What Tears of the Kingdom is Like For Someone Who Doesn't Really Play Games

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With Tears of the Kingdom's release, I wanted to drop my wife back into the world of Hyrule to see how she handles this iteration's increased mechanical complexity, so that's what I did, and, as always, it was a lot of fun to watch. She certainly has come a long way since first playing Breath of the Wild, so it was a joy to watch her take the next step in her video game education.
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Audio edit by Trey Mitchell: / craytreyvids
Thumbnail by HotCyder: / hotcyder
Special thanks to honorary bagbuten Victor DUva
Additional Music and Sound Effects by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
0:00 Gaming For A Non-Gamer
2:25 A Slow Start
9:08 The Cost of Freedom
19:50 Learning And Breaking The Rules
24:50 The End Again

[@razbuten]

happy new year

[@xiongray]

Happy new Years!

[@valeelens]

Happy new year :)

[@TheRealMycanthrope]

Happy new year Raz! 🎉

[@walterheartwellwhite320]

Happy new year for you too!

[@ligstig]

Happy new years mate!

[@maxgreineder9867]

She’s back!!!! Sorry Raz, but we’re all here for Lady

[@akko8210]

"Not i" lmaooo , the bottom guy is dumb

[@cajunking5987]

Not I. Here to listen to the man talk. Frankly it would be better if he was just kinda reviewing. The perspective of a non-gamer is cool too tho.

[@tlam3028]

@@cajunking5987bro said “not I” 😭

[@VillHelm76]

Legit you and 3 people r only here for the lady I like to hear abt a life unlike my own

[@cajunking5987]

@@tlam3028 I’m sure you think “I not” is better

[@Left4Cake]

The down arrow on the dislodge just goes to show how much we take our "common gaming language" for granted.

[@morbid1.]

tbh there is no reason why pressing down on d-pad should not move dialogue...

[@Bluemoon11211]

Well the arrow is for knowing that there is more dialog after so its not like its completely useless it still gives information, some people just take the wrong info from it.

[@Religion0]

@@morbid1. Even as a gamer, what buttons to use can sometimes be weird. I've been playing Hades on my Switch, and to interact with things in the overworld you press R. In menus or dialogue, it's A... or Y, not R. I've more than once thought "Wait, didn't I change my Keepsake?" only to realise I must have pressed R rather than A because I finally got used to that being the interact button and A being the "shoot a rock at things" button. And I will curse the controls of RDR2 on the PS4 until someone stops me. So, yeah, it can be really unintuitive.

[@patrickj]

@@Bluemoon11211 Well, because it's the only info they *can* take from it. If anything up to that point told them the inputs required to progress, why wouldn't the textbox do so too?

[@patrickj]

@@morbid1. In this case it's probably fine, but generally there are valid concerns. The most glaring one is with dialogue that pops up while you were moving. Possibly downwards, thus accidentally skipping dialogue.

[@watermelon-7464]

Her attaching the clock puzzle shrine is pure genius

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

When I see people do stuff like that it makes me wish someone would do a huge poll on how they solved each shrine

[@Pineconiosis]

Iirk thats what i did too 😭 i didnt know they were clock hands and had to rewind them

[@renoirrr]

i did it the intended way cause i always go by the idea that shrines are meant to teach the mechanic it gives you, but doing the fuse thing is actually the way speedrunners do it so i wasnt surprised to see it. its faster than waiting for the two hands to line up if you use ultrahand to turn it.

[@freescape08]

When I first stepped in there, I used ultrahand to see that they highlighted, then switched tools and did it the intended way. I didn't even consider that I could've likely done it faster with ultrahand, since I was more accustomed to that from botw's magnesis.

[@OpposingPony]

I did it exactly that way with ultrasound because it seemed obvious to me that's what I should do.

[@lucasx268]

23:41 okay but can we talk about how cool the physics engine is in this game? She glued the 2 clock hands together so they were applying equal and opposite forces to each other, which meant gravity was the tiebreaker causing them to both move down until they reached the bottom and hit equilibrium.

[@CharlyOmega]

When you need to hit a word count on your essay:

[@YayaFeiLong]

@@CharlyOmega god forbid people write a lot of words about stuff that interests them right guys

[@Mingulinthu]

@@YayaFeiLongIts not even a lot of words, it was explained clearly and sucintly enough without skimming through anything that was relevant, reading any small book probably is an insurmountable task for the other person. The comment comes across to me like that stereotype horseshit student that would go "BOOORING" as soon as the teacher would open their mouth. I don't know what compels people so annoying for no reason. And yes, it's incredible how those things can all work in tandem as you would expect from real life physics, when EVERY GAME DEVELOPER will tell you that that sort of interaction should make everything fall apart and burst in flames in glorious fashion. There was definitely some wizardry involved in coding.

[@OrdinaryLatvian]

@@CharlyOmega What a 5-second attention span looks like.

[@CharlyOmega]

@@YayaFeiLong why long word when short word work good

[@SlippyLegJones]

"Don't you write about me like that" is such a funny scenario to imagine. Her getting frustrated and you just taking notes.

[@orsolyafekete7485]

Day 3: Subject hit me with the controller because I was, quote: "making a smug face while taking notes". Experiment will continue tomorrow.

[@michaelfryers1914]

To almost quote Purah, taking notes unexpectedly in the middle of conversation is a rather charming quirk

[@thekingofawesomeness9173]

Imagine if they streamed these 😅

[@Sahumis]

I laughed so hard and replayed it hahaha "don't you dare"

[@McSheepyFace]

If only! They could turn comments off and I'd watch all damn day.@@thekingofawesomeness9173

[@Green0Photon]

I have great respect for your wife. Any clip of her voice just sounds like she's constantly insanely frustrated. Wild how she's stuck things out.

[@dmarsub]

Probably mostly because of the editing as he is looking for exactly these moments to find what can be improved.

[@vortbio]

As someone who has seen 'non-gamers' get very frustrated with games and quit playing them, I agree. It must have taken a lot of patience on her part. Good for her

[@greghuffman3061]

i also found totk more frustrating than botw. overall i admit totk is probably the better game. but i stuck through botw meanwhile i gave up on totk at the fire temple. i was having fun but i became too stressed trying to figure stuff out

[@robinthrush9672]

@@greghuffman3061 The irony is that the puzzles of the fire temple can be completely skipped if you make the hoverbike/trashbike. Haven't done it yet, but I've seen people talk about it.

[@weirdlyhungry]

I'm sorry but the clock hand puzzle solution with ultrahand makes a LOT more sense than using recall and I cannot believe I didn't think about it. It's genius.

[@razbuten]

Yeah! That's what blew my mind about it. I think I went into the shrine KNOWING it wanted me to use recall, so that is how I looked at every obstacle, but she did not feel contained by that in the same way.

[@weirdlyhungry]

@@razbuten i went into the shrine assuming the same thing, I don't quite remember why and I'll be doing a replay later this year to see. I'm assuming Nintendo accounted for how both seasoned players and new players would want to tackle the problem and ran with the design.

[@lorraineeavis3248]

Same

[@roryreviewer6598]

This is actually how I solved that puzzle the first time I did it too. And then I felt dumb that I didn’t think about the recall solution.

[@Michael-io6ok]

21:22 was relatable as heck. Just standing there watching your makeshift step-stool or stairway topple without reacting to catch it is like when you lose to a Dark Souls boss and just laugh.

[@Dimencia]

Not that it's a bad thing, but she probably enjoyed the game and mechanics a lot more because of your encouragement, where you assumedly told her when she solved a puzzle in an 'unintended' way. Obviously a genuine compliment on her creativity, from someone she cares about and who knows the topic, can be more meaningful than anything the game can try to reward her with. I wonder how she would have felt about the game without that extra encouragement, or without ever knowing that her solutions were creative or unintended

[@crstph]

i had a similar frustration with the totk tutorial and found myself just wanting to get past it so i could explore the bigger world, and in my experience there was a different “oh” moment when i solved something in a way i was “supposed” to versus just solving it. there were many “ohhh THATS how im supposed to do it!” moments, and then there were moments where i was like well, i think im supposed to do something with this obvious thing they left out, but what if i ignored that and tried something else. OH NICE IT WORKED IM A GENIUS the immediate feedback of someone who knows the game is probably rewarding, but i still felt clever and creative when i solved stuff even after ignoring half the shit in the room lol

[@noyman1988]

There were a ton of times I forgot Ascend was a thing. Seeing your wife use ascend to bypass using rewind was really funny.

[@crstph]

as someone with a similar level of experience to her, i LOVE ascend. yay free shortcut everywhere! get me UP

[@dragontears]

I've been playing games for over 30 years and abused the hell out of ascend. I am LAZY. Any excuse not to climb a thing.

[@EmperorZ19]

I got really hooked on Tears, to the point where after I finished my 200+ hour playthrough I went back and played BotW again. Not being able to ascend and not being able to move every object around with Ultrahand threw me for a loop. But having an unlimited supply of bombs again was mindblowing in the other direction.

[@GeneralNickles]

Ascend is such a BS mechanic that my brain would constantly forget it even existed. There were so many puzzles that took me WAY longer than they had any right to because I forgot about ascend. It's infuriating.

[@V3ltix]

@@GeneralNickles lol

[@qwertydavid8070]

Videos like these should honestly be shown in university game design courses. There is so much to learn and you are really well spoken. you put things very succinctly and mention a lot of really good and interesting points. What I love most is that you frequently give counterpoints to your own points. That is very useful and it's something you don't see a lot with other creators. Truly, just like the game design in tears of the kingdom, you encourage the audience to consider multiple perspectives and think creatively, instead of just seeing the problem from one limited way. Seriously, I can easily imagine someone doing an entire college lecture based on this video alone. It's that good!

[@wjr4700]

Im not going to lie. Her brief yet thrilling fight won me over. Am fan now.

[@Nulify-jc4fs]

I would love to see her play A Short Hike. It seems like a gamer would like it as much as a non gamer. Though by that point you can probably title the video “gaming for a gamer”

[@RandomEntry13013]

"Its also tough when a game relies so heavily on cinematics, despite them not being an important part of what the game is trying to do" "...and that became known as the imprisoning war."

[@cattysplat]

Modern Gaming really. Old games are almost entirely gameplay, almost to a fault if you enjoy story and context.

[@kit76149]

@@cattysplat I feel like many games from the 2000's had a good balance of story and gameplay and I miss that. KH2 has 60 hours of cutscenes but it never felt like it (especially playing through it the first time). Many more examples I could mention. Nowadays it seems like many developers can't balance the two anymore. Either the gameplay is almost *too* free, at a detriment to the story they are trying to tell, like here with TotK or with AC Mirage, or the story is focused on so much that there is barely any gameplay and they may as well have just made a show or a film. Ideally, the gameplay and story should serve each other so you can enjoy both the gameplay itself and the context/world/characters in the game. I of course want a game to be fun but I also want to care about the world and people I am saving. Sometimes the lure of getting to the next story point and seeing what happens to the characters next has been enough to push me through re-fighting a tough boss in a game. The cutscene that comes after serves as both a reward and a short break.

[@Imperial_Squid]

Secret Stones??

[@fiskoris5226]

@Imperial-Squid Demon King???

[@shiethegal]

​@@kit76149Now I want to see a Gaming for a Non-Gamer episode on Kingdom Hearts.

[@caitplol]

Personally love seeing the progression of these with her going from total novice to casual gamer lol. As someone who first found your channel with the BOTW edition of this series, at a time when I myself was really just starting to get into gaming, it's been fun to watch as I've also continually gotten more familiar with the 'language of video games' and now interacting with these from such a different perspective than when they first started.

[@DesiB717]

I can confirm that the struggle 16:21 is not exclusive to non-gamers. I've been playing games all my life and I immediately put all of the available sails onto that raft and then watched in despair as the wind carried it away :') Ended up having to reload my save because I couldn't find any other way to get across

[@argentpuck]

I've been gaming for over 30 years now and made a LOT of the same mistakes as our subject did. Tears of the Kingdom really needed to pull the bandage off and make a linear tutorial: it's just too complex to leave it up to chance.

[@jam-the-hologram]

my brother literally first played totk today and instead of using all the sails on one raft, kept trying to make a raft with the least amount of wood possible so that the raft was faster, but because it was like one log, he kept falling off the rafts and had to reload the save and use 2 logs instead

[@Smeik2901]

I messed up with the sail too, so I ended up cutting down every tree in a 10 mile radius and sticking them together to a very, very, very long bridge so I could simply walk over to the shrine

[@Agent160FTW]

I struggled so much with this one that I ended up making two rafts and put one on the lake, swam to it, ultrahanded the other raft further out on the lake and basically used the rafts in the way I used Cryonis in Breath of the Wild. I felt stupid and ingenious at the same time.

[@theshyguitarist4536]

In my first playthrough practicing with the ultrahand ability, I made a pretty decently composed wooden log raft with fan propulsion. Jumped on it, pulled out my weapon (unfortunately an axe) and then did what the game told me to do which was to hit my newly constructed vehicle. Axe hits wood. Vehicle falls apart into tons of chopped wooden pieces

[@scragar]

RE: the solution to the chest on the wooden platform surrounded by leaves. The game puts the torches in the room specifically in case you use all the fruit and miss, since the fruit explodes on hit there's no way to reuse the fruit so once it's all used without the forces it'd be a softlock. I guess it's still a softlock if you use all your arrows, but the game spawns 5 arrows in shrines needing arrows if you enter with less than 5, so I guess that's not as big a softlock since leaving and reentering let's you get 5 more tries. Can't remember if the bow in the shrine respawns if you don't have a bow though, so that may be a potential softlock, I'm fairly sure though given the effort Nintendo went through to prevent softlocks it would respawn just to be safe.

[@diamondinmyeye6160]

I specifically used an arrow I lit with the torch just so I could keep all the resources. 😅

[@lethauntic]

It's honestly impressive if someone manages to softlock anything in Tears of the Kingdom

[@michaellane5381]

​​@@lethaunticthe closest i got was the Flux construct Island in the tutorial(i went there before getting abilities and it is damn near impossible to see the water below... I might have had zonai items but ultimately there is only a small frog pond below without them... And it does not look deep enough... I spent like hours trying to climb down the side and drop on the mine cart tracks.(hoping i could heal and tank the next fall). later Impa hijacks you in a ballon if you lack a paraglider there is no safe way off, you have to sabotage the balloon so she will save you both. That was the closest i got before i stopped screwing around looking for softlocks.

[@TailsPrower100]

I had no idea you could sabotage the balloon 😲 I just did what she said and jumped to my death 😅 When I eventually got the paraglider, I redid that section safely. But it's interesting to know that there was an alternative way to solve that issue.

[@michaellane5381]

@@TailsPrower100 there are even multiple methods, detach the balloon, put out the fire, or wait(IDR if she leaves you or not on that last one)

[@Archetype_Angel]

You really did open my eyes. I've been playing since the NES era and didn't really stop to think how complex some games have become and the learning curve and adaptability I've gone through in all these years. . ...and that's why my wife gets bored with cutscenes and tutorials too. She prefers games like Crash bandicoot: only basic text, only 2 action buttons, and oriented for gameplay only. . It never crossed my mind that the gap between the games we like was so huge until now. Thank you, this helped a lot.

[@RDR911]

…I’m sorry, but how do you pay such little attention to your wife that you didn’t realize this before a random KZbinrs told you? Christ.

[@MrLinkDay]

That puzzle at 23:36 that she solved using ultra hand just shows how many ways we don't even think it can be solved.

[@E2STOPTV]

I think that at this point you can consider her a gamer 😂

[@razbuten]

deleting the video now

[@drgonzo123]

@@razbutennnnnoooooooooo!!

[@kaksspl]

She complained about her team in League of Legends. She absolutely is a gamer.

[@WednesdayTheClove]

a gamer who didn't realize the obvious visual cue to use the master sword to cut the vines :^)

[@half_real]

@@kaksspl Razbuten turned her into a LoL player? She should divorce him.

[@draculaman]

Great video. Funnily enough, my wife is playing through TotK at the moment and it's been interesting seeing some of the duality between your wife's experiences and how they are similar to hers - I actually laughed out loud at the whole Zelda stopping to talk over and over thing, because my wife's experience and reaction was almost identical. I think my wife has a decent amount more familiarity with games than yours so its not completely the same, but it does make me realise how much subconcious visual or mechanical familiarity I'll rely on compared to someone who isn't innately familiar with them. There will be a lot of times she'll be like 'why cant I just do x/y/z?' or 'why have they done x/y/z like this?', and I come away thinking 'yeah actually...why IS it done that way?', where it would previously have been something I really hadn't given much thought about either way, cos Id just accept it as a a norm within game design, positive or negative. It's also just really interesting watching someone interact with games in a different way and their approach to enjoying it in general. Often when watching my wife play I am envious of her capability to just...explore or experiement, where as I feel like I am quite guilty of playing something as efficiently as possible, or min-maxing my way to the best outcome. Anyway, awesome video as usual, and happy new year to you and your wife!

[@azuregriffin1116]

I had that issue with the Lego Hobbit game. Couldn't smash a door. Turns out I had to push that door. Once the door had been pushed, I could smash it. I turned the Xbox off and have not played since

[@Iasgo]

Min-maxing is a curse that has to be kept under control at all times, otherwise it will destroy your gaming life.

[@Lor_Duck]

We need a WIFE VS WIFE. Any game. Would be fun to see.

[@killaknight12]

I think it also comes down to what kind of story interests you most or if you just want the gameplay. I was sucked in from the get go, because I wanted to know more about the whole Zonai lore and what was up with Ganondorf, so my eyes were glued to the TV throughout the whole intro and I was omega hyped. 😁 Then there's my wife who will take any cutescene as a break, not really paying any attention to what is said and just compliments the visuals sometimes, lmao.

[@joegardner851]

@@Lor_Duckwe can get a squad going with our wives lol

[@brianisbrined9255]

I also find being stopped suddenly while walking or doing things to be quite jarring. It's one of the things I never liked about random encounters.

[@darkmyro]

I think it would be interesting to see her complete a game (something really short like journey or flower that you could beat in one sitting) I also think it would be interesting to see her play some more niche genres like a bullet hell, a fighting game, a beat-um-up, a puzzle game, dating sim and so on. I also think it would be interesting to throw her into a broken game like a game that's not put together well and observe her reaction. I would also like to see her reaction to some gaming staples like assassin's creed, mortal Kombat, resident evil and some games that are parts of a long running franchises.

[@qwertydavid8070]

I think long running franchises might not be the best idea. As mentioned in the start of this video, you kinda need to be "into the lore" to enjoy and appreciate the narrative of those types of games. With no previous context, what the player will care the most about will be just plain gameplay. So if those "franchise games" are mainy focused on gameplay, it wouldn't be a problem. But any sort of worldbuilding or exposition that might be intriguing for us will be a bore to her. Honestly, exposition in general can be boring if you're not into the franchise, and in general it's better to show, not tell. Obviously there are certain moments where exposition is neccesary, specially if you care about worldbuilding. It's very hard to build a proper world with just vague statements lol. But to be fair, its not impossible. Subnautica is probably the best example of this. Subnautica uses a lot of environmental storytelling with very little dialouge or exposition. It encourages the player to figure the world out by simply exploring it. Subnautica is my favorite game ever, and it spawned my love for movies or series with less exposition, that encourage the audience to figure it all out by themselves.

[@ayoo_wassup]

@@qwertydavid8070 to piggy back off your point. narrative is something that is particularly affected by someones choice in it. typically people like certain genrees and elements, and will pick those out of a seas of things they arent interested in. for gameplay, its a bit different. choice still matters. but not as heavily because the player has agency by default and interaction will always be more stimulating than viewing with all other factors controlled. since he is picking these games for her. less of a focus on narrative is probably better. unless he fields her interests and has her input in the type of narrative she wants to see

[@NauKuu]

This reminds me of why TotK was so fun to play at the same time alongside friends. Every single one of us solved nearly everything in our own ways and it was a blast just talking to each other about how we did the Shrines differently.

[@Haiforse]

I hope that you never end this series, I love seeing the lady you live with’s progression through her playing of new games. Happy new year razbuten ❤

[@reganhulvey4213]

I really love Totk there is so much creativity. I love watching how other people do things especially when it’s not the way the “game wants you to”

[@gonzaurra1]

23:39 I did the exact same thing lol. Doing shrines "incorrectly" became my passion on this game

[@Lucie-ho1qv]

The way she solved the path to and the final shrine is insanely interesting!

[@UltimateTS64]

The first video of this series inspired me to try this with my gf once I got one. I now have one, and we've been dating for 2 years as of rn, and she's tried a lot of my favorite games of all time. I taught her the trick from BOTW about Z targeting to recenter the camera since she can't move the character and camera simultaneously yet. We're working on it, and I'm glad to see another entry in this really fun series.

[@WigneyR]

16:40 was definitely a “Top 10 biggest anime betrayals” moment

[@ZacharyHand]

22:00 😱 that scream is classic.

[@HenryAshman]

The fiddly attachment system doesn't have to come at the expense of creative control or options though. Games like Valheim have snap points, but with a button press you can engage "manual mode". So by default it's user friendly, then power users can use manual mode later

[@hyper_lynx]

Totk also used attach points and limited rotation so I'd wager it's about as easy as Valheim to build in

[@wilpuriarts5895]

It feels fiddly at first, but I think that is the case with many complex gameplay systems. After a while it’s smooth and easy.

[@jacobkirk1846]

I’d love to see a Part 2 to this video with her exploring the game outside of the Great Sky Island.

[@essentially_empy]

Agreed

[@phrogthewise]

Yes, i thought that might be interesting too, because that's where the game started to get boring for me, i completed all the temples, but i never thought i really wanted to sit down and play, Tears of the Kingdom is great in many ways, but for some reasons i didn't really enjoy playing as much as i did with Breath of the Wild

[@annpc8266]

​@@phrogthewisei looked everywhere but i simply can't find who asked

[@mr.snaplles5964]

@@annpc8266 i asked

[@phrogthewise]

@@annpc8266 ??? This makes zero sense, we are in a KZbin comment section, is everyone gonna need your permission to criticize your favourite game? One day you’re gonna have to accept that people have other opinions than you, Grow up.

[@floor.mp3]

I've been waiting for one of these for SO long! Happy new year dude (and dude's wife) and thank you so much for this video, may u both have an awesome 2024

[@Road_to_Dawn]

The whole thing about the controls being too complex in TotK reminds me of all the times I've heard people complain similar things about Metroid Dread. In Dread, it's true, basically every button on the controller is used for something different aside from maybe the up and down arrows (and they may have uses that I just forgot about). Even I, as someone who's been playing Metroid games for 20 years and has gone through Dread a dozen times, still get the triggers for missiles and the grapple beam mixed up. I've been dreaming of making a metroidvania for forever, and one thing I always think about is how I would lay out the controls. There's a lot more to consider when designing a control scheme than someone who's never attempted to make a game would never realize. It's a tough job.

[@Balekkar]

Literally just yesterday I was thinking about how sad it was that this series may not ever have another episode. I'm excited to see it, but saddened that every episode means the next one is less of what we want it to be.

[@BrandonWestfall]

We all have that "I'm an idiot" moment when playing games. That occurred to me several times doing shrines in both games. Things you would think are blatantly obvious go right over our heads.

[@IPoopButterflies]

Bless you for having so much patience. I'm trying to let my son learn openly in games and it's been very frustrating to try to explain to my son how controllers and games work. Just seeing how Lady misses stuff, like the friendly constructs or the (what feels obvious to me) fire fruit with dried leaves, makes my brain hurt but the discoveries she made with the clock hands and ascend for the temple were an absolute joy to see. I hope she continues to find game's she enjoys. :)

[@jasondeutschbein8102]

The videos you do with your wife are such an amazing value for the community. I'm really happy you both decided to do these for us. I hope this pushes more couples to do the same, to not only share the love of gaming with our loves but also provide fantastic information that only new players can give us.

[@qwfp]

Thanks, to both of you, for this series. It's important to me (and also to the lady I live with, but she doesn't realize it). Thanks for the late Christmas gift, see you next year!

[@Ellary_Rosewood]

I love these videos. Been looking forward to this one since the game came out! Happy New Year everyone!! ❤️🌲❄️🥂🎇

[@aiden_obj]

Seeing you can bypass the recall clock section with ultra hand, coupled with so many other instances of niche things that just work, made me realize how awesome Nintendo’s player testing and QA must be

[@danielhuelsman76]

You should have her try out Banjo-Kazooie Nuts 'n' Bolts. I know that game gave gamers a sour feeling in their mouths due to expectations of it being a platformer, but she has none, and she loves building games, so I would love to see that game reviewed from a fresh perspective.

[@EHAmos]

All the noises and little comments she makes are what I do in my head when I play, it always makes me laugh.

[@crimsonhawk52]

yall should play a puzzle game that you're both new to! My mom's not a gamer, and we played The Witness together and had a blast

[@HandyDandy6]

They should play death squared

[@alecwoyke9152]

That sounds like such a good experience, I love gaming with family

[@lethauntic]

A lot of people gave the Witness shit, which I can understand, but despite just being line puzzles, there was a lot of creativity to them and they way they teach you to solve them was really cool to me.

[@tamsel814]

My mom is also not a gamer but still spend hours playing one of the professor patton games on my Nintendo (3?) ds.

[@YayaFeiLong]

@@lethauntic I'm pretty sure the reason people didn't like The Witness had less to do with the game itself and more to do with the developer. He's, like, a huge snob

[@dirtywhitellama]

I ignored fuse at the beginning of the game, with the consequence that battles were much more difficult than they needed to be. It was kind of shocking to me how much difference it made to put a construct horn on the end of a stick when I finally got around to it 😂

[@diegoacuna9706]

21:59 she did the Tom yell from Tom and Jerry lmao

[@iamjustkiwi]

This is a great series, I often take for granted how much my experience in games feeds into learning other ones so it's nice to see what someone coming in without all that preexisting knowledge goes through. This should be a must watch for developers who want their games to truly be accessible to everyone.

[@facilityhues]

My first real video game experience was with Breath of the Wild on the Wii U. I had never seriously played a video game before, only casually playing in Mario Kart and Wii Sports Resort. I never thought to use the internet to help solve problems and ask questions about the game, so I ended up learning everything through trial and error. I think the thing that set me on the right track for BOTW and later video games was my desire for experimentation. I wanted to check the controls, tinker with the movement and find my own ways to complete tasks. Going into Tears of the Kingdom I relived this cycle of learning, but I think my intro with BOTW helped me relearn the system with TOTK, where as going straight into TOTK might have confused me as a beginner. Great video!

[@bepis_real]

I gotta say, it’s really cool spotting someone who played BotW on Wii U. I imagine going from GamePad to Joycons would cause an even bigger rift in relearning controls

[@facilityhues]

@@bepis_real In like 2019 I was able to pick up another copy for the switch, but I actually prefer the Wii U version in a lot of ways! I used to draw maps and use them with the gamepad while exploring. I remember my biggest problem in my second playthrough was looking down at my hands expecting the gamepad!

[@guidedexplosiveprojectileg9943]

My first real gaming experience was Deus Ex

[@TerranigmaQuintet]

@@bepis_real Considering that version sold very little compared to the Switch one, you likely won't find one easily. And those who did likely were more seasoned gamers as those were more likely to have bought a system that failed commercially.

[@RDR911]

“I never thought to use the internet for its one use, looking up information” 🤣🤣🤣

[@inconspicuous45]

You need to do a part 2 bro the great sky island is very different from the rest of TOTK, and I personally think the rest of the game is 4x better lol. It would be great to see her do the storm wind ark, learn how to use fuse better, make ultrahand contraptions, find out about the depths, and stuff like that

[@squarsh8493]

I would love to see how she handles rougelikes! Maybe the repetition would help her understand to try different approaches to problems? Its also possible the repetition will make her want to pull her hair out lol

[@ligstig]

Always love to see a new post from you, especially a new instalment from this series! These videos always provide such a unique insight!

[@TheFonzieCommunity]

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this series, I’m happy it’s back!!! Hope you’ve been well, and happy new years to you both of you!!! I love the videos, especially this series!! Thank you for making this series!!!

[@sass2836]

My jaw dropped with your wife's clock puzzle solution! The insight from her perspective is fascinating, and she makes so many valid points I take for granted. The down button not being used for continuing dialogue is a simple but great point.

[@tsirakura1684]

Please keep this series going. As a relatively new gamer, it is really wonderful to see someone else experience what I did.

[@Splucked]

Perfect timing!! Absolutely love these videos! Happy New Year to you both!

[@Roch_C]

Hey Raz! Hope you know you are doing some amazing work for the games industry with this series. Ive seen your videos circulated around game dev circles for years, and im sure this one will too!

[@sirgreedy88]

That's sad to hear, the last thing the gaming industry needs more of is dumbing down everything for casuals or non gamers in an attempt at widening the market. There has been enough of that going on in recent years.

[@crstph]

@@sirgreedy88breath of the wild is the perfect example of how that is not what lowering the barriers of entry has to mean at all, and if thats the result then its bad game design. the key isn’t “make the games easier so anyone can beat them,” its “make the things that make them difficult possible for anyone to learn.” if a game assumes you know to press B to run or eat food to heal so it never shows you those things, thats not a problem to an experienced gamer and makes it literally impossible for a newbie. every game is someones first game, and i personally would hate it if someone decided to throw out my favorite games without a chance because the game showed them it didnt even care enough about their experience to teach them basics

[@sirgreedy88]

@@crstph no shit genius. Why you felt I needed that explained to me if baffling. I bet you like to smell your own farts. I never said the problem was "make the games easier so everyone can beat them" You're strawmanning. piss off.

[@RDR911]

@@sirgreedy88 don’t worry, they’re really not shared around in any serious capacity. People at my studios call them “that guy and his stoned wife”.

[@thirteenthhour370]

26:52 when the Lady you live with said "do you want to do another one" I got so excited!!!!! She sounded pretty stressed and frustrated for most of the totk tutorial (I HATE building mechanics so despite being well versed in game language, I also struggled and empathized with her "but that should have worked!" feelings). I'm glad she had some fun too!

[@Treblebeatgames]

Given how she responds to narrative versus action, I'm curious how she would handle a lengthy JRPG with heavy character interaction, or a game like Skyward Sword, which has a lengthy, but character rich intro.

[@RougeMephilesClone]

Always love to see another episode of this. Happy new year to both of ya'!

[@phoenixsoren]

I know every shrine can be done in dozens of ways the devs probably didn't think about, but I had no idea you could glue the clock hands together with Ultrahand XD

[@haarisajmeri9811]

These videos are very helpful because as an upcoming developer i always make sure how to make complex things more easier. And these videos gave me ideas for the approaches I can take. So thankyou especially goes to your wife because she is giving her time to your experiments so we understand game design to a whole approachable medium.

[@remilegrand3874]

It's crazy man: two years ago I saw a video of you around the same concept, and I loved it. Last week, I start playing TOTK for the first time and I surprised myself thinking about your video and how your wife would play the game. Then here you are coming out with this awesome video!!! Thank you!

[@Respectable_Username]

Absolutely love these perspectives you and The Lady You Live With give to games! I wonder how many years before The Child You Live With will be interested in being a test subject for preschooler-aimed games, and comparing the onboarding experience for literal children (who are assumed to have no pre-knowledge) with the experience given to adults of unknown pre-knowledge

[@taylorii8664]

The long awaited sequel! Happy to see you both back for another go at Zelda

[@silviaconvertible]

I have been waiting patiently for this video. Thank you!

[@Noteturtle90]

Something with the giving info in different ways bit: I think that if the textboxes Zelda gave you still let you read and hear the dialogue, but while you still explore it. Also, having an A button next to the text boxes that you have to mash through would have helped a bit

[@seastrawberry4]

The analysis in this video was really interesting! It's especially interesting to see the differences between BOTW and TOTK, because it really highlights why some people might prefer one over the other in a different way than just the surface-level mechanics. If you do more of these, I would love to see the lady you live with tackle a puzzle game. Outer Wilds would be an interesting one because it has both exploration and puzzle elements, or maybe something more tightly focused like Cocoon or Baba is You.

[@amazingturtle4708]

We neeeed to see Tunic in this series. It would be so interesting to see someone who doesn’t play games figure out it’s secrets

[@raswartz]

I love this series. It's actually showed me a lot about what I don't know or don't notice about the way games try to guide you.

[@42Caio]

23:35 - That somehow feels illegal. Amazing that you can actually use Ultrahand for that, I would never have thought of that in a million years, even though at the time I was struggling a bit with Rewind and took a while to get the puzzle right. It just would never cross my mind because it was obviously a rewind thing. I did solve a bunch of puzzles in the Wind Temple that were intended to be solved using Ultrahand to glue pillars to connect gears using zonai rockets and fans to force things to spin, so I guess Ultrahand problem-solving may just not come as naturally to me. I mostly used it to build vehicles.

[@DomenBremecXCVI]

I, as someone who started gaming in 2020 with BotW being my first game, but then falling back to the safe zone of Animal Crossing after spending 40+ hours on the Great Platou, also used ultra hand on that puzzle instead of recall. It made more sense to me to not give me a time limit for no reason at that point.

[@devilvocano420]

Wat time limit Just rewind it till its the same

[@helplmchoking]

Your talk about the lesser freedom of direction on the starting island compared to the great plateau is really interesting. I got BotW for my younger sister a while back (she's played the hell out of the Insomniac Spiderman games and literally nothing else) and she found the complete opposite, she was constantly lost on the great plateau and found it really difficult to figure out where she had to go, where to get the things she needed and how to navigate and I remember thinking that TotK's tutorial would probably served her better

[@amandaslough125]

The Great Sky Island is inherently more linear, because it's designed to be traveled through in a circular motion. But it works mostly in one way. Which messed me up because I got lost in the one quadrant and kept getting turned around. But the Great Plateau is free flowing so it's less easy to navigate, but any direction is the right direction.

[@alibabaschultz352]

Thats why. Your sister is used to games telling her exactly where to go.

[@MariaVosa]

We all have different likes (I'm the kind of player that religiously reads all dialogue and clicks on almost every NPCs - to my kids' despair!) You really should let her try TotK and see what she thinks.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

​@@amandaslough125 There are some limits to Great Plateau's approach. I muscled (aka save scammed) my way up the mountain as soon as I found it and then shimmied my way around the back of the mountain to the Stasis shrine. The cabin with the cooking, logging and bridge making tutorials was one of the last places I found. But I sure became familiar with climbing and stamina management.

[@TheZizu12]

I've been waiting for this video since the launch of Totk ! Thank you and happy new year Razbuten !

[@inoob26]

making the Zonai enemies look similar to the friendly NPCs is a good choice imo because it prompts careful observation from the player so that they start looking for subtle changes between behaviors such as battle music (as shown in the video) and moving patterns

[@bravecereza]

Agreed

[@Chaoticbanana]

Happy new year! You absolutely have to get the lady you live with to play baldurs gate 3. Anything she wants to try she can probably do - the perfect game (with a crazy interface for newer players)

[@drgonzo123]

Yeah! Happy new Christmas holiday thing to me, a non gamer episode!!🎉 I wait months for this. Have a great new year Raz, just know your videos really do make me happy. Cheers man!

[@svenhudec6779]

Wow man... when she attached the clock hands together that blew my mind. What a spectacular video. I would love more of these.

[@TheRealAkechiGoro]

Happy New Year! Looking forward to this year.

[@cola3101]

first time viewer and massive botw/totk fan, very interesting concept and entertaining video! its neat to see what such a profound gaming experience for veteran players and diehard fans can seem like to someone outside the scope of the game's intended audience. i'm very interested to see what kind of results came of other games in this sort of experimental experience!

[@Anni_ka]

Yay, she's back again!💪 Her opinion of the beginning is so interesting to me. Maybe I'm so used to JRPGs taking forever to get going, but I loved the atmospheric start and getting some background info in TotK 😅 Although I can definitely see how getting straight to the action as in BOTW is more satisfying. I hope that generally she still had a good time, even with the frustrating aspects 😅

[@jeremyquentin42]

The scream at 22:00 should be made the officially falling sound in the game. Nintendo must release the patch asap.

[@kirbl1008]

Happy new year Raz! Fantastic video as always :D It's really cool that even this video showed me new stuff about this game that I never tried before.

[@Goblincow]

These videos are so wholesome, entertaining and informative all at once. I really enjoy these and its lovely to hear the little audio clips of the two of you playing the game, it sounds like despite all the frustrations that you're surely scribbling down notes about you are clearly having a fun time together and it's just very sweet. Happy new year to you both and I hope it's a good one!

[@li-ya3633]

I literally love this series KEEP EM COMING

[@Franziii96x]

OMG I LOVE THIS SERIES!!! Happy new year and thanks for keeping you're great content up :3

[@rugvedkulkarni1593]

When I first played I went through the tutorial shrines going from Ascend to Fuse to Ultrahand to Reverse. I thought I took the intent path. It made sense to me because the abilities seem to escalate in what they're capable of, following typical videogame powerscaling. Just now I learned I went the complete opposite way 😂

[@SUNNY-BB]

Ive been playing games all my life but Im realizing that as I get older and less competitive the more that I agree with her way of thinking. I feel like theres lots to be said about how competition even in single player games influences how we interact with games. I say even with single player games because when I game comes out theres the temptation to see whateveryone else is doing with the game and how they achieved those things and I feel like a big part of playing games in the modern day is also seeking information about games. and in that sense there is a kind of competition that comes about even with single player games. but when you dont look anything up and just go in blind you start to kindof notice more issues. I feel kind of vindicated that even though Tears of the Kingdom is my GOTY for 2023 I still struggled in a lot of the same ways your wife did despite the fact that I have a lot more gaming experience. The tedious trail and error, that "start stop" stuff of the early game, and fully always getting that the game wanted from me all the time etc all of that happened to me. but at the end of the day I find that because I let go of competition and just started vibing in the world that let me just kind of roam freely without worrying about how was doing what. I didnt look anything up for tears of the kingdom I tried to make an active effort to not spoil anything or look anything up and yet I somehow stumbbled on to a golden horse just by hunting for the memories and repairing towers. Come to find out it was a really rare horse! funnily enough its not even the horse I wanted, the one I actually wanted kept bucking me off but the golden one accepted me so I just took it to a near by stable and they were basically like "we were gonna ask you to go find it but uh.... nevermind you keep it." My point is that even though going at it alone without looking stuff up created a bunch of hurdles it also made me feel more free to surrender to the sense of serendipity that the game seems to be built for.

[@sammahh_8031]

I was waiting for this!!! Thanks Happy New Year!

[@dYrOiUs]

Such an intriguing video format, i love these

[@RobbieNelson-oq6cu]

TOTK was one of my first game on the switch, and any real console, and I spent 40 hours on the great sky island. I can relate to the slow start

[@JHXC]

I remember when I first played, I went east into the cold region and got to the ascend shrine before even reaching the temple of time, and I was confused when I couldn't do anything with the shrine. I definitely feel like TOTK's great sky island is a step down from BOTW's great plateau because it sorta punishes exploring the world from the get go.

[@BonaparteBardithion]

Thank goodness, I'm not the only one that did this. It didn't help that I carried over my knowledge of how to handle cold and tendency to climb to the highest points from BOTW. I also completely missed the Temple of Time somehow by straying off the path to avoid enemies.

[@HamsterMaster8]

I love the take away about about totks streamlined tutorial being used to give a better understanding of the mechanics and allow for a different kind of freedom. Its really emphasized by the way Lady solved those puzzles in unconventional ways Definitely shows how some hard choices are necessary in game design for players to get the most out of it

[@sojusomi]

i have now binge watch all the vids and have to say this series is really interesting i love every moment of all the games shes played

[@EM-ES]

Im currently drunk and eating cereal. Happy new year 👍

[@Karsin8or]

As an aspiring game developer, I feel like this series is gold for keeping the newer players in mind, while also very entertaining. Love the series!

[@suntannedduck2388]

Same but with other genres to compare to real life rules (cars, sports) or more gamey stuff, story, themes, control schemes, camera perspectives, accessibility settings. Not trending games only with pretty similar elements because easy views and not really giving good results I find. I know researching many games for the first time new and retro and understanding gaming history helped a lot even as a gamer and Indies, understanding old games and their controllers and going oh that's what they want me to do. 2600, N64/PS1, Wii U and more. Whether collections, emulation or hands on with the actual consoles. Playing PN03 a GameCube game Capcom left behind was interesting to play compared to other third person shooters nowadays showing the formula we always see now, yet it doesn't follow that. Because it's controls and design are so different. The automatic crosshair, the dodging logic and tank controls, a very laser trap skin tight suit scene in a movie as a game, versus what we have now of aiming and shooting. The non standard era. The experimental era is ripe with video ideas and results. Same with fixed cameras of old DMC/GOW/RE, Mario 3D World is a great introduction to 3D game and isometric cameras and controls would be good tests, in between the two of 2D and full control camera 3D that they are over the 3rd person camera issues she had early on in the series besides just 2D plane games. I think he isn't pushing enough. Granted to respect her time and what she is willing to play is important as well no doubt not going to overlook that, but even besides that trending only games are pretty safe content I think. It doesn't have to be deep Guinea Pig but still better video ideas then safe cheap views ones and limited results from trending games. Not everyone plays trending games or looks for them. Also some Indie highlights or old but fresh would be nice. But I am just saying as someone that goes further into the medium old and new, Indies and popular (not only popular that people would come across and content for views) even if as a gamer discovering such research of game design of old that is fresh and still holds up with the right mindset is a great experience. The game's were never bad just not marketed well or too crazy for average people. Those willing to go further notice the great ideas not oh this has more cars, well this had a car builder. Such and such abilities. Actually cool mechanics and perspectives of worlds as say an ant not always whatever some human hero character does and the generic characters we got in PS3/360. Indies, and old games especially make for greater content besides oh trending game, easy views and only certain results being clear for game Devs or us gamers to go whelp only so much to not much learnt. I have learnt so much from old games design we don't have anymore and they do hold up some of them so to me it annoys me even more it's all oh what trends, safe games and only rare times do we see it again and no not because of remasters either. I mean literally unrelated games having said ideas return to a degree or the same. The racing game space (had a car builder and region system both continued 20+ years later, completely different studios and IPs, I was so happy to see that when the genre sucks right now), hack n slashes, 3D platformers, too Mario and banjo like inspired yet others of the 90s were better. Why do animal platformers have better movesets in the 90s than Biomutant does being so basic. Space Station Silicon Valley, average goals, good mix of animals and early 3D games AI as an environment puzzle. So many games are about combat I find the lack of AI or environment puzzle level design or good movesets or dynamic elements to games, rifts that do more and aren't heavily scripted and perfect (almost sandbox survival games level), more player controlled aspects, better real life like animations. Take the animal out thematically and put a human in and it wouldn't change a thing their movesets are so safe in Biomutant. Granted a AA game so giving them some slack but still. So unimaginative. Animal traits of movesets and abilities would have made exploring the world more fun. I already loved the gas immunity system in the game. That's why I care so much about expanding more about the player character and the world. Digging, flight, swimming. Preferences to make some quests and areas of the world more accessible but the vehicles still there for the other animal classes. Or the ability to add the other traits later in the game via some reason of magic or genetics video game logic/skills. Brilliant but nope. Why do that. A lot of work yes to make such an extension to the character creator and level design and more I know but would make it stand out for sure. Not feel to safe of a game. There is a reason I am open world picky most of them side quest wide are boring to me personally. Outposts snore. Give me tower defence instead (Sunset Overdrive). People come across games from many places. Ads, KZbinrs, game journos, browsing eshops or physical stores, people talking about them. Seeing the artwork even. So why not.

[@Karsin8or]

@@suntannedduck2388 yeah I ain’t reading all of that

[@suntannedduck2388]

Other games, other genres, camera angles, old controllers. Some annual casual games. Banjo N&B, Tears, PN03. Mario 3D World. Basically my TL DR. Not only trending games. Very little results to be gained. Mario 3D World/RE/DMC/GOW because fixed camera. PN03 odd aim/movement controls of the time. Some old games ideas are good and bad lessons. There shortened it. A fair bit more. :) I do go overboard.

[@lynndifer4163]

"there are no wasted buttons" >dedicated whistle button

[@Delemaroth]

"Do you wanna do another one" was probably the most exciting thing to hear coming out of her mouth after all these years of doing these experiments.

[@holographictheory1501]

Yeah, I had a similar experience with the great sky islands! It really felt clear to me that the islands were not very well play tested. It was *very* easy to get seriously stuck in certain areas and honestly, it felt very annoying in a lot of places. I wish they'd kept the same freedom as the great plateau!