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...does anyone else always think the way to volvagia should be through the *right* door of the fire temple? i don't know why but it always feels wrong when we see a speedrunner go through the right door and not end up in the room before volvagia
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this is probably missing a lot of context for people unfamiliar with oot but i dunno we get left with zero context a lot of the time by lots of people talking about like, mtg or something
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@Felthry you're valid! I'm always willing to explain what I can about magic stuff, and it's your space to post things here, so minimal context posting away!

@Mottie mmm, still i should try to avoid that i think

i know we get really frustrated when people around us are all talking about a thing without actually giving any information on what the thing is or what its significance is
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@Felthry This may be a design thing. Westerners read left to right, but certain kanjis read right to left. So the expected order of progression is flipped (and this holds for the master quest version of the dungeon as well).

That said, let's not discuss Twilight Princess, which did flip its entire world because of right-handed motion controls. @..@

@Goldkin I don't know, because you would think by that logic that going to the right is the way to progress through the dungeon, which it *is*, and it wouldn't be if that led to the room before volvagia's room

also i'm not sure what you mean by certain kanji
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@Felthry To be fair, in vanilla, you're prevented from going right to begin with by a key door. The expected progression starts left with Darunia and a small key, then sends you right with that key, which is bypassed in every speedrun category except NMG.

So the flow of that dungeon ends up as a left-right-left in its intended ordering, making it flow more naturally in a casual setting, but seem weird in the speedrun.

@Felthry As for RTL: kanji are top to bottom, so the left or right ordering can differ. But certain media popular with the same demographic (eg, manga) read right to left, so the cultural ordering can swap in those cases.

In the case of Fire Temple, though, its progression is unambiguously linear in a casual setting.

@Goldkin Yes, but you said "certain kanji" but i don't think the text direction depends on which kanji are written does it???

i don't think it's always top to bottom either
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@Felthry I should have said "typically" and "in certain media" to clarify, and to specify the exact script of kanji, since yes they differ widely.

All I was trying to say is that the cultural assumption of "left than right" can influence design, and in certain cases gets culturally inverted, messing with design elements in games.

@Felthry Which is all to say: it's probably weird because the popular speedrun categories skip steps intended for normal play.

@Goldkin "skip steps intended for normal play" feels like a huge understatement, given the state of oot speedruns currently
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