The weaker Link
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Xyla Foxlin, Becky Stern and Jordan Harrod face a question about a flip-flopped computer game.
LATERAL is a weekly podcast about interesting questions and even more interesting answers, hosted by Tom Scott. For business enquiries, contestant appearances or question submissions, visit www.lateralcas...
GUESTS:
Xyla Foxlin: @xylafoxlin, / xylafoxlin
Becky Stern: @BeckyStern, / bekathwia
Jordan Harrod: @JordanHarrod, / jordanbharrod
HOST: Tom Scott.
QUESTION PRODUCER: David Bodycombe.
RECORDED AT: Podcasts NZ Studios.
EDITED BY: Julie Hassett at The Podcast Studios, Dublin.
GRAPHICS: Chris Hanel at Support Class. Assistant: Dillon Pentz.
MUSIC: Karl-Ola Kjellholm ('Private Detective'/'Agrumes', courtesy of epidemicsound.com).
FORMAT: Pad 26 Limited/Labyrinth Games Ltd.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David Bodycombe and Tom Scott.
© Pad 26 Limited (www.pad26.com) / Labyrinth Games Ltd. 2023.
For a long time, all characters in Counter-Strike were left-handed because the 3D artist found it easier to hold a gun in his left hand (for reference) while creating / animating the models.
Huh. That might explain why the command is cl_righthand 0, rather than cl_lefthand 1. That's a neat piece of trivia
@@zeroartisan - I suppose they could have named the variable whatever they wanted when they added the right-handed option (which I think was on version 1.6), but since they'd been left-handed until then, it made more sense to treat the right hand as the "new" option, and start with it turned off so people wouldn't complain.
thats also why most gun models are actually mirroed, since when u switch hands the gun is mirroed, and most players use the gun in their right hand while the guns were actually modeled for left handed use
@@mindblow4248 - In CS, you mean? Yep, they don't have separate left- and right-handed versions, the 3D models are simply mirrored by the game engine. Or at least were, before CS:GO; I'm not sure if they updated them to actually be different in newer versions.
@@RFC-3514 exactly!
The actual technique involved tells the game's 3D rendering engine to place the pixels on the screen mirrored, without changing any of the underlying animations and textures.
Then they had to make an exception for the 2D user interface elements (HUD and menus) that don't make sense mirrored.
Then they had to make an exception to the exception to render the maps flipped west-east and place the dynamic markers correctly.
People can call it lazy, but it still isn't the most straightforward process to mirror a game.
It's not really a matter of "exceptions", you just have to decide at which point in the rendering pipeline you flip things. The 3D scene is rendered before the HUD is overlaid, so you just flip between the two steps. The map would always need to be flipped separately, though, because they just want to flip the map _contents,_ not the map's _position_ on the screen.
It was probably a late change, because if they had planned it from the start it wouldn't have been hard to flip just the player model (but maybe they had some pre-animated cutscenes as well and decided it was too much work).
@@RFC-3514 no shot it was a late change. Recreating asset animations would've been absolutely necessary and a huge undertaking. Not to mention playtesting very careful to ensure those new animations didn't cause new glitches anywhere in the game world by somehow breaking object collisions. I'm sure mirroring the game was decided very early on
@@RFC-3514 -- I believe the limitation on flipping only the player model was that the animations would invert compared to other objects like door knobs and hinges, and recreating all of those animations was considered far more expensive.
As for the rest, I agree. I was aiming more at the layperson, and over-simplified.
@@SirJerric - I've never played it, so I don't know how "automated" those are (are players actually expected to extend the character's arm towards the door handle, or do they just press a button to open the door?), but I suspect they could have just selectively flipped some animations.
Flipping the frame buffer is very simple, but can cause other problems if there's any writing or references to directions in the game itself (i.e., if someone originally said "go East" and they flipped everything, they would have to change that to "go West"), not to mention confuse players following game guides, etc..
I'm sure they picked the cheapest solution.
im more concerned if the game allowed the player to choose an unflipped setting if they were left-handed
It's funny that Tom knows so much about GameCube, considering he forgot it existed on a certain quiz show a few months ago.
which one?
@@mistymysticsailboat The Christmas version of the UK's _University Challenge._
Once something's re-remembered it tends to stick in your brain a fair bit longer, hehe
As a lefty, it's very fun and cool how the entire world goes out of its way to avoid accidentally catering to me at any cost… /s
As ambidextrous.... *laughs*
rip
@@SuperMonkei *laughs in two swords*
I knew this one immediately because I'm a lefty.
That's something that bothers me a lot. Lefties literally die more of accidents because we don't have access to proper equipment. It's not something as trivial as most people think it is.
Listening to Lateral makes me realize how much of a nerd I really am. So many episodes for every single one of the contestants struggle incessantly and I seem immediately know the answer to half the questions. This one, the moment I heard the words "Twilight Princess" I knew exactly what the question and answer was gonna be.
Also, the one where you have to draw the controller like a bow? Correct me if I'm wrong but that Skyward Sword. Another game where Link is right-handed because motion controls- but this game isn't mirrored because it was made for the Wii!
The bow game is Link’s Crossbow Training
Yeah, it's a weird feeling to know you'd be sitting this one out before the question's even finished, but that's the experience I had too.
I wish they'd had the option to un-flip and play it left handed (haven't actually played it due to a lack of TV, and therefor pre-Switch home console, so sorry if I misunderstood the options), and I'd've loved it if they switched him back to being a lefty for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
Won't stop me from getting Tears of the Kingdom as fast as I can though.
Haha, I'm glad I'm not the only one who exactly knew the question when I heard of "Twilight Princess"!
@@wildcatterry17 It's definitely not. Link's Crossbow Training used the Wii Zapper, you didn't have to draw the bow back.
@@Autoskip The Wii U version kinda does this. The base game is like the un-flipped GameCube version, but there's also Hero Mode, where the difficulty is increased and the game world is mirrored a la the Wii version. This is also similar to Ocarina of Time 3D's Master Quest, which does the same thing.
Of course, this has no bearing on controls seeing as the Wii U version doesn't use motion controls for the sword.
Twilight Princess was initially intended to be GameCube-only. Nintendo decided to turn the game into a Wii launch title relatively late during development.
Mirroring the whole game was definitely the easiest solution. It probably involves flipping a single sign or so in the main rendering pipeline and perhaps some extra work for the UI and the controls.
Only flipping Link probably would have meant reworking a lot of the animations, especially during cut scenes as well as a lot more play testing, like checking for out-of-bounds clips.
This is correct!
Even just walking up to and opening a door would be very broken if only link were flipped. He'd face the wrong way in in-engine cutscenes, reach out with his hand and the door would flip open the other way! Much easier to just flip absolutely everything and then change every mention of east/west and left/right in the script as the game's dialog is not voiced and it doesn't really come up anyway. Does result in a few oddities in the Wii version though - like the sun rising in the wrong direction, all of the game's in-world Hylian text being mirrored, and the surprisingly consistent geographical features of Hyrule being in the wrong places.
Link being left handed is a trait inherited from the character's creator. In Skyward Sword link was right-handed from the start and the game's world isn't flipped. In Breath of the Wild and the very recent Tears of the kingdom too - even though those game's don't have the same kind of motion controls!
key note: canonically link is ambidextrous, but his left hand is normally the one he trained with. in Link to the Past, link will swap the sword and shield, with the reason given being at the time, people believe keeping your shield to death mountain would cast of bad outcomes. the real reason is so they could just flip the sprite so they only needed to make 2 sets instead of 4.
I always challenge this claim. I know it comes from the creators themselves, but originally Link was very much left handed. The ambidextrous statement I only ever started hearing after they made Link right-handed even in Breath of the Wild. I find it to be a cheap cop-out for a dumb decision. Link's a lefty.
As for A Link to the Past they really should have made chiral sprites at that point, but they went with mirroring. Sad
@@emdivine if you want more evidence that it is just they wanted to give a reason for link being right handed in newer games, in lttp's manual, it straight says link is left handed and is so superstitious he uses his off hand anyway. I agree link should be left handed.
@Emelie their is an in lore reason for this in his room his pen is on the left side of the journal, indicating he's left-handed, but in botw, he was given a formal knights training and was trained to use his right hand
@@magnusmights2265 so THAT is why his shield bash is so powerful in BOTW! :D
Ariel was redheaded in the little mermaid because it is easier to do shadows on red hair instead of blonde hair according to the extras that came with the DVD version of the movie. Also, Disney had done a live-action mermaid-based movie not too long before as well that was blonde.
"they lazily mirrored the entire game world"
I would argue its not lazy, it's just a quick camera invert rather than an entire recreation of the game world 😂
So Link has always been left handed in lore BUT it wasn't cemented visually until Ocarina in the N64 BECAUSE rather than make 2 sets of sprites it was easier to just make the sprites so his shield was always pointed north or west and in the Link to the Past manual the reason they gave for it was a surperstition amongst Hylian knights that you must always point your shield towards death mountain
thats so funny
I just noticed another feature of the excellent captioning on these videos - if there’s text on-screen, the captioning moves to a different place on the screen so as not to cover it up.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for putting so much thought into your captions.
Based Tom with that Double Dash take
I was not able to play the Game Cube version, but I do remember some game reviewers from that time were making fun of the Wii version being the mirror/flipped version of the Game Cube version, and mocked that the Wii was two Game Cubes duck taped together.
The GameCube version was a better in general. It was originally meant to only release on GC but because of the GC's low sales, the wii was rushed to release and Nintendo decided to port TW to the wii as a lauch title. But the game plays so much better without motion controls.
Technologically speaking, it wasn't two Gamecubes ducktaped together, it was only one. Nintendo basically recycled the Gamecube and turned it into the Wii. That's the reason why the Wii is the only console of it's generation that isn't HDMI compatible.
Has anybody mentioned that "Link" is often left in Germanic languages? I think that's a good clue, too.
The random facts in between these questions are amazing 😍
wow this is the first one I correctly guessed the answer to immediately, all because I knew that Link was a lefty
Alternatively you can just be a lefty, and expect to be punished for it at any and all times.
(Though I have played a few Zelda games, and just never noticed Link is Lefty like me)
I played the gamecube version and had no idea the whole game was mirrored on wii. My mental image of this game is falling apart.
This would not be the first time a video game was flipped. Way, way back in the day, 5.25-inch floppy disks had two sides, even if they were not always put to use. So the makers of the computer game Karateka decided it would be funny to make it so that if you put the disk in the wrong way up, there would be a whole copy of the game on that side that is entirely upside-down.
This short dropping just after the Tears of the Kingdom trailer dropping, very sneaky
Also "links" means left in German. Just a funny coincidence.
Was just gonna say this! I wonder if it was intentional or not!
And in Dutch.
First of all, it makes complete sense that LINK is LEFT handed (his brother RECHT ich right handed).
Second, I think it would be a new experience for a lot of players to play the sword with their left hand, I would actually consider trying that game just for that... Shame they mirrored it
I would have had to sit this one out
I don't remember where I heard it though :o
They weren't actually released simultaneously; the GameCube version came out roughly a month after the Wii version. I remember having to wait to get it on GameCube.
The Ariel fact is a bit off, they made her redheaded because she was gonna be blonde because apparently that’s the default hair color for mermaids. Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was chairman at the time before being essentially ousted from the company to form DreamWorks, was quoted as saying “everyone knows all mermaids are blonde” and was really pushing for a blonde Ariel. This same guy wanted to cut Part of Your World from the movie bc a kid was a little squirmy during that scene while watching an unfinished test screening of the film, so idk if I would’ve trusted his judgment much about the key decisions of this film lol. However, Disney had just put out another movie with a blonde mermaid (Splash), so they needed their new mermaid to be more distinct, and the red hair color offered a nice contrast with a green tail. It actually turned out to be a fabulous choice in an animation sense as there was such a variety of shades the red ended up turning into based on the variety of settings and lighting in the film, it is really striking and now a hallmark of her character. The only people not completely on board were toy manufacturers, since historically, redhead dolls did not sell as well as blondes. The first Ariel dolls, by Tyco, have a very subtle strawberry blonde color. Tyco was nervous that her firetruck red would be a deterrent but what actually happened was that people complained that the doll didn’t look like the movie character enough so Tyco remade her with a more saturated red like she has in the film. Can you tell this is my special interest 😅😅😅
Didn't know this because my memories of Link is from the original on the NES.
This also really sucks when you're playing the randomizer, which is on the gamecube version, if you're used to the Wii version, as now you have to try and remember where everything is, but mirrored from what you remember.
Ideally, the randomizer would have an option to flip everything.
I've played Zelda: A link to the Past hundreds of times and never noticed Link being left handed. Learned something new today. :)
I just knew this one from Nintendo fact videos it was because of motion controls they made link right handed while he used to be left handed
What I find funny is that I grew up playing Zelda games, and I never noticed that Link was left-handed, even playing Twilight Princess. I think I had to look up a walkthrough at some point, and noticed the walkthroughs for the Game Cube and Wii were different, which is when I found out about Link being left-handed. I love that detail.
Oh my goodness! I actually was able to answer one of these immediately as a longtime, huge Zelda fan! Sorry that made my day!
It sounds 'lazy' but the alternative of reanimating Link and rethinking the combat encounters across the entire game would be an insane undertaking and not worth the time and money allocated for it. The mirroring is a really clever workaround but also very disorientating if you play one version then the other.
I remember playing through the game on the Gamecube and getting stuck, and needing a RUclips walkthrough to go through it. I could only find a Wii version of it. I had to mirror all directions on the video so I could find the right route through a dungeon.
I'm just glad Tom reminded me of _Double Dash_ tbh.
Despite being left handed myself, I don't think I'd be able to control the game with the Wii Remote in my left hand. Decades of gaming has conditioned my left hand to use the d-pad / left stick for movement...
I definitely did back then for both games. I wonder if I'd still do that.
I can't believe no one there could correct them on the action buttons not being on the left, this one was painful lol
"I admit it, you are better than I am."
"Then why are you smiling?"
"Because I know something you don't know."
"And what is that?"
"I am not left-handed."
"You're amazing!"
"I ought to be, after twenty years!"
"There's something... I ought... to tell you."
"Tell me!"
"I'm not left-handed, either."
This was slightly spooky. I have just searched for A Link To The Past videos for some evening nostalgia, casually refreshed my Lateral tab before picking a video, and boom, Zelda themed snippet only 3 hours ago. I felt a little watched for a second there :D
Right after the question and without looking at the comments, i bet its because one is for CRTs and the other for LCDs. Having said that you should be able to plug either screen into either console, so im probably wrong lol
*Fire* arrows? Gasp!
Shoot or loose, but not fire.
This is the second clip Lateral question I've come across where I already new the answer, the first one being the question about hexagonal beehives.
On the one hand it does make me feel a little clever, immediately knowing something these clever people face to puzzle through. On the other hand, I only know this because it happens to be a topic I already had an interest in and me knowing this means I can't take part in the game.
These questions make me reflect on what makes a lateral question difficult and how specialised knowledge works. Because this and the beehive question were things I'd known for literal decades (and I associate with a lot of mathematicians and Zelda fans) these questions don't seem complicated to me. I guess the point of these questions is once you have the answer it seems obvious / simple. But if you don't have the context it can be tricky to figure out.
I wonder if you could disable this feature if you were left handed? I've also read multiple studies from this era about how Nintendo are the worst at accessibility because for most consoles motion-capture controllers were a bolt on extra and for the wii they were the whole gimmick so it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't bother to have a left handed mode.
For reference I'm both left handed and disabled. I did a self driven unit for my game design degree about accessible game controllers.
Bowser Jr. from the Super Mario series is also left-handed.
Tom was thinking of Hyrule Warriors
How does Tom Scott know about Link's Crossbow Training but not concretely know what the Wii is
I knew this one from the start since I literally just played Twilight Princess on Wii last winter and i got very confused by walkthroughs telling me to go east or west 🤣🤣
My brother is left handed and it threw him off so bad. I'm right handed, but my husband is also a lefty, so I wish they had made the change optional
Mario Kart Double Dash was such a fun game! Ah, memories.
It just occurred to me that links is German for left... I wonder if Miyamoto, or whoever named the character, speaks German 😆
"link" on the other hand (hah!) is German for "nasty" or "crooked", as in a nasty person. Which is possibly also related to left-handedness in some medieval way...
There's a similar thing in Latin, with 'sinister'.
@@radagastwiz "Same" in Latin for *both* dexter as in dexterity etc. and "sinister" as in suspicious, dark, crooked -- or even the "lateral" (pun intended!) left!
And as an autistic player who played that version of the game when it came out... I remember noticing Link was right-handed (and assuming this was for control purposes), and also being very confused to look at the game map and see a version of Hyrule with a complete east/west flip from the usual layout (honestly, Death Mountain in the west just doesn't feel right). I eventually put two and two together and realised the GameCube version of the game was the "real" one and this was just a screen-flipped port.
this video made me subscribe to Zyla Foxlin and binge-watch her vids
I actually knew this one as soon as they said Twilight Princes. Best Zelda game btw
They should’ve called him Rink in the mirrored version.
That would be culturally insensitive (R and L are basically the same "letter" in Japanese, with a sound somewhere between the two) .
I thought Tom was going to arrive at the right answer with the wrong equation for a bit there.
The mirrored Link is presumably called Recht.
Ha ha!
Shigeru Miyamoto is ambidextrous, but he's more dominant on his left hand, so he designed Link as left-handed. Until Twilight Princess (the Wii version), he's been left-handed. And iirc, he still was left handed in all the handheld games after that.
From what I’ve heard Link was usually left handed because in Japan left handednes is more common.
I knew this literally right as they asked the question lol I'm too geeky
Mirroring Twilight Princess doesn't strike me as lazy - I've always felt like it was the most complex possible way to solve this problem. I understand why to non-programmers this seems like a simple thing but I feel like given the choice between flipping one character and his animations and altering your render pipeline and input handler, I'd much rather pick the option with fewer moving parts.
But if you just flip Link it would have meant that you'd have to redo every cutscene, flip every enemy's attack/defense motion... In the end you would have ended up flipping 50% or more of the game anyways and you'd have tons of work to integrate these flipped characters into the non-flipped world (to avoid collisions or clipping errors and stuff like that).
Twilight Princess seems to have been made for the Gamecube with the Wii release request coming later, which makes me suspect that the "mirror the game world" decision came because there was not-insignificant work done on the game world by the time they had to deal with this "suddenly, Link has changed hand preference" thing.
If you just flipped link and his animations he'd reach out with the wrong hand to open doors, block in the wrong direction, turn and walk the wrong way in cutscenes etc. just flipping everything and making a few script edits is a tiny change when compared to reanimating absolutely everything
nice timing! (new zelda totk trailer was just released)
...so this is one of those where I immediately knew the answer just because it's a bit of well known trivia about the game.
I also use it as a reference for comics that read right to left because the author has read too much manga.
Incidentally, Link is also right-handed in Skyward Sword (Wii), Breath of the Wild (Wii U and Switch), and Tears of the Kingdom (Switch).
Right there is the reason why any game released on both the Game Cube and the Wii was always better on the Game Cube. Twilight Princess, Resident Evil 4, and a few others.
Finally, a game we left-handers might be able to excel and we are screwed yet again.
Lefty erasure on the Wii!
actually, this makes every single character in the game left-handed (except for Link, the horrible aberration...)
@@sourcererseven3858 Fair point!
I remember see this in a fact fiend video
I feel very fulfilled that I knew the answer to this at the start even though I don't think it's very useful knowledge.
I am rather annoyed that I've never played Mario Kart Double Dash, I don't think they've ever rereleased it for a newer console. (I am aware the original Wii was backwards compatible but my one isn't).
The funny thing is, there are only two non-handhelt Mario Kart versions after this one. The Wii got one and since then Nintendo started re-releasing Mario Kart 8. Not even sure if there are plans for a Mario Kart 9 at this point.
the fact that all but one of the questions I've known the answer to have been video game related tells me I might want to broaden my knowledge base.
Tom needs a Nintendo Switch with the Classics Online. I think he'd have a blast.
Link is usually left handed, however most people are right handed - is that it? 3:06
Tom is dead on about Mario Kart Double Dash being extra fun
I knew this one but I'm literally playing Breath of the Wild right now while watching so I equipped a sword to check and he's right-handed in that game so then I started to doubt myself.
Weird lefty fact I read years ago that seems true but that might not be a real fact: Most left handed people draw characters that are left handed, because left handed people can automatically mirror an image mentally and they want their characters to be left handed. Righties often draw left handed characters because they just draw a direct mirror image- righty illustrator, character ends up using the hand that's on the right side of the page or screen, aka left handed.
(Try this with a lefty: stand in front of them and have them mimic your movements- then take your right hand and touch the right side of your face. Lefties often will raise their right hand and touch the right side of their face. Righties will often raise their left hand and touch the left side of their face, directly mirroring the gesture.)
Weirdest question I've ever gotten about being left handed: "You can write in Chinese?!" 😂😅
They probably did play the game with a mirrored character model and then there's certain game objectives where swinging from that direction doesn't work as well.
If they just flip the character model he'd reach out with the wrong hand to open doors, block in the wrong direction, turn the wrong way in in-engine cutscenes, etc.
Tom is correct, Double Dash is the best mario kart.
You know, I hear they used to call him the Drift King back in college...
Is this the reason why his name is Link?
They could have just made the mirror function an option! It makes *no* sense to take away from about a tenth of the world one of the few opportunities they have in life to have things fit perfectly!
There's nothing that actually stops you playing with your left hand holding the Wii remote, all the motion controls do in that game is replace a GameCube button press.
As left-handed this is almost insulting.
I'm not even a zelda fan, but I had worked it out before they asked for the answer, as soon as they started talking about handedness. If it's a handedness related thing, and it's a trait of the character, he must be a leftie! ... Maybe because I have a fair few left handed characters lol
Dont know if there is any text but would the text be mirrored too?
Not an issue, hylian wasn't written in a legible language to begin with, and almost all objects with text were just moved rather than flipped.
Yes, but all in-world text is written in Hylian. So it is just as illegible mirrored.
The in-universe Hylian script is completely flipped. But remember, it's only the 3D models in just the textures that were flipped. Any actual text of the player would be reading stayed the way it was supposed to be.
The actual technique involved tells the game's 3D rendering engine to place the pixels on the screen mirrored, without changing any of the underlying animations and textures.
Then they had to make an exception for the 2D user interface elements (HUD and menus) that don't make sense mirrored.
Then they had to make an exception to the exception to render the maps flipped west-east and place the dynamic markers correctly.
People can call it lazy, but it still isn't the most straightforward process to mirror a game.
What a dick move. As a leftie, I'm offended that there wasn't an menu option to have it in original or mirrored.
i just never knew there was a right-handed link. the link i know has always been only left-handed.
Well, outside of Twilight Princess, Link is right-handed in both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild. The right-handed Link is canon for these two games actually, as he's right-handed in the promotional art as well. Twilight versus on the other hand was originally meant to have a left-handed Link, so the right-handed version isn't considered canon.
link is canonically ambidextrous, with lttp link swapping his sword and shield very regularly (they only made 2 sets of sprites and mirrored them so he could move in all 4 directions)
Link is left handed because Miyamoto is left handed
Those dextronormitives just can't let us sinistrals have anything!
Links means left in German, so basically... just a coincidence, I guess :D
The only laziness here is that of the right-handed players who can't bring themselves to learn how to use a tool that isn't made with them in mind.
TL;DR: Screw lefties.