Unremarkable and odd places in Twilight Princess 

The hole in Lake Hylia is a shortcut that can be accessed through the Kakariko Graveyard. You're meant to use the water bombs to open the shortcut after obtaining the Zora Armor.

I work at a hospital in the basement. There is one long hallway that is probably a quarter of a mile long, its almost always completely abandoned and on the weekends half the lights are turned off. Every time, I can just hear your echoing, "this place is weird," in my head.

God I love Twilight Princess's environmental design. It's like the entire world is a creepy empty liminal space that's had something removed from it. Some people probably find it boring or lazy as a result; I think it makes the tone 10 times more effective.

Twilight Princess always gives me similar vibes to Shadow of the Colossus. But it also feels 'fractured', like all the pieces don't necessarily fit together.

I think one reason you can justify the emptiness of lake Hylia with is the fact it was dried up and empty until "recently" so there's veen no time for flora and fauna to fill it. Meanwhile, the hole in front of the temple was filled with water even after the lake was dried up, so there's animals and plants there.

Twilight Princess is certainly very dreamlike in the sense that (and I say this lovingly) so much of the world feels like the suggestions of places and landscape rather than the thing itself? So much feels at least a little off in juxtaposition with the realism and scale they achieved otherwise. It's the kind of thing I never noticed until I was going around gathering poes and bugs, once i wasn't distracted by moving forward in the story.

God I love going back to Twilight Princess every so often. That game had a powerful vibe that nobody's captured since. Straight magic

The Ranch actually has a few reasons to pay it another visit. You can pet the goats, and even if you dislike the minigame, you can earn a piece of heart there. There's also a hidden underground cave (accessible through digging as wolf in the building) that cointains one of the few instances of Rare Chu (I believe there are only 3 or 4 in the entire game).

You mentioned the lonely feeling that the chasms give, and honestly that’s one of my favorite things about TP’s atmosphere. The Hyrule of TP is a kingdom in decline, and you can feel that in every corner of the game. The world is big, and barren, and lonely throughout. The land doesn’t have the vibrance that most Zeldas do, but it’s also not exceptionally hostile. It’s just… Lonely, and desolate.

I swear this game is the most dreamy and odd game Ive ever played. I remember playing it when I was 14. I got it on the wii, and I played it during winter. I felt to isolated playing that game. Isolated from the world because it was winter and isolated in a video game, at the most depressing time in my life when my parents were going through problems. And it just is INGRAINED into my head as just a WEIRD GAME I played at a very WEIRD time in my life. One of my favorite games of all time by far.

When I was a young kid I played this game but didn't have the video game savvy to realize I had to summon the hawk. So I spent tens of hours in the first part of the game walking around Ordon Village and minding my own business like I was any other resident. Definitely the most odd and unremarkable video game experience I've ever had. I have no idea why I spent so much time on it.

You should definitely do a Part 2 for this area with the later game areas. Gerudo Desert is massive and has a ton of empty spaces, the path to Snowpeak is desolate AF, the lost woods leading to the Temple of Time are super weird…. And the Twilight Realm Palace is also like something out of a dream. Would love to see you find more cool areas in the later game!

I've literally thought about 2:25 every time I go back to an old game. I was replaying a Fallout 3 DLC the other day and found a nothing NPC in a cave at the edge of the map, stared at them thinking "how often do people even see you these days?"

Lake Hylia being so dead makes a lot of sense, though. When you start the game, as far as we know it's been nearly empty for a while, with only the lake temple entrance still having water over it. Depending on how long the bed was dry, there's a good chance there just wouldn't be any life other than fish coming from upstream. Also that would be a lot more annoying to handle map and model wise.

There were a bunch of things I never thought to look at, especially the weird PNG mountains ?? I think Twilight Princess the the perfect candidate for these types of videos because it feels a little overly ambitious with a huge world but several areas were there just wasn't any way to fill it one of my favorite places is the path from zora's domain to snowpeak

Twilight Princess was my favorite game to search for stuff like this as a teenager. I for example tried to find fishing spots in places you would not necessarily look, like the dungeons. Turns out you can find fishing spots in about half of the dungeons, multiple in the first two (including the boss room, at least in the original Wii version).

It's worth noting that the ranch SHOULD feel odd. It's the furthest point from the rest of Hyrule and is up in a mountainous area. It should feel oddly isolated, so it's lucky that the tone of the game design just works so well for that location. I also don't understand why that big chasm bordering Hyrule field didn't simply show the water at the bottom of it. At least half is the chasm is simply the Zora River. So show it!

I'm grateful you always ask permission to take us to these odd places. It makes the trip more comfortable and pleasant

I adore this series as a whole, but this video in particular feels perfectly tailored for me. I felt like the only person in the world who did this in Twilight Princess, and it feels so cathartic to finally see someone else appreciate those inconspicuous little pockets of the world as much as I did as a kid. ❤ Wonderful vid, keep up the good work!

I'm glad you gave a shout out to most bizarre landscape asset in all of Zelda, the weird floating molten cabbage used to represent Death Mountain.

I love the way you look at the actual spaces in games. Most people have a very utilitarian aproach to the spaces in games, except for places where the intended purpose is exactly to marvel at a vista. But I really identify with how you really seem to savor every single nook and cranny. I didn't grow up with Zelda but I remember doing this in some of the games I played, just finding an unremarkable corner that someone had to model and taking in the vibes. I feel like I did this a lot in Soul Reaver 2.

i always thought kakariko in this game fit the “unremarkable and odd” bill. like, the entire village. it’s just got a strange feel. the inn with the weird ramp outside leading up to the second floor and the sign that says “do not jump across this gap” on it especially gives that unusual vibe

15:15 There is actually a building in castle town behind the people sitting at tables, climb a bunch of stairs and go out on the balcony and you can go into first person there too; the whole building is also odd and remarkable in itself and was expecting to see it when I heard castle town

It's interesting that that big botomless canyon in Hyrule Field is even featured on the title screen, always gave me weird vibes. Another place that always fascinated me was Link's basement. Great video, I love these videos.

The main room of Hyrule Castle also just feels extremely weird. You come in from the main doors & it’s an immediate dead end room with nothing there except for a small wooden staircase in the middle, with only 3 steps leading to nowhere. Then you have a bunch of balcony’s but only 1 has a door (which leads to another weird room) with the other ones being inaccessible besides using the claw shot. The whole castle just makes zero sense in general & feels like a weird fever dream?

God I love this series! I feel like you could easily do a dozen more episodes on just Twilight Princess there's so much empty space in that game from Hyrule Field to all those one-off areas like the hidden village where you meet Impa. Anyway, keep making videos they're always a highlight!

The bottomless pits in the forest temple freak me out so much for some reason lol I am glad to see them get some attention Twilight Princess has really good environments. I love Ordon Ranch. The entirety of that opening village sequence left such a big impression the first time but also sort of sets a bar for "livelihood" that the rest of the town-like areas never live up to which is unfortunate

twilight princess always felt like it had huge, lord of the rings esque ambitions that translated super awkwardly onto a gamecube dev kit. It feels like they really strained against the limitations instead of working with them like they usually do, but it just adds to the incredibly stank vibes of the entire game and makes it super intriguing and memorable imo.

Twilight Princess is just unremarkable and odd places the game. And I'm saying that out of love, because this is still probably my favorite Zelda game. I remember actually going back to see what was in that water in the boss room of the forest temple when I was younger, and I was so surprised when I found the weird white void in there.

The thing about Lake Hylia that always struck me as odd is there's no path down to the lake for Hylians and Gorons. Link gets down there either by water, dropping from the bridge, flying, or that cucko mini game.

I absolutely love how existential these odd places videos get. Like that segment staring into the farmers eyes and relating him to numbers on a disk was gold.

As a kid I would go to a children’s museum that had a forest themed play area, and you mentioning the indoor/outdoor vibe of the forest temple reminded me of it ❤

I remember hearing of people trying to find the beta forest and such. It made me really look at all the odd cliffs and ends you could reach in this. Something about opening up and going to the oddest out of the way places in this game just hits different it feels more special and tucked away.

Just went through something really rough, and while I was initially processing it I had this video going. Something about how calm and peaceful it was, how genuine the emotions were, really resonated with me and made me feel less alone. Maybe that’s silly, but genuinely, thank you.

This got surprisingly deep

Another odd spot in Twilight Princess is (from what I remember) just before the entrance to the Snowpeak Ruins dungeon. There's a small hill with a spiral path you can walk up to catch a poe. I just remember thinking did the developers really put this here just for a poe soul? Idk maybe there was something else there and I just can't remember. Also the very top of the mountain where you can snowboard down is another cool (literally) and calm spot. Twilight Princess is full of these places. Would totally like to see a part 2 video covering this game.

Twilight Princess has so many of these spaces. It sometimes feels like the whole game exists in a weird, half-remembered dreamlike state, that exists only in the moments between being asleep and waking up. Possibly fitting, given it's a game split between two worlds.

You ever watch a video and think, "ah, this content is weird." I love videos like that. Thanks for the new video!

Yes two or three 4-secondish clips of the area at the end of each segment would be very cool to immerse ourselves in the oddity of the place before we move on.

I didn't exactly need the existential dread within the first 3 minutes but thank you for helping me wake up

You really are the embodiment of improvised jazz and im here for it.

The space in front of Hyrule Castle is also weird at some point in the story where its clear and sunny in Castle Town and then when you walk toward the space it starts pouring rain the moment you cross the threshold iirc. Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda. I could walk through the map and experience it for hours.

I’ve been going to sleep to a commentated twilight princess speedrun for the last month or so, excited to see these places again in a new context, and to return to them later having contemplated what would otherwise be missed

I really really love twilight princess and I think one of the reasons why is because of its graphics. I don't think it would benefit from another revamp. The low quality textures and sound mixed with the story and gameplay give it this weird half-liminal half-alive feeling that I haven't got from any other game. It's like a vibe that would be nearly impossible to recreate. Everything looks diluted. One of my favorite places in the game is in the snow area on the way up the mountain. There are just some random places that are out of the way but have no use.

i definitely think a good stylistic idea for this series going forward would be to start and end each segment with moments of ambience so the audience gets the chance to feel out the area before you talk about it, then when you're done we get to sit with it again after hearing what you've said

love these videos, feels good to see someone else mention these kinds of places. all of TP feels so... translucent. like things exist just because, it's almost liminal, which I guess fits the theme of twilight. I'd love to see a two hour long video on just this game

Abzu has some incredible Sky Boxes and probably has some Odd and Unremarkable Places.

even more than your previous video about hyrule field, this video really made me realize how empty this game’s world is. so many massive spaces with nothing to see or interact with… it truly is a strange and lonely vibe. thank u for capturing it for us :) btw, your music is fantastic!!

definitely need a part 2 for the weird places in the gerudo desert, snowpeak, and other progression regions.

Yeah...I also felt slight apocaliptic vibes playing it, but I never formed this thought completely

Thanks Austin. I would gladly listen to longer improvised philosophical jazz riffs from your mind. I feel lucky to have come across this channel in the last few years. Always looking forward to whatever you come out with next. I’d love to see more longer series like 100 deaths or less, though I’m sure those series take a lot of work to edit/film especially considering an effort/views ratio.

I play your music when I'm hosting game nights at my house. Its popular.

This whole game always gave me eerie uneasy vibes. I remember watching my big brother play while I read the game guide to him and it was like watching a creepy movie

Still my favorite 3d Zelda 🤷🏼‍♂️

the oddly more-detailed and realistic mountains were really neat

Easily your best one yet. Great commentary, the mountain pic discovery got me

Another weird spot is in the main fountain area of castle town, if you go over to the little area where people are sitting at tables, there’s a door there you can enter through that takes you to this weird, dank, dungeon-like little building. There are gorons inside who will sell you potions and arrows, but there’s also a little balcony you can walk out onto, where another goron will mention the twilight shield. Easily missed

I love these videos, and this game. I know for a FACT there are a ton more unremarkable and odd places in this game that I've never visited. Part 2 someday? Regardless, keep up the good work.

I learned so much as a kid from this game. Being there for my friends, and when I thought I couldn’t do something I thought of tp link and i got a irl buff. The Zelda series is so special. To be able to play and experience such a masterpiece at such a young age and actually understand it is so awesome.

I really like this series because, well... it's the kind of stuff I like to do myself when playing video games. Checking out weird, out of the way things just out of curiousity and consider what it could be in-universe. It's also why I love Immersive Sims so much, because those are filled with this kind of stuff and encourage exploration. Would love to see a video on a Hitman, Thief, Tomb Raider or Dishonored game. Any of the games in these franchises, really.

Dude! I used to go back to the second spot in this video all the time during late game because that whole room always gave me such a vibe. I’d pretend to live there and I’d just leave my tv on in that spot and relax to the ambience.

Yay! My favorite video series of yours, on one of my favorite games. Warms the soul (Also that underwater booty hole is the shortcut between the Kakariko Graveyard and the Lake)

Please do a part 2 of Twilight Princess! (maybe a hidden part, like old times...) The courtyard in front of Hyrule Castle, the room directly after you enter the final Ganon boss door but before you actually start the battle where you're locked in, the stairs you walk up when first getting to the mirror of twilight in Arbiter's Grounds that you never really have any reason to return to, Morpheel's boss room after beating it (all the boss rooms really, I bet returning to Zant's is weird, no reason to ever do that).

I always loved the backgrounds in this game. Especially the hills around Ordon for some reason, something about them just feels so cozy and I wanted to walk around on them.

I loved this video! TP is my favorite Zelda game, and I feel like there's a LOT of weird places like this! Some more I can think of is: when you look down to the other floating islands from the Palace of Twilight, looking down the mountain from the top of Snowpeak (especially after you've cleared the temple), pretty much any area in the City in the Sky, and I could go on! (also the hole under the watefall in Lake Hylia is the exit from a shortcut in the pond at Kakariko Graveyard)

i'm honestly surprised you didn't talk about the hyrule castle foyer. it's massive and creepy with the flute of the castle theme whispering in your ear, and for some reason the only way to exit the room and get further into the castle is to clawshot your way higher with the chandeliers

This game was my playground for so many years, its really fun to see your perspective on these little areas that feel so familiar and strange

I would love to see one of these videos for Shadow of the Colossus. It might almost be cheating, since the map was actually designed to be unsettling and purposeless, but there are interesting corners to that world that you won’t ever have reason to see if you are following the main path.

it's interesting that twilight princess kept the ocarina of time convention of no day/night cycles inside dungeons. majora's mask figured it out (right..? I think the stone temple had nighttime at least). One of the weirdest vibes is the going in the forest temple in oot at night and then it's perma-day in those courtyard areas. I wonder if this was changed in the DS remake...

Thank you for doing this for Twilight Princess. It's probably tied with OoT as my favorite Zelda game.

most unremarkable and odd place (maybe remarkable by how unremarkable and odd it is) is the chapel in Hearthome City in the 4th gen pokemon games. Only place in the game with no music. No real reason for being there, but it is there and it seems very deliberate.

As a video essayist myself I must say a improvised jazz essayist is the coolest thing ever lol also great concept of showing these weird places in game worlds, would love to see you do this with dark souls 1! I love that world and the little weird places throughout it

Isn't something that would be considered "odd", be remarkable by definition? I love these series btw thank you for making them its so relaxing to look at and listen to

Yes! I always felt staring into the twilight barrier shielding the Hyrule Castle and just being around that empty area next to the center of Castle Town is just soooo weird. I'm glad I'm not the only one. For me it always gave me like some kind of strange existential dread feeling being around in that area.

It just dawned on me that I've been watching since the Eggbusters/GoNintendo days. And it's really cool to see you still goin, but also finding success on the platform. Nice to see.

I got chills when you walked onto the bridge infront of Hyrule Castle. It's freaky.

I love Twilight Princess, this was great, please do a part two 🙏 And I have to say, i kinda miss how you took your time in each place in previous videos, personally I'd love it if you lingered a little bit more

Excellent video as always! I adore these unremarkable and odd places videos! One spot that always stood out to me was the peak of the mountain where you find the Yeti, right before you sled down to snowpeak ruins. The scenery and background of the surrounding mountain range is so stunning for no reason, especially when you only pass through there once very briefly. Keep up the good work! Can't wait to see what you work on next :)

When I was little, I used to revisit boss rooms in Twilight Princess once they were safe after beating the boss just to kind of get lost in the design. The different areas in TP always felt really special to me, even the parts of them that seem unremarkable and odd, so it's nice to see you point out specific areas I can remember just looking at and appreciating.

When I was younger, I used to walk around in game worlds trying to appreciate the work that the designers put into the game. I didn’t want to miss a fish or a butterfly. Glad to see that there’s a channel dedicated to appreciating the little and unremarkable things in games. It brings me back to the old days where games were magical to me.

I love this game, super nostalgic.

I really like the weird canyon in north hyrule field. I think it's near the place where you catch the female stag beatle? and there's a rail on the wall. It has enemies close by but I remember hanging around there just looking at the cliffs after killing them

i spent so much time just wandering around in this game as a kid. i've seen just about all those places, so this was a very nostalgic look back. Thanks Austin!

The outdoor-indoor disparity that Austin likes to point out in these videos is always such a fascinating topic to think about when it comes to level design in games, and the Forest Temple in Twilight Princess is a particularly interesting example, because it feels pretty intentional imo. The doors, bridges, and other “manmade” structures definitely give the impression that the Forest Temple is a crafted place, but it’s all made of natural materials, so it’s meant to sit in that limbo we love to look at on this channel. It definitely gives Twilight Princess’ Forest Temple an air of mystery, and makes you wonder how it came to be.

Probably the best episode out of this series, hoping for a part 2 from this game

I genuinely enjoy this video series. It's not just an Easter Egg hunt. It has humor, thoughtfulness, and feels like an adventure in its own right.

I grew up with the GameCube version of the game exclusively, so whenever I see footage of Twilight Princess that has been flipped (wii/wiiu hero mode) it automatically takes on a level of uncanny for me. I’ve played Twilight Princess more than any other Zelda, so to see extremely familiar maps made unfamiliar with just that simple change shifts the vibe of the whole game for me. I also feel like you could make like four of these videos out of just Twilight Princess, and I would immediately watch all of them. I love this series a lot, keep it up.

Thanks Austin, Twilight Princess is one of my favorite games. Ever. Of all time.

Are there any odd and unremarkable real world locations you're particularly fond of? Its not gaming related, but I personally think that would make an entertaining video (Unremarkable and odd places in Austin's life)

Another wonderful vid! I'd definitely watch another episode or two on this game; my favourite aesthetic in the series and tonnes of places to highlight in their odd and empty unremarkability.

I love this video, Twilight Princess is such an odd and unremarkable game, I feel like all those little halls that connect the parts of Hyrule Field are like that as well, it's supposed to be a massive open land but those halls really make it feel like just a bunch of separate enclosed zones, and the game generally has such an oddly dour tone with the muted colours and depressing music

Ambient slideshows of unremarkable and odd places you've covered would make great shorts content! I'd watch that!

Technically a reason to go back to Ordon Ranch. There's a heartpiece if you herd fast enough and also some buried rupees in the shed by the mailman who appears there.

you're my favorite youtuber. Also, I adored Twilight Princess as a kid, because the music and darkness of the setting made me feel like there was a depth to the story that I couldn't quite grasp. The mystery was attractive, and that mystery was imbedded in the scene/level design. Ohh, mysterious caverns or mountain scapes or chasms, maybe there's something hidden there. Maybe not. It's one of the few games where I was happy to return to places to unlock something new, like discovering a whole nother temple behind the first forest temple. Also, since it came out at the exact same time as Okami, it was very fun to compare the wolf mechanics from one game to the other. Running/digging/smelling/barking as Wolf Link had an interesting quality because it was more stiff, dark, moody and monstrous than the wolf in Okami, which is fluid, silly, light and reactive. I don't know if you played these games together, but there's worlds of fanart and comparison made because the release dates were so close.

15:15 Learning that you can look up at the sky in Hyrule Castle Town in Twilight Princess is the kind of stuff I subscribed for. More please!

Ordon Village feels so much like North Wales; it’s that kind of foggy scrubby mountainous hills and wooden fences and sparse trees and goats and it’s the kind of environment that makes you feel cosy and safe and at peace. It’s a primal feeling, and I love it to an ineffable degree. It’s the feeling that you are experiencing some kind of unspoken peace with the earth, just you and the quiet fog and the ground you stand on. It’s a truly beautiful thing

I love these unremarkable and odd places vids. Especially Zelda/Nintendo

Hi! I teach media at a school for neurodivergent kids grades 6-12 and I showed this video as an example to my Content Creation class. They died laughing everytime you use the flip transition and now I am affraid they will use that transition in all of their videos. When I explained your other series on video game unemployment rates, they wanted me to reach out and ask if you have any professional credentials regarding census calculations or mathematics. This never occurred to me, but is fairly on brand for our class. Anyway, great work and great video. Thanks on behalf of your new young fans at our school.

That Goron mine bit just before the boss chamber is my favourite little place in the whole game.

I really love your videos man. Thank you for the uploads 🙏