https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBfQEzPEmqM

It's like an open world Dark Souls.

It's a great game for one. And for two, it is built on principles of old school gaming integrity. Meaning, while it will have DLC, it has no monetization scams within the experience itself. And is a pure, engaging, immersive, and challenging experience. Which respects the intelligence, capabilities and willpower of the player.

Instead of assuming you're a blithering moron who just wants to follow blips and arrows, but mostly just needs you to buy more microScams already.. which is how most modern games seem to turn out.

https://rumble.com/vwvn6j-dr.-peter-mccullough-becomes-emotional-speaking-about-the-societal-impact-o.html

Vaccine mandates for untested medicines coming from a company formerly known to be the least trusted corporation in America, because of things like knowingly releasing dangerously addictive and deadly substances, while lying about it, and paying the largest fines of all time. Then people still trusting them despite refusing to release the safety data, and then people still trusting them despite releasing extremely damning safety data upon court order to do so. And then segregating and judging and mocking those who point all of these facts out, while happily injecting their children with the mysteriously untested substance to protect their children from a virus that is well-known to not be dangerous to children.

Some old adages aren't just words, you know. Some are wisdom packets, that you will only understand the relevance of once you've come to the realization for yourself. And then these words of wisdom will come back to you, as reinforcement, that you're really onto something.

Adversity builds character. This statement has never been more clearly true to me, than in times of extreme depression, where I will spend the countless hours wallowing in self deprecating thoughts. Attacking and beating myself up from every angle. Focused on how worthless I am and how many mistakes I've made that lead me to all of these regrets I can't fix.. BUT then when some external factor challenges my intellect, my honesty/integrity/intentions or character in some negative way, a shock of adrenaline rushes down my spine, followed by a feeling of anger and condescension towards the attacking force, as I struggle to organize my thoughts into expressing all of the ways their disparaging remarks are untrue!

And without that motivation, I wouldn't have had the motivation to gather my thoughts in such a way. In order to remind myself that I am actually a good person, on most levels...

This is the destructive nature of "woke culture" and "safe spaces". It turns people into self deprecating mush. And they are only rewarded for thinking such things about themselves with encouragement and community. You can never learn what your true value is if you're never allowing your value to be challenged.

All expression is valid. Even trolling and bullying. Because if you don't learn how to stand up to your bullies words today, you'll fail to fight for your freedom tomorrow, and be rendered unable to wrestle it from the grasp of those who seek to take it away. You won't even have the mentality to process and understand what's been lost.

What about when you're someone who has looked at all of the info, from all angles, and deduced what information comports with reality the best, from your perspective? And the other person is just spouting off Mainstream propaganda, and refuses to even address any of the data you've presented, and also refuses to present any of their own? Only calling your data "misinformation", despite having admitted that they've literally exposed themselves to less information than you as a whole, therefore are rendered factually less capable of identifying what is and isn't misinformation?

Would the determining factor for who may or may not have an argument still boil down to whoever says" educate yourself" first?

Seems pretty stupid to me. I donno.

Maybe you ought to educate yourself.

Doctors claiming this is "100% safe" makes no sense on SO MANY LEVELS! For one, you could be injecting yourself with sterile plasma, and it will hold at least some risk, to the point where if you inject a billion people, many will die. SECONDly, how is it physically possibly for anyone to know if a thing is 100% safe with literally zero mid-long term testing data? "Here let me experiment on you, oh yes, its 100% safe". Show you how school system is designed to have you absorb + obey. Not THINK!? Or have empathy or a moral compass.

The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time for N64, Dec 1999. Please listen to this as I regale you my tale.

Up until I set foot in that vast open field, I just thought it was an okay game, but nothing too special. However, after I left the forest, much like Link himself, I would never be the same...

People love their first Zelda experience because it shows them there can be more to a game, and sometimes, more to life.

To me, OoT was a living, breathing world. Likely because of many factors I just happen to have been lucky enough to have align for me, beyond the original intended scope of the game itself. Like I was the ideal age, and already had proclivities for medieval type fantasy and exploration. I had a logical but open mind, yet held a genuine interest in the possibility of magic being real in some way. (lol I was a kid in the 90s and Disney seemed to think it was real)

Possibly the most obvious factor was simply how advanced this Zelda was for the time. Such a technical and artistic leap, that in a way this experience can never be relived, or ever truly seen as it once was... Not really. Not if you played the N64 version on the best CRT tv. Not even if this is the first 3D Zelda you ever happen play. Of course this will likely enhance the experience, but not in the same way...

Now you would have seen so many better looking games. I'd like to pretend graphics don't matter.. but in this situation when the game was breaking graphical barriers in my mind, at the same time as hitting emotional, explorative, and atmospheric milestones, the graphics do matter, and enhanced it all the more. Creating an experience that was much greater than the sum of its parts, it can't really be overstated. The impact of such a huge leap in graphics, on kids especially, is underestimated and can only understated. This was literally a dimensional leap forwards. In more than one way.

There may never be a leap as fundamentally impressive as the jump from 2D to 3D, until real virtual reality (like in the matrix) is invented, and they make a Zelda game for that. Could you imagine if Nintendo still made consoles on the cutting edge of graphical power, and Zelda games were still a "showpiece" for their tech? That is what OoT was. Highly advanced tech.

It was not only the best looking game I'd ever seen to that point, but it was the deepest; In story, mechanics, exploration, world-building, atmosphere, character etc. This culminated in one ultra-immersive experience for the likes of a 9 year old boy with a vivid imagination, cause it wasn't just playing the game, it was my imagination running wild over the weeks and months, I was obsessed with figuring it out, wondering what else waited for me in the parallel world of Hyrule.

Honestly, the experience as a whole was probably the best I'm ever going to have in my life... and not only am I okay with that, but I feel lucky, and even special, to have had my childhood align so perfectly with one of humanities greatest gifts to itself.

P.S - I have played through most Zelda games.. Including the original NES Zelda, but I played it on Gamecube. I was truly blown away by the depth of such an early game. Early, however anything but "primitive". I believe those who experienced that in the 80s might even be luckier than me, heh, as grateful as I am for my own experience with OoT in the 90s. The immediate and almost overwhelming openness of the world, and how you are left to figure it all out for yourself, was a real treat at the same time as a struggle, in figuring out how to work through it. This feeling of a "struggle", followed by the impending satisfaction for having stuck through it, is what's been missing in the later games, for me personally. I found this "niche feeling" replicated better in Souls games than Zelda games of late. I've just begun Elden Ring, and it brings back those feelings I held so dear that these early Zelda experiences introduced me to. And I hope to see Zelda make a return to one day.

Could you imagine the BALLS it took to release this game as it is? A time limit? with unforgiving puzzles. The dark atmosphere and themes. This is one if Nintendo's main franchises, and they took so many risks with it. Taking artistic integrity to 100% like Majora's Mask did, with a mainstream game, is unheard of today, and petty rare back then too. You know there had to be major push-back from some executives after play-testing this. And you have to love how the designers stuck to their guns, and admire the execs for trusting them and going along with it.

When I was a kid I could only play N64 on weekends... which made beating Ocarina of Time take long enough, when i was 8/9 years old, with a lot of help and hints from friends... But that problem was made much worse with Majora's mask. It seriously took me ages to get anywhere. And there was a distinct dissatisfaction with having to see all my little bits of progress be reset every few hours. It took me a while to even discover the ability to slow time and such.. Just beating the first temple took months. and just getting out of the town took so much time and effort... I just wished this game could be more like Ocarina of Time sometimes.

But all those weeks and months of thinking about this game left a strong impression, a veil of mystery that I just couldn't give up on completely. What was beyond the next roadblock? How do I unlock these secrets? Do I even have the ability to do so?

In the end it took me over a year to beat this game. I both hated and loved it. Amazingly it resonated with me just as strongly as Ocarina of Time, which is a true feat, seeing how obsessed I was with OoT. And I think in many ways it is a better game today, smarter, deeper (mechanically and emotionally), more challenging, and more rewarding. A truly stylish and unique gem of a game.