This is such a great analysis, thank you for helping me see what I was missing in this game. I was in initially iffy about your thesis of verticality representing time, but I think it makes perfect sense now that I've seen the full argument. One thing I thought was a piece of evidence you didn't mention is the absence of Kass, which was a bit of a sore point for many fans of Breath of the Wild when this game released. In Breath of the Wild, Kass was a traveling bard who relayed stories of the distant past that were meant to be clues to puzzles left to train the current incarnation of Link. The closest analog to Kass in Tears of the Kingdom is Penn, a journalist who goes around collecting stories about current events, mostly relating rumors about Zelda's whereabouts. The developers clearly want the player to connect these two characters, because after Penn's quests are all completed he can be found at Kass' study investigating his disappearance. Kass' stories and clues were always formatted as a ballad, like the real world ballads that were used to pass stories along orally in many real-world cultures throughout history. By contrast, Penn is always writing things down, and the stories you help him uncover are being printed and mass-distributed, as characters at stables will read them from the newspaper. By removing Kass and introducing Penn in his place, the developers are indicating that Hyrule's methods of spreading information are becoming modernized to the point where cheap and disposable publications have replaced oral traditions meant to be passed down for generations, which in turn will make the details of this cycle less likely to be passed along to the next one. It would be interesting to see if the Champions' Ballad that Kass composed in the Breath of the Wild DLC will survive into future cycles because of it's lasting nature as a Ballad. I hope that it will, even if only in melody.

The lightroots DO have something to do with the sun. The roots are fiberoptic cables that are carrying sunlight down into the depths. When you’re standing under them, you’re standing in sunlight.

"weapons can't get depression" sir may I introduce you to Xenoblade?

Honestly, I feel that the ending would have been so much better if Link actually _loses his arm_ in order to save Zelda. At the beginning of the game, Link's arm gets consumed by Ganondorf's gloom magic, and the Master Sword shatters... But then Link's arm gets replaced by Rauru, fitting the theme of community and the past helping the future generation. When Zelda gets returned to normal, Link's arm is suddenly completely fine. Rauru's arm disappears, but Link somehow gets his old arm back. It would have hit a lot harder if Link lost his arm _completely,_ and would have helped the overall message of sacrifice that Zelda, Rauru, and even Ganondorf showed (it also would have felt less like a dues ex machina if Link actually lost something from it).

God damn that clip of Zelda saying “I hope this sword reaches you” broke me again. Year later and her sacrifice still hits. Damn this game is beautiful

I also like the parallel between Rauru and Ganadorf of what they think "a King must do". For Rauru it's to sacrifice himself so Zelda and the others can live. And for Ganandorf, it's to rule as the mightiest only interested in his own power and self-preservation.

A verticality dichotomy I realized while watching this video and just thinking about TotK was the Yiga and Sheikah clans. The Yiga are mostly constrained to the depths, particularly Master Khoga. But the Sheikah are on the surface, and the interaction of the Sheikah and the sky are a couple of the important side quests. You have the Zonai Survey Team's HQ being there (as far as I can remember), the Ring Ruins landing on Kakariko Village, and many of the Sheikah tribe traveling to gain knowledge on upheaval subjects (Impa and the glyphs, and Pikango and painting the sky islands). That was a kind of convoluted way to say it, but this video really got me thinking. I will be mentioning this analysis to everybody I meet lol.

Rauru, in Ocarina of Time is the Sage of Light, not the Sage of Time. It is Sage Rauru who gives Link the Light Medallion in Ocarina of Time.

With so many totk hate videos breaking 100k and sometimes 1 million views, it’s nice to see someone praising it in a way and then getting recognition. It’s been so long.

Absolutely floored by this video. Fantastic reading on a game that I'm already starting to look back fondly on only a year later. You raised a lot of connections I hadn't even noticed before, and really put into perspective what this game was trying to say. Looking forward to what the future will hold.

I am always looking forward to big analytics pieces from you and you totally nailed it again. I really enjoy your calm and thought out way of presenting your thoughts on the game you talk about. One thing I'd like to add is that the Ouroboros contains two separate dragon figures - not just one eating itself - which I think very beautifully ties into your interpretation of the future and the past. Promotional materials for the game usually depict their heads on the top and bottom - the future and the past. So I think one could think of it as the future feeding on the past while the past is feeding on the future. But due to the motion and rotation of the thing as a whole the future will eventually become the present, by moving towards the middle part and eventually become the past from which the new future can feed off of. The past on the other hand rises to the top and creates a new future which can be read as past influences directly creating a new future based on previous experiences, events and legends. Thank you for this phenomenal video about one of my favorite games of all time!

I'm pretty sure the reversal of Zelda being a dragon was Sonia using her time powers, amplified by Rauru and Link joining her. It was set up, the amplification was set up when Zelda and Sonia amplified Rauru's attack, and them manipulating time is set up throughout the tear memories. They time reversed the draconification. It felt very satisfying to me.

The moment I found out the game saved the data of my tamed horses and had them available to me once I got to a stable was when I knew this game was something special

We are told about Draconification by characters who may not know everything about it. To me, Zelda coming back was inevitable. I had no issue with Zelda coming back to herself because it was obvious to me it was going to happen and it continues to baffle me that others couldn't see. The Unreliable Narrator is a tool to be used and it is used well here.

I love your meta-analysis here. A lot of nitpicks I've had about the game's approach to lore and story are fully resolved by looking at it from this angle instead of a strictly in-universe one.

dude, this is peak media literacy right here. probably one of the best video essays i've ever watched. fantastic!

The insight into how a “deus ex machina” can actually be done RIGHT put to words something I hadn’t been able to describe before. It’s much appreciated. Happy endings are just as artistically essential as unhappy endings, it disturbs me when critics get snobby about how happy endings are inherently ‘capitalistic,’ ‘cheap’ & ‘people-pleasing,’ or whatever. Zelda is the true main character! After everything she went through in BOTW AND TOTK, this type of happy ending feels very deserved, her entire life she was forced to pray & punished for a presumed lack of faith. Now her faith is finally getting rewarded now that her faith is placed in everything outside of just prayer. That’s an amazing & heartfelt message!

This is the most thoughtful Legend of Zelda analysis video I have ever seen. I appreciate the time, effort and consideration that went into this. When I was playing the game for the first time, the theme of succession stood out to me a lot. While the mechanic of comraderie was lost on me around the time Tulin blew resources off a cliff or Yunobo killed me by setting off a bomb flower in my face for the upteenth time... I did occasionally find myself summoning them again when I feel alone in the dark depths or the vast expanse of Hyrule. I find them comforting more than helpful, which I think is more important to me. Funny enough, at times, the depths are more fun to me to explore than the surface. Yes, they are barren. Yes, they are dark. Yes, they are difficult and cumbersome to navigate. But there is a very unique thrill to charting the underground bit by bit, looking for the light roots and figuring out how to get there in pitch black darkness. A limited supply of light, food, stamina... and no way to get more supplies once you are down there. For me, the underground is where the adventure happens. The surface is where the story progression happens. And the sky is where I really only go if I need to. It was more fun on my first playthrough, but I do not enjoy the flying mechanics very much, which sours the sky experience.

This was really good. You described the depths perfectly. It’s what I figured the depths were about. Attention to detail. I actually enjoyed the depths. And this game.

"In the past game they just sat in their beasts and shot a laser" Well, they were dead, lol

So many of these videos people make about Tears often make me look for the next video due to boredom, but you got me already hooked with your well-made video and you got me wanting to listen to the whole hour.

I don't get all the critizism of the depths by so many people. I thought they were so cool and interesting, there is way more to do than you initially think and you can travers it faster if you want to since there are Zonai devices everywhere. The first time I was exploring the depths I saw Farosh in the distance, combined with not know anything about the depths yet I was like "WHAT THE F ARE YOU DOING HERE? What is this place?" Lighting up all of the Depths and discoverying every challenge, dungeon, item, bargainer statue and getting that sick Depths armor set was really fun to me.

What a very well-structured analysis. I am in college for persuasive writing and I really love to see well-crafted takes on a series that I love. Well done.

Me counting on both hands and feet how many big zelda youtubers I'm bout to send this video to!

Just four minutes in, and you’ve already brought details and connections to my attention that I wish I had already seen, and somewhat sadly, wish weren’t lost on many others It reminded me of something else too. So many dislike the story here, but I believe Zelda has a unique grasp on story telling that isn’t inherently linear in nature, many things come together to shape the story, not just the plot but world building, environmental details, and characters. These individuals and seemingly separate elements come together to form the core thesis of the story of a Zelda game . And I think the Zelda team have only doubled down on this method in the most recent entries.

when you called the Arm a 'dummed down developer too,l' I was reminded of how the 'ascend power' IS a developer tool left in for the player to use

This video is so well-thought out, precise, informative, and entertaining! Immediately subscribed.

So many people got upset that Botw and Totk didn't have the "classic Zelda Dungeons" and that its TOO open and non-linear... Forgetting that the "linear Zelda" started with OoT, NOT the first Zelda game. The first Zelda game was non-linear and had a the closest thing to open world at the time of its release. Botw is Zelda returning to its roots.

The break from the story of the dragon occurs before Zelda returns to herself. You are told in the flashbacks, that draconification results in you becoming an immortal dragon. That means it should be impossible to kill it. We see this with the 4 dragons throughout the game, and the 3 in the past game, where you can hit them to get a piece of them, but you can never kill them or even hurt them. (Although removing the master sword might cause some discomfort). But the end of the game, you kill one of these allegedly immortal dragons. So I would say that is the real deus ex machina, killing something that is immortal. Meanwhile, the return of Zelda isn't really that major, not when you have the ability of recall and Sonia is also helping. That is just reversing what happened. When you start invoking the manipulation of time, undoing things is trivial.

This is such an insightful video, it embodies all of these ideas I had when the game released. I just couldn't put it into words like you

Super great video! What you shared not only gave me more appreciation for ToTK, but for the franchise as a whole, as well as a deeper appreciation for what the developers are trying to convey. What they’re “saying” (by other methods than just words) is so cool, so thank you for pointing these things out.

this video fucking rocked! I'm so glad to see smaller channels making greater content than bigger ones. Support your local indie channels, everyone!

This video is incredible, i loved TotK since it first came out. Ive been a long time Zelda fan, played OoT when it first came out on N64 back in 1998 then played all the ones that came before and after. Tears of the Kingdom is a beautiful, fantastic game and this video exemplifies why i love TotK so much. Good video, you earned yourself a sub

The cyberpunk Zelda idea at 33:10 seems kinda cool, and Zelda in the more modern outfit just looks amazing.

this video is amazing i love how you explained everything for sure subscribing!

the music of these games makes me all mushy and emotional. they may not be my favourites in the series, but I love them a lot.

longer than an hour? immediately subscribed.

Zelda regaining her humanity wasn't via deus ex machina. It was foreshadowed in a couple ways, one of which was in the gameplay mechanics alone. You had literally a Recall ability, but the power was not in you. Not until Rauru's light and Sonia's control of time were channeled through you, completing a triforce so to speak, in which in together's connections were able to bring Zelda back. And from the gods literally doesn't actually equate to deus ex; a necessary component for that trope is lazy, -unearned-, plot contrivances. But this was earned and it fits in story.

This was an amazing analysis of the story! I appreciate your work.

I really like this video! Your voice, editing style and deep analysis made the video fun, definitely subbing :D

This is a great watch. As someone who generally dislikes TotK, I always thought the game's theming and artistical elements were pretty stellar, and while I didn't get much of the references you outlined as I was playing the game, I did suspect there was a greater purpose to how things were structured in the game and story.

im not even done with the video and my mind is blown this video is CRIMINALLY underrated and everything youre saying makes sense too which is the mind blowing part

This is just incredible analysis man. Very inspiring. I find in a real world that needs us to act and find wisdom that generations may have lost, Nintendo crafts games that encourages us to not lose sight of our past and future. Breaking it down in the way that you have gives me hope for the future, and makes me want to create too.

People who said the depths are hard were lying. It's easy, one note, and I can avoid EVERYTHING by climbing and paragliding. It was so much more fun in the dark. So much more interesting gameplay to stumble in the darkness... for about 2ish hours. After you have the lightroots all completed (thereby also giving away all shrine locations aswell, oops) you see how... boring it is. The most interesting section was by death mountain, and provided an actual challenge ontop of the established challenge. You can see where the lava is but you can't see what lurks in the areas you know you can't traverse. Building Zonai devices to deal with lava and reaching the goal. Now imagine if More of that was applied to the depths. The Zora's domain, how about an underground lake hylia that you dive down (ala OoT/MM) style, probing in the dark murky watery depths, giving a whole new ambition to do the quest chain for the zora armor to make this area manageable- giving us the ability to make submarine zonai devices. Under lost woods was so close with all the trees that genuinely want to kill you, but Tall grass that enemies lurk in to pounce on you would have been so fun. Add in the complexity of still needing a torch for flame direction because it's guiding you to the exit inside Deku tree and straying away is a dead end (See many lost woods in Various zelda games) Gerudo area, the grave is fun but I would have LOVED if it was Everywhere, an elaborate mausoleum, and change it that the light root's light doesn't brighten this area but only it's circle. And a fun callback for the Rito, have the underside of the area feel like a reverse of dragon roost island and instead of lava it's snow and ice with the same challenges TP brought to the table. Starting this zone in the dark adding a new level of complexity making traversing blind dangerous. There's SO much they could have done with the depths to give it character. To make it's history be more dynamic rather than one note. There's so much missed lore opportunities in this area, it's ridiculous. It's banking on the player to feel like they missed out on history when it's just yet another mine/construction zone. There's nothing on the daily lives of those who worked these mines, how they functioned after The monarchs of Hyrule perished/sealed (never mind the missing tidbit on how the royal family continued and what they did during the eras);; There's so much missing to completely round out Hyrule as a Character that evolves. If the Depths is the Past, it should FEEL like the past. it should FEEL like we're uncovering lost history and truths. Instead it's dark, one note, and not even that particularly hard to traverse after the first 2 hours of gameplay. Once I realized there was NOTHING wrong with just walking around in the dark with no light towards a light root did the stakes of this zone crash. Hell, approaching the light roots with stables nearby on the surface make it easy to predict Lynels making those light roots even easier yet to avoid enemies without a light source. The game can't be too hard because children also play the game, but the depths don't gotta be this bland and unimaginative. But also, I don't think the Skies are the future in the equation, but Rather Link himself is the "Future" equation. Botw, Link wakes up 200 years INTO THE FUTURE. TotK, Link welcomes Zelda back into the Future after a millennia. By the same token, I'd Say Zelda Aptly represents the Past. Botw she spends all 200 years trapped in holding off calamity ganon; something akin to being trapped in the past of a tragedy. Totk she LITERALLY teleports to the Past. Ganon represents the Present. Ganon coming to cause ruin is a constant present threat that caused hyrule to scramble to build defenses against him before he was even there (botw), and then arm up with rusty weapons and sticks to defend people against his monsters while he was there biding his time (totk). He was there as a looming threat to build strength against in the Past that Zelda went to as that PRESENT threat. His threat is constant and never ending. Making the above world of Hyrule the Present affairs, the Skies a legacy left behind, and the depths a carving out of said legacy to build onto a hopeful tomorrow (those Mines). But the legacy areas are hollow and void of a soul that tells us much of anything outside of mining and device creation. Where's how they lived day to day, where's their culture, Where's everything that makes finding a lost legacy INTERESTING. It's a wonderful game with glaring plotholes and world building flaws, but still a wonderful game. Botw however outshines it in execution, concept, and flow. (And there's nothing wrong with that because Totk by it's own right is STILL a wonderful game) Otherwise I enjoyed the video, nice to see someone else's opinion and perspective of the game.... NOW GO PLAY BOTW

I see the armour being put in the depths as just a way to flesh it out more with something special so it wasn't so barren, giving a point to explore it. And with the Zonai literally being very far in the past, if anything the sky should represent the past, not the future. It is much easier to see it as light vs darkness. And the light roots are bringing the light of the sky into the darkness of the depths.

You do not have enough subs for the incredible quality content you are putting out. Great job, keep it up!

33:38 about that; A biker surrounded by smoke in a leather jacket was among the early concept art for the next Zelda game before it became TOTK. Truly NOTHING was off the table for them...

When you brought up the last of us part 2, it brought back the frustrations I have with the story/gameplay. They don't care about each other. They want me to care that story-Ellie is beating a person mercilessly as if its some sort of turing point for the character, meanwhile gameplay-Ellie is brutally stabbing people and blowing up dogs with explosives. If there was any actual turning point, it was the moment I was given the ability to use an npc as a human shield, as I domed their friends in front of them while they helplessly cried out their names...

I am *so glad* I took the time to watch this, you make so many amazing connections I never realized (and I am a CHRONIC overthinker on this sort of thing lmao) but it also gives more evidence to me, for my own timeline theory. I'd heard that Link's design was inspired by Peter Pan, but not what the series as a whole was inspired by. seeing that it's Indiana Jones and archeology makes so much sense, especially with the interview where when they were asked why totk has so many similarities to OoT (or at least, the memories do) they made the point that history as we know it changes when we find new evidence. throughout the entire game of totk (and kinda botw) I had this strong sense of them trying to tell us this was the first time we'd ever seen the real Hyrule, that this was the truth, where as past games were the legends, and now we're finally delving into reality with the uncovering of new evidence, and in a way that still shows love to the original series. I hate that this game gets so much flack, even from the people who were so happy to look deep at the subtle, environmental storytelling of botw. totk deserves so much better and I'm so glad someone's finally given it the recognition it deserves.

… people don’t find the depths fun? Weird that’s my favourite place in the game.

Such a great piece of work!

Great video, Tommy. 👏

I love how Link sometimes needs to embody Zelda for the NPCs in Hyrule. I really noticed this in the school sidequests where Link becomes a professor, and they come to admire him just as much as Zelda. He even picks up the slack with stable quests that Zelda herself was doing before she disappeared. It paints a warm fuzzy picture where she comes back and is overjoyed to see Link was still able to keep Hyrule going.

Great analysis! You really cut through the petty fan obsession on "canon" and put into words what the game, what Legend is really about

This gameplay really is a meta narrative about game development, isn't it? As a game developer, I realized how the 4 main abilities are the dumbed down editor tools. Ultrahand and Fuse resemble an entity component system, Ascend resembles noclip, and Recall is just the undo button. The developers said in an interview that this game was conceptualized from having so many ideas for BotW DLC. I could see how a meta narrative could form from that. According to the backstory, the Zonai would found the Hyrule of BotW, alluding the release of BotW. Rauru marrying Sonia would just be updating a game after release. You could also say that it's a desire to stay working in this version of Hyrule by the developers.

There was technically the tiniest bit of setup for the deus ex machina at the end, in the flashback where Sonia told Zelda how the core of their power over time was to tap into an object’s memory and help it remember the place and form it was supposed to be.

Great perspective on TOTK. I watched until the end. Keep making good videos bro

Not all wooden weapons are unaffected by gloom, the wooden boomerang that lizalfos can carry when you first encounter them are decayed and have a pristine version in the depths.

I'd say the biggest problem I have with Ganondorf's characterization in the end is that the game built him up every single time the focus pivoted away from Link for a moment, and then just... didn't. That's just playing with your food, and probably had some of the most negative impact on my opinion of the game out of the whole story. When you throw that in after very loudly telling the player that BoTW might as well not've happened and almost nobody remembers Link or the divine beasts, it just feels like I got done playing someone's whimsical tech demo for a sandbox game. I'm not going to say that the game is terrible or even bad (it's as fun as I hoped,) but I don't really go for that "stringed along" feeling when completing any sort of game. Normally there's at least a cliffhanger at the end of stuff that does that, but in this case it's just disorienting. Maybe it's better to say that I just expected _better_ of a game that makes those sorts of sweeping changes to the timeline, even if that's always shifted to be convenient.

This game is so beautiful. Throughout the entire gameplay it really felt... sorrowful and yet have a glimmer of hope. Sort of like bitter-sweetness.

12:23 the phrase “autistic building simulators” has now entered my vocabulary forever

As a fan of Zelda theories; while I am a sucker for big stories- it’s why I love the timeline theories so much- I can’t in honest conscience keep huffing the copium that is trying to make botw and tears work with the timeline. It’s clear that the games were designed to be a “reset” of the timeline. We can have our old timeline still but Nintendo doesn’t want to worry about our nerdy butts trying to connect their new games to old. Especially when the old timeline wasn’t planned at all by Nintendo at the start. Now if they wanted a timeline now, they can start fresh and with intention. The cycle will continue but they got a better vision of it now- and they know their fans will be keeping an eye out for this cycle.

Great video. Thank you.

Ngl, I really enjoyed this in-depth look into TOTK 👌🏾👍🏾💪🏾

Thank you for this. You earned my sub.

Excellent work mate! Great to see an erudite fellow Aussie climbing the ZeldaTuber ranks. Keep it up! 🙌

thank you, for giving me a new lends to view this game, I've felt at a bit of a cross roads of totk, i really want to love it and its not that i don't, but it just felt like i couldn't connect with the game the same way i could with any other in the franchise, including Breath of the Wild, but you gave me a new perspective and i think i can connect with it just that much more because of it

Great and unique perspective of TOTK.

Very good analysis of this game's themes. I never notice these things myself

So really TOTK is death stranding

Best video I’ve ever seen about this game. Completely nailed it!!!

This video really shows how shallow the big zelda youtubers like zeltik's videos on totk are. This video put into words what I was feeling when I was playing, but couldnt put into words myself. Thank you

Thank you for this. When I started playing TOTK (I didn't finish BOTW), I felt more of a kinship to it. A friend messaged me that he liked it since it felt "more vibrant" with the characters going about. I agreed and went on to play more hours with TOTK than BOTW. Heck I was scared of the divine beasts in BOTW and in this one I actually felt more comfortable and more of a drive to fix the regions. I felt like it was my duty which I never got in BOTW. Recently I saw on my suggested page about how bad TOTK was and I was confused since I felt the game was so vibrant. When I stumbled across this review, I was happy to see some defense for it. I personally can't put more than 4 hours into a game I hate, and my 100+ hours into this one proves despite my not great gaming skills, there is heart to find.

In breath of the wild, you ran out to explore as the big opening moment, and you can see how that was very much a theme of it. In tears of the kingdom, that big moment and theme is Diving Deep. Skydives are very common big moments throughout.

4:30 - sooo you’ve never played BotW before 🤔 If I made a video about BotW and never played TotK before, would you think I’m fully informed?

This was a great video. I’m impressed by your knowledge of how these games work despite having never played Breath of the Wild. You have an outlook on these two games I have never heard anywhere else. What a great watch

i want you to know that, no matter how hard you may try to, you will never write anything more powerful than "weapons can't depression"

You know... Tarrey Town's house building as a solution is even more appropriate than you seem to have made out; these ancient relics, beautiful and historical artifacts that you don't want to break, that you've spent so much effort shedding the light of the present upon... sounds like something that belongs in a museum. Harkens back to the archaeology that the game started with. Don't want to break the stained glass window? Do it, and every history appreciator, a favor and put it on display!

I never have been physically hurt by a game but That plot point in this one literally felt like someone had crunched my heart up in their hands and rridden on it with a horse and i didn't recover for days. You NEED TO PLAY botw though, this is the same link and Zelda from botw, this is a continuation of that story, it hits different Bro, and it wouldn't be the same without botw. I can't rate them without each other because totk improves on botw and botw's story lays the emotional and contextual foundation. These two games are a team for me and the best games I've ever played

I want to have an eloquent and well thought out response to this masterpiece, but I am in awe of your thoroughness and depth. Liked and favorite-ed so I can respond properly. Thank you for the time and effort that went into this. Ok, one thought - "tears" can be pronounced a different way, and have a different connotation. As you pointed out so masterfully, the game brings forward these ideas of connections and how we're stronger together than we are apart; when link descends from the sky for the first time, there's a fractured Hyrule waiting for him, like it was "torn" apart, and we're seeing the "Tears" in the kingdom's fabric. It's a curious double meaning.

Interesting perspective on things.

52:30 this is exactly the thought I had from a specific scene in the game Sonic Unleashed. I think the scene and subsequent track is called “No Reason.” Throughout the whole game you get to interact with NPC’s from each respective country you’re able to visit. Whenever you talk to any of these people, the camera changes into something of a 1st person point of view and the character looking at said camera (most of the time). More importantly some of those characters request your help which leads to a mini stage where you have to reach the goal which would be something like little girl that went missing. After completing the stage, it’s always you that the player thanks while they’re talking to you as Sonic is nowhere in the image until you can get back to exploring the hub world. To me, it’s this context that makes the aforementioned scene more interesting because Chip is technically the very first person helps out of everone at the very start of the game. After falling from the sky, Sonic sees Chip for the first time IN A FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE sleeping on the ground, waking up an amnesiac. Sonic promises to find someone who knows him so Chip sticks around and there starts the game! Then jump all the way to close to end of the game with the scene in question, “No Reason”, and, spoiler alert, he ends up remembering his purpose and explains it all to Sonic in a 3rd person POV just before the camera changes to a 1st person POV as Chip further exclaims how much he loved the entire journey up to that point. Seeing the world, eating all kinds of great food and meeting all kinds of nice people. Looking straight at the camera and thanking YOU for being able to share all that with him and for helping him find his memory. And the thing is, buying food to feed to Chip, talking to people and even some of the hub worlds is all optional. YOU get to choose whether Sonic and Chip talk to every NPC there is. You get to choose whether to buy food for Sonic or Chip and you either get exp. if you give it Sonic or Chip’s reaction and his opinion on what you fed him. That sums up the point I wanted to make about the similarities of your thoughts on Zelda’s scene to my thoughts on Sonic’s scene. But Imma just keep talking the scene because I love it so much lol. Thanks for reading this far if you did. Chip however, decided that despite all that, now that he has his memory, Sonic has no reason to help him and that they should go their separate ways. To which Sonic refutes “do I need a reason to help out a friend?” That quote is the payoff of the premise of their friendship AND your interaction with the world and people of that game. You don’t need any reason to help the people around you. Sonic certainly didn’t need a reason to offer help to a random amnesiac he met after falling from space and turning into a werewolf. No reason at all.

I think an interesting thing to note is that the era of Rauru is most certainly intended to be a refounding of Hyrule long past any game on the original timeline. This is the logical conclusion I came to while playing the game, and it was even suggested by the developers in an interview. However... it's never outright stated, hinted at, or confirmed. And I think that's pretty notable. It taking place as a refounding is basically the only way that it can work without causing a huge amount of contradictions and confusion. But yet it's still left up to the interpretation of the player. A big part about Zelda is the interpretation aspect. The developers had a timeline placement for Breath of the Wild that they just never told us, because they wanted us to come up with our own theories. The Hyrule Historia timeline isn't definitive either, and it's left up to fans to come to their own conclusions. So why is something that should be so obvious (Rauru's refounding) kept as such a secret? I have a lot of different ideas as to why, and I won't spend my time writing all of them out. I did write out a few ideas, but I scrapped them just to write something simpler. But the connection between past and future _feels_ stronger when you think it's at the beginning of the timeline. From a lore standpoint, it really isn't. But the assumption that it is provides a deeper level of theming and symbolism. I could be just making up random nothingness (I'm pretty tired), but I do think it's notable how they handled the "founding of hyrule" specifically in this game.

Sun-delly-ins as opposed to "sun-d-lions" (like dandelions) is diabolical HAHAHA. Great video btw feel the same way about TOTK being so special.

Please, viewers, build this channels subsctription base past less than a percent of what it deserves. I'd like to see more of Tommy's thoughts and work.

You appear to be confusing ultrahand and fuse. While they are quite similar, ultrahand is for building things in the world. Fuse is for weapons and shields.

There's so much amazing they did with this game, but it did feel like it was missing out on some things, because of how they hyped up the story for the Zonai theme of things, we were kind of expecting more Zonai lore, or at the very least meeting the tribe and interact with them at one point or another throughout our adventure, because they really put a lot into the Zonai stuff only to give us Rauru for like the introduction like how Breath of the Wild started. I would of expected more along the lines of that Rauru who gave you his arm be a constant companion throughout Link's adventure and not just some One-Off for Tutorial Island and giving you hints and stuff about the lands of Hyrule and how it's changed between his time and current times. Because it's nice to have a companion you can talk to on your adventure and they talk about the stuff happening around them which they could do more of in future Zelda games, having a travel companion who can tell you stuff, or give hints to something that might be of interest when tracking a quest of some sort. I do kind of look forward to seeing a Zelda game that goes beyond what Miyamoto envisioned and the future Zelda game taken to a more futuristic setting, and I've heard ideas like that being toyed around with before in the past, giving Link a futuristic motorcycle of some kind, we did get the Master Cycle Zero in Breath of the Wild, but I think we could see something of that making a return of some kind that can be used for puzzle mechanics or something, perhaps something Tron inspired action puzzles.

WHY AM I CRYING?! 😭 Thank you for restoring my faith in Nintendo! ❤‍🔥

There is one hero set (two if you count the Fierce Deity) that can be found on the surface in caves. One could perhaps argue that it is not truly a hero's set due to the circumstances of the game it references. The Awakening Set, as it is known, makes you look like the Switch remake of Link's Awakening. A clue to the first piece is found in a cave in Death Mountain. Once you find it, you will see a clue housed with it that will lead you to the second piece, and the second will lead you to the third.

But you are not wrong, gloom indeed cause general weapon degradation, for example, boomerangs and the dweller spear/sword that are made from wood as far as I know, and they are clearly affected as much as the metal weapons. I think the other wood weapons like sticks, bats and wooden spears can be created from "fresh" trees, so it wouldn't make much sense if these of weapons were also affected, probably the more crafted and "older" weapons in general were affected by the gloom thing. But this is just my guess, I am not sure if this is what the developers had in mind.

You forgot about the Forest Dweller weapons also having Decayed and Pristine versions despite being made of wood.

Great video, your outtro felt a little abrupt though, but I really enjoyed your analysis

Damn son, I thought you were pontificating a bit too much at the start, but you really were able to compress your points very well right at the end. I'm imaging that if this gets picked up by the algorithm that it'll be assigned reading material in the next few decades. The whole discourse on botw & totk has felt too much about what people wanted it to be instead of it can turn into.

Awesome voice, brilliant content.

The proper way to solve lazy korok puzzles is korok rocket golf

did bruh really explore the whole depths before building a house to store his weapons ? honestly i can relate

i'd be happy to get back the weapons of the past anytime they are stronger than the base variants of each kind already so its a nice upgrade when you put materials on them you get this feeling of using the power of the past augmented with the power of the future

Raru was also an owl

My brain made a connection between Tears of The Kingdom and Banjo Kazooie NUTS AND BOLTS

The shrines part should be common knowledge now.