The Most Boring Place in Tears of the Kingdom?

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Transcript

00:00Okay, check this out. All the way at the top of the map in The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

00:04is a tiny strip of land that separates an infinitely wide ocean from an infinitely deep

00:09canyon. And on that tiny strip of land, you'll find absolutely nothing. This unassuming strip

00:16of land, which is one of my favorite places in the game by the way, has nothing to do with any

00:20of the game's quests. It doesn't have any special enemies to fight, there are no treasure chests to

00:25open, there's no reason to come here. For our purposes, this is one of the most boring places

00:30in all of Tears of the Kingdom. But, is it the most boring place in all of Tears of the Kingdom?

00:36That's what I want to dive into today, and places like this are the types of places I want to show

00:40you today. Places with nothing. Places far from the beaten path. Places you've never even thought

00:45about, much less actually visited. Personally, I have a strong opinion on what I think the most

00:50boring place in the entire game is, and I'll share that with you later, but there are a lot of other

00:54places worth considering as well, so we'll start by showing you a few of those. Like for example,

00:58way up above the Gerudo Desert, far away from most of the game's main quest activities, you can find

01:04this small snowy plateau in the Gerudo Highlands. On it, you'll find a few berries to pick, you'll

01:09find some rocks, you'll find an enemy outpost. It's a lonely little place that really makes you feel

01:14like you're high up in the mountains, away from civilization. If you take a little time, you can

01:18climb even further up over another ridge, and if you do that, you'll find this. This is really the

01:25area I want to show you first. This place is so desolate, so neat, so boring, that I spent an

01:30entire afternoon just pacing back and forth trying to figure out if there was some sort of secret

01:35that I was missing, but there isn't. Now there is one more ledge up here that leads to an even higher

01:39plateau, but unfortunately you can't climb it because it represents the edge of the game world.

01:44The only way you can get up there is to shoot way up into the sky and then skydive back down

01:48onto it, and even then you can only stand on a little bitty part towards the edge. Now up on

01:53this ledge, the only interactivity is from the random enemies that periodically spawn, and that's

01:58basically the case anywhere you go in Tears of the Kingdom. No matter how remote or boring a spot is,

02:03the game will periodically spawn climate-appropriate enemies for you to fight, meaning that you're never

02:07going to go too long without having a little something to do. What I really appreciate about

02:11this is that it feels totally video game. I know there's probably some in-universe biological

02:17explanation for how each of the choo-choos evolved for the distinct climate that they're in, but I

02:22feel like we all know that the enemies in this game aren't placed for the cohesion of the lore,

02:26they're placed for the cohesion of the gameplay. Now believe it or not, there are some very specific

02:31places you can find in Tears of the Kingdom that are so boring that they don't even have these

02:35randomly spawning enemies to fight, so I'm going to show you some of those next. But first, I'm

02:39going to show you footage of what it's like to revisit an already-completed shrine while reading

02:44for one of my favorite sponsors, Rocket Money. Okay, here's my slogan that I made up for Rocket

02:48Money. It goes like this, okay? You don't have money until you have a budget, and you don't have

02:54a budget until you have Rocket Money. It's not bad. Budgeting is kind of boring, and not in a

02:59cool way like this empty shrine. It's actually just not fun to budget. However, budgeting your

03:04money also makes your life way less stressful. No matter how much money you do or don't make,

03:08you should budget it. If you had time to find all the shrines in Tears of the Kingdom,

03:13you have no excuse not to be budgeting. We both know it. Now, if you've seen an ad for Rocket

03:17Money before, you've probably seen that it also tracks and it can help you cancel unneeded

03:22subscriptions. Sure. I used that when I first got it. It works. It saved me some money, but I don't

03:27actually really care about that. It's not the most useful part of the app. The budget part is what you

03:31want. They just sell that other part because it obviously sounds bad for some random company to

03:35be like telling you to budget, but I'm not a random company. I'm your favorite YouTuber,

03:39and I'm telling you, go get a budget. If you're on the fence, go to rocketmoney.com slash anyaustin

03:44to get started for free. If you think there's any chance you might start budgeting anytime soon,

03:49that's the URL you want to use because it's mine. You could just type in rocketmoney.com and just

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03:59Okay. Thank you for your time. Okay. Let's take a look at another place that could qualify as the

04:04most boring place in the entire game right here. Welcome to a small outcropping on the side of a

04:09useless pillar in the middle of a lake that you never need to visit. There are several of these

04:14pillars in this lake, all of which surround Rito village, but I like this one the best because it's

04:18the smallest one. This is one of the few places in the game you can find that doesn't have any

04:22enemy spawns, which at least in theory makes it more boring than the last place we looked at.

04:27The most interesting thing about this place is that on top of this pillar, there is a rock,

04:31and if you want, you can take that rock from the top of the pillar to the bottom of the pillar very

04:36carefully. And then if you're even more careful, you can drop that rock into the water and it will

04:41stay there. It'll come to rest on top of a submerged outcropping of the pillar beneath

04:46the waterline. That's the most interesting thing about this pillar. It's a boring pillar. Places

04:50like this in Tears of the Kingdom feel so remote that it almost feels like you're hiding from God

04:55when you're here. God being the developer, of course, not literally God. Nobody can hide from

05:00God. Like, you know how anytime you use any piece of software nowadays, it's constantly sending

05:04detailed reports of everything you're doing to the developer ostensibly so they can, you know,

05:09make the game better and optimize it and whatever. But, you know, actually, so they can sell the data

05:13to third parties, probably. I don't know. I'm not a developer. Don't come. Don't attack me. It feels

05:16like anything you do in this little space would be hidden even from that. I love it. And there's

05:22another place in the game that gives me the same feeling. It's way up there. This rock is one of

05:27many similar rocks floating around the world of Tears of the Kingdom as part of the Sky Islands.

05:32They don't contain any retrievable goods for the most part, and they might be the furthest single

05:37point you can get from every other living object in the game. Living, you know, it's computers,

05:42but whatever. You ever read about those comets that come around once every 70 years and then

05:47for 69 straight years, they just meander aimlessly in the black vacuum? This is that. We are on that

05:53comet. I say aimlessly. I guess it's not aimless because it's gravity, but whatever. Having a

05:58campfire on one of these little sort of asteroid islands is a pretty magical experience as well

06:02because the campfire mechanic in this game doesn't just pass the time. It also grounds you in the

06:07world by forcing you to have a moment of role playing. Link made a fire and slept all night

06:13on this lonely floating rock. That's a really weird and beautiful thing. If you crawl down the

06:18side of one of these floating rocks and hang your feet off the bottom, you get this really weird

06:22sense of your own mortality and possibly vertigo, and it suddenly makes the game feel a lot more

06:27present and physical than it does when you're just running around collecting shrines. There are other

06:31strange, boring, lonely places in the sky as well. If you make a point to stop and land on the sides

06:36of the rocks during those courage testing minigames, you end up in another strange place

06:40with nothing to do. There are also other small islands a little bit bigger than that single rock,

06:44but still pretty small, that just have like a bit of grass or a tree on them. In some ways,

06:49these places feel even more boring than the place we looked at originally because the grass almost

06:53creates this like anticipation of a purpose, even though the island doesn't have a purpose. We'll

06:58talk more about that idea a little bit later. Now, these sky islands are one of the main additions

07:02that Nintendo made to this game to differentiate it from Breath of the Wild, which uses the same

07:07map, but the other big addition also comes with its fair share of boring places, and that's going

07:12to be way down here. Beneath the surface of Hyrule, you'll find the Depths, which is like a strange

07:19inverted version of the overworld that's full of cursed goblins and has a really interesting skybox.

07:24Now, I think a lot of people feel like the Depths, in general, are just a boring place because it

07:28lacks any real visual variety from location to location, which is true, and the majority of what

07:34you do down here is sort of just grinding for a certain material to help you upgrade your abilities,

07:38which is also true, but I totally disagree with the assessment that the Depths as a whole is boring,

07:43even though I agree with the underlying facts, and if this was a review of Tears of the Kingdom,

07:47I would go into details, but since it's not, let me just tell you about the most boring place down

07:51here in the Depths. Just to the west of the abandoned Gerudo Mine is an area up against the

07:56western wall of the Depths, and in this area, there isn't anything substantive to do. Kind of a running

08:01theme today. What's so boring about this space is that, unlike a lot of the other places we've been

08:06in, it's still pretty dense visually. It has the same gnarled organic look that the rest of the

08:11Depths has, only in between all of those mushroom trees and twisting rocks, there isn't actually

08:15anything to do. You can sometimes find your generic enemies or maybe some postholes to collect,

08:20but in terms of curated interactions, nothing. I spent about 40 minutes walking back and forth in

08:25this area, taking in the vibes, and the only thing I found that I felt was legitimately interesting

08:30was this hole in the ground. It doesn't have a purpose, but it's kind of unique and unexpected.

08:36If you go in it, you get hurt. That's it. What's interesting about this whole area is that it's

08:41precisely because it looks less boring that it feels more boring. Let me explain. When we're

08:46standing on a rock floating thousands of feet above Hyrule, we're not actually expecting very

08:51much. What we see is what we get, because we can see everything that there is to see, right? But

08:55down here, so much of the space is obfuscated by the terrain that you're wandering around with a

09:00lot more anticipation of something interesting being around the next bend, and then because

09:04there isn't anything, you really feel the absence of that content more profoundly than you do when a

09:09space is clearly empty from the jump. It reminds me a little bit of what would probably be one of

09:13my favorite games of all time if I would just play it, which is Shadow of the Colossus. For the most

09:18part, people don't really complain about that game being boring. Instead, they use words like empty

09:23and desolate and atmospheric, and I think that's mostly due to how the game manages expectations

09:29rather than whether or not the game actually has interesting things to do at every moment.

09:33Thinking about things in this way also partly solved something about these two newest Zelda

09:38games that was puzzling me while I was pondering this video. Why is it that despite the fact that

09:43the overworld in these games is so full of empty space, walking around in this game isn't generally

09:49very boring? And I think the main reason for this is just appropriately managed expectations, and

09:54that's something a lot of developers and YouTubers, come to think of it, miss when thinking about video

09:59games. You cannot just boil the art of engagement into a simple yes or no inclusion. Everything in

10:05the game is interconnected, so it has to be considered as a whole thing. Anyway, I have one

10:09final spot that I want to show you that I think is the most boring spot in the entire game, but

10:14before I show you that, I also asked all of you if you had places that you thought were the most

10:18boring spots, so let me tell you a few of those excellent answers that you guys gave first, right?

10:23The first one comes from Ari is Exhausted, who mentions the area right before you go get the big

10:29horse. The big horse is down in the southeast area of the map, and it's true that the whole beach area

10:34leading up to the little peninsula feels really empty. There are a couple of enemies here and there,

10:39and there's a Korok, or maybe two, but it definitely feels like another one of those

10:43God-can't-see-me-here kind of spots, so I really like that one. Next one comes from Alex, who

10:48mentions this little island in the Nkluda Sea. Based on the map that he showed, I was expecting

10:52this place to be more boring than it actually ended up being. I get what they're saying about

10:56how there isn't anything to collect here, but you've got some boats to play with, there's some

11:00beautiful things to look at, it's just a nice little desert island. So I totally disagree with

11:04Alex, but I get it. This next spot comes from Dr. Jimmy Brungus, oh no, excuse me, from Dr. Jungi

11:10Brungen, who says, South of Davul Peak is pretty unspectacular, and the doctor is right. This is a

11:17great place. You have to climb up a big wall to get to it, but once you do, it's just a big long valley

11:22that feels extremely artificial, separating the desert from the grasslands. It's also absolutely

11:27full of tumbleweeds, which sort of makes it feel like one of the few maybe intentionally boring

11:32places in the game, like we're meant to think of it as strange and empty. Good choice, Dr. Brungen.

11:38Our last viewer suggestion comes from I'm Puppy, who circles a spot way up near the top of the map.

11:44I've been here before, and I love it. It feels similar to a lot of the places we've looked at,

11:48as though it was just kind of an afterthought or an accident, but one thing that sets it apart is

11:52that the pathways around it have these stone-throwing like-likes and fire choo-choos that really feel

11:57like a sort of unenthusiastic throwback to the iconic mountain sections of 2D Zelda games, where

12:03you have to walk up some pathway dodging boulders and fighting enemies. This is a fun idea to throw

12:08back to something in the old Zelda games, but it like barely works in 3D, and they just barely put

12:14any effort into it. But despite the low effort, I really do like it, and I think it's kind of a fun

12:18sort of gameplay quote. Put a pin in that idea, actually. Gameplay quote. I feel like that's

12:23something that I've never heard anyone talk about, but it happens all the time, where you'll be

12:27playing one video game, and it'll have a section that's very clearly a sort of homage to a section

12:32in a different video game, sort of like how jazz performers will quote famous passages from their

12:37songs while they improvise, and we don't really have good language to talk about that in games,

12:41so let's figure that out. If I have to make the video, I will, but one of you should do it. I have

12:45other things to do. All right, my vote for most boring place in the entirety of Tears of the

12:51Kingdom and Breath of the Wild, come to think of it, is probably going to be a little bit of a

12:55controversial pick, and it isn't totally in the spirit of everything else we've talked about today,

12:59but I think that's exactly why it's the right move. Bear with me here, okay? Are you ready?

13:03Zora's Domain. Zora's Domain is boring. It has all of the problems of the depths, which is to say

13:09that I feel like there should be so much more going on, but there's not, as well as all of the

13:13weird empty spots from everywhere else that we talked about, like up on the walkways or down

13:17beneath the city, and it has a really sort of excessively busy monotone architecture. I don't

13:22like that it's all blue. I think you'd need more colors than just blue. It makes me feel like I'm

13:27in, like, Dubai or some sort of planned city, which is fine. It's just ugly. All those things could be

13:33okay, except for the fact that it's also just way too big, which I think specifically means I'm just

13:38annoyed every time I have to walk up the stairs, because it takes way too long to go up the stairs,

13:43and it just, it feels like a missed opportunity in a game that otherwise has really excellent

13:48little towns and villages, so that's why Zora's Domain gets my vote for most boring place in Tears

13:53of the Kingdom. If you disagree with my choice, it's no big deal. This is not a very important

13:57topic. I'm honestly just trying to give you something to watch while you eat, and then give

14:01you maybe a little something to think about next time you play a video game. We don't need to fight.

14:06If you try to fight me in the comments, I will fight you, but we don't need to fight. We can love.

14:10I'm Annie Austin. Thanks for watching.

14:12My lack of money and my want for something more can do me in if I pay the places at the

14:20grocery store at 3 a.m. And I know what I'm talking about. And I know what I'm talking...

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