one last thing that I wanted to bring up which I found on the Wikipedia page while I was kind of like re going over these which I totally did not pick up on before. A, the connection between wind and forest temples in general and then I was like oh yeah. B, Ferores or however you would say that, wind is like the forest related power that you get. Yeah And she is the forest or like green forest themed goddess if you will too. So there's that connection as well, which I was like, Oh yeah, forest wind.

David Geisler: 55:28

Even if there isn't a forest temple, think just about every single Zelda game does have a forest area, a forest expressed kind of area. The closest it gets is some of the boat ones get weird. Wind Waker technically has it's forest quote unquote, but you basically go into a big tree bulb and then, Oh, there's a forest on the inside.

Kate May: 55:48

I

David Geisler: 55:52

can't think of one that really doesn't have a forest. Maybe one of the DS boat ones. But anyway, any final thoughts about this? Because we should keep going.

Kate May: 56:02

The other thing I had written down which I also learned from the Wikipedia page was that I guess forest temples are tied to the virtue of courage, which I find interesting at least for Ocarina because y'all need some courage to go through that creepy temple. That temple is legit

David Geisler: 56:17

emotionally a little scary, especially if you're a So

Kate May: 56:19

I think in that way I see the courage connection there because

David Geisler: 56:23

Yeah you usually get like a courage gem, some kind of green Yep.

Kate May: 56:26

So it was That's Interesting factoid.

David Geisler: 56:28

And a lot of times like spirit even though there's a lot of spirits in the forest temple and Ocarina, a lot of times the spirit stuff is associated to desert things, which is interesting.

Kate May: 56:36

Yep. All

David Geisler: 56:37

right, cool. Well, Kate, let's get out of here. If anybody has comments or thoughts about what we've talked about or a little bit more information or they think we've gotten something right or wrong, which is perfectly fine, we'd love to continue the conversation online. Can do so by commenting below this. If you're listening to us on YouTube, in our comments on our YouTube page, You can tweet us at another Zelda pod or you can find us on Facebook by just searching another Zelda podcast and leave us messages there.

David Geisler: 57:02

We would love to keep talking about this stuff. We'll do listener feedback on their upcoming episodes and that's that. People can find me personally on Twitter and Instagram by searching at raptor paint or not searching but that's my handle. And Kate, you're on Instagram.

Kate May: 57:15

I am and it's I only take cat pics.

David Geisler: 57:19

I love it. Wonderful.

Kate May: 57:20

I also take non cat pics.

David Geisler: 57:21

I gave us I cheated and I gave us an iTunes review. And my review is I came here for the cat content. I was very pleased with myself. You will

Kate May: 57:28

not be disappointed by my Instagram page. Know that much.

David Geisler: 57:32

Fantastic. Alright, everybody. Thank you so much. We will see you in the next episode where we are discussing Kate, what are we talking about in the next episode?

Kate May: 57:39

We are talking about the all the creatures and people and whatnot that are in love with Link.

David Geisler: 57:47

That aren't everybody. Have a good time. Bye. We don't really have a send off. Maybe it's you saying bye.

Kate May: 58:07

Bye.