Tears of the Kingdom. I did figure out where the tear in the Hebra geoglyph was and have gotten a bunch more since then. I went madlad and completed Gerudo second of the four areas despite Gerudo usually being the hardest area in these types of Zelda games, and honestly, the only really hard part of it was the temple boss, which took me a fair number of tries and a short detour from the temple for some cooking, but I eventually beat it when I discovered a trick for the second half of the fight. Now I’m just wandering the land filling the map some more and doing a bunch of side quests and shrines where I find them before I take on the Goron area third.

EDIT: I should note I’m not wandering without an objective, I wanted to make sure I visited Kakariko and Hateno villages at least. I actually spent almost my entire three-hour play session last night in and around Hateno doing side quests.

Yeah, designing games geared towards kids and younger audiences isn’t just about story/aesthetics, it’s also about difficulty. Most young kids don’t have the attention span or critical thinking skills to sit there and try to beat an enemy or puzzle that older kids or adults would find genuinely challenging.

I could split Nintendo games (I’ve played) into three groups based on target audience:

Younger: cute art style, simple challenges, short game play for young children; Kirby, Yoshi

All Ages: easy-to-learn basics to get you through the main game, but there’s more complex stuff and greater challenge if you want it; mostly pick-up-and-play but not TOO short; Mario, Pokemon, DK Country, Super Smash Bros.

Older Gamers: more (relatively) mature subject matter, challenge from the beginning, complex mechanics and/or puzzles or both to get teen/adult brains going; Metroid, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, Zelda BotW and TotK (previous Zelda games would be in my All Ages tier)

This week in TotK I cleared the first temple (Wind Temple) and have been working on mopping up everything I can in the Hebra region so I have to spend the least time there possible moving forward. It was my least favorite part of BotW and TotK didn’t really change my opinion. One related question though: guides I’ve found say you don’t need to do the geoglyphs in order, but I’ve found the one in the northern snowfield and have combed the entire thing multiple times, including where the guides say you find the tear, but the tear is nowhere to be found. I got the one just outside Rito Village, which is supposed to be second, right away, it was readily available. Are the guides wrong, are you forced to pick them up in order?

This is especially true when it comes to traditional gender roles in the workplace. Women in Japan are often only hired as secretaries or “office ladies” in big companies, basically to shuffle papers and serve tea. Not exactly big decision-making roles. Heck, even making an announcement is likely a big thing in this regard for a Japanese company, if they actually follow through they could really be seen as progressive by Japanese standards.

Maybe not endless Mario movies, but more Nintendo movies for sure. I’ve seen rumors that about an animated Zelda movie floating around with the success of Mario.